Bee

Open the window and you want to fly out, though you never actually do— I think I see you, still there on the ledge, where I've left you. How pulled-awake and flung can one life be? Again I thought, It will end. Again I promised and clung. I learned there that to cling was in my nature. I think I see you, though you flash quickly through the shutter. I think I hear you, though I sleep. Remember this as a bolero, a finite flaring— both the tulip tree burning in full bloom and the weeping silver birch. by Jennifer Tonge

Lordship is the same activity Whether performed by lord or lady. Or a lord who happens to be a lady, All the source and all the faults. A woman steadfast in looking is a callot, And any woman in the wrong place Or outside of her proper location Is, by definition, a foolish woman. The harlot is talkative and wandering By the way, not bearing to be quiet, Not able to abide still at home, Now abroad, now in the streets, Now lying in wait near the corners, Her hair straying out of its wimple. The collar of her shift and robe Pressed one upon the other. She goes to the green to see to her geese, And trips to wrestling matches and taverns. The said Margery left her home In the parish of Bishopshill, And went to a house, the which The witness does not remember, And stayed there from noon Of that day until the darkness of night. But a whip made of raw hippopotamus Hide, trimmed like a corkscrew, And anon the creature was stabled In her wits as well as ever she was biforn, And prayed her husban...

Sunset backlights some pine to...a caped sponge and though I throw my gasp after a monarch there is no hitch, no hitching either to its serape or the echoing orange drawing a rope, horizon's doubledutch. Mina Loy + Arthur Cravan As blood hits the air & goes red, so I burst outside exhilarated. He has thrown a tippet on the double-bass, which rests on its end-pin the way a singer rests on a glittering stiletto while the other foot slips on a banan—piano. The strings are not the electrified wires of a prison camp, but she's the instrument of his escape, leaving me to educate my feelings, subtracting the red from night til a winebottle dawns green. Leonora Carrington + Max Ernst I saw the chessplayers over their griddles, all the furor of thinking swallowed like a song in a furred flute; so it must seem when a small daughter disappears with a wife, morning reabsorbed into a lambent priori. Jacqueline Lamba + André Br...

As I drew nearer to the end of all desire, I brought my longing's ardor to a final height, Just as I ought. My vision, becoming pure, Entered more and more the beam of that high light That shines on its own truth. From then, my seeing Became too large for speech, which fails at a sight Beyond all boundaries, at memory's undoing— As when the dreamer sees and after the dream The passion endures, imprinted on his being Though he can't recall the rest. I am the same: Inside my heart, although my vision is almost Entirely faded, droplets of its sweetness come The way the sun dissolves the snow's crust— The way, in the wind that stirred the light leaves, The oracle that the Sibyl wrote was lost. by Dante Alighieri xxxiii, 46-48, 52-66 Translated from the Italian by Robert Pinsky

She awoke to find her fishtail clean gone but in the bed with her were two long, cold thingammies. You'd have thought they were tangles of kelp or collops of ham. "They're no doubt taking the piss, it being New Year's Eve. Half the staff legless with drink and the other half playing pranks. Still, this is taking it a bit far." And with that she hurled the two thingammies out of the room. But here's the thing she still doesn't get— why she tumbled out after them arse-over-tip... How she was connected to those two thingammies and how they were connected to her. It was the sister who gave her the wink and let her know what was what. "You have one leg attached to you there and another one underneath that. One leg, two legs... A-one and a-two... Now you have to learn what they can do." In the long months that followed, I wonder if her heart fell the way her arches fell, her instep arches. by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Translated from the Irish by Paul Muldoo...

You couldn’t pack a Broadwood half a mile— You mustn’t leave a fiddle in the damp— You couldn’t raft an organ up the Nile, And play it in an Equatorial swamp. I travel with the cooking-pots and pails— I’m sandwiched ’tween the coffee and the pork- And when the dusty column checks and tails, You should hear me spur the rearguard to a walk! With my‘Pilly-willy-winky-winky-popp!’ [Oh, it’s any tune that comes into my head!] So I keep ’em moving forward till they drop; So I play ’em up to water and to bed. In the silence of the camp before the fight, When it’s good to make your will and say your prayer, You can hear my strumpty-tumpty overnight, Explaining ten to one was always fair. I’m the Prophet of the Utterly Absurd, Of the Patently Impossible and Vain— And when the Thing that Couldn’t has occurred, Give me time to change my leg and go again. With my ‘Tampa-tumpa-tumpa-tumpa-tump!’ In the desert where the dung-...

The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep; The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told! The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep; It is midsummer, but the air is cold; Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep. Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white, On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name Was writ in water." And was this the meed Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write: "The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed." By Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she was bad she was horrid. by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Touris, white man, wipin his face, Met me in Golden Grove market place. He looked at m'ol' clothes brown wid stain , An soaked right through wid de Portlan rain, He cas his eye, turn up his nose, He says, 'You're a beggar man, I suppose?' He says, 'Boy, get some occupation, Be of some value to your nation.' I said, 'By God and dis big right han You mus recognize a banana man. 'Up in de hills, where de streams are cool, An mullet an janga swim in de pool, I have ten acres of mountain side, An a dainty-foot donkey dat I ride, Four Gros Michel, an four Lacatan, Some coconut trees, and some hills of yam, An I pasture on dat very same lan Five she-goats an a big black ram, Dat, by God an dis big right han Is de property of a banana man. 'I leave m'yard early-mornin time An set m'foot to de mountain climb, I ben m'back to de hot-sun toil, An m'cutlass rings on de stony soil, Ploughin an weedin, diggin an plantin Till Massa Sun drop back...

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love, But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another, (I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd, Yet out of that I have written these songs.) - Walt Whitman

Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose. Hail bounteous May that dost inspire Mirth and youth, and warm desire, Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing, Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early Song, And welcom thee, and wish thee long. by: Milton

Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, And catch, in sudden gleams, The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, And islands that were the Hesperides Of all my boyish dreams. And the burden of that old song, It murmurs and whispers still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." I remember the black wharves and the ships, And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea. And the voice of that wayward song Is singing and saying still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long...

The hope I dreamed of was a dream, Was but a dream; and now I wake Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old, For a dream's sake. I hang my harp upon a tree, A weeping willow in a lake; I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt For a dream's sake. Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart; My silent heart, lie still and break: Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake. - Christina Rossetti

This is your cup -- the cup assigned to you from the beginning. Nay, My child, I know how much of that dark drink is your own brew Of fault and passion, ages long ago, In the deep years of yesterday, I know. This is your road -- a painful road and drear. I made the stones that never give you rest. I set your friend in plesant ways and clear, And he shall come like you, unto My breast. But you, My child, must travel here. This is your task. It has no joy nor grace, But it is not meant for any other hand, And in My universe hath measured place, Take it. I do not bid you understand. I bid you close your eyes to see My face. - Swami Vivekananda

~ Who gave thee, O Beauty! The keys of this breast, Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest? Say when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old; Or what was the service For which I was sold? When first my eyes saw thee, I found me thy thrall, By magical drawings, Sweet tyrant of all! I drank at thy fountain False waters of thirst; Thou intimate stranger, Thou latest and first! Thy dangerous glances Make women of men; New-born we are melting Into nature again. Lavish, lavish promiser, Nigh persuading gods to err, Guest of million painted forms Which in turn thy glory warms, The frailest leaf, the mossy bark, The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc, The swinging spider's silver line, The ruby of the drop of wine, The shining pebble of the pond, Thou inscribest with a bond In thy momentary play Would bankrupt Nature to repay. Ah! what avails it To hide or to shun Whom the Infinite One Hath granted his throne? The heaven high over Is the deep's lover, The sun and sea Informed by thee,...

Burly, dozing humble-bee, Where thou art is clime for me. Let them sail for Porto Rique, Far-off heats through seas to seek; I will follow thee alone, Thou animated torrid-zone! Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, Let me chase thy waving lines; Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, Singing over shrubs and vines. Insect lover of the sun, Joy of thy dominion! Sailor of the atmosphere; Swimmer through the waves of air; Voyager of light and noon; Epicurean of June; Wait, I prithee, till I come Within earshot of thy hum,-- All without is martyrdom. When the south wind, in May days, With a net of shining haze Silvers the horizon wall, And with softness touching all, Tints the human countenance With a color of romance, And infusing subtle heats, Turns the sod to violets, Thou, in sunny solitudes, Rover of the underwoods, The green silence dost displace With thy mellow, breezy bass. Hot midsummer's petted crone, Sweet to me thy drowsy tone Tells of countless sunny hours, Long days, and solid banks of...