poems for the times.

Alone
James Joyce

The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name-- her name-
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.

The Kiss
Anne Sexton

My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby , you fool !

Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see -- Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!

Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire.

No Second Troy
William Butler Yeats

WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?




conséquence (et le lever de rideau)


there are
junctions at a quiet midnight
and
candles intently burning
(so let them tell a story)

i would say it
with consequence:
let me write a simple lovesong

with chimes and icecream emotion

let me brush the hair from my eyes
(and couple syllables
like children)


for you


et je, je rêverais ce rêve enfantin

(cette rêve et comment nous l'avons dit,

des bougies mourant à minuit)

let me draw it for you

with consequence:






we would be junctions after midnight

after these little lights
had all gone out


and we had lost all purpose

(for then,

you would know

that i love you)