Favorite Poems?

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

snake, D. H. Lawrence
[ June 04, 2004: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]

Thomas, we are alike;
we are, frankly, a double:
your breath
dims the same windowpane that my features befuddle.
We're each other's remote
amalgam underneath,
in a lackluster puddle,
a simultaneous nod.
Twist your lips - I'll reply with the similar grimace of dread.
I'll respond to your yawn with my mouth's gaping mollusc.
I'll cry rivers to your
hundred-watt swollen tear overhead.
We're a mutual threat,
Castor looming through Pollux,
we're a stalemate, no-score,
draw, long shadows' distress
brought to walls by a match that will die in a minute,
echoes tracing in vain the original cry
as small change does its note.
The more life has been ruined, the less
is the chance to distinguish us in it
with an indolent eye.

From nowhere with love the enth of Marchember sir
sweetie respected darling but in the end
it's irrelevant who for memory won't restore
features not yours and no one's devoted friend
greets you from this fifth last part of earth
resting on whalelike backs of cowherding boys
I loved you better than angels and Him Himself
and am farther off due to that from you than I am from both
of them now late at night in the sleeping vale
in the little township up to its doorknobs in
snow writhing upon the stale
sheets for the whole matter's skin-
deep I'm howling "youuu" through my pillow dike
many seas aways that are milling nearer
with my limbs in the dark playing your double like
an insanity-stricken mirror.

May 24, 1980

I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages,
carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters,
lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis,
dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles.
From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly
width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives rake my nitty-gritty.
Quit the country the bore and nursed me.
Those who forgot me would make a city.
I have waded the steppes that saw yelling Huns in saddles,
worn the clothes nowadays back in fashion in every quarter,
planted rye, tarred the roofs of pigsties and stables,
guzzled everything save dry water.
I've admitted the sentries' third eye into my wet and foul
dreams. Munched the bread of exile; it's stale and warty.
Granted my lungs all sounds except the howl;
switched to a whisper. Now I am forty.
What should I say about my life? That it's long and abhors transparence.
Broken eggs make me grieve; the omelette, though, makes me vomit.
Yet until brown clay has been rammed down my larynx,
only gratitude will be gushing from it.

I want to Breathe
you in I'm not talking about
perfume or even the sweet o-

dor of your skin but of the
air itself I want to share

your air inhaling what you
exhale I'd like to be that

close two of us breathing
each other as one as that

I live with a lady and four cats
and some days we all get
along.

some days I have trouble with
one of the
cats.

other days I have trouble with
two of the
cats.

other days,
three.

some days I have trouble with
all four of the
cats

and the
lady:

ten eyes looking at me
as if I was a dog.

I threw my arms about those shoulders, glancing
at what emerged behind that back,
and saw a chair pushed slightly forward,
merging now with the lighted wall.
The lamp glared too bright to show
the shabby furniture to some advantage,
and that is why sofa of brown leather
shone a sort of yellow in a corner.
The table looked bare, the parquet glossy,
the stove quite dark, and in a dusty frame
a landscape did not stir. Only the sideboard
seemed to me to have some animation.
But a moth flitted round the room,
causing my arrested glance to shift;
and if at any time a ghost had lived here,
he now was gone, abandoning this house.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

-- Edgar Allen Poe

To Roman Kaplan on the next day after his 55th birthday

(my bad translation!)

Forgive me -- me bastard, Roman.
Hit me in my face.
Didn't happen to get myself drunk,
Yesterday, a poet.

And that's why in your living room was only Us.
Roman, I've been always shit.
I still am.

There is no forgiveness for such a junk,
And I am a Jew.
There is no place for me in your "Samovar" restaurant
Among people.

In a decent home I'll never be invited,
There where Lidka.
I'll never be.

Now my food will be, without doubt,
Only matzo.
No shashlik, no ravioli for me, no galantine.

No drink for me now,
My soul's old.
I'll enter a nearby bar
like Moses entred desert

And I'll wisper, clued to the glass,
With my dry lips:
Hurra! Roman is 55!
O boy! O boy!"

This is the one I wrote long ago (back in 1996), and it is still one of my favorites. Like to read it when I am feelin low...

Why Me?

Why me? Why is it me?
I have asked this question several times, throughout my life.
After all those humiliations,
When my heart cried aloud,
I looked up and said, "Why is it me?"
After all those setbacks, my ego was bruised,
I had lost my faith in everything,
And I believed I was good for nothing!
When success seemed so sweet, but was way out of my reach!
No matter how hard I tried, it always slipped!
Everybody said, "Hard luck!", I said, "How could it be?"
And I screamed, "Why me? Why me?"
When my friends started avoiding me,
And I couldn't confide in anybody.
There was no one to console me,
And I was very lonely, I said, "Why me?"
When I longed for something, but I didn't get it,
When there were jubilations but I had to miss it!
When everyone seemed to sail so smooth, and I had to fight,
When everyone fell asleep, and I was awake all the night!
And all those nights seemed so long,
When almost everything went wrong!
It was all dark, there was nothing I could see,
I asked in the fury, "Why me? Why me?"
I asked, "Why everybody is running & I am crawling?"
I asked, "Why everybody is smiling & I am howling?"
I was very sad and depressed; I had almost lost the fight,
And then came an angel with eternal light.
She held a beautiful rose in her hand,
I wondered, if she'd help me understand.
She asked, "Did you ask, 'Why me?'"
I said, "Of course, I did!
And would you please enlighten me?
I am totally destroyed, can't you see?"
She just smiled, and said gently,
"All your questions will be answered; listen carefully,
If it's not you, who should it be?
Everybody suffers, oh dear, can't you see?
It is just that when you cry for your pain loudly,
You ignore others pain knowingly, unknowingly!"
"But why me? Let it be anyone!"
"It's everyone, you are not alone!"
"But I have suffered a lot!", I was stubborn.
"Certainly not, everything had its own reason!"
"What about humiliations? Doesn't it matter?"
"It was an experience to teach you better!"
"But why my intelligence was not rewarded with success?
Why my friendship was not responded with affection?
Why my performance was not rewarded with achievements?
Why I am always the one who has to accept disappointments?"
She said, "Oh dear, why do you think you'll always get what you want?
Life is different from your dreams; you must strive for what you want!
If you want to be different, if your dreams are big,
You must try harder for the same.
And all those setbacks are part of the game!
Your loss is immaterial; your growth didn't stop.
Just believe in yourself, and you'll reach the top!
Oh dear, courage is wonderful, never surrender to pain,
Never say die, you must try again!
And you can't always have someone to console you, that's impossible!
It's your life after all; you must fight your own battles!
If you refuse to accept facts in life, it would be difficult to live,
Dear, sometimes you must forget, sometimes you must forgive!
Learn to accept the facts; you must grow up,
Things will change for better, never give up!
Remember, there's always the next time, there's always tomorrow,
And tomorrow may be even brighter than today!
In the abyss of darkness, there's always a ray of hope,
The morrow will be yours, cheer up!"
I kept mum; I had nothing else to say,
I was lost; she brought me back on my way!
I woke up and found a rose on my pillow,
I held it in my hand, and I was never the same!
Now when my silly heart grumbles, "Why me?",
I pacify, "Let it be, let it be!"
I believe, one day I'll make it,
Someday, all my dreams might just come true!
Maybe, all my sorrows will not get over,
But I promise, I'll be smiling, now and forever.
So for the time being, if it's me,
I'll say, "Let it be, let it be!"

- Manish
[ June 05, 2004: Message edited by: Manish Hatwalne ]

Speechless.

Five star !!!

why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/2601/cummings1.html

My favourite poems are all in Chinese, shame...but among the very limited amount of English peoms I read, here are two I loved very much:

Rabbi Ben Ezra (entire poem here)

by Robert Browning

...

Not on the vulgar mass
Called �work�, must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O�er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world�s coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man�s amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

...

Untitled

by E. E. Cummings

being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love will end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land

(do lovers suffer? all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad? only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

-do lovers love?why then to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools, all's well

[ June 06, 2004: Message edited by: Ellen Zhao ]

All my previous posts were from Joseph Brodsky. This is Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Lilichka!
Instead of a letter

Tobacco smoke corroded the air.
The room --
is a chapter in Kruchenykh's hell.
Remember --
this window,
Here
I stroked your hands in a frenzy.
Well,
Your heart encased in iron.
Reviling,
You'll throw me out, perhaps,
one day.
My arm will break out in tremor,
while I
fight with the sleeve
in your dim doorway.
Lashed by despair I'll run out.
I'll become frantic
hurling my body into the street.
Don't let this happen,
dearest, beloved.
Let's say good-by now
and then let's split.
I know,
my love,
it's a heavy burden
and weighs you down
wherever you run.
Wait!
Let me bellow out all words in --
one last cry of bitter complaint.
If an ox is exhausted by hard work --
it goes off
to lie down in cool sea water
to relieve the pain.
Apart from your love
there is no harbor,
and even through tears --
no respite from you to obtain.
When a tired regal elephant
craves rest,
it lies down in the scorched sand.
Apart from your love
there is no sun for me. The best
knowledge is not to guess
where and with whom you are. And
if she can so wear a poet
down,
he would gladly trade her for
money and fame,
to me -- there is no such joyful sound
but that of your beloved name.
I won't throw myself down
in the stair-well --
when your face is dour --
nor drink poison
nor press the trigger
to my breast.
Except
for your gaze,
nor razor has any power,
except
for your hands
there is no rope my neck to caress.
Tomorrow you will have forgotten
that I crowned you,
and burnt out a blossoming soul
with my love,
and the blasted carnival
of the fussy autumn
will ruffle my books
with a thunderlike laugh...
Will the dry leaves of my words
make you pause,
just for a second,
gasping for breath?
Let me at least,
lay the path for your,
callous,
departing steps
with the last tenderness.

To Max

He asked "do you want it", I said "yes", he freaked out.

I tried to slaughter him, he was unmoved,
I annoyed him, he was unmoved,
I sent him poetry, he was unmoved.

Try to better this place -- they'll promise to wreck your city.
In anything else, they will teach you humility.

Dear, when you tread where no angel got
Will you love and will you be loved.

The world is moving
so fast
these days

the one who says
it can't be done

is interrupting

the other
doing it

I like the darker stuff along the lines of Poe and Lovecraft. Goethe has one called Erlkoneig, "The Erl King", which has stayed with me since I first read it as a child. There are a few slightly different English translations, but this one by Sir Walter Scott is generally considered the best.

The Erl-King

O who rides by night thro' the woodland so wild?
It is the fond father embracing his child;
And close the boy nestles within his loved arm,
To hold himself fast, and to keep himself warm.

"O father, see yonder! see yonder!" he says;
"My boy, upon what dost thou fearfully gaze?"
"O, 'tis the Erl-King with his crown and his shroud."
"No, my son, it is but a dark wreath of the cloud."

The Erl-King Speaks
"O come and go with me, thou loveliest child;
By many a gay sport shall thy time be beguiled;
My mother keeps for theee many a fair toy,
And many a fine flower shall she pluck for my boy."

"O father, my father, and did you not hear
The Erl-King whisper so low in my ear?"
"Be still, my heart's darling--my child, be at ease;
It was but the wild blast as it sung thro' the trees."

Erl-King
"O wilt thou go with me, thou loveliest boy?
My daughter shall tend thee with care and with joy;
She shall bear three so lightlyt thro' wet and thro' wild,
And press thee, and kiss thee, and sing to my child."

"O father, my father, and saw you not plain
The Erl-King's pale daughter glide past thro' the rain?"
"Oh yes, my loved treasure, I knew it full soon;
It was the grey willow that danced to the moon."

Erl-King
"O come and go with me, no longer delay,
Or else, silly child, I will drag thee away."
"O father! O father! now, now, keep your hold,
The Erl-King has seized me--his grasp is so cold!"

Sore trembled the father; he spurr'd thro' the wild,
Clasping close to his bosom his shuddering child;
He reaches his dwelling in doubt and in dread,
But, clasp'd to his bosom, the infant was dead.
[ June 07, 2004: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]

My Papa's Waltz

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother�s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

-Theodore Roethke
[ June 08, 2004: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]

I live with a lady and four cats

I love this thing. I was trying to translate it. You have to specify the gender of the cats, because these are different words in Russian. I don’t know how to escape it, and whatever choice you make, it changes the whole spirit. Grrr...

"I live with a lady and four female cats
I live with a lady and four male cats"

It ruines everything.
[ June 08, 2004: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
[b] Grrr...

Am I allowed to hijack my own thread?

Ever since I was a kid, I've been in the habit of growling under my breath when things don't go well. For example, when my sister took my toys(then) or my code doesn't compile(now). I'm actually pretty convincing with it, and used to scare the begeezits out of my friends when we'd go to Holland for holidays.

But as I've gotten a new puppy, it seems to have the opposite of the intended effect. I drop a glass, I growl in frustration, and to top it off, the puppy pees

Maybe I need to take up bird songs.

M

*Now* I understand why Michael E. loves you. Oh, by the way. Welcome to Meaningless Drivel, Max!

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

My father was always handled by mother. She told me how one night she insulted him with all possible words she could think about, for not to see him drunk again. He felt happy. He said, "Dear, tell me all this tomorrow. What you are saying now -- I will forget it."

She said "what could I do but laugh?"

I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Mending Wall, Robert Frost
[ June 09, 2004: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]

SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I�ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I wonder why ME avoids this thread...

Your Frost's poem reminded me something:

A Man may make a Remark –
In itself – a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature – lain –

Let us divide – with skill –
Let us discourse – with care –
Powder exists in Charcoal –
Before it exists in Fire –

– Emily Dickinson

MI: I wonder why ME avoids this thread...

Max: The man has a Ph.D is English lit: this is probably as interesting to him as a another discussion of the MVC pattern is to us.
MI:
Let us divide – with skill –
Let us discourse – with care –
Powder exists in Charcoal –
Before it exists in Fire –

– Emily Dickinson

I read this a little more darkly, I think, than you do.

To me, it seems like a warning to the speaker, as well as the conversation partner. I guess the sequence and proximity of with care, powder, and fire leads me to a more ominous interpretation.

M
[ June 09, 2004: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]

Ok, the problem is solved.

One hundred billion poems.
"This page automatically refreshes with a new poem every 60 seconds"

Just wait and choose your favorite...

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
Ok, the problem is solved.

[

Didn't know there was a problem

M

Keith Douglas, 'Vergissmeinnicht'

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.

"London" by William Blake

I wander thro' each charter'd street.
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow
A mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man.
In every Infants cry of fear.
In every voice; in every ban.
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackening Church appalls.
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

Ok, the problem is solved. One hundred billion poems. "This page automatically refreshes with a new poem every 60 seconds" Just wait and choose your favorite...

Looks like the poems are computer generated -- it becomes apparent after a few refreshes.

I was born and grew up in the Baltic marshland
by zinc-gray breakers that always marshed on
in twos. Hence all rhymes, hence that wan flat voice
that ripples between them like hair still moist,
if it ripples at all. Propped on a pallid elbow,
The helix picks out of them no sea rumble
but a clap of canvas, of shutters, of hands, a kettle
on the burner, boiling - lastly, the seagull's metal
cry. What keeps hearts from falseness in that flat region
in that there is nowhere to hide and plenty of room for vision.
Only sounds needs echo and dreads it lack.
A glance is accustomed to no glance back.

Joseph Brodsky
1975

There are two theories of what is poetry. One says that poetry is what is lost in translation, the other that poetry is what is left after translation. I tried to find English translations of some Russian poems I like, and apparently they all were written to prove the first theory. They just don't make sense. Only Joseph Brodsky methodically supported the second theory with his texts. Or maybe it's because he often translated his poems himself. Look at the last one, "I was born and grew up in the Baltic marshland...". It's almost identical copy of the original, only in another language, nothing is lost. It is rhymed, it keeps the same rhythm, and the text is almost literally follows the original, word by word. Only last two lines are changed, they express the same idea differently, and I wouldn't say worse than the original.
So more Brodsky for you.

To My Daughter

Give me another life, and I'll be singing
in Caff� Rafaella. Or simply sitting
there. Or standing there, as furniture in the corner,
in case that life is a bit less generous than the former.

Yet partly because no century from now on will ever manage
without caffeine or jazz, I'll sustain this damage,
and through my cracks and pores, varnish and dust all over,
observe you, in twenty years, in your full flower.

On the whole, bear in mind that I'll be around. Or rather,
that an inanimate object might be your father,
especially if the objects are older than you, or larger.
So keep an eye on them always, for they no doubt will judge you.

Love these things anyway, encounter or no encounter.
Besides, you may still remember a silhouette, a contour,
while I'll lose even that, along with the other luggage.
Hence, these somewhat wooden lines in our common language.

Joseph Brodsky, 1994

One of mine is here

Look under "L", for "Law of the Jungle"

Guy

[ June 14, 2004: Message edited by: Guy Allard ]
[ June 14, 2004: Message edited by: Guy Allard ]

I like "Fuzzy Wuzzy" from that list.

Here is my favourite poem. It's in Bxyzhese. Bxyzhy (pronounced Booshi) are an undiscovered tribe in deepest Africa. Theirs is an extremely informal language that largely consists of a series of clicks and grunts. It's by the great Bxyshy bard Hoo Grunt.

Oink wnk oo oo oi
Tonga wonga click click
Grunt grunt zanka zanka
Grunt grunt oink wenk
Oink oink wenk wenk wenk

A rough translation is given below.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet,
to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
Thomas, we are alike;
we are, frankly, a double:
your breath
dims the same windowpane that my features befuddle.
We're each other's remote
amalgam underneath,
in a lackluster puddle,
a simultaneous nod.
Twist your lips - I'll reply with the similar grimace of dread.
I'll respond to your yawn with my mouth's gaping mollusc.
I'll cry rivers to your
hundred-watt swollen tear overhead.
We're a mutual threat,
Castor looming through Pollux,
we're a stalemate, no-score,
draw, long shadows' distress
brought to walls by a match that will die in a minute,
echoes tracing in vain the original cry
as small change does its note.
The more life has been ruined, the less
is the chance to distinguish us in it
with an indolent eye.

Bxyzhy poetry follows an extremely terse style.
Many Bxyzhy poets have likened it to coding in C.
[ June 19, 2004: Message edited by: Mohanlal Karamchand ]

Oink wnk oo oo oi
Tonga wonga click click

A rough translation is given below.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet,

That is a rough translation. The original poem is actually about slaughtering the pigs.
[ June 19, 2004: Message edited by: Eugene Kononov ]

Song of Welcome

Here's your mom, here's your dad.
Welcome to being their flesh and blood.
Why do you look so sad?

Here's your food, here's your drink.
Also some thoughts, if you care to think.
Welcome to everything.

Here's your practically clean slate.
Welcome to it, though it's kind of late.
Welcome at any rate.

* * *

Here's your paycheck, here's your rent.
Money is nature's fifth element.
Welcome to every cent.

Here's your swarm and your huge beehive.
Welcome to the place with its roughly five
billion like you alive.

Welcome to the phone book that stars your name.
Digits are democracy's secret aim.
Welcome to your claim to fame.

* * *

Here's your marriage, and here's divorce.
Now that's the order you can't reverse.
Welcome to it; up yours.

Here's your blade, here's your wrist.
Welcome to playing your own terrorist;
call it your Middle East.

Here's your mirror, your dental gleam.
Here's an octopus in your dream.
Why do you try to scream?

* * *

Here's your corncob, your TV set.
Your candidate suffering an upset.
Welcome to what he said.

Here's your porch, see the cars pass by.
Here's your shitting dog's guilty eye.
Welcome to its alibi.

Here are your cicadas, then a chickadee,
the bulb's dry tear in your lemon tea.
Welcome to infinity.

* * *

Here are your pills on the plastic tray,
Your disappointing, crisp X-ray.
You are welcome to pray.

Here's your cemetery, a well-kept glen.
Welcome to a voice that says "Amen."
The end of the rope, old man.

Here's your will, and here's a few
takers. Here's an empty pew.
Here's life after you.

* * *

And here are your stars which appear still keen
on shining as though you had never been.
They might have a point, old been.

Here's your afterlife, with no trace
of you, especially of your face.
Welcome, and call it space.

Welcome to where one cannot breathe.
This way, space resembles what's underneath,
And Saturn holds the wreath.

Joseph Brodsky, 1992
[ June 20, 2004: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

Onga bonga wonga
oo oo oi ouch hoo
Hinga bunga click clock
Boing wank wank
Hoo ha hoo ha hoo ha