Charles Bukowski – Eulogy To A Hell Of A Dame

some dogs who sleep At night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you drank,
your hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life;
all the others were only
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here's a drink
to your bones
that
this dog
still
dreams about.

Charlotte Mew – Not for That City

Not for that city of the level sun,

     Its golden streets and glittering gates ablaze—

     The shadeless, sleepless city of white days,

White nights, or nights and days that are as one—

We weary, when all is said , all thought, all done.

     We strain our eyes beyond this dusk to see

     What, from the threshold of eternity

We shall step into. No, I think we shun

The splendour of that everlasting glare,

   The clamour of that never-ending song.

   And if for anything we greatly long,

It is for some remote and quiet stair

     Which winds to silence and a space for sleep

     Too sound for waking and for dreams too deep.

Emily Dickinson – How many times these low feet staggered (Poem 238)

How many times these low feet staggered -
Only the soldered mouth can tell -
Try - can you stir the awful rivet -
Try - can you lift the hasps of steel!

Stroke the cool forehead - hot so often -
Lift - if you care - the listless hair -
Handle the adamantine fingers
Never a thimble - more - shall wear -

Buzz the dull flies - on the chamber window -
Brave - shines the sun through the freckled pane -
Fearless - the cobweb swings from the ceiling -
Indolent Housewife - in Daisies - lain!

Wilfred Owen – Futility

Move him into the sun--
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it awoke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds--
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
--O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Anne Spencer – He Said

“Your garden at dusk

Is the soul of love

Blurred in its beauty

And softly caressing;

I, gently daring

This sweetest confessing,

Say your garden at dusk

Is your soul. My Love.”