Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 68

None lives for ever, brother, and

nothing lasts for long. Keep that in

mind and rejoice.

Our life is not the one old burden,

our path is not the one long

journey.

One sole poet has not to sing one

aged song.

The flower fades and dies; but he

who wears the flower has not to

mourn for it for ever.

Brother, keep that in mind and

rejoice.

There must come a full pause to

weave perfection into music.

Life droops toward its sunset to be

drowned in the golden shadows.

Love must be called from its play

to drink sorrow and be borne to the

heaven of tears.

Brother, keep that in min and

rejoice.

We hasten to gather our flowers lest

they are plundered by the passing

winds.

It quickens our blood and brightens

our eyes to snatch kisses that would

vanish if we delayed.

Our life is eager, our desires are keen,

for time tolls the bell of parting.

Brother, keep that in mind and

rejoice.

There is not time for us to clasp a

thing and crush it and fling it away to

the dust.

The hours trip rapidly away, hiding

their dreams in their skirts.

Our life is short; it yields but a

few days for love.

Were it for work and drudgery it

would be endlessly long.

Brother, keep that in mind and

rejoice.

Beauty is sweet to us, because she

dances to the same fleeting tune with

our lives.

Knowledge is precious to us, because

we shall never have time to

complete it.

All is done and finished in the eternal

Heaven.

But earth's flowers of illusion are

kept eternally fresh by death.

Brother, keep that in mind and

rejoice.

Wilfred Owen – Shadwell Stair

I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair.
Along the wharves by the water-house,
And through the cavernous slaughter-house,
I am the shadow that walks there.


Yet I have flesh both firm and cool,
And eyes tumultuous as the gems
Of moons and lamps in the full Thames
When dusk sails wavering down the pool.


Shuddering the purple street-arc burns
Where I watch always; from the banks
Dolorously the shipping clanks
And after me a strange tide turns.


I walk till the stars of London wane
And dawn creeps up the Shadwell Stair.
But when the crowing syrens blare
I with another ghost am lain.

Charles Bukowski – As The Poems Go

as the poems go into the thousands you
realize that you've created very
little.
it comes down to the rain, the sunlight,
the traffic, the nights and the days of the
years, the faces.
leaving this will be easier than living
it, typing one more line now as
a man plays a piano through the radio,
the best writers have said very
little
and the worst,
far too much.

Wilfred Owen – Red lips are not so red

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce Love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft, --
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft, --
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot,
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

Charles Bukowski – Trapped

don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin:
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.
she's long ago
forgotten me.
she's trying on a new
hat
and looks more the
coquette
than ever.

she is a
child
and a mannequin
and death.
I can't hate
that.
she didn't do
anything
unusual.
I only wanted her
to.