Charles Bukowski – This

self-congratulatory nonsense as the
famous gather to applaud their seeming
greatness
you
wonder where
the real ones are
what
giant cave
hides them
as
the deathly talentless
bow to
accolades
as
the fools are
fooled
again
you
wonder where
the real ones are
if there are
real ones.
this self-congratulatory nonsense
has lasted
decades
and
with some exceptions
centuries.
this
is so dreary
is so absolutely pitiless
it
churns the gut to
powder
shackles hope
it
makes little things
like
pulling up a shade
or
putting on your shoes
or
walking out on the street
more difficult
near
damnable
as
the famous gather to
applaud their
seeming
greatness
as
the fools are
fooled
again
humanity
you sick
motherfucker.

Charlotte Mew – In The Fields

Lord when I look at lovely things which pass,

Under old trees the shadow of young leaves

Dancing to please the wind along the grass,

Or the gold stillness of the August sun on the August sheaves;

Can I believe there is a heavenlier world than this?

And if there is

Will the heart of any everlasting thing

Bring me these dreams that take my breath away?

They come at evening with the home-flying rooks and the scent

of hay,

Over the fields. They come in spring.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Let Us Give Thanks

For the courage which comes when we call,

While troubles like hailstones fall;

For the help that is somehow nigh,

In the deepest night when we cry;

For the path that is certainly shown

When we pray in the dark alone,

Let us give thanks.

For the knowledge we gain if we wait

And bear all the buffets of fate;

For the vision that beautifies sight

If we look under wrong for the right;

For the gleam of the ultimate goal

That shines on each reverent soul:

Let us give thanks.

For the consciousness stirring in creeds

That love is the thing the world needs;

For the cry of the travailing earth

That is giving a new faith birth;

For the God we are learning to find

In the heart and the soul and the mind:

Let us give thanks.

For the growth of the spirit through pain,

Like a plant in the soil and the rain;

For the dropping of needless things

Which the sword of a sorrow brings;

For the meaning and purpose of life

Which dawns on us out of the strife:

Let us give thanks.

For the solace that comes to our grief

In knowing earth's season is brief;

For the certitude given by faith

Of the continents out beyond death;

For the glorious thought that each day

Is speeding us thereward away:

Let us give thanks.

George Gordon Byron – from Don Juan: Canto 1, Stanzas 41-42

41

His classic studies made a little puzzle,

   Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,

Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,

   But never put on pantaloons or bodices;

His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,

   And for their Aeneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,

Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,

For Donna Inez dreaded the mythology.

 

42

Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,

   Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,

Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,

   I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,

Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn

   Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample:

But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one

Beginning with 'Formosum Pastor Corydon.'

Anne Spencer – Before the Feast of Shushan

Garden of Shushan!

After Eden, all terrace, pool, and flower recollect thee:

Ye weavers in saffron and haze and Tyrian purple,

Tell yet what range in color wakes the eye;

Sorcerer, release the dreams born here when

Drowsy, shifting palm-shade enspells the brain;

And sound! ye with harp and flute ne'er essay

Before these star-noted birds escaped from paradise awhile to

Stir all dark, and dear, and passionate desire, till mine

Arms go out to be mocked by the softly kissing body of the wind—

Slave, send Vashti to her King!

The fiery wattles of the sun startle into flame

The marbled towers of Shushan:

So at each day's wane, two peers—the one in

Heaven, the other on earth—welcome with their

Splendor the peerless beauty of the Queen.

Cushioned at the Queen's feet and upon her knee

Finding glory for mine head,—still, nearly shamed

Am I, the King, to bend and kiss with sharp

Breath the olive-pink of sandaled toes between;

Or lift me high to the magnet of a gaze, dusky,

Like the pool when but the moon-ray strikes to its depth;

Or closer press to crush a grape ‘gainst lips redder

Than the grape, a rose in the night of her hair;

Then—Sharon's Rose in my arms.

And I am hard to force the petals wide;

And you are fast to suffer and be sad.

Is any prophet come to teach a new thing

Now in a more apt time?

Have him ‘maze how you say love is sacrament;

How says Vashti, love is both bread and wine;

How to the altar may not come to break and drink,

Hulky flesh nor fleshly spirit!

I, thy lord, like not manna for meat as a Judahn;

I, thy master, drink, and red wine, plenty, and when

I thirst. Eat meat, and full, when I hunger.

I, thy King, teach you and leave you, when I list.

No woman in all Persia sets out strange action

To confuse Persia's lord—

Love is but desire and thy purpose fulfillment;

I, thy King, so say!