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Australia

One woman was singing a Yugoslavian song
at a hostel
while I smell some pot smoke coming
into the window from outside
The buildings were all painted white and blue with pink tones
the new settlers in the 1800s have built their homes
on the outskirts of Sydney the port city of
New South Wales
The Yugoslavian song was so foreign and exotic in my ears
and the melody is soaking in my heart
while I wondered who is the person smoking pot
at that early hour of the morning
That day I went out to the Sydney port
to see where the new settlers might have first docked
their ships
where the English criminals were shipped to be
only imprisoned
the first ancestors of the Ausies
'Goo'day, mate! '
They say hi to me this way
'Hello, Love! '
Some women say this to me
just to say hi to me
'What do you want, Love? '
at the cafeteria a woman around 50 something
asks me to order the famous fish 'n' chips
and she calls me 'Love'
hehe
so strange to hear different tone of
the same language in different locations
Those blue and pink-white tone of house paintings
gave me an awe to remember the olden days
of Australia
some 1700s or some 1800s
those new settlers might have brought those
paint materials in their ships
While I walk through the port streets
I see the bridge lifted up
for the passing ship to cross the way safe
Is there any one a lady or a young girl
watching this scene from her apartment
near the harbor where she can have a drink
or a cup of coffee and watch this ship
pass the bridge
perhaps her lover on his way to meet her
perhaps her notebook is filled with
first drafts of the letter to send to him
Maybe they are engaged
or maybe they are just friends who
haven't yet confessed their love for

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poem by Sangnam Nam
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The House Of Dust: Complete

I.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

II.

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poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,--
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

PART THE FIRST

I

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors

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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Tower Beyond Tragedy

I
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's
burning-flower from Sparta, the beautiful sea-flower
Cut in clear stone, crowned with the fragrant golden mane, she
the ageless, the uncontaminable-
This Clytemnestra was her sister, low-statured, fierce-lipped, not
dark nor blonde, greenish-gray-eyed,
Sinewed with strength, you saw, under the purple folds of the
queen-cloak, but craftier than queenly,
Standing between the gilded wooden porch-pillars, great steps of
stone above the steep street,
Awaiting the King.
Most of his men were quartered on the town;
he, clanking bronze, with fifty
And certain captives, came to the stair. The Queen's men were
a hundred in the street and a hundred
Lining the ramp, eighty on the great flags of the porch; she
raising her white arms the spear-butts
Thundered on the stone, and the shields clashed; eight shining
clarions
Let fly from the wide window over the entrance the wildbirds of
their metal throats, air-cleaving
Over the King come home. He raised his thick burnt-colored
beard and smiled; then Clytemnestra,
Gathering the robe, setting the golden-sandaled feet carefully,
stone by stone, descended
One half the stair. But one of the captives marred the comeliness
of that embrace with a cry
Gull-shrill, blade-sharp, cutting between the purple cloak and
the bronze plates, then Clytemnestra:
Who was it? The King answered: A piece of our goods out of
the snatch of Asia, a daughter of the king,
So treat her kindly and she may come into her wits again. Eh,
you keep state here my queen.
You've not been the poorer for me.- In heart, in the widowed
chamber, dear, she pale replied, though the slaves
Toiled, the spearmen were faithful. What's her name, the slavegirl's?
AGAMEMNON Come up the stair. They tell me my kinsman's
Lodged himself on you.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your cousin Aegisthus? He was out of refuge,
flits between here and Tiryns.
Dear: the girl's name?
AGAMEMNON Cassandra. We've a hundred or so other
captives; besides two hundred
Rotted in the hulls, they tell odd stories about you and your
guest: eh? no matter: the ships
Ooze pitch and the August road smokes dirt, I smell like an
old shepherd's goatskin, you'll have bath-water?
CLYTEMNESTRA
They're making it hot. Come, my lord. My hands will pour it.

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The Rain

(rock the joint)
Me i'm supa fly (uh-huh)
Supa dupa fly (uh-huh)
Supa dupa fly
{singing} i can't stand the rain!
(uh) me i'm supa fly (uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window
Supa dupa fly (uh-huh)
Supa dupa fly
{singing} i can't stand the rain!
(uh) me i'm supa fly (uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window
Supa dupa fly (uh-huh)
Supa dupa fly
{singing} i can't stand the rain!
(uh-huh) me i'm supa fly (uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window
When the rain hits my window
I take and {inhale, cough} me some indo
Me and timbaland, ooh, we sang a jangle
We so tight, that you get our styles tango
Sway on dosie-do like you loco
{singing} can we get kinky tonight?
Like coco, so-so
You don't wanna play with my yo-yo
I smoke my hydro on the dee-low
{singing} i can't stand the rain! (uh-huh, uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window (against my window)
{singing} i can't stand the rain! (uh-huh, uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window (against my window)
{singing} i can't stand the rain! (uh-huh, uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window (against my window)
{singing} i can't stand the rain! (uh-huh, uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window (say what?)
Yeah..
Beep beep, who got the keys to the jeep? v-r-rrrrrrrooooom!
(uh-huh) i'm drivin to the beach
Top down, loud sounds, see my peeps (uhh)
Give them pounds, now look who it be (who it be)
It be me me me and timothy (me me!)
Look like it's bout to rain, what a shame (uh-huh)
I got the armor-all to shine up the stain
Oh missy, try to maintain
Icky-icky-icky-icky-icky-icky-icky..
{singing} i can't stand the rain! (uh-huh, uh-huh)
(uh-huh)
{singing} i can't stand the rain! (say what? uh-huh, uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window (uh-huh)
{singing} i can't stand the rain! (uh-huh, uh-huh)
{singing} 'gainst my window (yeah)

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song performed by Missy Elliott
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I Discover The World In India

red vermillion streaked hair
a red wattled lapwing
orange, same time each day, sunrises and sunsets
yellow and black taxi colours, yellow temple flags, bright yellow confectionery shops, yellow bright fragrant perfume shops
green lush city pot plants, green lush country side
light blue warm skies, light blue cool cabs
indigo blue dupattas, turbans
navy blue trains, absence of starchy navy blue suits
sexy, pink, curved, massive majestic palaces, pink film posters
gold and glass chhum chhummy bangles
one purple TV happily watched by hundreds of labourers, purple crow sounds
gold chhum chhummy payals
white nehru jackets, pyjamas and kurtas, white cracking paint on grand old victorian buildings, white floor seating
_______
I discover

white clear eyes, white teeth behind white greetings
gold namastes
purple glee at fairs, purple glee when trying new technology and at receiving smallest of gifts
gold helping hands
many pink smiles
navy blue restful sleep on pavements, on roof terraces
indigo blue uniforms on giving railway porters
light blue singing on pavements, in big halls
limitless sincere green hospitality
endless yellow courtesy and welcomes
orange early morning school uniforms and school bags
an orange headed minla
red eyed hard working farmers and labourers
_______
the world

red rose petals in idol garlands, red rose petals at feet of idols
orange marigolds and sadhus, orange sacred cows
yellow rose petals in idol garlands, at feet of idols
a yellow eurasian golden eriole
green mango leaf awnings at entrances
light blue shiny clothes for deities, light blue ganges, light blue yamuna, light blue ceremonies
indigo blue in ancient temple and church paintings, indigo blue in contemporary art , indigo blue art and artists everywhere
navy blue backdropp in Shree Nathji's haveli
pink garlands on shiv lings, pink stained rice in flower formations on pooja tables
gold crowns for goddesses and gods
purple checks on worship lungis
gold ornaments on idols in gold temples, gold borders on worship saris
white churches, brahmins clad in white, stirring orators in white, ancient white stone sculptures and carvings
_____
in India

white barfi, white lassi, white raw and crunchy radishes
gold basundi, gold masala dosas, gold pani puris

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poem by Bhupen Thakker
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We Built This City

Chorus:
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Say you dont know me or recognize my face
Say you dont care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Chorus:
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Someone always playing corporation games
Who cares theyre always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible write us off the page
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Its just another sunday, in a tired old street
Police have got the choke hold, oh then we just lost the beat
Who counts the money underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball in two rock guitars
Dont tell us you need us, cos were the ship of fools
Looking for america, coming through your schools
(Im looking out over that golden gate bridge
Out on another gorgeous sunny saturday, not seein that bumper to bumper traffic)
Dont you remember (member)(member)
(whats your favorite radio station, in your favorite radio city
The city by the bay, the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps)
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
(we built, we built this city) built this city (we built, we built this city)
(repeats out)

song performed by Starship
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New Krishna

white stillness pure gold purple wonder gold strength pink joy
pink infinity navy blue now strong indigo blue light blue fountain
the green first reason endless yellow compassionate orange
royal red

single red free orange free yellow
green depth as clear as crystal all attractive light blue
strong indigo blue strong navy blue pink wishes gold compassion
compassionate purple gold of golds of creativity

she maybe dying
she is thirty one
white weeps white seeps into golden
memories of purple
lectures
navy blue pink gold
parties, poetry evenings and art
openings
with indigo blue
music
and beautfully spoken light blue
words
to green acts
of courage
to green acts of love
yellow self improvement classes
orange sex sessions and marriages
and to memories of
red plush homes

red inspirer orange giver yellow help dazzling green
light blue of the delicate with indigo blue eyes navy blue good
with pink kind eyes golden hair
golden complexion purple complexion
gold warmth of white space

a sixty year old man with a beautiful four year old boy
enter the room
“look in my mouth, look in my mouth, look in my mouth”

white of whites
gold truth purple mentor funny gold pink friend of children
navy blue of nature indigo blue knowledge light blue song of nature
green creation yellow in senses orange guide red way

the man says
royal red
the boy sits on the ground
endless orange
the boy touches the woman

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poem by Bhupen Thakker
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The Ballad of the White Horse

DEDICATION

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?

In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history,
But these shall not return.

Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died:
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things,
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.

Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.

Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man.

But who shall look from Alfred's hood

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poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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Tamar

I
A night the half-moon was like a dancing-girl,
No, like a drunkard's last half-dollar
Shoved on the polished bar of the eastern hill-range,
Young Cauldwell rode his pony along the sea-cliff;
When she stopped, spurred; when she trembled, drove
The teeth of the little jagged wheels so deep
They tasted blood; the mare with four slim hooves
On a foot of ground pivoted like a top,
Jumped from the crumble of sod, went down, caught, slipped;
Then, the quick frenzy finished, stiffening herself
Slid with her drunken rider down the ledges,
Shot from sheer rock and broke
Her life out on the rounded tidal boulders.

The night you know accepted with no show of emotion the little
accident; grave Orion
Moved northwest from the naked shore, the moon moved to
meridian, the slow pulse of the ocean
Beat, the slow tide came in across the slippery stones; it drowned
the dead mare's muzzle and sluggishly
Felt for the rider; Cauldwell’s sleepy soul came back from the
blind course curious to know
What sea-cold fingers tapped the walls of its deserted ruin.
Pain, pain and faintness, crushing
Weights, and a vain desire to vomit, and soon again
die icy fingers, they had crept over the loose hand and lay in the
hair now. He rolled sidewise
Against mountains of weight and for another half-hour lay still.
With a gush of liquid noises
The wave covered him head and all, his body
Crawled without consciousness and like a creature with no bones,
a seaworm, lifted its face
Above the sea-wrack of a stone; then a white twilight grew about
the moon, and above
The ancient water, the everlasting repetition of the dawn. You
shipwrecked horseman
So many and still so many and now for you the last. But when it
grew daylight
He grew quite conscious; broken ends of bone ground on each
other among the working fibers
While by half-inches he was drawing himself out of the seawrack
up to sandy granite,
Out of the tide's path. Where the thin ledge tailed into flat cliff
he fell asleep. . . .
Far seaward
The daylight moon hung like a slip of cloud against the horizon.
The tide was ebbing
From the dead horse and the black belt of sea-growth. Cauldwell
seemed to have felt her crying beside him,

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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How to make your wishes come true

She liked white and had not said a word yet

On her tenth birthday
she stood on the red steps
of the red opera house
-the red opera house on the north side of Sydney Harbour
almost opposite the white opera house

She scattered orange petals, yellow petals, green leaves and spoke
in a light blue voice
A bird of navy blue pink and gold feathers stood by her. Was this the grateful bird? Purple gold and white danced
She said
white stillness, pure gold, purple wonder, gold strength, pink joy, pink infinity, navy blue now, strong indigo blue, light blue fountain, the green first reason, compassionate orange, endless yellow,
royal red, single red, free orange, free yellow, green depth as clear as crystal, all attractive light blue, strong indigo blue, strong navy blue, pink wishes, gold compassion, compassionate purple,
gold of golds, of creativity, white of whites, gold truth, purple mentor, funny gold, pink friend of children, navy blue of nature,
indigo blue knowledge, light blue song of nature, green creation, yellow in senses, orange guide, red way, red inspirer, orange giver, yellow help, dazzling green, light blue of the delicate, with indigo blue eyes, navy blue good, with pink kind eyes, golden hair, golden complexion, purple complexion, gold warmth, of white space, white and gold love, of all purple knowledge, gold presence, pink in thunder and storms, navy blue pleasure, indigo blue beauty,
light blue lines, all attractive green, of yellow stirring music, of orange, red refuge, clear red, orange orange, yellow yellow, with green giving hands, of green, light blue truth, indigo blue essence, navy blue sparkle, pink with gold, purple guide, gold here, here white, white is the sun with penetrating vision, purple and golden constant winner, gold reach, of all pink, infinite navy blue, indigo blue knowledge, light blue care, deep green in greens, orange truth, dedicated to yellow, red peace, red glory, orange beauty, yellow, of green and light blue evenings, handsome indigo blue, intelligent navy blue, pink of pinks, of gold golds, purple purple, gold friend,
openness, formless white and gold, prevailing purple, efficient purple, purple origin, purple form, gold and permanent pink, navy blue belief, indigo blue blue, dense green, orange, yellow, red friend, red
and fell silent

Are the colours telling us that reciting the girl's words could make all our wishes come true? What else do red orange yellow green light blue indigo blue navy blue pink gold purple gold white know?
Today is a Monday

poem by Bhupen Thakker
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Sydney my Love

Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
Pretty pretty place,
Plenty- plenty beauty.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
First rays of sun –
Spread here fun,
Splendour and majesty,
Nothing so beauty.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
Tidy beaches, green green trees,
Heavenly blowing cool cool breeze,
Kissing the shore waves sporty.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
Fort Dension, port Jackson,
Kings Cross, Opera attraction,
Harbour bridge, Bondi beach,
Place to find calm & peace,
Sydney is our identity.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
Kangaroo, emu, blue mountain,
Adventure, romance, 4x, fun.
Flora fauna, folk, fidelity.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.

poem by S.D. Tiwari
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The Courtship of Miles Standish

I
MILES STANDISH

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber, --
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket, and matchlock.
Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
Near him was seated John Alden, his friend and household companion,
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window:
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion,
Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, as the captives
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, "Not Angles, but Angels."
Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the Mayflower.

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth.
"Look at these arms," he said, "the war-like weapons that hang here
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate,
Well I remember the day! once save my life in a skirmish;
Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.
Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses."
Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
"Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and our weapon!"
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
"See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent adage;
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as the sunbeams
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a moment.
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain continued:
"Look! you can see from this window my brazen howitzer planted

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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Pink Pink

pink pink
Confirmed that it was armed
pink pink
Was right to be alarmed
pink pink
Ensured that nought was harmed
pnk pink
Steady hand and mind
pink pink
Micro-chip designed
pink pink
The password was declined
pink pink
Another course to take
pink pink
Caution not to shake
pink pink
Captivity a mistake
pink pink
Beads upon the brow
pink pink
Experience the how
pink pink
No chance to turn back now
pink pink
Be certain not to slip
pink pink
One last wire to snip
pink pink
Two hearts that skip a beat
penk penk
The sound that gives a lift
penk penk
Time to collect the gift
penk penk
The robbery will be swift

poem by Chris Dawson
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Chauvinist

I’d never really comprehended such a mighty range of
Shapes and sizes down behind, it’s really rather strange:
The buttock muscle in a woman, overlaid with fat
Is actually such a focal point for men to want to pat

Or squeeze, and then to tease her if it’s eminently stout,
Or even risk a stay in clink to sting it with a clout!
After all, we men are tuned to be that way inclined –
And tho’ our needs are varied, girls, they’re all perverse of mind!

Best of all, our sacred dream: to see her shed her gown
When gliding to the shower for the ritual sponging down.
But then alas! With body lathered, oops! she drops the soap;
‘Please! ’ we beg her, ‘bend and bare! ’ But we can only hope!

I’m sure by now you get the picture – like a rule of thumb –
That men like me obsess all day about the fairer bum.

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Give Your Heart To The Hawks

1 he apples hung until a wind at the equinox,

That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass

Under the old trees with rosy fruit.

In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a

basket,

The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.

Her husband's brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy's
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. 'Michael, you beast.' She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.

Fayne snatched for it and missed;

Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small

Finely cut features in a dance of delight;

Fayne with one sweep flung at his face

All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Sixth Book

THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Dog Guard: An Australian Story

There are lonesome places upon the earth
That have never re-echoed a sound of mirth,
Where the spirits abide that feast and quaff
On the shuddering soul of a murdered laugh,
And take grim delight in the fearful start,
As their unseen fingers clutch the heart,
And the blood flies out from the griping pain,
To carry the chill through every vein;
And the staring eyes and the whitened faces
Are a joy to these ghosts of the lonesome places.

But of all the spots on this earthly sphere
Where these dismal spirits are strong and near,
There is one more dreary than all the rest,—
'Tis the barren island of Rottenest.
On Australia's western coast, you may—
On a seaman's chart of Fremantle Bay—
Find a tiny speck, some ten miles from shore:
If the chart be good, there is something more,—
For a shoal runs in on the landward side,
With five fathoms marked for the highest tide.
You have nought but my word for all the rest,
But that speck is the island of Rottenest.

'Tis a white sand-heap, about two miles long,
And say half as wide; but the deeds of wrong
Between man and his brother that there took place
Are sufficient to sully a continent's face.
Ah, cruel tales! were they told as a whole,
They would scare your polished humanity's soul;
They would blanch the cheeks in your carpeted room,
With a terrible thought of the merited doom
For the crimes committed, still unredrest,
On that white sand-heap called Rottenest.

Of late years the island is not so bare
As it was when I saw it first; for there
On the outer headland some buildings stand,
And a flag, red-crossed, says the patch of sand
Is a recognized part of the wide domain
That is blessed with the peace of Victoria's reign.
But behind the lighthouse the land's the same,
And it bears grim proof of the white man's shame;
For the miniature vales that the island owns
Have a horrible harvest of human bones!

And how did they come there? that's the word;
And I'll answer it now with a tale I heard
From the lips of a man who was there, and saw
The bad end of man's greed and of colony law.

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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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Courtship of Miles Standish, The

I
MILES STANDISH

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber, --
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket, and matchlock.
Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
Near him was seated John Alden, his friend and household companion,
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window:
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion,
Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, as the captives
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, "Not Angles, but Angels."
Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the Mayflower.

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth.
"Look at these arms," he said, "the war-like weapons that hang here
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate,
Well I remember the day! once save my life in a skirmish;
Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.
Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses."
Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
"Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and our weapon!"
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
"See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent adage;
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as the sunbeams
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a moment.
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain continued:
"Look! you can see from this window my brazen howitzer planted

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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Three Women

My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.

Young is her cheek and her throat;
Her eyes have the smile o' May.
And love is the word for each note
In the song of my life to-day.

Her eyes have the smile o' May;
Her heart is the heart of a dove,
And the song of my life to-day
Is love, beautiful love.

Her heart is the heart of a dove,
Ah, would it but fly to my breast
Where love, beautiful love,
Has made it a downy nest.

Ah, would she but fly to my breast,
My love who is young, so young;
I have made her a downy nest
And life is a song to be sung.

1
I.
A dull little station, a man with the eye
Of a dreamer; a bevy of girls moving by;
A swift moving train and a hot Summer sun,
The curtain goes up, and our play is begun.
The drama of passion, of sorrow, of strife,
Which always is billed for the theatre Life.
It runs on forever, from year unto year,
With scarcely a change when new actors appear.
It is old as the world is-far older in truth,
For the world is a crude little planet of youth.
And back in the eras before it was formed,
The passions of hearts through the Universe stormed.

Maurice Somerville passed the cluster of girls
Who twisted their ribbons and fluttered their curls
In vain to attract him; his mind it was plain
Was wholly intent on the incoming train.
That great one eyed monster puffed out its black breath,
Shrieked, snorted and hissed, like a thing bent on death,

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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Eternal Kansas City

Chorus (choir singing)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city)?
(van singing)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Train down to st. louis
Get me there alright
Over to the city there, you know that one
Where the farmers daughter digs the farmers son
Dig your charlie parker
Basie and young
Witherspoon and jay mcshann
They will come
Oooowoooowoooo
Chorus (van and choir in background)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Lady liberty in waiting
You know she lights the way
Her name is billie, shes a holiday
And the city is eternal -- hey, cant you see?
Its inside of you and its inside of me
Oooowoooowoooo
Chorus (van and choir in background)
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city ?
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city
Wild thing
You know the way to kansas city (choir only)
Thank you man (van)
You know the way to kansas city
Sing it (van)
You know the way to kansas city (van and choir)
Hit it (van)
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city

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song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
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