Quotes about canon, page 8
Litany
This is a litany of lost things,
a canon of possessions dispossessed,
a photograph, an old address, a key.
It is a list of words to memorize
or to forget–of amo, amas, amat,
the conjugations of a dead tongue
in which the final sentence has been spoken.
This is the liturgy of rain,
falling on mountain, field, and ocean–
indifferent, anonymous, complete–
of water infinitesimally slow,
sifting through rock, pooling in darkness,
gathering in springs, then rising without our agency,
only to dissolve in mist or cloud or dew.
This is a prayer to unbelief,
to candles guttering and darkness undivided,
to incense drifting into emptiness.
It is the smile of a stone Madonna
and the silent fury of the consecrated wine,
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poem by Dana Gioia
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Variation on a Theme
June 30th, 1919
Notably fond of music, I dote on a
clearer tone
Than ever was blared by a bugle or zoomed
by a saxophone;
And the sound that opens the gates for me of
a Paradise revealed
Is something akin to the note revered by the
blesséd Eugene Field,
Who sang in pellucid phrasing that I perfectly
will recall
Of the clink of the ice in the pitcher that the
boy brings up the hall.
But sweeter to me than the sparrow's song or
the goose's autumn honks
Is the sound of the ice in the shaker as the
barkeeper mixes a Bronx.
Between the dark and the daylight, when I'm
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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The Real Fengshui
his door faced the bend of a bridge
they told him that would bend his luck, so
he had the door torn down and bore through
a wall for a new door, one that faces
the Sun well for the sunshine of life
her door opened to the sharp edge
of a building she thought was the
inauspcious razor that had slashed
her chances in life, so with much incisive
belittlements of her neighbours,
she hung a ba kua mirror to throw back
what she thought should be theirs to keep
another one with the same predicarment
bought a large cannon to aim it at the poison arrow
she thought would overpower the bad influences
one man tore down a whole house
spending a few hundred thousands on
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poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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Bad Poem Daze
Sleep walking towards
Another narcoleptic day
Given free change
For free coffee
To stay awake
On time for life
But out of step
On time for life
But out of step
The rhythm
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poem by Yvette Smith
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Independence and Reconciliation Celebration
It began with heartbreaking remembrance,
the acrid smell of canon fire still in the air
after half a century, the exhausted climb
up Cemetery Hill still felt in their muscles—
They had returned, veterans from both sides,
North and South, to re-enact their movements
on the last of those bloody three days
of the Battle of Gettysburg.
In the final Southern charge of the war~
12,500 Confederate soldiers led by
General George Pickett went straight up
that hill and into the line of fire by Union
troops waiting behind a stone wall.
Pickett lost half his men.
Of the 160,000 Americans
on both sides,51,000 or more
died in those three days
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poem by Alla Renee Bozarth
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Lines to a Don
Remote and ineffectual Don
That dared attack my Chesterton,
With that poor weapon, half-impelled,
Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held,
Unworthy for a tilt with men--
Your quavering and corroded pen;
Don poor at Bed and worse at Table,
Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable;
Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes,
Don nervous, Don of crudities;
Don clerical, Don ordinary,
Don self-absorbed and solitary;
Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;
Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;
Don middle-class, Don sycophantic,
Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic;
Don hypocritical, Don bad,
Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad;
Don (since a man must make and end),
Don that shall never be my friend.
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poem by Hilaire Belloc
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IDP: Prisoner with out number
walking barefooted without any direction in the humid
dry land, under a wrecked super tank; flesh blood smell racking
the firing canon aim to the mountainous camps of cave fighters,
arms only with their AK’s and rocket lancer, with strength of
dream that freedom be achieved only in exchange of life
wounded as the exchange of bully fire, with high power
machine gun and Apache Helicopter, firing without mercy, to
the fighter of their own land, the night becomes a day of blows
of fire, as the day turn into a living inferno of black of clouds
paving the riders of death to haul as many as the sand
thirst drifted my foot, the heat of the sun burn my forehead
and my skin, waiting the vulture to come with the sweet saliva
the Scorpion hunting for a lunch, the sting of death march to the
doorstep in the fuming smoke of the barrel and the bullets with
out cause, leaving death bodies, in the rocks and dunes, while
the silent of the star watch the night fall in the desert I behold i
lay my hand
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poem by Antonio Liao
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Soldier Grey
The young soldier boy stood rain soaked,
In a battle torn, well-worn grey coat.
The coat was drawn at the waist,
With big buckled belt in place.
His coat slashed opened by an enemy's sword,
The result of an attack by the enemy hord.
His boots worn from days of marching to the flute,
They were once a blue coats boot.
He had few treasures the soldier boy,
A small cracked photograph his greatest joy.
He looked at his mother and father with muffled sighs,
And remembered warm pies, and Virginia skies.
His soaked hat and long hair hid a battle worn fear,
As he searched for sight of blue his eye had a tear.
And his thoughts switched from this time of war,
To his hometown girl and farming chores.
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poem by R.K. Hart
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The Don & 951
951 Gaspra,
a Flora Asteroid
2 million years old
orbits our Sun between Mars and Jupiter.
Its rocky metallic surface
is pocked with impact craters.
Saint Romuald born in 951
screwed himself stupid as a youth
& fled when he saw his daddy Sergius
kill his opposite in a duel.
Rommy became a monk & wrote,
‘Empty yourself completely.
Sit waiting like the chick who tastes nothing
& eats nothing but what her mother brings him.'
He got canon's eyes for that
& did very well in real estate.
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poem by Lindsay Smith
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Lines To Fanny
What can I do to drive away
Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,
Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!
Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,
What can I do to kill it and be free
In my old liberty?
When every fair one that I saw was fair
Enough to catch me in but half a snare,
Not keep me there:
When, howe'er poor or particolour'd things,
My muse had wings,
And ever ready was to take her course
Whither I bent her force,
Unintellectual, yet divine to me;--
Divine, I say! -- What sea-bird o'er the sea
Is a philosopher the while he goes
Winging along where the great water throes?
How shall I do
To get anew
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poem by John Keats
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