by Ogden Nash
One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and
metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to
go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of
Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and
thus hinder longevity.
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whos cohorts were
gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a
wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy
there are great many things.
But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple
and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was
actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red
mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof woof woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,
at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian
cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he
had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers
to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of
wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets,
from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket
after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of
snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.
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Thursday, September 4, 2008
Very Like A Whale
Crucifixion of the Skyscraper
And nailed it to the rock. Each nerve and vein
Were searched by iron hammers. Hour on hour,
The bolts were riveted tighter. Steel and stone
Did what they could to quench the fiery core
That blaze within. Till when the work was done,
Solid as sepulchre, square-rooted to the rock,
The skyscraper, a well polished tomb of hope,
Guarded by busy throngs of acolytes,
Shouldered aside the sun. Within its walls
Men laid a little gold.
But yet not dead
However long battered by furious life,
However buried under tons of frozen weight
That structure was. At night when crowds no more
Jostled its angles, but the weary streets
Of a worn planet stared out at the stars;
Its towering strength grown ghostly, pure, remote,
Lone on the velvety night in flights of gold
The tower rose. The skyscraper dripped light.
City of the Mind
city of the mind
by childlike fantasies and
worries exhausted
of my mendacious mind
at nothing laughing
and for the flower crying
'cause it dies
not knowing how to save it
so nothing remains for this
fickle mind of mine but
to forget now and hereafter
— as it did before —
and thus continue on its own
to rhyme
lulled by the sea like a fish
languidly
—by Paola Bruna
Dear Colleague
by Alasdair Gray
Congratulations! Our whole department
is glad you are dead. Great dedication
to material output, inner liason
needs breaks from time to time and dissolution
seems just the break you need. Should you return
to planning and development the situation
will certainly be reviewed but rest assured
we manage without you. Fear not!
We remain.
Pontianak
By Bee Bee Tan
When we died,
I finally gave birth.
It was then the villagers called me
Pontianak, roaming vampire.
My baby on my hip,
I ride the wind;
farmwives and children quiver.
When the sky is wrung grey
and heavy clouds hang low,
it is my day to run
through the village by the river.
My baby whines.
We are blood hungry, thirsty.
Leaves whirl in wind,
and long nipah palms clash.
From the throes of birth to death,
I ride a raft bound with rawhides,
my baby by my side
On the river-raft, we pin past glades
like Shaitans released from Hades.
The Kinta River foams white;
tin sludge is carried low;
alluvium clay becomes mud.
My long hair, wind tossed, is my veil;
my shroud, my sail.
Draped in blood,
we eat the land;
my baby lives the way it dies.
A Cortege of Daughters
A quite ordinary funeral; the corpse
unknown to the priest. The twenty-third psalm.
The readings by serious businessmen
one who nearly tripped on the unaccustomed pew.
The kneelers and the sitters like sheep and goats.
But by some prior determination a row
of daughters and daughters-in-law rose
to act as pallbearers instead of men
all of even height and beautiful.
One wore in her hair a black and white stripped bow.
And in the midst of their queenliness
one in dark flowered silk, the corpse
had become a man before they reached the porch
so loved he had his own dark barge
which their slow moving steps rowed
as a dark lake is sometimes surrounded by irises.
Read More...
Mary at the Tattoo Shop
by Marcus Jackson
She counted her money
before we went in,
avenue beside us anxious
with Friday-evening traffic.
Both fourteen, we shared a Newport,
its manila butt salty to our lips.
Inside, from a huge book
of designs and letter styles,
she chose to get “MARY”
in a black, Old English script
on the back of her neck.
The guy who ran the shop
leaned over her for forty minutes
with a needled gun
that buzzed loud
as if trying to get free.
He took her twenty-five dollars
then another ten
for being under age.
Back outside, the sun
dipped behind rooftops,
about to hand the sky over to night.
Lifting her hazel hair,
she asked me to rub
some A&D ointment
on her new tattoo;
my finger glistened in salve
as I reached for her swollen name.
Home to Roost
By Kay Ryan
The chickens
are circling and
blotting out the
day. The sun is
bright, but the
chickens are in
the way. Yes,
the sky is dark
with chickens,
dense with them.
They turn and
then they turn
again. These
are the chickens
you let loose
one at a time
and small-
various breeds.
Now they have
come home
to roost — all
the same kind
at the same speed.
Filofax
by David Harsent
The entire township, heading north in cars, in trucks, on bikes, on foot,
some with next to nothing, some choosing to cart
(as it might be) armchair, armoire, samovar, black and white
TV, toaster, Filofax, Magimix, ladle, spindle, spinet,
bed and bedding, basin and basinette,
passed (each in clear sight) lynx and wolverine and bobcat,
heading south to the guns and the promise of fresh meat.
Last Word
By Richard Murphy
Her voice is a mist on the phone
Far away and precarious
As a tree whose roots cling
To rocks overhanging a cliff
As she threatens to hang up.
Years pass into dust
With drills, hammers and saws
Remodelling an old house
Whose walls of silence
Keep a granite hold on my loss.
Now that she’ll never intrude
On my rock garden concord
Far away through a static mist
I hear in her voice
Endless silence falling dead.
The Windows
Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory
More reverend grows, and more doth win;
Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.
Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe; but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the ear, not conscience, ring.
- George Herbert (1593 - 1633)
Tiananmen
Tiananmen
by James Fenton
Tianamen
Is broad and clean
And you can’t tell
Where the dead have been
And you can’t tell
What happened then
And you can’t speak
Of Tianamen.
You must not speak.
You must not think.
You must not dip
Your brush in ink.
You must not say
What happened then,
What happened there.
What happened there
In Tiananmen.
The cruel men
Are old and deaf
Ready to kill
But short of breath
And they will die
Like other men
And they’ll lie in state
In Tianamen.
They lie in state.
They lie in style.
Another lie’s
Thrown on the pile,
Thrown on the pile
By the cruel men
To cleanse the blood
From Tianamen.
Truth is a secret.
Keep it dark.
Keep it dark.
In our heart of hearts.
Keep it dark
Till you know when
Truth may return
To Tiananmen.
Tiananmen
Is broad and clean
And you can’t tell
Where the dead have been
And you can’t tell
When they’ll come again.
They’ll come again
To Tiananmen.
Hong Kong, 15 June 1989
What do Women Want?
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their cafe, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
by Kim Addonizio
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Puisi Idul Fitri Bilingual English - Indonesia
As I humble myself
forgetting my arrogance
defeating my head
As I'm occupied motionless
at the front of the window of your heart
waiting for your forgiveness to open for me
Hari ini
kurendahkan diriku
kulupakan kesombonganku
kutundukkan kepalaku
lalu kududuk terpaku
di depan jendela hatimu
menanti pintu maafmu
terbuka untukku
