DayPoems: A Seven-Century Poetry Slam
93,142 lines of verse * www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
Night is the true democracy. When day
Like some great monarch with his train has passed,
In regal pomp and splendor to the last,
The stars troop forth along the Milky Way,
A jostling crowd, in radiant disarray,
On heaven's broad boulevard in pageants vast,
And things of earth, the hunted and outcast,
Come from their haunts and hiding-places; yea,
Even from the nooks and crannies of the mind
Visions uncouth and vagrant fancies start,
And specters of dead joy, that shun the light,
And impotent regrets and terrors blind,
Each one, in form grotesque, playing its part
In the fantastic Mardi Gras of Night.
only blue escapes these seamless corners;
nothing else, I don't know why
the folded sky spills from itself,
intense and past due dry
there's contradiction yet there's comfort,
unstable, yes, but true
you may love a thousand others and
I think they'll all love you
but I'll catch you when you're honest
and filter through these cracks
wasn't I howling in your sheets last night
dissolving in your tracks
this storm eyed fool looked happy
fade or blend;
I see your face,
cold misty rain, and fall in love again
O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,
I search for you in vain;
You are the only growing thing
Can take away my pain.
When I was young, this bitter herb
Grew wild on every hill;
I should have plucked a store of it,
And kept it by me still.
I hunt through all the meadows
Where once I wandered free,
But the rare herb, Forgetfulness,
It hides away from me.
O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,
Where is your drowsy breath?
Oh, can it be your seed has blown
Far as the Vales of Death?
Threading a darksome passage all alone,
The taper's flame, by envious current blown,
Crouched low, and eddied round, as in affright,
So challenged by the vast and hostile night,
Then down I held the taper; -- swift and fain
Up climbed the lovely flower of light again!
Thou Kindler of the spark of life divine,
Be henceforth the Inverted Torch a sign
That, though the flame beloved thou dost depress,
Thou wilt not speed it into nothingness;
But out of nether gloom wilt reinspire,
And homeward lift the keen empyreal fire!
O COME, soft rest of cares! come, Night!
Come, naked Virtue's only tire,
The reaped harvest of the light
Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire.
Love calls to war:
Sighs his alarms,
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.
Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand
On glorious Day's outfacing face;
And all thy crowned flames command
For torches to our nuptial grace.
Love calls to war:
Sighs his alarms,
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.
He's an old grey horse, with his head bowed sadly,
And with dim old eyes and a queer roll aft,
With the off-fore sprung and the hind screwed badly,
And he bears all over the brands of graft;
And he lifts his head from the grass to wonder
Why by night and day the whim is still,
Why the silence is, and the stampers' thunder
Sounds forth no more from the shattered mill.
In that whim he worked when the night winds bellowed
On the riven summit of Giant's Hand,
And by day when prodigal Spring had yellowed
All the wide, long sweep of enchanted land;
And he knew his shift, and the whistle's warning,
And he knew the calls of the boys below;
Through the years, unbidden, at night or morning,
He had taken his stand by the old whim bow.
But the whim stands still, and the wheeling swallow
In the silent shaft hangs her home of clay,
And the lizards flirt and the swift snakes follow
O'er the grass-grown brace in the summer day;
And the corn springs high in the cracks and corners
Of the forge, and down where the timber lies;
And the crows are perched like a band of mourners
On the broken hut on the Hermit's Rise.
All the hands have gone, for the rich reef paid out,
And the company waits till the calls come in;
But the old grey horse, like the claim, is played out,
And no market's near for his bones and skin.
So they let him live, and they left him grazing
By the creek, and oft in the evening dim
I have seen him stand on the rises, gazing
At the ruined brace and the rotting whim.
The floods rush high in the gully under,
And the lightnings lash at the shrinking trees,
Or the cattle down from the ranges blunder
As the fires drive by on the summer breeze.
Still the feeble horse at the right hour wanders
To the lonely ring, though the whistle's dumb,
And with hanging head by the bow he ponders
Where the whim boy's gone -- why the shifts don't come.
But there comes a night when he sees lights glowing
In the roofless huts and the ravaged mill,
When he hears again all the stampers going --
Though the huts are dark and the stampers still:
When he sees the steam to the black roof clinging
As its shadows roll on the silver sands,
And he knows the voice of his driver singing,
And the knocker's clang where the braceman stands.
See the old horse take, like a creature dreaming,
On the ring once more his accustomed place;
But the moonbeams full on the ruins streaming
Show the scattered timbers and grass-grown brace.
Yet HE hears the sled in the smithy falling,
And the empty truck as it rattles back,
And the boy who stands by the anvil, calling;
And he turns and backs, and he "takes up slack".
While the old drum creaks, and the shadows shiver
As the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close,
And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiver
In the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes;
And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder,
Hears again the voice that was dear to him,
Sees the form he knew -- and his heart grows bolder
As he works his shift by the broken whim.
He hears in the sluices the water rushing
As the buckets drain and the doors fall back;
When the early dawn in the east is blushing,
He is limping still round the old, old track.
Now he pricks his ears, with a neigh replying
To a call unspoken, with eyes aglow,
And he sways and sinks in the circle, dying;
From the ring no more will the grey horse go.
In a gully green, where a dam lies gleaming,
And the bush creeps back on a worked-out claim,
And the sleepy crows in the sun sit dreaming
On the timbers grey and a charred hut frame,
Where the legs slant down, and the hare is squatting
In the high rank grass by the dried-up course,
Nigh a shattered drum and a king-post rotting
Are the bleaching bones of the old grey horse.
Child Ballad 64
Ye maun gang to your father, Janet
Ye maun gang to him sune;
Ye maun gang to your father Janet,
Before his days are dune.
Janet's awa' to her father,
As fast as she could hie:
Oh, what's your will wi' me father;
Oh, what's your will wi' me?
My will wi' you, fair Janet, he said,
It is baith bed and board;
Some say that ye lo'e sweet Willie,
But ye maun wed a French lord.
Janet's awa' to her chamber,
As fast as she could go;
Wha's the first ane that tapped there
But sweet Willie, her jo?
O we maun part this love, Willie
That has been lang between;
There's a French lord coming o'er the sea
To wed me wi' a ring.
Willie he was scarce awa'
And the lady put to bed;
When in came in her father dear,
Make haste and busk the bride!
There's a sair pain in my head, father;
There's a sair pain in my side;
And ill, O ill am I, father.
This day for to be a bride.
Some put on the gay green robes,
And some put on the brown;
But Janet put on the scarlet robes,
To shine foremost through the town.
And some they mounted the black steed,
And some they mounted the brown,
But Janet mounted the milk white steed,
To ride foremost through the town.
O wha will guide your horse, Janet?
O wha will guide him best?
O wha but Willie, my true love;
He kens I lo'e him best.
And when they came to Marie's Kirk,
To tye the haly ban'
Fair Janet's face looked pale and wan',
And her colour gaed and cam'
When dinner it was past and done,
And dancing to begin,
O, we'll go take the bride's maidens,
And we'll go fill the ring.
O, ben them cam' the auld French lord,
Saying, Bride, will ye dance wi' me?
Awa', awa', ye auld French lord,
Your face I dawna see.
O, ben then cam' now sweet Willie,
Saying, Bride, will ye dance wi' me?
Ay, by my sooth, and that I will,
Gin my back should break in three.
She hadna turned her thro' the dance,
Thro' the dance but thrice,
When she fell down at Willie's feet,
And up did never rise.
Willie's ta'en the key o' his coffer,
And gi'en it to his man,
Gae hame, and tell my mother dear,
More horse he has me slain.
The tane was buried in Marie's Kirk,
And the tither in Marie's quier;
And of the tane there grew a birk,
And the tither, a bonnie brier.
Not sweeter to the storm-tossed mariner
Is glimpse of home, where wife and children wait
To welcome him with kisses at the gate,
Than to the town-worn man the breezy stir
Of mountain winds on rugged pathless heights:
His long-pent soul drinks in the deep delights
That Nature hath in store. The sun-kissed bay
Gleams thro' the grand old gnarled gum-tree boughs
Like burnished brass; the strong-winged bird of prey
Sweeps by, upon his lonely vengeful way --
While over all, like breath of holy vows,
The sweet airs blow, and the high-vaulted sky
Looks down in pity this fair Summer day
On all poor earth-born creatures doomed to die.
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he 's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he 's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
AIRLY Beacon, Airly Beacon;
O the pleasant sight to see
Shires and towns from Airly Beacon,
While my love climb'd up to me!
Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
O the happy hours we lay
Deep in fern on Airly Beacon,
Courting through the summer's day!
Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
O the weary haunt for me,
All alone on Airly Beacon,
With his baby on my knee!
SHE is not fair to outward view
As many maidens be,
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me;
O, then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light!
But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne'er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold
The love-light in her eye:
Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are.
Two members move up
Die cast
Shee obtains
Righted permit(s)
Contained in the satchel captured
Among slight careen-crass
Spend-if-you-will-in-days-scattering
a-lot!-we us see the way it might
seen in there yelling
room a-morphed way from
keen scent women sent
sea of gallon grass and sweep-weed
a friend caught some wilder chatter
feeling skin flat offer, off her
wheel the last days light a brillance
shown
It's always that way with her
Every other allows consumer
Milder-rain fulfillments through window
Factly preen it spent a fortune
She not.
Copyright 2002 Joe Duvernay. All rights reserved.