poetry

Monologue of a Dog Ensnared in History – Wislawa Szymborska

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There are dogs and dogs. I was among the chosen.
I had good papers and wolf’s blood in my veins.
I lived upon the heights inhaling the odors of views:
meadows in sunlight, spruces after rain,
and clumps of earth beneath the snow.

I had a decent home and people on call,
I was fed, washed, groomed,
and taken for lovely strolls.
Respectfully, though, and comme il faut.
They all knew full well whose dog I was.

Any lousy mutt can have a master.
Take care, though — beware comparisons.
My master was a breed apart.
He had a splendid herd that trailed his every step
and fixed its eyes on him in fearful awe.

For me they always had smiles,
with envy poorly hidden.
Since only I had the right
to greet him with nimble leaps,
only I could say good-bye by worrying his trousers with my teeth.
Only I was permitted
to receive scratching and stroking
with my head laid in his lap.
Only I could feign sleep
while he bent over me to whisper something.

He raged at others often, loudly.
He snarled, barked,
raced from wall to wall.
I suspect he liked only me
and nobody else, ever.

I also had responsibilities: waiting, trusting.
Since he would turn up briefly, and then vanish.
What kept him down there in the lowlands, I don’t know.
I guessed, though, it must be pressing business,
at least as pressing
as my battle with the cats
and everything that moves for no good reason.

There’s fate and fate. Mine changed abruptly.
One spring came
and he wasn’t there.
All hell broke loose at home.
Suitcases, chests, trunks crammed into cars.
The wheels squealed tearing downhill
and fell silent round the bend.

On the terrace scraps and tatters flamed,
yellow shirts, armbands with black emblems
and lots and lots of battered cartons
with little banners tumbling out.

I tossed and turned in this whirlwind,
more amazed than peeved.
I felt unfriendly glances on my fur.
As if I were a dog without a master,
some pushy stray
chased downstairs with a broom.

Someone tore my silver-trimmed collar off,
someone kicked my bowl, empty for days.
Then someone else, driving away,
leaned out from the car
and shot me twice.

He couldn’t even shoot straight,
since I died for a long time, in pain,
to the buzz of impertinent flies.
I, the dog of my master.

Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda

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Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Chama River

Saint Judas by James Wright

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When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry.  Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh.  Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

If

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If there are obstacles, it cannot be space

If there are numbers, it cannot be stars

If it moves and shakes, it cannot be a mountain

If it grows and shrinks, it cannot be an ocean

If it must be crossed by a bridge, it cannot be a river

If it can be grasped, it cannot be a rainbow

These are the six parables of outer perception

-Milarepa

…in order to arrive

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In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not.
– T.S. Eliot, from East Coker

I Love The Dark Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke

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I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that’s wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a grave
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots embrace:

a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.

The magnificent Breastplate of St. Patrick

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I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles,
In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.

I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul;
Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

Marginalia by W.H Auden

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The gregarious
And mild-tempered never know
Each other by name:
Creatures who make friends are shy
And liable to anger.
*
Unable to see
A neighbor to frown at,
Eutroplus beat his wife.
(after K. Lorenz)
*
A dead man
Who never caused others to die
Seldom rates a statue.
*
Small tyrants, threatened by big,
Sincerely believe
They love Liberty.
*
Tyrants may get killed,
But their hangmen usually
Die in their beds.
*
Patriots? Little boys
Obsessed by bigness,
Big pricks, big money, big bangs.
*
He praised his God
For the expertise
Of his torturer and his chef.
*
Reluctant at first
To break his sworn promise
Of Safe Conduct, after
Consulting his confessor,
In good spirits
He signed a death-warrant.
*
“Be godly,” he told his flock,
“Bloody and extreme
Like the Holy Ghost.”
*
After the massacre,
They pacified their conscience
By telling jokes.
*
When their Infidel
Paymaster fell in arrears,
The mercenaries
Recalled their unstained childhoods
In devout Christian homes.
*
With silver mines,
Recruiting grounds,
A general of real genius,
He thought himself invulnerable:
In one battle
He lost all three.
*
The last king
Of a fallen dynasty
Is never well spoken of.
*
Intelligent, rich,
Humane, the young man dreamed of
Posthumous glory
As connoisseur and patron
Of Scholarship and the Arts.
An age bent on war,
The ambitions of his king,
Decreed otherwise:
He was to be remembered
As a destroyer of towns.
*
Born to flirt and write light verses,
He died bravely
By the headsman’s axe.
*
Into the prosperous quiet
Between two wars
Came Anopheles.
*
The Queen fled, leaving
Books behind her
That shocked the pious usurper.
*
Assembling
With ceremonial pomp,
The Imperial Diet
Cravely debated
Legislation
It had no power to reject.
*
Victorious over
The foreign tyrant,
The patriots retained
His emergency
Police regulations,
Devised to suppress them.
*
In States unable
To alleviate Distress,
Discontent is hanged.
*
In semi-literate countries
Demagogues pay
Court to teen-agers.
*
To maintain a stud
Of polo ponies he now
Was too stout to ride,
He slapped taxes on windows,
Hearth-stones and door-steps and wives.
*
He walked like someone
Who’d never had to
Open a door for himself.
*
Abandoning his wives,
He fled with their jewels
And two hundred dogs.
*
Providentially
Right for once in his lifetime
(His reasons were wrong),
The old sod was permitted
To save civilization.
*
Who died in Nineteen-Sixty-Five
More worthy of honors
Than Lark, the cow
Who gave to mankind
One hundred and fifteen thousand
Litres of milk?
*
When we do evil,
We and our victims
Are equally bewildered.
* *
The decent, probably,
Outnumber the swine,
But few can inherit
The genes, or procure
Both the money and time,
To join the civilized.