20th Century Poems

The Town

Karen Gershon
German
1923 – 1993

 

I did not want to feel at home
of what importance was the town
my family were driven from
how could I still have thought it mine
I have four children why should I
expend my love on stones and trees
of what significance were these
to have such power over me

As stones and trees absorb the weather
so these had stored my childhood days
and from a million surfaces
gave back my father and my mother
my presence there was dialogue
how could I have refused to answer
when my own crippled childhood broke
from streets and hillsides like a dancer

Bound for the Lord-Knows-Where

We present this work in honor of the 100th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Henry Lawson
Australian
1867 – 1922

 

“Where are you going with your horse and bike,
And the townsfolk still at rest?
Where are you going, with your swag and pack,
And the night still in the West?
Your clothes are worn, and your cheques are gone,
But your eyes are free from care?”
“We’re bushmen down for a spree in town,
And we’re bound for the Lord-knows-where,
Old chap-we’re bound for the Lord-knows-where.”
(There are great dark scrubs in the Lord-knows-where,
Where they fight it out alone,
There are wide wide plains in the Lord-knows-where,
Where a man’s soul is his own.
There is healthy work, there is healthy rest,
There is peace from self-torture there,
And the glorious freedom from paltriness!
And they’re bound for the Lord-knows-where.)
“Now, where are you going in your Sunday suit,
And a bag for your second best?
Now where are you going with your chest of tools,
And the old togs in the chest?
With your six clean shirts and a pound of ‘weed’,
And enough for a third-class fare?”
“Oh! I’ll be afloat by the very next boat,
And I’m bound for the Lord-knows-where,
Old chap-I’m bound for the Lord-knows-where.”
(There are wide wide seas to the Lord-knows-where,
Where a man might have a spell,
The things turn up in the Lord-knows-where that
We waited for too well.
There’s a stranger land in the Lord-knows-where,
And a show for the stranger there.
There is war and quake more work to make,
And he’s bound for the Lord-knows-where.)
“Now where are you going with your Gladstone bag,
With your shirt-case and valise?
Now where are you going with your cap and shoes,
And your looks of joyful peace?
Now where are you going with your money belts,
And your drafts on the first bank there?”
“‘We have made a hit,’ or ‘we’ve made a bit,’
And we’re bound for the Lord-knows-where,
Old chap-we’re bound for the Lord-knows-where.”
(There are sinful ports in the Lord-knows-where,
There are marvellous sights to see,
There are high old games in the Lord-knows-where,
That were known to you and me.
There is love and music, and life and light from
The Heads to “Lester” Square,
There is more than space for their high young hearts
There is safety or danger there,
And they’ll come back wild, or they’ll come back tamed
When they’ve been to the Lord-knows-where.)
“Now where am I going with my whisky flask,
And with little else beside?
Now where am I going with my second shirt,
To wear while the first is dried?
I have marred my name, and I’ve lost my fame,
But my hope’s in good repair.
There are lies about, there are warrants out-
And I’m bound for the Lord-knows-where,
Old Chap-and I’m bound for the Lord-knows-where.”
(There’s a rise and fall of the sloping decks,
That is good for a soul in pain;
There’s the drowsy rest on the sunlight sea
Till your strength comes back again.
Oh, the wild mad spirit is hypnotized,
And nerves are tranquil there,
And the past is hushed in forgetfulness,
On the road to the Lord-knows-where.)

Soldier Settlement

We present this work in honor of the 60th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Alan Mulgan
Kiwi
1881 – 1962

 

In Comfort Street the shop-fronts blaze;
The well-fed people laugh and drift
Along the smooth, enticing ways,
And wear their fortune as a gift.

Here wheels in cushioned service purr,
And buttons pressed command delight;
And soft, obsequious odours stir
The languors of an ordered night.

And in the frippery of talk
You catch: “Here’s butter down again—
Poor farmers!”—“Yes, I think The Hawk
Will win… Ten quid on Lover’s Lane.”

Haggard he looks about his world—
The leaning shack, the broken fence,
The little flag of green unfurled
Before the forest’s walled defence;

The dwindling, unconditioned herd
Nosing about the barren burn;
The mocking of the care-free bird;
The creeping barrage of the fern.

Without, the hidden enemy
That strikes beneath its green deceit;
Within, the long-drawn agony
When love and hope may never meet.

He looks along the bitter years
To when the myriad bugles thrilled;
When duty banked the fount of tears,
And life with high adventure filled.

In that unfathomable pit
Of blasting death or doom long drawn,
Where anguish of a night was lit
By presage of a dreadful dawn,

He saw beyond the murdered earth
And moaning of the tortured skies,
The promise of his place of birth,
A dream-home to his weary eyes.

And over all the undying Cause,
And goodly fellowship of kin.
“If I should die ‘twould make no pause
In certainty’s long reckoning.”

For there death could not conquer hope,
Master of faith was never found,
And on the long, red battle slope
The soldier fell, but won his ground.

But here, in this remote reward,
No banner flies aloft to cheer;
The arm that, stricken, drops the sword
Sinks in a common black despair.

Resolve with love high-hearted went
To fame this gift of wilderness;
Now high is low and hearts are spent
And lord of all is sharp distress.

All this he sees, and turns again
To face dear eyes that love but dread—
Hunger and want, the deeper pain
That knows at last that hope is dead.

Dully by fire’s caprice he reads
In news prepared by comfort’s hands,
Of how the city over-breeds—
“The land, young man! Go on the land!”

Solitude

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.

Meira Delmar
Colombian
1922 – 2009

 

There’s nothing like this bliss
of feeling so alone
in mid-afternoon
and in the middle of the wheat field;
under the summer sky
and in the arms of the wind
I am one more ear of wheat.

I have nothing in my soul,not even a small sorrow,
nor an old remembrance
that would make me dream…
I only have this bliss
of being alone in the afternoon,
just with the afternoon!

A very long silence
is falling on the field,
for already the sun is leaving
and already the wind is leaving;
who would give me forever
this inexpressible bliss
of being, alone and serene,
a miracle of peace!

Translation by Nicolás Suescún

Flying Crooked

We present this work in honor of National Aviation Day.

Robert Graves
English
1895 – 1985

 

The butterfly, the cabbage white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has – who knows so well as I? –
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the aerobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift.

Messalina

We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Dulcie Deamer
Australian
1890 – 1972

 

Cast back the doors! I stifle! Let the air
Of the outer night rush in and seize my hair
As with swift hands! My slender body bare

Stretches, and sighs, and tautens like a thong…
Oh, every hour of daylight does me wrong!

Why are the nights so brief, the days so long?

The days of mask-like faces, formalness.

Of downcast eyelid, pearl-entwisted tress;

I am the Emperor’s wife; the ceilings press

Downward trap-fashion; rafters sheathed in gold
Are as cross-beams of pits that take and hold—

Tall pits of marble, glassy-smooth and cold.

I am the Emperor s wife … I wore the hide
Of a she-leopard once; I rode the tide
Of splendid, savage seas, my glistening side

Compressed by triton-arms; I leapt and screamed
Where down the hill the naked Maenads streamed.
Beneath the droop of boughs, the faun’s eyes gleamed

Goat-golden. Oh, he found me where I lay!

I was a striving, but a laughing prey;

Crushed, conquered, wed—I knew not night or day.

Earth’s unmixed passion gorges all my veins—

The scourging suns, the blinding summer rains,

The breast-white mountains and the panting plains.

What do I know of templed gods, and laws,

Honour, and duty? All my essence draws
From older founts. I see the clamped, stark jaws

Of rearing centaurs in their mating-fights;

The smell of blood and sweat and love delights
My widened nostrils. Oh, those forest nights!—

The crying dark, the heavy blood-like dew,

The feet of Life and Death that doth pursue,

The lusty, rank, insatiate satyr-crew…

1 am the Emperors wife—no! I am I!

The hot Earth bore me: though I live or die
111 seek my old companions where they lie.

Stain both my lids with blue, my soles with red;
Sweeten with myrrh the black hair o’er me shed;

I will rise up and leave this empty bed.

A straight, thin, purple robe is all I’ll wear;

111 take no veil; unto my knees my hair
Falls. Am I pale and burning? Am I fair

As some lithe forest-thing with bloody lips?

Now—now to steal where the dark city dips
In reeking alleys, and the river slips…

My jungles! Quick with lawless, fearless life;

The teeth of love, the death-fang of a knife.

And satyr-brawls, and Maenad-women’s strife.

ril enter by some strait, scarce-lighted door,

Cross with bare feet the dank and wine-wet floor—
Ah! Now I am the Emperor’s wife no more!

Swordsman, Greek boxer, Goth—they wait for me;
Now does my body live—now am I free!

My shredded robe slips downward to my knee.

I am as naked as Life’s naked flame!

None ever spoke of law or coward shame
In that spring-fevered world from which I came
I fear no death. Let swift sleep end the game!

Tendril Love of Africa

Molara Ogundipe
Nigerian
1940 – 2019

 

I see again and again in my eyes
the smile flit over your cheekbones
Reach like a tendril to caress your face
in those lean days that startled
do you rejoice
that life does not slaughter our dreams
our secret thoughts on its butcher bench of time
that we gather to ourselves
the scraps and bones our dismembered being
hoard to nurse them
that death may not out-stare us?

This Be the Verse

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.

Philip Larkin
English
1922 – 1985

 

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Even If You are Not With Me

We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Mahmoud Mohammed Shaker
Egyptian
1909 – 1997

 

Even if you are not with me, the memories of you are with me.
My heart sees you, even if you are made vanished from my vision.
The eye sees who it loves but will end up losing the sight of them.
But the one who sees with their heart, will never lose the sight
(of the people they love).