I met a dragon face to face
the year when I was ten,
I took a trip to outer space,
I braved a pirate’s den,
I wrestled with a wicked troll,
and fought a great white shark,
I trailed a rabbit down a hole,
I hunted for a snark.
I stowed aboard a submarine,
I opened magic doors,
I traveled in a time machine,
and searched for dinosaurs,
I climbed atop a giant’s head,
I found a pot of gold,
I did all this in books I read
when I was ten years old.
O God, my heart is dreadful. How can I revive it?
Who can lull and calm down my heart?
The sound of arrogance is deafening my ear today,
I would have talked to it had I not had self-praise.
Strange my heart has become when in love.
Pure love it is, anyone to perceive?
I have become flabbergast at my ordeal,
I conceal none of my love fears.
I ask God to inspire me.
Do I have a living heart or should I lament its death?
scattering seeds
on the earth
ripening fruits
piling up fallen leaves
these are also events
on the sky
Blow high, blow low,
O wind from the West;
You come from the country
I love the best.
O say have the lilies
Yet lifted their heads
Above the lake-water
That ripples and spreads?
Do the little sedges
Still shake with delight,
And whisper together
All through the night?
Have the mountains the purple
I used to love,
And peace about them,
Around and above?
Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don’t know you’ve been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 140th birthday.
Be safe, O Egypt; I will sacrifice
There is my hand for you, if the world raised a hand to hurt you
Never you shall yield, ever
I am hoping for tomorrow to be better
My heart and my determination are with me for strife
And to my heart, O Egypt, you are a faith, in addition to my religion
Safety for you, O Egypt
And peace, O my homeland
If the world threw arrows at you
I would shield you by my heart
And be safe in all times
I am an Egyptian, built by the founders of the
everlasting pyramid, who defeated doom
The pyramids stand beside us
Against the world’s arrogance, is as my stand
In my defense and struggle for my country
I do not turn away, tire, or yield
Safety for you, O Egypt
And Peace, O my homeland
If the world threw arrows at you
I would shield you by my heart
And be safe in all times
Hey, you who are trying to chain our orbits
There is no star in the sky under your control
The homeland of freemen is a sky that cannot be possessed
And the freemen own its horizons
There is no enemy that can attack you, O land of Egypt
We are all for your protection
Safety for you, O Egypt
And Peace, O my homeland
If the world threw arrows at you
I would shield you by my heart
And be safe in all times
To highness, O sons of Egypt, to highness
And honor the future by Egypt
The whole world is to save our Egypt, because
we put our country’s sake first
My left side has my heart
And my homeland is the heart of my right side
Safety for you, O Egypt
And Peace, O my homeland
If the world threw arrows at you
I would shield you by my heart
And be safe in all times
I take apart a rose and I don’t find you.
To the wind, thus, columns of floating petals,
the palace of the rose in ruins.
Now—impossible rose—you begin:
by needles of interwoven air
to the sea of the intact delight,
where all the roses of the world
—before they were a rose—
are beautiful without the prison of beauty.
Three screams stabbed me with their knives.
Landscape of three screams
long with astonishment.
The shrouds of mystery have jested!
Flight of torpors;
sighs
in the paralyzed fog.
Cypresses.
Bronze of terrors,
formless, fragmented.
Roads die
and bridges are built.
A tree mutates
by closing its pupils.
Dream’s angelic pigeons
timorously fall into the
icy nails of dread.
An infinite horror was
flowing in my entrails
in a death anthem.
We present this work in honor of the South African holiday, the Day of Good Will.
Cursed shall be the one whose passage in this world
Evades humaneness, engenders greed and hoarding
Cursed is he wallowing alone in caskets of wealth and
Counting rosary beads of accumulated cars
To be human is to humbly cherish the sweat of your toil
In measured style of decency and appreciation
To be human is to consider the plight of the needy
As they also are children of the earth
Yes, men and women of this blessed land
We present this work in honor of the Christmas holiday.
There’s no holly, but there is
the glass and granite towers
and the white stone lions
and the pale violet clouds. And
the great tree of balls in
Rockefeller Plaza is public.
Christmas is green and general
like all great works of the
imagination, swelling from minute
private sentiments in the desert,
a wreath around our intimacy
like children’s voices in a park.
For red there is our blood
which, like your smile, must be
protected from spilling into
generality by secret meanings,
the lipstick of life hidden
in a handbag against violations.
Christmas is the time of cold air
and loud parties and big expense,
but in our hearts flames flicker
answeringly, as on old-fashioned
trees. I would rather the house
burn down than our flames go out.
Poets Corner 