Recent content by CShine

Don Juan: CANTO THE FIFTEENTH by George Gordon (Lord Byron) I Ah! -- What should follow slips from my reflection; Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be As à-propos of hope or retrospection, As though the lurking thought had follow'd free. All present life is but an interjection, An...

Song of Perfect Propriety by Dorothy Parker Oh, I should like to ride the seas, A roaring buccaneer; A cutlass banging at my knees, A dirk behind my ear. And when my captives' chains would clank I'd howl with glee and drink, And then fling out the quivering plank And watch the beggars...

Coy Mistress by Annie Finch (in answer to the poem by Andrew Marvell) Sir, I am not a bird of prey: a Lady does not seize the day. I trust that brief Time will unfold our youth, before he makes us old. How could we two write lines of rhyme were we not fond of numbered Time and grateful to the...

Audition by Julia Alvarez Porfirio drove Mami and me to Cook's mountain village to find a new pantry maid. Cook had given Mami a tip that her home town was girl-heavy, the men lured away to the cities. We drove to the interior, climbing a steep, serpentine, say-your-last-prayers road...

The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe Lo! 't is a gala night Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes...

The Blossoming of the Solitary Date-Tree by Samuel Taylor Coleridge I Beneath the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the Thrones of Frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. `What no one with us shares, seems scarce our own.' The presence of a ONE, The best...

Still by A. R. Ammons I said I will find what is lowly and put the roots of my identity down there: each day I'll wake up and find the lowly nearby, a handy focus and reminder, a ready measure of my significance, the voice by which I would be heard, the wills, the kinds of selfishness I...

The Tooth by Sophie Cabot Black No longer simple, if ever was. The coyote lies at the edge Of the lake. I meant this, I did not; the death I paid for Has come: a bad job of it, her jaw blown off, her underside Gone, legs strung up with bailing twine, the body dragged And quickly buried under...

Elisabeth Reads Poetry by Kathleen Flenniken Elisabeth is two and reads a book of poetry off my shelf, opens with Yah yah sumpin to eat. I try to read my own book but she sings Dibbah dah ze Rosie. She's changed her clothes six times today from blue dress to swimsuit to Tom's size 7 green...

On My First Daughter by Ben Jonson Here lies, to each her parents' ruth, Mary, the daughter of their youth; Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due, It makes the father less to rue. At six months' end, she parted hence With safety of her innocence; Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name...

The Story of Cygnus by Ovid From these first onsets, the Sigaean shore Was strew'd with carcasses, and stain'd with gore: Neptunian Cygnus troops of Greeks had slain; Achilles in his carr had scour'd the plain, And clear'd the Trojan ranks: where-e'er he fought, Cygnus, or Hector...

I never sleep. ------------------ Tidefans Permanent Honorary Opposition Spinmeister

The Crowned Maitreya by Frederick Glaysher Early we rise and make our way across the congested teeming city to the front main gate, entangled in electrical cables for the trains, walk...

To Helen by Edgar Allan Poe I saw thee once— once only— years ago: I must not say how many — but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a...

Moon by Matsuo Basho I fell a tree and gaze at the cut end - the moon of tonight