Joan Aleshire, 'The Dead'

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The Dead

In poems I read, "the dead" always appear
as collective noun: gray mass without feature,
to be feared or made fun of, and so to be
erased, as if we hadn't once loved or fought
with them, as if we won't end the same.

What was left of you sprawled--shapeless
mass of ash, such a dark gray--in the plastic bag
we came to bury, Pete cutting a neat square
in the turf old graveyard grass becomes--moss,
ferns, even violets blanketing the mounds--
next to your father's headstone, closer to him
in death than you'd wanted all your life to be.

Mother, brother, brothers-in-law, sisters,
nephews, nieces, and I who had known you
best in faltering and urgencies, the slow
steady heat of your engine heart, the rank innocence
of your workman's sweat: we came with mason jars
and each took a last remnant of you, even in this
never "the dead," not the gray feathers
of wood-ash, more like sand we might collect
from a rare beach we visited once,
always yourself: this dense powder
you have come to.

by Joan Aleshire

Gwendolyn Brooks - Truth

[zanyofsorrow.livejournal.com]

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years --
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

-- Gwendolyn Brooks

'To The River' by Jessica Paige Wick

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

To The River
(for CSE Cooney)

He said come to the river,
the wet, wild water that is black as a mirror
with nothing to show.
He said come to the river,
the dirt-dank river, by the dew-spangled banks
of the murmur and flow.
He said come to the river.
And I came to the river.
I came to the river, with a ribbon in my hair,
with a tune on my tongue,
with a name that he gave,
with my red shoes tied,
with my milk and my bread,
with a stone in my pocket,
with my heart, not my head,
with my knee-socks high,
and my bed unmade.
He said take your red shoes off,
leave your buttons undone.
And he kissed me by the river
until there was blood.
And the river took my ribbon,
which fled the current like a snake.
And the river took my tongue,
and the river took my name.
He took from me the tune I knew;
And the river made my bed.
He said come to the river,
the wet, wild water that is cold as a hand
with no blood to warm.
( So I came to the river )

William Shakespeare - "Venus and Adonis" (excerpt)

[mswyrr]

Even as the sun with purple-colored face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase.
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him
And like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him.

"Thrice fairer than myself," thus she began,
"The field's chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are.
Nature that made thee with herself at strife
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.

"Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed
And rein his proud head to the saddlebow.
If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know.
Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses.

( more )

full text

I love this poem. There's an awful lot of classical Greek/Roman stories about male gods raping women or, at the very least, stalking and seducing them in a really pushy manner. I find those stories unspeakably boring, irritating, and a major turn off. But Shakespeare did something really fun with that. In Venus and Adonis, he poses Venus as the one in hot pursuit, and Adonis as her captive prey. It's rather gorgeous. She's totally his stalker and pushy seducer. And it's *cool* so see that reversed. There's a cneat essay online titled Ovid and Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis: A Study of sexual-role reversal that goes into more detail on that.

The Soldier: Humbert Wolfe

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The Soldier

Down some cold field in a world unspoken
the young men are walking together, slim and tall,
and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken;
there is no sound however clear they call.

They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,
but the air is too thin to carry the thing they say.
They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,
and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.

Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,
'What have they done with the lives we laid aside?
Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?
Do they smile in the face of death, because we died?'

Down some cold field in a world uncharted
the young seek each other with questioning eyes.
They question each other, the young, the golden-hearted,
of the world that they were robbed of in our quiet paradise.

Humbert Wolfe