Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, 'The Dancing Seal'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

The Dancing Seal

When we were building Skua Light—
The first men who had lived a night
Upon that deep-sea Isle—
As soon as chisel touched the stone,
The friendly seals would come ashore;
And sit and watch us all the while,
As though they'd not seen men before;
And so, poor beasts, had never known
Men had the heart to do them harm.

They'd little cause to feel alarm
With us, for we were glad to find
Some friendliness in that strange sea;
Only too pleased to let them be
And sit as long as they'd a mind
To watch us: for their eyes were kind
Like women's eyes, it seemed to me.

So, hour on hour, they sat: I think
They liked to hear the chisels clink:
And when the boy sang loud and clear,
They scrambled closer in to hear;
And if he whistled sweet and shrill,
The queer beasts shuffled nearer still:
But every sleek and sheeny skin
Was mad to hear his violin.

When, work all over for the day,
He'd take his fiddle down and play
His merry tunes beside the sea,
Their eyes grew brighter and more bright,
And burned and twinkled merrily:
And as I watched them one still night,
And saw their eager sparkling eyes,
I felt those lively seals would rise
Some shiny night ere he could know,
And dance about him, heel and toe,
Unto the fiddle's heady tune.

( And at the rising of the moon,  )

By Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

(Happy birthday to Herself.)

The Companions in Hades ~ By George Seferis trans. by Edmund Keeley

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

fools, who ate the cattle of Helios Hyperion;
but he deprived them of the day of their return.
— Odyssey


Since we still had some hardtack
how stupid of us
to go ashore and eat
the Sun’s slow cattle,

for each was a castle
you’d have to battle
forty years, till you’d become
a hero and a star!

On the earth’s back we hungered,
but when we’d eaten well
we fell to these lower regions
mindless and satisfied.

for saundra - nikki giovanni

[emiruthless.livejournal.com]

i wanted to write
a poem
that rhymes
but revolution doesn't lend
itself to be-bopping

then my neighbor
who thinks i hate
asked – do you ever write
tree poems – i like trees
so i thought
i'll write a beautiful green tree poem
peeked from my window
to check the image
noticed that the school yard was covered
with asphalt
no green – no trees grow
in manhattan

then, well, i thought the sky
i'll do a big blue sky poem
but all the clouds have winged
low since no-Dick was elected

so i thought again
and it occurred to me
maybe i shouldn't write
at all
but clean my gun
and check my kerosene supply

perhaps these are not poetic
times
at all