I Eat Poetry

"The Old Astronomer to his Pupil", by Sarah Williams

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 03:23:11 GMT

Posted by: med_cat

For minoanmiss , in whose LJ I first saw this poem, several years ago:

A tribute, by Sabotabby

The Old Astronomer to his Pupil

Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,
And the obliquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.( Read more... )

Here's an illustration by Charlie Bowater

"When You Were the Stars"

A Response to Sarah Williams' "The Old Astronomer to His Pupil"

You told me not to fear the dark-
that stars were born from deepest night,
and even death, you softly said,
was just a turning into light.

Your voice would echo through the dusk,
so calm, so sure, so infinite-
as if the sky itself leaned in
to listen what your soul had meant.( I watched you trace Orion's belt... )

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Fear no more the heat o' the sun

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 04:21:10 GMT

Posted by: med_cat

from Cymbeline, Act IV, Scene 2

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

Edit: The verses were set to music and sung by Loreena McKennitt. You can listen to it here.
~~
This was originally posted to this comm in October 2010 by stillsparkling over here

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‘Paul Robeson’ by Gwendolyn Brooks

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:53:00 GMT

Posted by: aquamarcia.livejournal.com

Paul Robeson was born on this day, April 9, in 1898. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem about him and it's one of my favorites.

Paul Robeson

That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other's
business:
we are each other's
magnitude and bond.

by Gwendolyn Brooks

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Mimnermus in Church, by William Johnson Cory

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 10:34:33 GMT

Posted by: med_cat

Mimnermus in Church

YOU promise heavens free from strife,
Pure truth, and perfect change of will;
But sweet, sweet is this human life,
So sweet, I fain would breathe it still;
Your chilly stars I can forgo,
This warm kind world is all I know.

You say there is no substance here,
One great reality above:
Back from that void I shrink in fear,
And child-like hide myself in love:
Show me what angels feel. Till then
I cling, a mere weak man, to men.

You bid me lift my mean desires
From faltering lips and fitful veins
To sexless souls, ideal quires,
Unwearied voices, wordless strains:
My mind with fonder welcome owns
One dear dead friend’s remember’d tones.

Forsooth the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away;
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But Oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die.

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After the Burial, by James Russell Lowell

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 10:14:22 GMT

Posted by: med_cat

After the Burial

Yes, faith is a goodly anchor;
When skies are as sweet as a psalm,
At the bows it lolls so stalwart,
In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm.

And when over breakers to leeward
The tattered surges are hurled,
It may keep our head to the tempest,
With its grip on the base of the world.

( But after the shipwreck, tell me... )

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Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Home-Coming of the Eurydice'

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

The Home-Coming of the Eurydice

[Lost, with her crew of three hundred boys, on the last day of her voyage, March 23, 1876. She foundered off Portsmouth, from which town many of the boys came.]

Up with the royals that top the white spread of her!
Press her and dress her, and drive through the foam;
The Island's to port, and the mainland ahead of her,
Hey for the Warner and Hayling and Home!

"Bo'sun, O Bo'sun, just look at the green of it!
Look at the red cattle down by the hedge!
Look at the farmsteading—all that is seen of it,
One little gable end over the edge!"

"Lord! the tongues of them clattering, clattering,
All growing wild at a peep of the Wight;
Aye, sir, aye, it has set them all chattering,
Thinking of home and their mothers to-night."

Spread the topgallants — oh, lay them out lustily!
What though it darken o'er Netherby Combe?
'Tis but the valley wind, puffing so gustily—
On for the Warner and Hayling and Home!

"Bo'sun, O Bo'sun, just see the long slope of it!
Culver is there, with the cliff and the light.
Tell us, oh tell us, now is there a hope of it?
Shall we have leave for our homes for to-night?"

"Tut, the clack of them! Steadily! Steadily!
Aye, as you say, sir, they're little ones still;
One long reach should open it readily,
Round by St. Helens and under the hill.

"The Spit and the Nab are the gates of the promise,
Their mothers to them—and to us it's our wives.
I've sailed forty years, and—By God it's upon us!
Down royals, Down top'sles, down, down, for your lives!"

( A grey swirl of snow with the squall at the back of it, )

By Arthur Conan Doyle

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‘Ides of March’ by Constantine Cavafy

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 13:12:00 GMT

Posted by: aquamarcia.livejournal.com

Ides of March

Of glory be you fearful, O my Soul.
And if you are unable to defeat
your ambitions, then hesitantly, guardedly
pursue them. And the further you proceed,
the more searching, the more attentive must you be.

And when at last you reach your apogee—a Caesar;
and cut the figure of one who’s much renowned,
then take heed more than ever as you go out on the street,
a man of power, conspicuous with your retinue,
when someone approaches you out of the crowd,
a certain Artemidorus, bringing a letter,
and hurriedly says “Read this right away,
it’s something important that concerns you,”
don’t fail to stop; don’t fail to put off
all talk and business; don’t fail to
brush off all and sundry who salute and fawn
(you can see them later); let even
the Senate wait, and find out at once
the weighty contents of Artemidorus’s letter.

by Constantine Cavafy
translated from the Greek by Daniel Mendelsohn
published in C.P. Cavafy: Complete Poems, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012

Translator's note concerning the poem:
Ides of March
Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides (the 15th) of March in 44 B.C. As Caesar made his way that morning to the Senate, where he hoped to hear himself declared king of Rome, a Greek scholar called Artemidorus tried to place a letter into his hand warning him of the plot to kill him, but was rebuffed. This poem, like “Theodotus,” uses Caesar’s career as a vehicle for pondering the vagaries of fortune.

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John Meyers Meyers, 'The Death Lay of Bowie Gizzardsbane'

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Cross-post from war_poetry:

The Death Lay of Bowie Gizzardsbane

Harsh that hearing for Houston the Raven:
Foes had enfeebled the fortress at Bexar,
Leaving it lacking and looted the while
Hordes were sweeping swift on the land,
Hell-bent to crush him. The cunning old prince
Did not, though, despair at danger's onrushing;
Hardy with peril, he held it, perused it,
Reading each rune of it. Reaching the facts,
He thumbed through his thanes and thought of the one
Whose guts and gray matter were grafted most neatly.
"Riders!" he rasped, "to race after Bowie!"
"Bowie," he barked when that bearcat of heroes
Bowed to his loved prince, "Bexar must be ours
Or no one must have it. So hightail, burn leather!
Hold me that fortress or fire it and raze it.
Do what you can or else do what you must."

Fame has its fosterlings, free of the limits
Boxing all others, and Bowie was one of them.
Who has not heard of the holmgang at Natchez?
Fifty were warriors, but he fought the best,
Wielding a long knife, a nonesuch of daggers
Worthy of Wayland. That weapon had chewed
The entrails of dozens. In diverse pitched battles
That thane had been leader; by land and by sea
Winning such treasure that trolls, it is said,
Closed hills out of fear he'd frisk them of silver.
Racing now westward, he rode into Bexar,
Gathered the garrison, gave them his orders:
"Houston the Raven is raising a host;
Time's what he asks while he tempers an army.
Never give up this gate to our land.
Hold this door fast, though death comes against us."

( The flood of the foemen flowed up to Bexar, )

by John Meyers Meyers

[Jim Bowie died on March 6, 1836 at the Battle of the Alamo, 190 years ago this day.]

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Sara Burnett, 'You Go to Sleep in the Dark'

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Cross-post from war_poetry:

You Go to Sleep in the Dark

You go to sleep in the dark, and strange too,
you wake in the dark.

Overnight, two story deep craters pockmarked the earth. But they were far from you.
Houses collapsed like toothpicks. But they were not your own.
Like the straw houses you read in fairytales to children. But they were someone else’s children.

In the morning, bodies are picked from under rubble.
In the morning, a man wakes for the first time without his wife and children.

Your grandparents saw this.
Your children may see this.
Such is the world we’ve allowed to go to seed.

In the morning, you wash strawberries bought in a plastic crate, spoon yogurt into bowls.
You should be glad for bowls to fill. But how can this be?

By chance you are here and not there.
By chance you hold your son in your arms alive.
You would be happier perhaps to think otherwise.

To write about buds breaking open is almost a crime, because it implies,
as Brecht wrote silence about so many horrors. But there they are—
flashes of yellow and purple pushing through snow!

A miracle not that anything is born, but that it survives.

Overnight, bulbs burst brighter than stars in the sky. But the city burning is not your city.
And the fires smoldering bear no memories to you.

You wake up to a war on TV and in the afternoon, you turn it off.
Now far. Now closer.
Now coming. Now near.

While you think of what to make for dinner,
a woman crosses a border with her children clinging to her.
It is the type of border you may never see: the type that reads
“this is your life with war and this is your life with war, after.”

How luxurious to look away. The hospital hulled. The school shelled.
Or to imagine that your lot to imagine has power, though it does.
It’s why poems are written, why people gather and sing, or march in lines
stretching across streets and borders or ladle soup into bowls to fill
empty stomachs, comfort crying children.

We sing in the dark of the dark because as Merwin wrote dark though it is.

You are a stranger to this day’s light if every morning
like the family huddled in a bomb shelter you do not give thanks
for having made it through the night.

You go to sleep in the dark and it is still dark when you wake.
You who rent this body, these ribs, this breath
so may your own voice grow hoarse.

By Sara Burnett

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Walter de la Mare, 'Mistletoe'

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 10:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Mistletoe

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Someone came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen—and kissed me there.

by Walter de la Mare

Wishing a very happy holiday to all.

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Belschnickle (author unknown)

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 06:31:00 GMT

Posted by: elenbarathi.livejournal.com

Belschnickle

Santa Claus comes when you're good
With candy and toys in his sleigh.
But if you don't do as you should,
Belschnickle will take them away.
His nose is as round as a pickle,
Belschnickle.

He flies on his leathery wings.
And though you've been naughty, he sighs.
He never likes taking your things,
And tears overflow from his eyes,
And trickle and trickle and trickle,
Belschnickle.

He comes from the Antarctic pole.
As soon as he hears that you're bad.
And carries away to his hole
The very best toys that you've had.
His mouth is curved round as a sickle,
Belschnickle.

But if you don't quarrel or fight
And peevishly grumble and groan,
Then Belschnickle is happy and bright
And leaves all of your treasures alone.
So act in a way that will tickle
Belschnickle

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Bells Nickle, By F. L. Sallade MD

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 06:18:00 GMT

Posted by: elenbarathi.livejournal.com

Bells Nickle
By F. L. Sallade MD

In the days of Lickus-Lockus there was terror in the land.
And our playmates oft would shock us with the very stern demand;
“If Lickus-Lockus chance about, what ever will you do?
With holes enough to let us out we’ll try and tumble through.

Oft we monkeyed round the playground like a lot of little apes,
and we got into his vineyard in pretense and stole his grapes.
When came the one who just in fun played Lickus-Lockus’ part,
each roguish one would start and run and in and out would dart.

But in and out the vineyard where old Lockus got his wine,
until some little blackguard was run down and payed his fine.
If the real Lickus-Lockus e’er should chance to come around,
even now the sight might shock us, so we’d sink into the ground.

The deeds of Shinner Honnes scarce are equaled in this age,
if his tricks he’d played upon us they’d have filled us up with rage.
And a very great big rage at that if all the things are true
that are told about a man like that who lived ere I and you.

The Eilenspiegel lived about as long as he had breath,
and when at last his stock gave out he came unto his death.
But ere he died he looked around, and took things very cool;
if his brains had not been quite so sound, you'd think he’d been a fool.

He was the man who dug a little hole into the ground,
then he really scratched his mug a little bald in a spot round.
'Bout so big as a small saucer there was baldness, bleak and bare;
now no more he’ll ever claw, sir, on that baldness for a hair.

And when that hole he had filled in with its own ground again,
when even full as it had been, a heap did still remain.
He put his mighty brain to work his shovel, heart and soul;
a job that he would not shirk but larger dug the hole.

Then shoveled in the ground once more; a failure he disdained,
the heap was bigger than before that now outside remained.
And then again he should fast and faster with a will,
he would, if he’d not died at last be shoveling there still.

( But of all the great celebrities on top of this here world, )

Womelsdorf, Pa, Christmas Day, 1896

Transcribed by Alfred L. Shoemaker, 1950

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Joseph Fasano, 'Little Hymn'

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Cross-post from war_poetry:

Little Hymn
in response to WB

When I wake at night in terror
of the world we are leaving to our children;
when I fear that the body isn't
sacred, and the darkness has fallen
on the good earth; when the cities burn
with the fires that our kind have made,
and everything, and nothing's
in our hands,

I rise alone,
and go to find my child
sleeping in his own arms in the darkness-
and I kneel there, and I lay a hand
like small rain on his trembling chest
and I feel his heart
as it croons its little music-

and I listen; I sit awake
and listen; this little heart
that sings the hymn
of living: open,
and close again,
and open-
ancient, changeless music-
the night has come,
the night has not yet come.
We cannot save each other now.
We can.

By Joseph Fasano

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Wendell Berry, 'The Peace of Wild Things'

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Cross-post from war_poetry:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

By Wendell Berry

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'The Parasite' by Theodosia Garrison

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 19:33:00 GMT

Posted by: elenbarathi.livejournal.com

The Parasite

They brought to the little Princess, from her earliest hour of birth,
The lovely things, the beautiful things, the soft things of earth.

They covered her floor with crimson, they wrapped her in eiderdown;
They hung the windows with cloth of gold, lest her eyes look down;
(Lest the highway show an unlovely thing
And her eyes look down.)

They brought rare toys to her cradle, rich gems to her maidenhood;
All that she saw was beautiful, all that she heard was good.

When tumult rose in the city they bade her minstrels sing;
They drowned with the sound of music a people's clamouring;
(Lest she turn and hark to the highway,
And hear an unlovely thing.)

But there came a day of terror, when a cry too sharp and long
Tore through the streets of the city, through the soft, sweet song.

She bade her singers be silent—silent they stood in awe;
She raised the gold from the window; she looked down and saw.
(She leaned and looked on the highway,
She looked down and saw.)

She saw men driven like cattle, she heard the woman's cry,
She saw the white-faced children toil, and the weaklings die.

She saw the bound and the beaten beneath her like shifting sands,
And—she dropped the cloth on her window with her own white hands,
(She shut out her people's crying
With her own white hands.)

As a child may turn from a picture that he may not understand,
She turned to fragrance and music,—to soft things and bland.

If the Princess is blind to anguish, if the Princess is deaf to woe,
If the streets of her city may run with blood, and she not know,
Now theirs is the blame who have closed her in ease as in folded wings,
Who have barred the doors and windows, what time her minstrel sings,
Lest her eyes look down on the highway,
And look on unlovely things.

~ Theodosia Garrison

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'Grimoire' by Zemlya Vine

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Posted by: elenbarathi.livejournal.com

Grimoire

Oh hush now, crack open the spine of me,
this old, half-feral book bound in salt, honey, and spite.
Every page smells like smoke and a woman who refused to stay dead.

I wasn’t written in one sitting, no
I was drafted in storms, redrafted in bruises,
edited by every ancestor who whispered,
“Get up, girl. Not like them, like you.”

A grimoire isn’t born, it’s compiled.
So gather ’round, because here are my entries,
inked in sweat, shadow, and a laugh sharp enough
to cut open the night.

A chapter of Haitian folklore whispered by my father,
where the spirits danced on his stories
and stitched a little thunder into my veins.
A chapter of Gaia’s breath in the dirt under my nails,
Hekate’s torch in my midnight spine.
A chapter sealed with salt tossed behind a shoulder
and another with tears wiped off a child’s cheek
while pretending not to be afraid.

But don’t close the cover yet
there are women woven into these pages
whose names deserve to rise like smoke.

( There is my mother )

by Zemlya Vine 🌿

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'Perhaps the World Ends Here', by Joy Harjo

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:59:00 GMT

Posted by: elenbarathi.livejournal.com

Perhaps the World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

By Joy Harjo

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Richard Jackson, 'alternate endings'

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Cross-post from war_poetry:

alternate endings

There are times when they gather at the edge of your life,
Shadows slipping over the far hills, daffodils
blooming too early, the dark matter of the universe
that threads its way through the few thousand blackbirds
that have invaded the trees out back. Every ending

sloughs off our dreams like snakeskin. This is the kind of
black ice the mind skids across. The candlelight burning down
into the sand. The night leaving its ashes in our eyes.

( There are times when your voice turns over in my sleep. )

By Richard Jackson

[Zahra Abdullah killed, November 20, 2005: Darfur Holocaust]

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Putinism

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 16:38:00 GMT

Posted by: pigshitpoet.livejournal.com

Via : https://ukhudshanskiy.livejournal.com/16192559.html

Putinism is the monstrous result of a hundred years of satanic rule.
(Roughly translated from Russian)

Russia is a single grave, Russia is under a block of darkness.

It's My Turn

When Russia was captured
And doomed to corruption,
Not everyone betrayed Russia,
Not all became traitors.

And the tyres were clogged with those
In whom duty and honor were alive.
They were swallowed up by darkness and darkness,
They have neither number nor measure.

They shot the proud, kind, honest,
In order to seize power and consolidate power.
In remote basements everywhere
Russian blood flowed.

Everything suited the invaders —
The lies of newspapers, deceit, forgery.
If only I had been born earlier,
Then I too could have perished.

When, instilling a shadow of hope,
Carrying bayonets at the ready,
In almost shining uniforms,
The regiments of the White Guard marched,

And the machine guns mowed them down,
And blood splashed like water,
I could have died for Russia,
But I was not there then.

When (ah, simply and wisely),
Both day and night, and night and day
Peasants were taken to the taiga and tundra
From all Russian villages,

From all the bird cherry trees, linden trees, and maples,
From the rivers flowing brightly,
So that fifteen million
Russian peasants should fall,

When, for tossing the people's bone,
They called it a "bend too far,"
I — a Russian boy — could have perished,
And only by chance did I not perish.

I am the one who, strangely enough, emerged
Almost unscathed from the turmoil,
Who survived, remained, lived on
Without camps and without prison.

So, shall we remember in the evening,
In this pre-sunset hour,
How, crippling Russian souls,
They made scoundrels out of us?

Or standing against iron,
And against darkness,
To perceive clearly and soberly:
My turn has come.

Like a wolf, to break out of the circle,
Hiding neither feelings nor thoughts.
Forgive me, my friend,
My turn has come.

I rise, like onto a parapet,
Against the backdrop of cowards and scoundrels.
No tears are needed, no sadness —
Today it’s my turn! .V. Soloukhin

To friends ( Read more... ).. V. Soloukhin via

dr. π (pi)
.

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Wendell Barry, 'Untitled'

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Cross-post from war_poetry:

Untitled

To my granddaughters who visited the Holocaust Museum
on the day of the burial of Yitzhak Rabin, November 6th 1995.

Now you know the worst
we humans have to know
about ourselves, and I am sorry,

for I know you will be afraid.
To those of our bodies given
without pity to be burned, I know

there is no answer
but loving one another
even our enemies, and this is hard.

But remember:
when a man of war becomes a man of peace,
he gives a light, divine

though it is also human.
When a man of peace is killed
by a man of war, he gives a light.

You do not have to walk in darkness.
If you have the courage for love,
you may walk in light. It will be

the light of those who have suffered
for peace. It will be
your light.

by Wendell Berry

[Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, November 4, 1995]

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‘Dusk’ by Chūya Nakahara

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 22:19:00 GMT

Posted by: aquamarcia.livejournal.com

This was posted yesterday to Reddit's r/Poetry by u/MasterfulArtist24 ... Bringing it to LJ.

Dusk

On the pond’s troubled, murky face,
gathered lotus leaves tremble,
As the lotus leaves are coy,
they hardly make a sound above a whisper.

When they make a sound my heart trembles,
my eyes trace the dim horizon...
the dark, dark mountains merely loom.
— Once lost, things never return.

Nothing could be as sad as this;
the grass roots’ smell wafts gently to my nostrils,
the field’s earth and stones together looking at me.

— In the end, I’m not willing to plough!
Standing absent-minded in the dusk;
somehow, when Father’s image sticks in my mind, I only
advance a step or two.

by Chūya Nakahara
translated from the Japanese by Paul Mackintosh and Maki Sugiyama
from The Poems of Nakahara Chūya, published in 1993 by Gracewing Books

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Robert Service, 'Madame la Marquise'

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Madame la Marquise

Said Hongray de la Glaciere unto his proud Papa:
"I want to take a wife mon Père," The Marquis laughed: "Ha! Ha!
And whose, my son?" he slyly said; but Hongray with a frown
Cried, "Fi! Papa, I mean - to wed, I want to settle down."
The Marquis de la Glaciere responded with a smile;
"You're young my boy; I much prefer that you should wait awhile."
But Hongray sighed: "I cannot wait, for I am twenty-four;
And I have met my blessed fate: I worship and adore.
Such beauty, grace and charm has she, I'm sure you will approve,
For if I live a century none other can I love."
"I have no doubt," the Marquis shrugged, "that she's a proper pet;
But has she got a decent dot, and is she of our set?"
"Her dot," said Hongray, "will suffice; her family you know.
The girl with whom I fain would splice is Mirabelle du Veau."

What made the Marquis start and stare, and clutch his perfumed beard?
Why did he stagger to a chair and murmur: "As I feared?"
Dilated were his eyes with dread, and in a voice of woe
He wailed: "My son, you cannot wed with Mirabelle du Veau."
"Why not? my Parent," Hongray cried. "Her name's without a slur.
Why should you look so horrified that I should wed with her?"
The Marquis groaned: "Unhappy lad! Forget her if you can,
And see in your respected Dad a miserable man."
"What is the matter? I repeat," said Hongray growing hot.
"She's witty, pretty, rich and sweet... Then- mille diables!- what?"
The Marquis moaned: "Alas! that I your dreams of bliss should banish;
It happened in the days gone-by, when I was Don Juanish.
Her mother was your mother's friend, and we were much together.
Ah well! You know how such things end. (I blame it on the weather.)
We had a very sultry spell. One day, mon Dieu! I kissed her.
My son, you can't wed Mirabelle. She is... she is your sister."

( So broken-hearted Hongray went and roamed the world around, )

By Robert Service

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Rebekah Myers, 'Supplication to Boudicca'

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Cross-post from war_poetry:

Supplication to Boudicca

In Defiance of Oppression -
The Legacy of Boudicca

Free woman
Iceni queen
And queen of our inspiration,
Hear our call.
Through long ages of time
Your sisters call to you,
In this hour of need
We summon you.
Hear us,
Boudicca
Free woman
Iceni queen.
Every chance was given
You cooperated, negotiated
Just as we, your sisters, do —
To no avail
Their way was and is betrayal.
When word came from the west
That the sacred groves were burning,
The groans of the holy trees spiraling upward,
The curses of black-clad Druidesses paralyzing the foe —
You heard,
And cursed injustice and took up the spear.
One by one, their cities fell
And burned, and lay in smoke –
As had their promises to you; full of nothing but hot air.
Centuries have passed, at times with progression,
Of late with regression
Centuries have passed, and still, you stand
A rallying point for all who defy oppression
( We are your kindred )

by Rebekah Myers
10 September 2021

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Sophia C. Prentice, 'Ghost of the Summer Dawn'

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Posted by: duathir.livejournal.com

Ghost of the Summer Dawn

Across the winter sky by night
Orion proudly strides;
The rising moon in silver state
His splendor scarcely hides;
His jeweled belt, his glittering sword,
In brilliancy combine,
Great Sirius and Procyon,
His loyal followers shine,
The Book of books records his name,
Of him the poets write;
From nursery windows, children’s eyes
Greet him with gay delight.

The soft breeze stirs to greet the dawn,
The summer stars grow dim,
When lo, a mystic shape appears
Above the Ocean’s rim.
The form so faintly shining there
No royalty can boast,
Yet with a thrill my heart proclaims,
‘It is Orion’s ghost!”

Alone and pale he trembles there
A moment and is gone,
While radiant couriers of the sun
Announce the coming morn.

Orion, greatest of the tribe
That pace the starry heights.
Ghost of the shimmering summer dawn,
King of the winter nights!

by Sophia C. Prentice
(Published in the magazine Popular Astronomy in April 1924, memorialized Orion’s early morning return.)

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Love Letter from the Afterlife - Andrea Gibson

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 20:23:51 GMT

Posted by: bleodswean

My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before. Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted. I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. I promise one day you will say it too– I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.

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