Category Archives: Poetry

Poetry 47: The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats

Poetry, Practice, The Arts,

Topsell-manticore-engraving

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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Poetry 46: From far, from eve and morning by A. E. Housman

Poetry, Practice, The Arts,

sky-414198_640

From far, from eve and morning

And yon twelve-winded sky,

The stuff of life to knit me

Blew hither: here am I.

 

Now—for a breath I tarry            

Nor yet disperse apart—

Take my hand quick and tell me,

What have you in your heart.

 

Speak now, and I will answer;      

How shall I help you, say;

Ere to the wind’s twelve quarters

I take my endless way.

 

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Poetry 45: In a large Greek Colony, 200 B.C. by CP Cavafy

Poetry, Practice, The Arts,

ancientGreece

That things in the Colony aren’t what they should be

no one can doubt any longer,

and though in spite of everything we do to move forward,

maybe, as more than a few believe – the time has come

to bring in a Political Reformer.

 

But here’s the problem, here’s the rub:

they make a tremendous fuss

about everything, these Reformers

(What a relief it would be

If they were never needed.) They probe everywhere,

question the smallest detail,

and right away think up radical changes

that demand immediate execution.

 

Also, they have a liking for sacrifice:

Get rid of that property;

your owning it is risky:

properties like those are what ruin colonies.

Get rid of that income,

and the other connected with it,

and this third, as a natural consequence:

they are substantial, but it can’t be helped-

the responsibility they create is damaging.

 

And as they proceed with their investigation,

they find an endless number of useless things to eliminate –

things that are, however, difficult to get rid of.

 

And when, all being well, they finish the job,

every detail now diagnosed and sliced away,

and they retire (also taking the wages due to them),

it’s a wonder anything’s left at all

after such surgical efficiency.

 

Maybe the moment hasn’t arrived yet.

Let’s not be too hasty: haste is a dangerous thing.

Untimely measures bring repentance.

Certainly, and unhappily, many things in the Colony are absurd.

But is there anything human without some fault?

And after all, you see, we do move forward.

 

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Poetry 43: An Old Man by C.P. Cavafy

Poetry, Practice, The Arts,

sadOldMan

At the noisy end of the café, head bent
over the table, an old man sits alone,
a newspaper in front of him.

And in the miserable banality of old age
he thinks how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strength, and wit, and looks.

He knows he’s very old now: sees it, feels it.
yet it seems he was young just yesterday.
the time’s gone by so quickly, gone by so quickly.

And he thinks how Discretion fooled him,
how he always believed, so stupidly,
that cheat who said: “Tomorrow. You have plenty of time.”

He remembers impulses bridled, the joy
he sacrificed. Every chance he lost
now mocks his brainless prudence.

But so much thinking, so much remembering
makes the old many dizzy. He falls asleep,
his head resting on the café table.

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Poetry 42: One Robe, One Bowl – The Zen Poetry of Ryokan

Poetry, Practice, The Arts,

Ryokan

First days of spring – blue sky, bright sun,
Everything is gradually becoming fresh and green
Carrying my bowl, I walk slowly to the village,
The children, surprised to see me,
Joyfully crowd about, bringing
My begging trip to an end at the temple gate,
I place my bowl on top of a white rock and
Hang my sack from the branch of a tree,
Here we play with the wild grasses and throw a ball,
For a time, I play catch while the children sing;
Then it is my turn.
Playing like this, here and there, I have forgotten the time,
Passers-by point and laugh at me, asking,
“What is the reason for such foolishness?”
No answer I give, only a deep bow;
Even if I replied, they would not understand
Look around! There is nothing besides this.

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