|
 Times
and Rhymes for My World of Discoveries
I dream a world where man
No other will scorn.
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn.
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom’s way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day,
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head,
And joy, like a pearl,
Attend the needs of all mankind.
Of such I dream –
Our world!
(Langston Hughes)
***
daddy says the world is
a drum tight and hard
and I told him
i’m gonna beat
out my own rhythm
(Nikki Giovanni)
***
When I was
but thirteen or so
I went into a golden land,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi,
Took me by the hand.
My father
died, my brother, too,
They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetl
In the sunlight gleams.
I dimly
heard the master’s voice
And boys far-off at play,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had stolen me away.
I walked in
a great golden dream
The town street, to and fro –
Shining Popocatapetl
Gleamed with his cap of snow.
I walked
home with a gold dark boy
And never a word I’d say,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had taken my breath away:
I gazed
entranced upon his face
Fairer than any flower –
O shining Popocatapetl,
It was thy magic hour:
The house,
people, traffic seemed
Thin fading dreams by day,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi,
They had stolen my soul away!
W. J. Turner
(Another competition piece)
***
Your ghost
will walk, you lover of trees,
(If our loves remain) In an English lane,
By a cornfield side a-flutter with poppies.
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice –
A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,
Making love, say – The happier they!
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,
And let them pass, as they will too soon,
With the beanflowers’ boon,
And the blackbirds’ tune,
And May, and June.
What I love best in all the world,
Is, a castle, precipice encurled,
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.
Or look for me, old fellow mine,
(If I get my head from out the mouth
O’ the grave, and loose my spirit’s bonds,
And come again to the land of lands,)
In a sea-side house to the further South,
Where the baked cicadas die of drouth,
And one sharp tree – ‘tis a cypress, - stands,
By the many years red-rusted,
Rough iron spiked, ripe fruit o’er crusted,
My sentinel to guard the sands
To the water’s edge. For, what expands
Before the house, but the great opaque
Blue breadth of sea without a break?
While, in the house, for ever crumbles
Some fragment of the frescoed walls,
From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.
A girl bare footed brings, and tumbles
Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,
And says there’s news today – the King
Was shot at, touched in the liver wing,
Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:
-
She hopes they have not caught the
felons.
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary’s saving serves for me –
(When Fortune’s malice Lost her, Calais.)
Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, “Italy.”
Such lovers old are I and she;
So it always was, so shall ever be!
Robert
Browning, De Gustibus (Another competition piece)
***
A piece of
sky
Broke off and fell
Through the crack in the ceiling
Right into my soup.
KERPLOP!
I really must state
That I usually hate
Lentil soup, but I ate
Every drop!
Delicious delicious
(A bit like plaster),
But so delicious, goodness sake –
I could have eaten a lentil-soup lake.
It’s amazing the difference
A bit of sky can make.
Shel
Silverstein
Where the Sidewalk Ends |
