Home Medical Dictionary
–Ted KooserThis is not so much a dictionary
as it is an atlas for the old,
in which they pore over
the pink and gray maps of the body,
hoping to find that wayside junction
where a pain-rutted road
intersects with the highway
of answers, and where the slow river
of fear that achingly meanders
from organ to organ
is finally channeled and dammed.
A Soul in Flight
–Lesbia Harford
According to the Script
–Veronica Forrest-Thomson
Encounter with a friend, acquaintance
or just someone in a bar
is merely a pretext to display
your theory of what you are.Absorbed in your own performance
you applaud or criticise,
and only to watch your reflection
do you look into his eyes.Or, if a contrast’s noticed,
it’s to serve as a backcloth
useful for the setting
and to show your costume off.He thought you concentrating
when you were running through
your lines rehearsing gestures
while waiting for your cue.Still soliloquising you said goodbye,
went on, and never knew
that the stranger, the other
had been speaking to you.
In the Evening
–Billy Collins
The heads of roses begin to droop.
The bee who has been hauling his gold
all day finds a hexagon in which to rest.In the sky, traces of clouds,
the last few darting birds,
watercolours on the horizon.The white cat sits facing a wall.
The horse in the field is asleep on its feet.I light a candle on the wood table.
I take another sip of wine.
I pick up an onion and a knife.And the past and the future?
Nothing but an only child with two different masks.
Hap
–Thomas Hardy
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
Climbing Along the River
–William StaffordWillows never forget how it feels
to be young.Do you remember where you come from?
Gravel remembers.Even the upper end of the river
believes in the ocean.Exactly at midnight
yesterday sighs away.What I believe is,
all animals have one soul.Over the land they love
they crisscross forever.
Résumé
–Dorothy Parker
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Visitations, Habitats
–Alvin Feinman
Love Poem
–Donald Hall
When you fall in love,
you jockey your horse
into the flaming barn.You hire a cabin
on the shiny Titanic.
You tease the black bear.Reading the Monitor,
you scan the obituaries
looking for your name.
The right path
–Jacques Prévert
At each mile
each year
old men with closed faces
point out the road to children
with gestures of reinforced concrete.
Original
Le droit chemin
À chaque kilomètre
chaque année
des vieillards au front borné
indiquent aux enfants la route
d’un geste de ciment armé
