Counting the Beats ( Robert Graves 1885-1985)

You, love, and I,
(He whispers) you and I,
And if no more than only you and I
What care you or I?

Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.

Cloudless day,
Night, and a cloudless day,
Yet the huge storm will burst upon their heads one day
From a bitter sky.

Where shall we be,
(She whispers) where shall we be,
When death strikes home, O where then shall we be
Who were you and I?

Not there but here,
(He whispers) only here,
As we are, here, together, now and here,
Always you and I.

Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.

Phages

Aren't they really pretty looking

these little flying things ?

Dancing around after sleeping so long

3 billions years old they are 

but forever strong ant young

all different but always the same

hunting that, chasing there.

And cleaning all the shit we've done 

Ho, ho, but you can't see them

never mind !

Phage is the proud name

of these darling mouths 

I invite you, nice dolls, 

so you can, so you will

do it there, do it now

waste no time

eat these mad beasties in us 

Make them pop and pop 

like champagne bubbles 

change us all, body and mind, 

so we can fly and sing 

before the last tide

rises

before the suns

sink

 before love 

dies 

Mijo (2008)

b

Six words stories

Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?
- Eileen Gunn

Vacuum collision. Orbits diverge. Farewell, love.
- David Brin

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
- Joss Whedon

Automobile warranty expires. So does engine.
- Stan Lee

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood




Wasted day. Wasted life. Dessert, please.
- Steven Meretzky

“Cellar?” “Gate to, uh … hell, actually.”
- Ronald D. Moore

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
- Vernor Vinge
 

We kissed. She melted. Mop please!
- James Patrick Kelly

It’s behind you! Hurry before it
- Rockne S. O’Bannon

I’m your future, child. Don’t cry.
- Stephen Baxter

 Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
- Richard Powers


The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.
- Orson Scott Card

Kirby had never eaten toes before.
- Kevin Smith

Rained, rained, rained, and never stopped.
- Howard Waldrop

To save humankind he died again.
- Ben Bova

We went solar; sun went nova.
- Ken MacLeod

Husband, transgenic mistress; wife: “You cow!”
- Paul Di Filippo





Tick tock tick tock tick tick.
- Neal Stephenson



New genes demand expression -- third eye.
- Greg Bear


WORLD'S END. Sic transit gloria Monday.
- Gregory Benford

Epitaph: He shouldn't have fed it.
- Brian Herbert


Heaven falls. Details at eleven.
- Robert Jordan


whorl. Help! I'm caught in a time
- Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel


Lost, then found. Too bad.
- Graeme Gibson


Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin

Bang postponed. Not Big enough. Reboot.
- David Brin



Cyborg seeks egg donor, object ___.
- David Brin

Deadline postponed. Five words enough...?
- David Brin


Death postponed. Metastasized cells got organized.
- David Brin

Microsoft gave us Word. Fiat lux?
- David Brin


Singularity postponed. Datum missing. Query Godoogle?
- David Brin

Please, this is everything, I swear.
- Orson Scott Card





Will this do (lazy writer asked)?
- Ken MacLeod


Finally, he had no more words.
- Gregory Maguire


Commas, see, add, like, nada, okay?
- Gregory Maguire


Corpse parts missing. Doctor buys yacht.
- Margaret Atwood

Starlet sex scandal. Giant squid involved.
- Margaret Atwood

Time traveler's thought: "What's the password?"
- Steven Meretzky

The Speak of Race by Alicia Ostriker

Honey I am one gorgeous permanent wave
of dunebeige yellowgold coalblack European Asian
African force funneled through centuries
of ejaculating ancestors right here to me
said the impure old woman

Absolutely true science informs us
we hybrids are the ones that survive
the endless brutalities of storm and drought
and the rivalry of our peers
said the naturally selected magnificent red tulip

Any tribe keep doing the same
thing with the same folks
they gonna die out soon so procreate like me
with strangers go mix it up
mongrel is powerful said the dog


Alicia Ostriker

The Massachusetts Review

Faces in the street by Henri Lawson

They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone
That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet
My window-sill is level with the faces in the street --
Drifting past, drifting past,
To the beat of weary feet --
While I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street.

And cause I have to sorrow, in a land so young and fair,
To see upon those faces stamped the marks of Want and Care;
I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet
In sallow, sunken faces that are drifting through the street --
Drifting on, drifting on,
To the scrape of restless feet;
I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street.

In hours before the dawning dims the starlight in the sky
The wan and weary faces first begin to trickle by,
Increasing as the moments hurry on with morning feet,
Till like a pallid river flow the faces in the street --
Flowing in, flowing in,
To the beat of hurried feet --
Ah! I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street.

The human river dwindles when 'tis past the hour of eight,
Its waves go flowing faster in the fear of being late;
But slowly drag the moments, whilst beneath the dust and heat
The city grinds the owners of the faces in the street --
Grinding body, grinding soul,
Yielding scarce enough to eat --
Oh! I sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street.

And then the only faces till the sun is sinking down
Are those of outside toilers and the idlers of the town,
Save here and there a face that seems a stranger in the street,
Tells of the city's unemployed upon his weary beat --
Drifting round, drifting round,
To the tread of listless feet --
Ah! My heart aches for the owner of that sad face in the street.

And when the hours on lagging feet have slowly dragged away,
And sickly yellow gaslights rise to mock the going day,
Then flowing past my window like a tide in its retreat,
Again I see the pallid stream of faces in the street --
Ebbing out, ebbing out,
To the drag of tired feet,
While my heart is aching dumbly for the faces in the street.

And now all blurred and smirched with vice the day's sad pages end,
For while the short `large hours' toward the longer `small hours' trend,
With smiles that mock the wearer, and with words that half entreat,
Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street --
Sinking down, sinking down,
Battered wreck by tempests beat --
A dreadful, thankless trade is hers, that Woman of the Street.

But, ah! to dreader things than these our fair young city comes,
For in its heart are growing thick the filthy dens and slums,
Where human forms shall rot away in sties for swine unmeet,
And ghostly faces shall be seen unfit for any street --
Rotting out, rotting out,
For the lack of air and meat --
In dens of vice and horror that are hidden from the street.

I wonder would the apathy of wealthy men endure
Were all their windows level with the faces of the Poor?
Ah! Mammon's slaves, your knees shall knock, your hearts in terror beat,
When God demands a reason for the sorrows of the street,
The wrong things and the bad things
And the sad things that we meet
In the filthy lane and alley, and the cruel, heartless street.

I left the dreadful corner where the steps are never still,
And sought another window overlooking gorge and hill;
But when the night came dreary with the driving rain and sleet,
They haunted me -- the shadows of those faces in the street,
Flitting by, flitting by,
Flitting by with noiseless feet,
And with cheeks but little paler than the real ones in the street.

Once I cried: `Oh, God Almighty! if Thy might doth still endure,
Now show me in a vision for the wrongs of Earth a cure.'
And, lo! with shops all shuttered I beheld a city's street,
And in the warning distance heard the tramp of many feet,
Coming near, coming near,
To a drum's dull distant beat,
And soon I saw the army that was marching down the street.

Then, like a swollen river that has broken bank and wall,
The human flood came pouring with the red flags over all,
And kindled eyes all blazing bright with revolution's heat,
And flashing swords reflecting rigid faces in the street.
Pouring on, pouring on,
To a drum's loud threatening beat,
And the war-hymns and the cheering of the people in the street.

And so it must be while the world goes rolling round its course,
The warning pen shall write in vain, the warning voice grow hoarse,
But not until a city feels Red Revolution's feet
Shall its sad people miss awhile the terrors of the street --
The dreadful everlasting strife
For scarcely clothes and meat
In that pent track of living death -- the city's cruel street.

Henri Lawson

Henry Lawson

Abyss by Katrina Vandenberg

Abyss

If a good love poem requires a little darkness,
how far down can I go? Thousands of feet?
The coelacanth is near, but it's too easy—
the metaphor nettable and clear, the lost
link found, the beginnings of our own bones
in its pelvic fins—and I want to write about love
with depth to hold the unverifiable, the oarfish
that survives with half its body gone.
I want it to hold the giant squid no one has seen
alive, strong enough to scar sperm whales;
sailors have claimed its tentacles unfurl
from the night's water, taking down their mates.
But can such poems survive these confused witnesses?
Can they handle the scanty evidence that surfaces:
the mottled sick and dead, the night-feeding
viperfish impaling victims with fangs
at high speed, its first vertebra designed
to absorb the shock? And how much horror
can this poem sustain before you forbid me to say
some call this love, the hagfish that bores
into the unsuspecting body, rasping
its flesh from inside out? Am I making you
uncomfortable? The pressure at these depths
could crush a golf ball. Are you cold?
Or is it enough to be awed by the blue-
green photophores of the lantern fish, the brief
and brilliant light displays? What the lights say:
I want you. Not so close. I am moonlight;
I am not here. I would eat you raw—
tell me if you want me to stop.
Katrina Vandenberg

The Alphabet Not Unlike the World
Milkweed Editions

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

Knocked Up by Henri Lawson (1867-1922)

I'm lyin' on the barren ground that's baked and cracked with drought,
And dunno if my legs or back or heart is most wore out;
I've got no spirits left to rise and smooth me achin' brow --
I'm too knocked up to light a fire and bile the billy now.




Oh it's trampin', trampin', tra-a-mpin', in flies an' dust an' heat,
Or it's trampin' trampin' tra-a-a-mpin'
through mud and slush 'n sleet;
It's tramp an' tramp for tucker -- one everlastin' strife,
An' wearin' out yer boots an' heart in the wastin' of yer life.




They whine o' lost an' wasted lives in idleness and crime --
I've wasted mine for twenty years, and grafted all the time
And never drunk the stuff I earned, nor gambled when I shore --
But somehow when yer on the track yer life seems wasted more.




A long dry stretch of thirty miles I've tramped this broilin' day,
All for the off-chance of a job a hundred miles away;
There's twenty hungry beggars wild for any job this year,
An' fifty might be at the shed while I am lyin' here.




The sinews in my legs seem drawn, red-hot -- 'n that's the truth;
I seem to weigh a ton, and ache like one tremendous tooth;
I'm stung between my shoulder-blades -- my blessed back seems broke;
I'm too knocked out to eat a bite -- I'm too knocked up to smoke.




The blessed rain is comin' too -- there's oceans in the sky,
An' I suppose I must get up and rig the blessed fly;
The heat is bad, the water's bad, the flies a crimson curse,
The grub is bad, mosquitoes damned -- but rheumatism's worse.




I wonder why poor blokes like me will stick so fast ter breath,
Though Shakespeare says it is the fear of somethin' after death;
But though Eternity be cursed with God's almighty curse --
What ever that same somethin' is I swear it can't be worse.


For it's trampin', trampin', tra-a-mpin' thro' hell across the plain,
And it's trampin' trampin' tra-a-mpin' thro' slush 'n mud 'n rain --
A livin' worse than any dog -- without a home 'n wife,
A-wearin' out yer heart 'n soul in the wastin' of yer life.

Henry LAWSON

A Summer Afternoon by James Whitcomb Riley

A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
Break in crisp whispers at my feet.


My book, neglected of an idle mind,
Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
Affrightedly reviews itself again.


Off through the haze that dances in the shine
The warm sun showers in the open glade,
The forest lies, a silhouette design
Dimmed through and through with shade.


A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie
At anchor from all storms of mental strain;
With absent vision, gazing at the sky,
"Like one that hears it rain."

The Katydid, so boisterous last night,
Clinging, inverted, in uneasy poise,
Beneath a wheat-blade, has forgotten quite
If "Katy DID or DIDN'T" make a noise.


The twitter, sometimes, of a wayward bird
That checks the song abruptly at the sound,
And mildly, chiding echoes that have stirred,
Sink into silence, all the more profound.


And drowsily I hear the plaintive strain
Of some poor dove . . . Why, I can scarcely keep
My heavy eyelids--there it is again--
"Coo-coo!"--I mustn't--"Coo-coo!"--fall asleep!


James Whitcomb Riley
 
à comparer avec la sieste de José Maria de Heredia (Les Trophées)

Meeting and Passing by Robert FROST

As I went down the hill along the wall

There was a gate I had leaned at for the view

And had just turned from when I first saw you

As you came up the hill.  We met.  But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew

The figure of our being less than two

But more than one as yet.  Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.

And all the time we talked you seemed to see

Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.

by Robert Frost (1874-1963) 

The house on the hill by E. A. ROBINSON

 Those on the hill
They are all gone away,

   The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
   The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.

Nor is there one to-day
   To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.

Why is it then we stray
   Around the sunken sill?
They are all gone away,

And our poor fancy-play
   For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay
   In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

A winter night by Tomas TRANSTROEMER

The storm puts its mouth to the house
and blows to get a tone.
I toss and turn, my closed eyes
reading the storm's text.

The child's eyes grow wide in the dark
and the storm howls for him.
Both love the swinging lamps;
both are halfway towards speech.

The storm has the hands and wings of a child.
Far away, travellers run for cover.
The house feels its own constellation of nails
holding the walls together.

The night is calm in our rooms,
where the echoes of all footsteps rest
like sunken leaves in a pond,
but the night outside is wild.

A darker storm stands over the world.
It puts its mouth to our soul
and blows to get a tone. We are afraid
the storm will blow us empty.

  (Text of the poem in the original Swedish)
Tomas Tranströmer
translated from the Swedish by Robin Robertson

The Deleted World
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The wereman by Margaret Atwood

My husband walks in the frosted field
an X, a concept
defined against a blank;
he swerves, enters the forest
and is blotted out.

Unheld by my sight
what does he change into
what other shape
blends with the under,
growth, wavers across the pools
is camouflaged from the listening
swamp animals

At noon he will
return; or it may be
only my idea of him
I will find returning
with him hiding behind it.

He may change me also
with the fox eye, the owl
eye, the eightfold
eye of the spider

I can't think
what he will see
when he opens the door


extrait de The Journals of Susanna MOODIE
by Margaret Atwood 
chez Bloomsbury Publishing 
isbn 0-7475 3721 6 

Globule by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

To be transparent, to contain the world,

To be jellyfish, lucent, mobile, membraned,

Boneless behold me, my mica bits

Expensive steel suspended in my substance,

Afloat in floodwater, swinging shoreward,

Ebbing oceanward, clockless among quick fishes

Striped, sported,

Speckled, stippled

Swishing between braincoral cobbles

Granulated brine, ever in motion.

II

From plate tinted a shell’s hard innerness,

Cerise bleeds, leads chilly dawn.

Sunlight struggles downward through wavelets

Near the sound’s warm surface, visible even

From the cliffs of cottages, it pushes relentlessly

Finding us, feeding us, diatoms, sea-lace,

Anemones, kelp. Breathing in our beds,

Bright sunlight sustains us, formidable father,

We who are oblivious, maybe immortal,

Then softens, slants, abruptly dips. There’s darkness.

Brutally cold, the boom of surf unheard,

Over pocked sand, purely indifference,

Rock ridges ready to razor tenderness

Seawater keeps moving forgetfully.

III

Now on the surface moonlight rests like ice

And the far sky blinks its pointed messages,

Pointless to me, about matter’s beginnings-

Membranous, shapeless, rocking undersea,

Both a thing contained and container of mystery,

Smoothness inside of smoothness, cold in cold,

Wishing only to be as I am, transparent,

Textured fleck afloat in a wet world. 

The Crack in Everything (1996) 
page 170-171

in The Little Space 

by Alicia Suskin OSTRIKER 

isbn 0-8229-5680-2