DayPoems: A Seven-Century Poetry Slam
93,142 lines of verse * www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
WHEN Letty had scarce pass'd her third glad year,
And her young artless words began to flow,
One day we gave the child a colour'd sphere
Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know,
By tint and outline, all its sea and land.
She patted all the world; old empires peep'd
Between her baby fingers; her soft hand
Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap'd,
And laugh'd and prattled in her world-wide bliss;
But when we turn'd her sweet unlearned eye
On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry--
'Oh! yes, I see it, Letty's home is there!'
And while she hid all England with a kiss,
Bright over Europe fell her golden hair.
She took the picture from the wall as tears ran down her cheek,
Then showed the picture all around as she began to speak.
"I'm here to tell her story folks, I feel it should be told,
About this girl with eyes of brown and hair with streaks of gold."
"My one and only daughter, who at sixteen years of age,
Just loved to meet up with her friends, to party and to rage.
It filled my heart with happiness to see her so content,
So filled with joy, just loving life and yet so innocent."
"I noticed little changes and told John of my worst fear;
Her grades had dropped quite rapidly while friends she held so dear,
No longer came to visit her; she lived like a recluse.
This once outgoing cheerful girl would say, 'Oh, what's the use.'"
"I sensed the mood swings in her life, though thought it alcohol,
But something far more sinister exacted its cruel toll.
How did she meet this demon? Was it given by a friend?
With offerings of splendid times and fun which would not end."
"This monster is infecting all our unsuspecting youth.
It stole my daughter's future and it hid from her the truth.
It's brazen, lurking day and night for everyone to see,
Attacks the inexperienced and robs them of life's glee."
"This demon is assisted by a predator that's vile,
Who seeks a life of pleasure, one of comfort and of style.
With luring words so honey sweet, without a thought or care;
He preys upon the innocent, our youth he does ensnare."
"Her habit then demanded that she stole from friends and me,
She plotted, schemed and shunned the truth and lied so blatantly.
No longer talked or reasoned for her mind could just not see
The downwards spiral she was on, I watched on hopelessly."
"Then came the hardest moment, when I asked my girl to leave,
As no solution could be found, but how my soul did grieve.
She slept at night in squalid squats and sold herself to score,
Until she lost her will to live. I had my girl no more."
"The note read, 'I am sorry Mum for causing so much strife,
I'm tired of hurting those I love, these drugs control my life.
The prayers I offer go unheard or seem that way to me.
Perhaps now I shall find some peace from life's strange mystery.'"
"That's why I've called this meeting here as you have suffered too
And wondered is there anything as parents we can do.
Let's show this demon that we care, let's set our children free.
No more will they all die in vain. Do you folk all agree?"
Winner of serious-written section of the 2000 Australian Bush Poetry Championships, held at Yarrawonga-Mulwala. Inspired by a true life experience.
To-day I saw the shop-girl go
Down gay Broadway to meet her beau.
Conspicuous, splendid, conscious, sweet,
She spread abroad and took the street.
And all that niceness would forbid,
Superb, she smiled upon and did.
Let other girls, whose happier days
Preserve the perfume of their ways,
Go modestly. The passing hour
Adds splendor to their opening flower.
But from this child too swift a doom
Must steal her prettiness and bloom,
Toil and weariness hide the grace
That pleads a moment from her face.
So blame her not if for a day
She flaunts her glories while she may.
She half perceives, half understands,
Snatching her gifts with both her hands.
The little strut beneath the skirt
That lags neglected in the dirt,
The indolent swagger down the street --
Who can condemn such happy feet!
Innocent! vulgar -- that's the truth!
Yet with the darling wiles of youth!
The bright, self-conscious eyes that stare
With such hauteur, beneath such hair!
~Perhaps the men will find me fair!~
Charming and charmed, flippant, arrayed,
Fluttered and foolish, proud, displayed,
Infinite pathos of parade!
The bangles and the narrowed waist --
The tinsled boa -- forgive the taste!
Oh, the starved nights she gave for that,
And bartered bread to buy her hat!
She flows before the reproachful sage
And begs her woman's heritage.
Dear child, with the defiant eyes,
Insolent with the half surmise
We do not quite admire, I know
How foresight frowns on this vain show!
And judgment, wearily sad, may see
No grace in such frivolity.
Yet which of us was ever bold
To worship Beauty, hungry and cold!
Scorn famine down, proudly expressed
Apostle to what things are best.
Let him who starves to buy the food
For his soul's comfort find her good,
Nor chide the frills and furbelows
That are the prettiest things she knows.
Poet and prophet in God's eyes
Make no more perfect sacrifice.
Who knows before what inner shrine
She eats with them the bread and wine?
Poor waif! One of the sacred few
That madly sought the best they knew!
Dear -- let me lean my cheek to-night
Close, close to yours. Ah, that is right.
How warm and near! At last I see
One beauty shines for thee and me.
So let us love and understand --
Whose hearts are hidden in God's hand.
And we will cherish your brief Spring
And all its fragile flowering.
God loves all prettiness, and on this
Surely his angels lay their kiss.
In what pearl-paven mossy cave
By what green sea
Art thou reclining, virgin of the wave,
In realms more full of splendid mystery
Than that strong northern flood whence came
The rise and fall of music in thy name --
Thy waiting name, Oithona!
The magic of the sea's own change
In depth and height,
From where the eternal order'd billows range
To unknown regions of sleep-weary night,
Fills, like a wonder-waking spell
Whispered by lips of some lone-murmuring shell,
Thy dreaming soul, Oithona.
In gladness of thy reverie
What gracious form
Will fly the errand of our love to thee,
By ways with winged messengers aswarm
Through dawn of opalescent skies,
To say the time is come and bid thee rise
And be our child, Oithona?
I would unto my fair restore
A simple thing:
The flushing cheek she had before!
Out-velveting
No more, no more,
On our sad shore,
The carmine grape, the moth's auroral wing.
Ah, say how winds in flooding grass
Unmoor the rose;
Or guileful ways the salmon pass
To sea, disclose:
For so, alas,
With Love, alas,
With fatal, fatal Love a girlhood goes.
Night is the true democracy. When day
Like some great monarch with his train has passed,
In regal pomp and splendor to the last,
The stars troop forth along the Milky Way,
A jostling crowd, in radiant disarray,
On heaven's broad boulevard in pageants vast,
And things of earth, the hunted and outcast,
Come from their haunts and hiding-places; yea,
Even from the nooks and crannies of the mind
Visions uncouth and vagrant fancies start,
And specters of dead joy, that shun the light,
And impotent regrets and terrors blind,
Each one, in form grotesque, playing its part
In the fantastic Mardi Gras of Night.
Not sweeter to the storm-tossed mariner
Is glimpse of home, where wife and children wait
To welcome him with kisses at the gate,
Than to the town-worn man the breezy stir
Of mountain winds on rugged pathless heights:
His long-pent soul drinks in the deep delights
That Nature hath in store. The sun-kissed bay
Gleams thro' the grand old gnarled gum-tree boughs
Like burnished brass; the strong-winged bird of prey
Sweeps by, upon his lonely vengeful way --
While over all, like breath of holy vows,
The sweet airs blow, and the high-vaulted sky
Looks down in pity this fair Summer day
On all poor earth-born creatures doomed to die.
MORTALITY, behold and fear!
What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within this heap of stones:
Here they lie had realms and lands,
Who now want strength to stir their hands:
Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust
They preach, 'In greatness is no trust.'
Here 's an acre sown indeed
With the richest, royall'st seed
That the earth did e'er suck in
Since the first man died for sin:
Here the bones of birth have cried--
'Though gods they were, as men they died.'
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings;
Here 's a world of pomp and state,
Buried in dust, once dead by fate.
The hills far-off were blue, blue,
The hills at hand were brown;
And all the herd-bells called to me
As I came by the down.
The briars turned to roses, roses;
Ever we stayed to pull
A white little rose, and a red little rose,
And a lock of silver wool.
Nobody heeded, -- none, none;
And when True Love came by,
They thought him naught but the shepherd-boy.
Nobody knew but I!
The trees were feathered like birds, birds;
Birds were in every tree.
Yet nobody heeded, nobody heard,
Nobody knew, save me.
And he is fairer than all -- all.
How could a heart go wrong?
For his eyes I knew, and his knew mine,
Like an old, old song.
UPON my lap my sovereign sits
And sucks upon my breast;
Meantime his love maintains my life
And gives my sense her rest.
Sing lullaby, my little boy,
Sing lullaby, mine only joy!
When thou hast taken thy repast,
Repose, my babe, on me;
So may thy mother and thy nurse
Thy cradle also be.
Sing lullaby, my little boy,
Sing lullaby, mine only joy!
I grieve that duty doth not work
All that my wishing would;
Because I would not be to thee
But in the best I should.
Sing lullaby, my little boy,
Sing lullaby, mine only joy!
Yet as I am, and as I may,
I must and will be thine,
Though all too little for thyself
Vouchsafing to be mine.
Sing lullaby, my little boy,
Sing lullaby, mine only joy!
A cottage small be mine, with porch
Enwreathed with ivy green,
And brightsome flowers with dew-filled bells,
'Mid brown old wattles seen.
And one to wait at shut of eve,
With eyes as fountain clear,
And braided hair, and simple dress,
My homeward step to hear.
On summer eves to sing old songs,
And talk o'er early vows,
While stars look down like angels' eyes
Amid the leafy boughs.
When Spring flowers peep from flossy cells,
And bright-winged parrots call,
In forest paths be ours to rove
Till purple evenings fall.
The curtains closed, by taper clear
To read some page divine,
On winter nights, the hearth beside,
Her soft, warm hand in mine.
And so to glide through busy life,
Like some small brook alone,
That winds its way 'mid grassy knolls,
Its music all its own.
Two charred tomatoes,
scrambled eggs & Irish Bacon
I tear at the spiced pork with my teeth
Coffee and Icewater
Lifting a huge pot full of potatoes
Hymie asks me if I'm jewish
Andy turns up the volume of his songs
The sound of the knife hitting the board