Poe:

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow - 
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand -
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?


Emily Dickinson:

I Died for Beauty - But was Scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who dies for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room - 

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?
"For Beauty," I replied -
"And I - for Truth - Themselves are One - 
We brethren, are," He said -

And so, as kinsmen, met a Night - 
We talked between the Rooms - 
Until the Moss had reached out lips - 
And covered up - our names -



This World is not Conclusion.
A species stands beyond - 
Invisible, as music - 
But positive, as sound -
It beckons, and it baffles - 
Philosophy - don't know -
And through a riddle, at the last - 
Sagacity, must go - 
To guess it, puzzles scholars -
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of generations
And crucifixtion, shown -
Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies - 
Blushes, it any see - 
Plucks at a twig of Evidence -
And asks a vane, the way - 
Much gesture, from the pulpit -
Strong Hallelujahs roll -
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul -


Bob Kaufman:

Unhistorical Events

APOLLINAIRE
   NEVER KNEW ABOUT ROCK GUT CHARLIE
   WHO GAVE FIFTY CENTS TO A POLICEMAN
   DRIVING AROUND IN A 1927 NASH

APOLLINAIRE
   NEVER MET CINDER BOTTOM BLUE,
   FAT SAXOPHONE PLAYER WHO LAUGHED
   WHILE PLAYING AND HAD STEEL TEETH

APOLLINAIRE
   NEVER HIKED IN PAPIER MACHE WOODS
   AND HAD A SCOUTMASTER WHO WROTE A SONG ABOUT
   IVORY SOAP AND HAD A BAPTIST FUNERAL

APOLLINAIRE
   NEVER SAILED WITH RIFF RAFF ROLFE
   WHO WAS RICH IN CALIFORNIA, BUT
   BUT HAD TO FLEE BECAUSE HE WAS QUEER

APOLLINAIRE
   NEVER DRANK WITH LADY CHOPPY WINE,
   PEERLESS FEMALE DRUNK WHO TALKED TO SHRUBS
   AND MADE CHILDREN SING IN THE STREETS
 
APOLLINAIRE
   NEVER SLEP ALL NIGHT IN AN ICEHOUSE,
   WAITING FOR SEBASTIAN TO RISE FROM THE AMMONIA TANKS
   AND SHOW HIM THE LITTLE UNPAINTED ARROWS.


Edgar Lee Masters:

Trainer, the Druggist

Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist
What will result from compounding
Fluids or solids.
And who can tell
How men and women wil interact
On each other, or what children will result?
There was Benjamin Pantier and his wife,
Good in themselves, but evil toward each other:
He oxygen, she hydrogen,
Their son, a devastating fire,
I Trainer, the druggist, a mixer of chemicals,
Killed while making an experiment,
Lived unwedded.


Robert Frost:

Fire and Ice

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 ir had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.


Robert Creeley:

Like They Say

Underneath the tree on some
soft grass I sat, I

watched two happy
woodpeckers be dis-

turbed by my presence. And
why not, I thought to

myself, why
not.


Kurt Vonnegut:

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly.
Man got to sit and wonder
Why, why, why?

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land.
Man got to tell himself
He understand.


John Berryman:

Dream Song #14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ouselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.


Langston Hughes:

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

   Does is dry up
   like a raisin in the sun?
   Or fester like a sore - 
   And then run?

   Does it stink like rotten meat?
   Or crust and sugar over - 
   like a syrupy sweet?

   Maybe it just sags 
   like a heavy load.

   Or does it explode?


William Carlos Williams:

The Red Wheelbarrow

      so much depends
      upon

      a red wheel
      barrow

      glazed with rain
      water

      beside the white
      chickens.


Danse Russe

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees, -
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades, - 

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?


cummings:

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

---------------------------------

wherelings whenlings
(daughters of if but offspring of hopefear
sons of unless and children of almost)
never shall guess the dimension of

him whose
each
foot likes the
here of this earth

whose both
eyes
love
this now of the sky

--endlings of isn't
shall never
begin 
to begin to

imagine how(only are shall be were
dawn dark rain snow rain
-bow &
a

moon
's whis-
per
in sunset

or thrushes toward dusk among whippoorwills or 
tree field rock hollyhock forest brook chickadee
mountain.  Mountain)
whycoloured worlds of because do

not stand against yes which is built by
forever & sunsmell
(sometimes a wonder
of wild roses

sometimes)
with north 
over 
the barn


Malcolm Lowry:

Death of a Qaxaguenien

So huge is God's despair
in the wild cactus plain
I heard him weeping there

That I might venture where
The peon had been slain
So huge is God's despair

On the polluted air
Twixt noonday and the rain
I heard him weeping there

And felt his anguish tear
For refuge in my brain
So huge is God's despair

That it could find a lair
in one so small and vain
I heard him weeping there

Oh vaster than our share
Than deserts of new Spain
So huge is God's despair
I heard him weeping there ...

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