The neverending A TO Z OF WHATEVER GAME

Edgar Allan Poe - US (1809-1849)



TO THE LAKE

In Spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less -
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody -
Then - ah, then, I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight -
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define -
Nor Love - although the love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining -
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.

Francis Quarles--British (1592-1644)

On the World


The world's an Inn; and I her guest.
I eat; I drink; I take my rest.
My hostess, nature, does deny me
Nothing, wherewith she can supply me;
Where, having stayed a while, I pay
Her lavish bills, and go my way.

Christina Georgina Rossetti - English (1830-1894)

DREAM LAND

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.

Stephen Spender--British (1909-1995)


An Elementary School Classroom In A Slum

Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.
Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.
The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper-
seeming boy, with rat's eyes. The stunted, unlucky heir
Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease,
His lesson from his desk. At back of the dim class
One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,
Of squirrel's game, in the tree room, other than this.

On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare's head,
Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.
Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map
Awarding the world its world. And yet, for these
Children, these windows, not this world, are world,
Where all their future's painted with a fog,
A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky,
Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words.

Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, and the map a bad example
With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal--
For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes
From fog to endless night? On their slag heap, these children
Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel
With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.
All of their time and space are foggy slum.
So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.

Unless, governor, teacher, inspector, visitor,
This map becomes their window and these windows
That shut upon their lives like catacombs,
Break O break open 'till they break the town
And show the children green fields and make their world
Run azure on gold sands, and let their tongues
Run naked into books, the white and green leaves open
History is theirs whose language is the sun.

Rabindranath Tagore - India (1861-1941) Nobel Prize 1913

"I"

I wonder if I know him
In whose speech is my voice,
In whose movement is my being,
Whose skill is in my lines,
Whose melody is in my songs
In joy and sorrow.
I thought he was chained within me,
Contained by tears and laughter,
Work and play.
I thought he was my very self
Coming to an end with my death.
Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him
In the sight and touch of my beloved?
This 'I' beyond self I found
On the shores of the shining sea.
Therefore I know
This'I' is not imprisoned within my bounds.
Losing myself, I find him
Beyond the borders of time and space.
Through the Ages
I come to know his Shining Self
In the Iffe of the seeker,
In the voice of the poet.
From the dark clouds pour the rains.
I sit and think:
Bearing so many forms, so many names,
I come down, crossing the threshold
Of countless births and deaths.
The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,
Embracing past and present,
Dwells in Man.
Within Him I shall find myself -
The 'I' that reaches everywhere

Louis Untermeyer-- American (1885-1977)

Ivory and Rose

Here in this moonlit room, I watch you slip
One shoulder from your dress and turn to me;
A polished statue, flushing to the tip
Of marble fingers gradually.

And, like a ripe moon out of flimsy clouds,
Blossoms the shining fulness of your breast.
These curves conceal, this dear perfection shrouds
A soft, miraculous nest.

Your ivory body pulses as the white
Flesh catches flame and rosy tremblings move
Over this sanctuary of delight,
The last asylum of our love.

Anne Vegter - Dutch (1958-present)

LIGHTNESS OF THE NIGHT

and I was dreaming of something riveting me to night then coffee and crüesli . . .
Although taste suits a word and the name already a mouthful:

is your sleep your way to weigh the beeeeeeeeep*
In hindsight a pity, phrase with rebus. The dream that almost, now

and also not. So the day is turned on, clocking on leaving.
For my little ones, I arrange buns by earth, fingers by mugs.

So much I want the longest wave to throw me against the hardest cliff
and not one part of the body burst away without loss of heat per mg.

The word is massogram.
That is: the taste of yes! zest fully immersed in the solution of it.

Walt Whitman--American (1819-1892)

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up -- for you the flag is flung -- for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths -- for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

I don't think we're going to find an "X" poet...

W B Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I did manage to find an X

Ouyang Xiu -- China (1007-1072)


Deep in spring, the rain's passed- West Lake is good.
A hundred grasses vie in beauty,
Confusion of butterflies, clamour of bees,
The clear day hurries the blossom to burst forth in the warmth.

Oars in lilies, a painted barge moving without haste.
I think I see a band of sprites-
Light reflected in the ripples,
The high wind carries music over the broad water.

And, for the Z...


Benjamin Zephaniah-- Jamaican/British (1958--)

Ride


We first met on a golden night
As the moon radiated love light
On the dock of the bay.
Somewhere between the real deal and an illusion
We lay unapologetically
Stroking each others lack of responsibility.

'I want to be a poet,'
She said looking over the mountain,
'I want to be a hippy,'
She said checking out me natty dread,
'I want to be political,'
She whispered as she admired my scars,
'I may not look it, but I'm really oppressed,'
She said smiling,
Handing me her welfare book.

The sea lassoed the shore
Time and night hovered towards daylight
And bellyfilled foxes sniffed their way home.
She put the blanket over her head
Farted, and fell asleep.

The next time I saw her
She was trying to find The Goddess of Plenty,
Desperately seeking the freeway
And after me money.
'It's different for women,' she said
'We can use men for their bodies
Men do it to us all the time.'
The next time I saw her
She ran over me with her wheelchair.


I chose this topic, so someone else pick the next one.

Hobbies/sports in which you might be killed.


Axe juggling

Bull fighting

Crossbows

Deep sea diving without a helmet

Elephant hunting

Fire eating

Gladiator

harpsichord throwing and catching

Iceberg scalers

Juggling live hand grenades