The Lamb -- William Blake

Guest poem submitted by Daniel Ma:
Here's a submission in anticipation of the coming Holiday season.

(Poem #1405) The Lamb Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life, and bid thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight; Softest clothing, wooly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. He is meek, and he is mild; He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee! -- William Blake

 From 'Songs of Innocence', 1789.

Given the lurid fantasticism that we generally associate with Blake,
here's a little gem that sparkles with simplicity and innocence.  Place
this in contrast, against, say, "The Tyger" (Minstrels Poem #66)

I can never read these lines without strains of "Messiah" running
through my head: "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd, and He shall
gather the lambs with His arm, and gently lead those that are with
young...".

Daniel.

[Minstrels Links]

William Blake:
Poem #26, Jerusalem
Poem #66, The Tyger
Poem #97, The Fly
Poem #368, Auguries of Innocence
Poem #546, The Sick Rose
Poem #771, The Divine Image
Poem #1087, A Poison Tree

An Old Sicilian Song -- Dario Fo

Guest poem submitted by Jayanth Srinivasan :

(Poem #1404) An Old Sicilian Song A woman crossing the square slips in the mud and falls head over heels. Her skirts go over her head She shows her bum The fools laugh fit to burst and shout dirty words The King passes on horseback, the mud makes him slip The fine beast and the King roll on the ground and in his turn he shows his bum through his torn breeches. The fools rush to take off their hats Only a madman across the way seeing this new and unfamiliar face of power can't help laughing his head off. The fools chorus at the top of their voices - so as to drown the madman's laughter- their praise of the great royal bum 'Oh, magnificent cheeks basking in the sun hailed by God, wonderful spheres' The fools, because the King has shit himself, for fear, begin to praise the stink of the noble motion The madman runs up waving a censer and sings Te Deum to the King's shit and plants a jasmine sprig in it. The fools applaud and then by a miracle understand the jape and take up stones and sticks and make to lynch the mocker. But since they know it is great bad luck to kill a madman protected as they are by the pity of St Francis 'the great madman of God' the fools, impotently watch the pantomime of the madman. Later at home, in secret, each one by himself remembers the madman's pantomime and laughs. They laugh till they pee themselves. The fools for a moment forget they are fools but only for a moment because, alas, madmen are few and far between and the fools don't get much chance to see their mad, obscene pantomimes. -- Dario Fo

I'm sending this in as part of the "poems by people more famous for
their prose" theme [ie, some time ago - t.]; the above isn't exactly a
poem by Dario Fo, rather, it's his translation of an old Sicilian folk
song. I found this in the author's note at the beginning of Dario Fo's
"Accidental Death of an Anarchist" (translated into English by Stuart
Hood).

This was my first Fo play - I had to trek to a remote corner of my
university's main library to find the play, but it was well worth the
effort. It's a short play and very easy to read. The play itself looks
at police corruption and at a larger level, the unaccountability of
figures of authority.

Fo's translation of the poem  is crude, common, and vulgar. Just like
the language in the play. Fo's writing was intentionally coarse - tuned
more to suit the proletariat, rather than the cultured. Fo was
attempting to create awareness among the common people, the masses. But
the language doesn't prevent him from conveying a deep message - the
need to question and speak against the establishment if they're doing
something wrong.

The political turmoil Italy went through a decade after  WWII inspired
Fo to write a series of plays and popular prose - to a large extent, the
students and general public of today can't relate to the kind of
political and social mayhem that the 50s and 60s saw. However, thinking
about it, lots of themes from Fo's work are relevant today too - if it's
not police corruption, it's corruption in big business (Kenneth Lay,
etc.) - unaccountability of public figures and public bodies (Bush(I
couldn't resist:)), the CIA leak being handled as an internal
investigation, WMD evidence ...). All this seems to make the poem all
the more relevant.

There are some other nice things about the poem - it reminded me of the
"Emperor's new clothes" for obvious reasons. Finally, I loved the St.
Francis reference.

Jayanth.

As the poets have mournfully sung -- W H Auden

Guest poem submitted by Anustup Datta:

(Poem #1403) As the poets have mournfully sung As the poets have mournfully sung, Death takes the innocent young, The rolling-in-money, The screamingly-funny, And those who are very well hung. -- W H Auden

Haven't contributed something for ages, so thought I would. Came across
this oft-quoted gem while re-reading Auden, and it seemed to resonate
with my current cheerful frame of mind, so here it is. Don't think we
have run it on the group before.

As Thomas has pointed out before, Auden has a curious knack of being
just right at times - of finding just the right word or phrase that
illuminates the idea blindingly. Sometimes, this gives his work a rather
trite feel, like someone who uses his power with the language to play
around with superficial concepts. More often, though, one is simply awed
by the craftsmanship of a truly instinctive poet. Here, for instance, he
uses the somewhat farcical tone of a limerick to explore the human
condition and the death penalty that we are born with. The 'mournful'
poets mentioned in the first line number many - but the lines it reminds
me most of belong to the Rubaiyat -

  The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
  Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

        -- Omar Khayyam
        tr. Edward FitzGerald
        Minstrels Poem #545

The same essential idea, differently and delightfully expressed.

Anustup.

[Minstrels Links]

W. H. Auden:
Poem #50, In Memory of W. B. Yeats
Poem #68, Musee des Beaux Arts
Poem #256, Funeral Blues
Poem #307, Lay your sleeping head, my love
Poem #371, O What Is That Sound
Poem #386, The Unknown Citizen
Poem #427, The Two
Poem #491, Roman Wall Blues
Poem #494, The Fall of Rome
Poem #618, The More Loving One
Poem #677, Villanelle
Poem #708, Five Songs - II
Poem #728, from The Dog Beneath the Skin
Poem #762, Miranda
Poem #868, Partition
Poem #889,  September 1, 1939
Poem #895,  August 1968
Poem #913, In Time of War, XII
Poem #1038, Epitaph on a Tyrant
Poem #1082, Under Which Lyre
Poem #1281, Night Mail
Poem #1298, Miss Gee

There is a detailed biography of Auden attached to Poem #50 above.

Omar Khayyam:
Poem #162, Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Poem #342, Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
Poem #545, The Moving Finger Writes; and, Having Writ
Poem #654, Think, in this Batter'd Caravanserai
Poem #750, Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough
Poem #1354, Ah, Love!, Could Thou and I with Fate Conspire

And finally:
Poem #587, Strugnell's Rubaiyat -- Wendy Cope

Sun-corner -- Tarjei Vesaas

Guest poem submitted by Wendy Waring:

(Poem #1402) Sun-corner At home there's a sun-corner where spring quietly stirs. Dripping all day long. Clear drops from the snow-rim, they reflect both good and bad in their brief fall, and are shattered. The sun is a hot cataract. In that sun-corner, where you were born - it's those drops that should mirror you, and wet your lips, pure from the snow-rim and right into your heart. It's in that faint smell of spring moisture you should fall asleep. That call you should heed. There, everything would feel right. It's all moving downhill. Everything's oozing toward a distant goal, on its way to the sea. An unknown sea inside a dream. All of spring's sorrow is heading there. All thoughts spiral there and then disappear. Your childhood sun-corner is where you are when the call sounds. -- Tarjei Vesaas

The recent posting of a Rilke poem [1] made me think of this fine poem
of Tarjei Vesaas', a Norwegian poet, about whom more can be learned at:
        http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vesaas.htm
I can claim no authoritative knowledge about his work.  I came across
his poetry while trying to find a copy of his prize-winning novel 'The
Ice Palace'.

Wendy.

[1] Poem #1384, Autumn

A Nostalgist's Map of America -- Agha Shahid Ali

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul:

(Poem #1401) A Nostalgist's Map of America The trees were soon hushed in the resonance of darkest emerald as we rushed by on 322, that route that took us from the dead center of Pennsylvania. (a stone marks it) to a suburb ten miles from Philadelphia. "A hummingbird", I said, after a sharp turn, then pointed to the wheel, still revolving in your hand. I gave Emily Dickinson to you then, line after line, complete from heart. The signs on Schuylkill Expressway fell neat behind us. I went further: "Let's pretend your city is Evanescence - There has to be one - in Pennsylvania - And that some day - the Bird will carry - my letters - to you - from Tunis - or Casablanca - the mail an easy night's ride - from North Africa." I'm making this up, I know, but since you were there, none of it's a lie. How did I go on? "Wings will rush by when the exit to Evanescence is barely a mile?" the sky was dark teal, the moon was rising. "It always rains on this route", I went on, "which takes you back, back to Evanescence, your boyhood town". You said this was summer, this final end of school, this coming home to Philadelphia, WMMR as soon as you could catch it. What song first came on? It must have been a disco hit, one whose singer no one recalls. It's six, perhaps seven years since then, since you last wrote. And yesterday, when you phoned, I said, "I knew you'd call," even before you could say who you were. "I am in Irvine now with my lover, just an hour from Tuscon and the flights are cheap." "Then we'll meet often." For a moment you were silent, and then, "Shahid, I'm dying". I kept speaking to you after I hung up, my voice the quickest mail, a cracked disc with many endings, each false: One: "I live in Evanescence (I had to build it, for America was without one). All is safe here with me. come to my street, disguised in the climate of Southern California. Surprise me when I open the door. Unload skies of rain from distance drenched arms." Or this: "Here in Evanescence (which I found - though not in Pennsylvania - after I last wrote), the eavesdropping willows write brief notes on grass, then hide them in shadows of trunks. I'd love to see you. Come as you are." And this, the least false: "You said each month you need new blood. Please forgive me, Phil, but I thought of your pain as a formal feeling, one useful for the letting go, your transfusions mere wings to me, the push of numerous hummingbirds, souveniers of Evanescence seen disappearing down a route of veins in an electric rush of Cochineal." -- Agha Shahid Ali

For Philip Paul Orlando.

The first time I learnt Shahid was dying was in September 2001. As I sat
there shocked at the news (I had no idea he was even ill) I found myself
mouthing the last stanzas of this poem again and again.

Not just because it's a poem of his I love.

Not just because it captures so well who Shahid was, both as a poet (the
conversational style, the formal structure, the repetition of themes and
phrases in endless improvisations, the raw passion of the metaphors, so
redolent of the Urdu he loved) and as a person (his warmth, his sense of
humour, his love for Dickinson, his habit of quoting little gems of
poems with the most bizarre connections).

But because it expresses better than anything I've ever read the
impossibility of finding the right words for the death of a friend. How
each line you come up with is a lie because it's never enough, because
it never says everything that needs to be said. And how in the end, all
words are a betrayal, a way of selling out what we feel to the formality
of the writer's craft. This poem is the most touching I can find to mark
Shahid's second death anniversary (Dec 8th) because it is the most
honest - because it offers not consolation but the search for
consolation, because it throws up its hands and admits that it is not
enough.

Aseem.

[Minstrels Links]

Emily Dickinson:
Poem #92, There's a certain Slant of light
Poem #174, A Route of Evanescence
Poem #341, The Grass so little has to do -
Poem #458, The Chariot
Poem #529, If you were coming in the fall
Poem #580, Split the Lark
Poem #687, Success is counted sweetest
Poem #711, I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Poem #829, It dropped so low in my regard
Poem #871, I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
Poem #891, A Doubt If It Be Us
Poem #950, The Cricket Sang
Poem #1294, The reticent volcano keeps
Poem #1328, You cannot put a fire out
Poem #1337, Ample Make This Bed
Poem #1347, In a Library
Poem #1382, Hope
#174, "A Route of Evanescence", is extensively quoted in today's poem.

Agha Shahid Ali:
Poem #961, The Wolf's Postscript to 'Little Red Riding Hood'
Poem #1129, Farewell