The Animal State (Imagery, Allegory And Satire)
No earthquake, no thunder, no volcanic eruption
Or even there was not any of other natural calamities,
A sudden loud sound broke out all through the bush
With whizzing, shuddering, cracking, tearing, echoing,
Fear, horror, dark, terror, misery and ill spirits spread
Committing destruction, death in a horrible situation,
Dust, dirt, smoke coiled over the whole atmosphere
The harmless animals are quite perplexed, helpless
They began crying, shouting, running, rushing, fainting
Seeing reddish spots and innumerable torn bodies.
Out Of Feelings
desert sucks upper water to store in the deep
trees, plants, herbs and grasses are about to die
sunshine reflects on mirages there
mirages elude and mislead the travelers,
travelers fall in danger
laughters and howlings heard of monsters;
trees distribute all the productions, yet stand still
to shadow the tired travelers in mid summer
and for creepers or parasites do not fall
Arithmetic
Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your
head.
Arithmetic tell you how many you lose or win if you know how
many you had before you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven -- or five
six bundle of sticks.
Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand
to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and
Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.--Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
The Three Little Pigs
The animal I really dig,
Above all others is the pig.
Pigs are noble. Pigs are clever,
Pigs are courteous. However,
Now and then, to break this rule,
One meets a pig who is a fool.
What, for example, would you say,
If strolling through the woods one day,
Right there in front of you you saw
A pig who'd built his house of STRAW?
The Frog
Be kind and tender to the Frog,
And do not call him names,
As 'Slimy skin,' or 'Polly-wog,'
Or likewise 'Ugly James,'
Or 'Gap-a-grin,' or 'Toad-gone-wrong,'
Or 'Bill Bandy-knees':
The Frog is justly sensitive
To epithets like these.
No animal will more repay
Sailing To Byzantium
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.
Requiem
Not under foreign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
[1961]
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE
During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Sonnet - 3: What Civilization You Do Draw Man!
What civilization you do draw, man!
Enlightening some too little candles,
Beneath centuries' deep darkness is seen
Which is engulfing your own existence;
Humans degrade humans loosing devils
And sins of lust, murder, crimes, corruptions
Wars, violence, greed, hatred, all evils
Are enough to finish all perfections;
Leave me here in this hungry wilderness,
In this ferocious cage leave me alone,
A Stone I Died
A stone I died and rose again a plant;
A plant I died and rose an animal;
I died an animal and was born a man.
Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?
Sekhmet, The Lion-Headed Goddess Of War
He was the sort of man
who wouldn't hurt a fly.
Many flies are now alive
while he is not.
He was not my patron.
He preferred full granaries, I battle.
My roar meant slaughter.
Yet here we are together
in the same museum.
That's not what I see, though, the fitful
Like An Animal
Behind the smooth texture
Of my eyes, way inside me,
A part of me has died:
I move my bloody fingernails
Across it, hard as a blackboard,
Run my fingers along it,
The chalk white scars
That say I AM SCARED,
Scared of what might become
Of me, the real me,
The Crocodile
'No animal is half as vile
As Crocky-Wock, the crocodile.
On Saturdays he likes to crunch
Six juicy children for his lunch
And he especially enjoys
Just three of each, three girls, three boys.
He smears the boys (to make them hot)
With mustard from the mustard pot.
But mustard doesn't go with girls,
It tastes all wrong with plaits and curls.
Love 1 - Love Is All Embracing
Love is all embracing,
Pure and sublime
Which flows and keeps flowing
Like a never ending stream;
From the eternal river,
Pouring out the elixir of love,
Love that gushes out unreservedly,
From each cell of the body,
Through each pore of the skin,
From the depths of the heart,
The Newcomer
'There's something new in the river,'
The fish said as it swam.
'It's got no scales, no fins and no gills,
And ignores the impassable dam.'
'There's something new in the trees.'
I heard a bloated thrush sing.
'It's got no beak, no claws, and no feathers,
And not even the ghost of a wing.'
Fairy Tale
Now this is the story of Olaf
Who ages and ages ago
Lived right on the top of a mountain,
A mountain all covered with snow.
And he was quite pretty and tiny
With beautiful curling fair hair
And small hands like delicate flowers--
Cheeks kissed by the cold mountain air.
Horse
What does the horse give you
That I cannot give you?
I watch you when you are alone,
When you ride into the field behind the dairy,
Your hands buried in the mare's
Dark mane.
Then I know what lies behind your silence:
Scorn, hatred of me, of marriage. Still,
In Memory Of My Feelings
My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent
and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets.
He has several likenesses, like stars and years, like numerals.
My quietness has a number of naked selves,
so many pistols I have borrowed to protect myselves
from creatures who too readily recognize my weapons
and have murder in their heart!
though in winter
they are warm as roses, in the desert
Dance 1 - Mudras
I am a seeker,
A bird soaring high in the sky!
In that moment of flying - - a blissful state in the air,
Where you are free- -full of space,
A vast expanse of azure blue sky!
I move my hands with gestures,
Like ‘Pataka', ‘Mudrakhya', ‘Kataka',
O! Is there a ‘Mushti' of strength?
To break away
From the dwarfed ‘Kartarimukha'!
She Understands Me
it is all blood and breaking,
blood and breaking, the thing
drops out of its box squalling
into the light. they are both squalling,
animal and cage. her bars lie wet, open
and empty and she has made herself again
out of flesh out of dictionaries,
she is always emptying and it is all
the same wound the same blood the same breaking.