Hopes, Dreams, and just a Smidgin of Angst

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Phenomenal Young Women Of The Web

Hopes, Dreams, and just a Smidgen of Angst

I Am A Proud Member Of:

Phenomenal Women Of The Web

Okay. I decided that since I have amassed an amalgam of literary stuff here, and plan to put more up that I should centralize it. You know, give it it's own page. So here it is. Among my literary canon is some poetry of my own, some song lyrics I wrote, a page about one of my absolute favorite poets, Margaret Atwood, a bunch of poetry I've translated from Spanish because it's really good and is rarely translated into English, and an essay I wrote. Plus soon to come are some of my other favorite poems. What follows is a detailed outline of links to all of this stuff, as well as some worthwhile links to other writing/literature sites that I strongly recommend to you who reads this, because if you've stumbled onto this page, chances are you are lucky (whether its good or bad is up to you) or have been wandering around literary pages. And something I'm now instituting, the Poem of the Arbitrary Time Period Right now, it's Margaret Atwood's Variations on the Word Sleep.

The Aforementioned Detailed Outline

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Poem of the Arbitrary Time Period

Varitions on the Word Sleep

by Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

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Postcard

by Margaret Atwood

I'm thinking about you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured Coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
& their tracks; birds, blue & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, it's called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
IN the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by mayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's a race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.

Outside the window
they're building a damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time I saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.

Taken from Atwood's True Stories Copyright 1981 by Margaret Atwood

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The Wanderer

by Zoë Akins
The ships are lying in the bay,
The gulls are swinging round their spars,
My soul as eagerly as they
Desires the margin of the stars.

So much do I love wandering,
So much I love the sea and sky,
That it will be a piteous thing
In one small grave to lie.

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Against Still Life

by Margaret Atwood
Orange in the middle of a table:

It isn't enough
to walk around it
at a distance, saying
it's an orange:
nothing to do
with us, nothing
else: leave it alone

I want to pick it up
in my hand
I want to peel the
skin off; I want
more to be said to me
than just Orange:
want to be told
everything it has to say
And you, sitting across
the table, at a distance, with
your smile contained, and like the orange
in the sun: silent:

Your silence
isn't enough for me
now, no matter with what
contentment you fold
your hands together; I want
anything you can say
in the sunlight:
stories of your various
childhoods, aimless journeyings,
your loves; your articulate
skeleton; your posturings; your lies.

These orange silences
(sunlight and hidden smile)
make me want to
wrench you into saying;
now I'd crack your skull
like a walnut, split it like a pumpkin
to make you talk, or get
a look inside

But quietly:
if I take the orange
with care enough and hold it
gently

I may find
an egg
a sun
an orange moon
perhaps a skull; center
of all energy
resting in my hand

can change it to
whatever I desire
it to be

and you, man, orange afternoon
lover, wherever
you sit across from me
(tables, trains, buses)

if I watch
quietly enough
and long enough

at last, you will say
(maybe without speaking)

(there are mountains
inside your skull
garden and chaos, ocean
and hurricane; certain
corners of rooms, portraits
of great grandmothers, curtains
of a particular shade;
your deserts; your private
dinosaurs; the first
woman)

all I need to know
tell me
everything
just as it was
from the beginning.

Taken from Atwood's The Circle Game copyright 1966 by Margaret Atwood

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Eight People on A Golf Course And
One Bird of Freedom Flying Over

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The phoenix flies higher & higher
above eight elegant people on a golf course
who have their heads stuck in the sands
of a big trap
One man raises his head and shouts
I am President of Earth. I rule.
You elected me, heh-heh. Fore!
A second man raises his head.
I am King of the Car.
The car is my weapon. I drive all before me.
Ye shall have no other gods.
Watch out. I'm coming through.
A third raises his head out of the sand.
I run a religion. I am your spiritual head.
Never mind which religion.
I drive a long ball. Bow down and putt.
A fourth raises his head in the bunker.
I am the General. I have tanks to conquer deserts.
And my tank shall not want. I'm thirsty.
We play Rollerball. I love Arabs.
A fifth raises his head and opens his mouth.
I am Your Master's Voice.
I rule newsprint, I rule airwaves, long & short.
We bend minds. We make reality to order.
Mind Fuck Incorporated.
Satire becomes reality, reality satire.
Man the Cosmic Joke. Et cetera.
A sixth man raises his gold bald head.
I'm your friendly multinational banker.
I chew cigars rolled with petro-dollars.
We're above nations. We control the control.
I'll eat you all in the end.
I work on margins. Yours.
A woman raises he head higher than anyone.
I amd the Little Woman. I'm the Tender Warrior
who votes like her husband. Who took my breasts.
A final figure raises, carrying all the clubs.
Stop or I'll shoot a hole-in-one.
I'm the Cheif of All Police. I eat meat. We know the enemy. You better believe it.
We're watching all you paranoids. Go ahead & laugh.
You're all in the computer. We've got all
your numbers. Except one
unidentified flying asshole.
One the radar screen.
Some dumb bird.
Every time I shoot it down
it rises.

Taken from Ferlinghetti's Who Are We Now? copyright 1974 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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