Emotions and Feelings

Halved
The essence of true beauty
Lingers in all-encompassing rainbows
Of your joy and laughter
You hold my hand and smile
As we ensconce ourselves in our world of fire
Our love is all there is
I touch your face
Your gentleness astounds me
I'm held in the honour of your love
Then overnight, the wrold truns suor
mInnIts past the ELevenTHH HouRR
I'M A L N E

Halved
The essence of true beauty
Lingers in all-encompassing rainbows
Of your joy and laughter
You hold my hand and smile
As we ensconce ourselves in our world of fire
Our love is all there is
I touch your face
Your gentleness astounds me
I'm held in the honour of your love
Then overnight, the wrold truns suor
mInnIts past the ELevenTHH HouRR
I'M A L N E

Halved
The essence of true beauty
Lingers in all-encompassing rainbows
Of your joy and laughter
You hold my hand and smile
As we ensconce ourselves in our world of fire
Our love is all there is
I touch your face
Your gentleness astounds me
I'm held in the honour of your love
Then overnight, the wrold truns suor
mInnIts past the ELevenTHH HouRR
I'M A L N E

Feelings
There must be a wound!
No one can be this hurt
and not bleed.
How could she injure me so?
No marks
No bruise
Worse!
People say 'My, you're looking well'
.....God help me!
She's mummified me -
ALIVE!

Feelings
There must be a wound!
No one can be this hurt
and not bleed.
How could she injure me so?
No marks
No bruise
Worse!
People say 'My, you're looking well'
.....God help me!
She's mummified me -
ALIVE!

Feelings
There must be a wound!
No one can be this hurt
and not bleed.
How could she injure me so?
No marks
No bruise
Worse!
People say 'My, you're looking well'
.....God help me!
She's mummified me -
ALIVE!

Contagion
Elephants are contagious!
Be careful how you tread.
An Elephant that's been trodden on
Should be confined to bed!
Leopards are contagious too.
Be careful tiny tots.
They don't give you a temperature
But lots and lots - of spots.
The Herring is a lucky fish
From all disease inured.
Should he be ill when caught at sea;
Immediately - he's cured!

Bazonka
Say Bazonka every day
That's what my grandma used to say
It keeps at bay the Asian Flu'
And both your elbows free from glue.
So say Bazonka every day
(That's what my grandma used to say)
Don't say it if your socks are dry!
Or when the sun is in your eye!
Never say it in the dark
(The word you see emits a spark)
Only say it in the day
(That's what my grandma used to say)
Young Tiny Tim took her advice
He said it once, he said it twice
he said it till the day he died
And even after that he tried
To say Bazonka! every day
Just like my grandma used to say.
Now folks around declare it's true
That every night at half past two
If you'll stand upon your head
And shout Bazonka! from your bed
You'll hear the word as clear as day
Just like my grandma used to say!

A Silly Poem
Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
B or not B?

Villon
They threw me from the gates: my matted hair
Was dank with dungeon wetness; my spent frame
O’erlaid with marish agues: everywhere
Tortured by leaping pangs of frost and flame,
So hideous was I that even Lazarus there
In noisome rags arrayed and leprous shame,
Beside me set had seemed full sweet and fair,
And looked on me with loathing.
But one came
Who laid a cloak on me and brought me in
Tenderly to an hostel quiet and clean;
Used me with healing hands for all my needs.
The mortal stain of my reputed sin,
My state despised, and my defilèd weeds,
He hath put by as though they had not been.

Villon
They threw me from the gates: my matted hair
Was dank with dungeon wetness; my spent frame
O’erlaid with marish agues: everywhere
Tortured by leaping pangs of frost and flame,
So hideous was I that even Lazarus there
In noisome rags arrayed and leprous shame,
Beside me set had seemed full sweet and fair,
And looked on me with loathing.
But one came
Who laid a cloak on me and brought me in
Tenderly to an hostel quiet and clean;
Used me with healing hands for all my needs.
The mortal stain of my reputed sin,
My state despised, and my defilèd weeds,
He hath put by as though they had not been.

Villon
They threw me from the gates: my matted hair
Was dank with dungeon wetness; my spent frame
O’erlaid with marish agues: everywhere
Tortured by leaping pangs of frost and flame,
So hideous was I that even Lazarus there
In noisome rags arrayed and leprous shame,
Beside me set had seemed full sweet and fair,
And looked on me with loathing.
But one came
Who laid a cloak on me and brought me in
Tenderly to an hostel quiet and clean;
Used me with healing hands for all my needs.
The mortal stain of my reputed sin,
My state despised, and my defilèd weeds,
He hath put by as though they had not been.

To My Brother
Give me your hand, my brother, search my face;
Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame;
For we have made an end of all things base.
We are returning by the road we came.
Your lot is with the ghosts of soldiers dead,
And I am in the field where men must fight.
But in the gloom I see your laurell’d head
And through your victory I shall win the light.

Today
This is To-day, a child in white and blue
Running to meet me out of Night who stilled
The ghost of Yester-eve; this is fair Morn
The mother of To-morrow. And these clouds
That chase the sunshine over gleaming hills
Are thoughts, delighting in the golden change
And the ceremony of their drifting state.
This is To-day. To-morrow might bring death,—
And Life, the gleeful madrigal of birds,
Be drowned in glimmer of sleep. To-day I know
How sweet it is to spend these eyes, and boast
This bubble of vistaed memory and sense
Blown by my joy aloft the glittering airs
Of heavenly peace. Oh take me to yourselves,
Earth, sky, and spirit! Let me stand within
The circle of your transience, that my voice
May thrill the lonely silences with song.

Today
This is To-day, a child in white and blue
Running to meet me out of Night who stilled
The ghost of Yester-eve; this is fair Morn
The mother of To-morrow. And these clouds
That chase the sunshine over gleaming hills
Are thoughts, delighting in the golden change
And the ceremony of their drifting state.
This is To-day. To-morrow might bring death,—
And Life, the gleeful madrigal of birds,
Be drowned in glimmer of sleep. To-day I know
How sweet it is to spend these eyes, and boast
This bubble of vistaed memory and sense
Blown by my joy aloft the glittering airs
Of heavenly peace. Oh take me to yourselves,
Earth, sky, and spirit! Let me stand within
The circle of your transience, that my voice
May thrill the lonely silences with song.

Today
This is To-day, a child in white and blue
Running to meet me out of Night who stilled
The ghost of Yester-eve; this is fair Morn
The mother of To-morrow. And these clouds
That chase the sunshine over gleaming hills
Are thoughts, delighting in the golden change
And the ceremony of their drifting state.
This is To-day. To-morrow might bring death,—
And Life, the gleeful madrigal of birds,
Be drowned in glimmer of sleep. To-day I know
How sweet it is to spend these eyes, and boast
This bubble of vistaed memory and sense
Blown by my joy aloft the glittering airs
Of heavenly peace. Oh take me to yourselves,
Earth, sky, and spirit! Let me stand within
The circle of your transience, that my voice
May thrill the lonely silences with song.

To His Dead Body
When roaring gloom surged inward and you cried,
Groping for friendly hands, and clutched, and died,
Like racing smoke, swift from your lolling head
phantoms of thought and memory thinned and fled.
Yet, though my dreams that throng the darkened stair
Can bring me no report of how you fare,
Safe quit of wars, I speed you on your way
Up lonely, glimmering fields to find new day,
Slow-rising, saintless, confident and kind—
Dear, red-faced father God who lit your mind.

To a Very Wise Man
I
Fires in the dark you build; tall quivering flames
In the huge midnight forest of the unknown.
Your soul is full of cities with dead names,
And blind-faced, earth-bound gods of bronze and stone
Whose priests and kings and lust-begotten lords
Watch the procession of their thundering hosts,
Or guard relentless fanes with flickering swords
And wizardry of ghosts.
II
In a strange house I woke; heard overhead
Hastily-thudding feet and a muffled scream...
(Is death like that?) ... I quaked uncomforted,
Striving to frame to-morrow in a dream
Of woods and sliding pools and cloudless day.
(You know how bees come into a twilight room
From dazzling afternoon, then sail away
Out of the curtained gloom.)
III
You understand my thoughts; though, when you think,
You’re out beyond the boundaries of my brain.
I’m but a bird at dawn that cries ‘chink, chink’—
A garden-bird that warbles in the rain.
And you’re the flying-man, the speck that steers
A careful course far down the verge of day,
Half-way across the world. Above the years
You soar ... Is death so bad? ... I wish you’d say.

Their Frailty
He's got a Blighty wound. He’s safe; and then
War’s fine and bold and bright.
She can forget the doomed and prisoned men
Who agonize and fight.
He’s back in France. She loathes the listless strain
And peril of his plight,
Beseeching Heaven to send him home again,
She prays for peace each night.
Husbands and sons and lovers; everywhere
They die; War bleeds us white
Mothers and wives and sweethearts,—they don’t care
So long as He’s all right.

Their Frailty
He's got a Blighty wound. He’s safe; and then
War’s fine and bold and bright.
She can forget the doomed and prisoned men
Who agonize and fight.
He’s back in France. She loathes the listless strain
And peril of his plight,
Beseeching Heaven to send him home again,
She prays for peace each night.
Husbands and sons and lovers; everywhere
They die; War bleeds us white
Mothers and wives and sweethearts,—they don’t care
So long as He’s all right.

The Road
The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass
And halt, but never see them; yet they’re here—
A patient crowd along the sodden grass,
Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear.
The road goes crawling up a long hillside,
All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs
Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they died
Are stretched big-bellied horses with stiff legs,
And dead men, bloody-fingered from the fight,
Stare up at caverned darkness winking white.
You in the bomb-scorched kilt, poor sprawling Jock,
You tottered here and fell, and stumbled on,
Half dazed for want of sleep. No dream would mock
Your reeling brain with comforts lost and gone.
You did not feel her arms about your knees,
Her blind caress, her lips upon your head.
Too tired for thoughts of home and love and ease,
The road would serve you well enough for bed.

The Troops
Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom
Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals
Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots
And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky
Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down
The stale despair of night, must now renew
Their desolation in the truce of dawn,
Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace.
Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands,
Can grin through storms of death and find a gap
In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence.
They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy
Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all
Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky
That hastens over them where they endure
Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods,
And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom.
O my brave brown companions, when your souls
Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead
Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge,
Death will stand grieving in that field of war
Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent.
And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass
Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell;
The unreturning army that was youth;
The legions who have suffered and are dust.

The Rear-Guard
Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.
Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know,
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.
Tripping, he grapped the wall; saw someone lie
Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug.
"I'm looking for headquarters." No reply.
"God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep.)
"Get up and guide me through this stinking place."
Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
And flashed his beam across the livid face
Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
Agony dying hard ten days before;
And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.
Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
Unloading hell behind him step by step.

The One-Legged Man
Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald;
Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls;
A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stalked field,
And sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.
And he’d come home again to find it more
Desirable than ever it was before.
How right it seemed that he should reach the span
Of comfortable years allowed to man!
Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife,
Safe with his wound, a citizen of life.
He hobbled blithely through the garden gate,
And thought: ‘Thank God they had to amputate!’