04/05/11

When All My Five and Country Senses See

When all my five and country senses see,

The fingers will forget green thumbs and mark   

How, through the halfmoon’s vegetable eye,   

Husk of young stars and handfull zodiac,

Love in the frost is pared and wintered by,

The whispering ears will watch love drummed away   

Down breeze and shell to a discordant beach,   

And, lashed to syllables, the lynx tongue cry   

That her fond wounds are mended bitterly.   

My nostrils see her breath burn like a bush.

My one and noble heart has witnesses

In all love’s countries, that will grope awake;

And when blind sleep drops on the spying senses,   

The heart is sensual, though five eyes break.

Dylan Thomas

03/05/11

To a Small Boy Standing on My Shoes While I Am Wearing Them

Let's straighten this out, my little man,
And reach an agreement if we can.
I entered your door as an honored guest.
My shoes are shined and my trousers are pressed,
And I won't stretch out and read you the funnies
And I won't pretend that we're Easter bunnies.
If you must get somebody down on the floor,
What in the hell are your parents for?
I do not like the things that you say
And I hate the games that you want to play.
No matter how frightfully hard you try,
We've little in common, you and I.
The interest I take in my neighbor's nursery
Would have to grow, to be even cursory,
And I would that performing sons and nephews
Were carted away with the daily refuse,
And I hold that frolicsome daughters and nieces
Are ample excuse for breaking leases.
You may take a sock at your daddy's tummy
Or climb all over your doting mummy,
But keep your attentions to me in check,
Or, sonny boy, I will wring your neck.
A happier man today I'd be
Had someone wrung it ahead of me.

Ogden Nash 

02/05/11

When Stretch'd on One's Bed

When stretch'd on one's bed
With a fierce-throbbing head,
Which precludes alike thought or repose,
How little one cares
For the grandest affairs
That may busy the world as it goes!

How little one feels
For the waltzes and reels
Of our Dance-loving friends at a Ball!
How slight one's concern
To conjecture or learn
What their flounces or hearts may befall.

How little one minds
If a company dines
On the best that the Season affords!
How short is one's muse
O'er the Sauces and Stews,
Or the Guests, be they Beggars or Lords.

How little the Bells,
Ring they Peels, toll they Knells,
Can attract our attention or Ears!
The Bride may be married,
The Corse may be carried
And touch nor our hopes nor our fears.

Our own bodily pains
Ev'ry faculty chains;
We can feel on no subject besides.
Tis in health and in ease
We the power must seize
For our friends and our souls to provide.

Jane Austen

01/05/11

Happy May Day, everyone!