Kilt Monday!

'Cause, let's face it,

Mondays can be so .  .  .  hard, rough, difficult.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

The Changeling

- Charlotte Mary Mew

  

Toll no bell for me, dear Father dear Mother,

Waste no sighs;

There are my sisters, there is my little brother

Who plays in the place called Paradise,

Your children all, your children for ever;

But I, so wild,

Your disgrace, with the queer brown face, was never,

Never, I know, but half your child!

In the garden at play, all day, last summer,

Far and away I heard

The sweet "tweet-tweet" of a strange new-comer,

The dearest, clearest call of a bird.

It lived down there in the deep green hollow,

My own old home, and the fairies say

The word of a bird is a thing to follow,

So I was away a night and a day.

One evening, too, by the nursery fire,

We snuggled close and sat roudn so still,

When suddenly as the wind blew higher,

Something scratched on the window-sill,

A pinched brown face peered in--I shivered;

No one listened or seemed to see;

The arms of it waved and the wings of it quivered,

Whoo--I knew it had come for me!

Some are as bad as bad can be!

All night long they danced in the rain,

Round and round in a dripping chain,

Threw their caps at the window-pane,

Tried to make me scream and shout

And fling the bedclothes all about:

I meant to stay in bed that night,

And if only you had left a light

They would never have got me out!

Sometimes I wouldn't speak, you see,

Or answer when you spoke to me,

Because in the long, still dusks of Spring

You can hear the whole world whispering;

The shy green grasses making love,

The feathers grow on the dear grey dove,

The tiny heart of the redstart beat,

The patter of the squirrel's feet,

The pebbles pushing in the silver streams,

The rushes talking in their dreams,

The swish-swish of the bat's black wings,

The wild-wood bluebell's sweet ting-tings,

Humming and hammering at your ear,

Everything there is to hear

In the heart of hidden things.

But not in the midst of the nursery riot,

That's why I wanted to be quiet,

Couldn't do my sums, or sing,

Or settle down to anything.

And when, for that, I was sent upstairs

I did kneel down to say my prayers;

But the King who sits on your high church steeple

Has nothing to do with us fairy people!

'Times I pleased you, dear Father, dear Mother,

Learned all my lessons and liked to play,

And dearly I loved the little pale brother

Whom some other bird must have called away.

Why did they bring me here to make me

Not quite bad and not quite good,

Why, unless They're wicked, do They want, in spite,

to take me

Back to Their wet, wild wood?

Now, every nithing I shall see the windows shining,

The gold lamp's glow, and the fire's red gleam,

While the best of us are twining twigs and the rest of us

are whining

In the hollow by the stream.

Black and chill are Their nights on the wold;

And They live so long and They feel no pain:

I shall grow up, but never grow old,

I shall always, always be very cold,

I shall never come back again!

[Batter my heart] (Holy Sonnet 14)

- John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

[To make a prairie] (1755)

- Emily Dickinson

 

  

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee.

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few. 

The Touch

 - Renee Vivien

The trees have kept some lingering sun in their branches,
Veiled like a woman, evoking another time,
The twilight passes, weeping. My fingers climb,
Trembling, provocative, the line of your haunches.
My ingenious fingers wait when they have found
The petal flesh beneath the robe they part.
How curious, complex, the touch, this subtle art--
As the dream of fragrance, the miracle of sound.
I follow slowly the graceful contours of your hips,
The curves of your shoulders, your neck, your upappeased breasts.
In your white voluptuousness my desire rests,
Swooning, refusing itself the kisses of your lips.

To One Hated

- Lucy Maud Montgomery

                                     

                                             Hate is only Love that has missed its way.

Had it been when I came to the valley where the paths parted asunder,

Chance had led my feet to the way of love, not hate,

I might have cherished you well, have been to you fond and faithful,

Great as my hatred is, so might my love have been great.

Each cold word of mine might have been a kiss impassioned,

Warm with the throb of my heart, thrilled with my pulse's leap,

And every glance of scorn, lashing, pursuing, and stinging,

As a look of tenderness would have been wondrous and deep.

Bitter our hatred is, old and strong and unchanging,

Twined with the fibres of life, blent with body and soul,

But as its bitterness, so might have been our love's sweetness

Had it not missed the way ­strange missing and sad ­to its goal.

Best Beware!

I Have No Problem

- Mourid Barghouti

I look at myself:
I have no problem.
I look all right
and, to some girls,
my grey hair might even be attractive;
my eyeglasses are well made,
my body temperature is precisely thirty seven,
my shirt is ironed and my shoes do not hurt.
I have no problem.
My hands are not cuffed,
my tongue has not been silenced yet,
I have not, so far, been sentenced
and I have not been fired from my work;
I am allowed to visit my relatives in jail,
I’m allowed to visit some of their graves in some countries.
I have no problem.
I am not shocked that my friend
has grown a horn on his head.
I like his cleverness in hiding the obvious tail
under his clothes, I like his calm paws.
He might kill me, but I shall forgive him
for he is my friend;
he can hurt me every now and then.
I have no problem.
The smile of the TV anchor
does not make me ill any more
and I’ve got used to the Khaki stopping my colours
night and day.
That is why
I keep my identification papers on me, even at
the swimming pool.
I have no problem.
Yesterday, my dreams took the night train
and I did not know how to say goodbye to them.
I heard the train had crashed
in a barren valley
(only the driver survived).
I thanked God, and took it easy
for I have small nightmares
that I hope will develop into great dreams.
I have no problem.
I look at myself, from the day I was born till now.
In my despair I remember
that there is life after death;
there is life after death
and I have no problem.
But I ask:
Oh my God,
is there life before death?

from: Midnight and Other Poems.