Diet poems
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Anhelli - Chapter 11
© Juliusz Slowacki
Then the Shaman, having finished the burial of the dead men,
sought him with his eyes ;
and seeing hirn nowhere, went up on the hill.
A Lover's Complaint
© William Shakespeare
FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;
The Old Gumbie Cat
© Thomas Stearns Eliot
I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;
Her coat is of the tabby kind, with tiger stripes and leopard spots.
All day she sits upon the stair or on the steps or on the mat;
She sits and sits and sits and sits--and that's what makes a Gumbie Cat!
all which isn't singing is mere talking
© Edward Estlin Cummings
all which isn't singing is mere talking
and all talking's talking to oneself
(whether that oneself be sought or seeking
master or disciple sheep or wolf)
The Sompnour's Tale
© Geoffrey Chaucer
1. Carrack: A great ship of burden used by the Portuguese; the
name is from the Italian, "cargare," to load
The General Prologue
© Geoffrey Chaucer
There was also a Reeve, and a Millere,
A Sompnour, and a Pardoner also,
A Manciple, and myself, there were no mo'.
Fulfillment
© Dorothy Parker
For this my mother wrapped me warm,
And called me home against the storm,
And coaxed my infant nights to quiet,
And gave me roughage in my diet,
A Ramble in St. James's Park
© John Wilmot
The second was a Grays Inn wit,
A great inhabiter of the pit,
Where critic-like he sits and squints,
Steals pocket handkerchiefs, and hints
From 's neighbor, and the comedy,
To court, and pay, his landlady.
Apologia
© Oscar Wilde
Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?
The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
© Geoffrey Chaucer
But for to tellen yow of his array,
His hors weren goode, but he was nat gay;
Of fustian he wered a gypon
Al bismótered with his habergeon;
For he was late y-come from his viage,
And wente for to doon his pilgrymage.
Some Assembly Required
© Sonia Sanchez
Standing in line at the SuperSave, it all falls
Into place, Princess Di and the aliens and diet
At the Grave of My Guardian Angel: St. Louis Cemetery, New Orleans
© Larry Levis
I should rush out to my office & eat a small, freckled apple leftover
From 1970 & entirely wizened & rotted by sunlight now,
Then lay my head on my desk & dream again of horses grazing, riderless & still saddled,
Under the smog of the freeway cloverleaf & within earshot of the music waltzing with itself out
Of the topless bars & laundromats of East L.A.
Song of the Open Road
© Walt Whitman
1
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
On A Diet
© William Matthews
to the heaven of revisions. Why be
adipose: an expense, etc.,
in a waste, etc.? Something like
the body of the poet’s work, with its
pale shadows, begins to pare and replace
the poet’s body, and isn’t it time?
To David, About His Education
© Howard Nemerov
The world is full of mostly invisible things,
And there is no way but putting the mind’s eye,
Memories
© Rudyard Kipling
"The eradication of memories of the Great War. -SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT ORGAN
The Socialist Government speaks:
THOUGH all the Dead were all forgot
And razed were every tomb,
from Jubilate Agno
© Christopher Smart
let elizur rejoice with the partridge
Let Elizur rejoice with the Partridge, who is a prisoner of state and is proud of his keepers.
"Many in aftertimes will say of you"
© Christina Georgina Rossetti
Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti. Dante
Contando i casi della vita nostra. Petrarca
Love Is Enough: Songs I-IX
© William Morris
Love is enough: though the World be a-waning
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
