Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes entendeth,
Which now my breast, surcharg'd, to musick lendeth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Only in you my song begins and endeth.

To Atthis

© Sappho

My Atthis, although our dear Anaktoria
lives in distant Sardis,
she thinks of us constantly, and

If only we too could discover a pure contained
human place our own strip of fruit-bearing soil
between river and rock. For our own heart always exceeds us
as theirs did. And we can no longer follow it gazing
into images that soothe it into the godlike bodies
where measured more greatly if achieves a greater repose.

Victory

© Adrienne Rich

Suddenly instead of art we're eyeing
organisms traced and stained on cathedral transparencies
cruel blues embroidered purples succinct yellows
a beautiful tumor

The Four Seasons

© Obi Nwakanma

The forest hugs them
carves them into stones,
Etches them into the slow
eastern landscape: rivers, hills
the slow running water,
times broken inscapes…

Crow's Theology

© Ted Hughes

Crow realized God loved him-
Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
So that was proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.

The Triumph Of Achilles

© Paul Celan

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

410. Epigram-Kirk and State Excisemen

© Robert Burns

YE men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering
’Gainst poor Excisemen? Give the cause a hearing:
What are your Landlord’s rent-rolls?—Taxing ledgers!
What Premiers?—What ev’n Monarchs?—Mighty Gaugers!
Nay, what are Priests? (those seeming godly wise-men,)
What are they, pray, but Spiritual Excisemen!