Time poems
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Unto Us...
© Spike Milligan
Somewhere at some time
They committed themselves to me
And so, I was!
Small, but I WAS!
The ABC
© Spike Milligan
'Twas midnight in the schoolroom
And every desk was shut
When suddenly from the alphabet
Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"
Never To Dream Of Spiders
© Audre Lorde
Once the renegade flesh was gone
fall air lay against my face
sharp and blue as a needle
but the rain fell through October
and death lay a condemnation
within my blood.
The Electric Slide Boogie
© Audre Lorde
New Year's Day 1:16 AM
and my body is weary beyond
time to withdraw and rest
ample room allowed me in everyone's head
Making Love To Concrete
© Audre Lorde
An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
Hanging Fire
© Audre Lorde
I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his tumb
The Horses
© Edwin Muir
Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
The Combat
© Edwin Muir
It was not meant for human eyes,
That combat on the shabby patch
Of clods and trampled turf that lies
Somewhere beneath the sodden skies
For eye of toad or adder to catch.
The Animals
© Edwin Muir
They do not live in the world,
Are not in time and space.
From birth to death hurled
No word do they have, not one
To plant a foot upon,
Were never in any place.
Scotland 1941
© Edwin Muir
We were a tribe, a family, a people.
Wallace and Bruce guard now a painted field,
And all may read the folio of our fable,
Peruse the sword, the sceptre and the shield.
Merlin
© Edwin Muir
O Merlin in your crystal cave
Deep in the diamond of the day,
Will there ever be a singer
Whose music will smooth away
Caesarion
© Constantine Cavafy
When I had managed to verify the era
I would have put the book away, had not a small
and insignificant mention of king Caesarion
immediately attracted my attention.....
Nero's Term
© Constantine Cavafy
Now he will return to Rome slightly tired,
but delightfully tired from this journey,
full of days of enjoyment --
at the theaters, the gardens, the gymnasia...
evenings at cities of Achaia...
Ah the delight of nude bodies, above all...
Alexandrian Kings
© Constantine Cavafy
The Alexandrians were gathered
to see Cleopatra's children,
Caesarion, and his little brothers,
Alexander and Ptolemy, whom for the first
Very Seldom
© Constantine Cavafy
He's an old man. Used up and bent,
crippled by time and indulgence,
he slowly walks along the narrow street.
But when he goes inside his house to hide
the shambles of his old age, his mind turns
to the share in youth that still belongs to him.
According To The Formulas Of Ancient Grecosyrian Magi
© Constantine Cavafy
"What distillate prepared according
to the formulas of ancient Grecosyrian magi
which, in bringing back these things,
can also bring back our little room."
Finalities
© Constantine Cavafy
Amid fear and suspicions,
with agitated mind and frightened eyes,
we melt and plan how to act
to avoid the certain
Hidden
© Constantine Cavafy
From all I've done and all I've said
let them not seek to find who I've been.
An obstacle stood and transformed
my acts and way of my life.
Pictured
© Constantine Cavafy
My work, I'm very careful about it, and I love it.
But today I'm discouraged by how slowly it's going.
The day has affected my mood.
It gets darker and darker. Endless wind and rain.
Poseidonians
© Constantine Cavafy
The Poseidonians forgot the Greek language
after so many centuries of mingling
with Tyrrhenians, Latins, and other foreigners.
The only thing surviving from their ancestors
