John Ballard (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

John Ballard
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

In the lust of my strength
I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me:
I might as well have cursed the stars.
In my last sickness I was in agony, but I was resolute
And I cursed God for my suffering;
Still He paid no attention to me;
He left me alone, as He had always done.
I might as well have cursed the Presbyterian steeple.
Then, as I grew weaker, a terror came over me:
Perhaps I had alienated God by cursing him.
One day Lydia Humphrey brought me a bouquet
And it occurred to me to try to make friends with God,
So I tried to make friends with Him;
But I might as well have tried to make friends with the bouquet.
Now I was very close to the secret,
For I really could make friends with the bouquet
By holding close to me the love in me for the bouquet
And so I was creeping upon the secret, but– 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

The Village Atheist (by Edgar Lee Masters)

The Village Atheist
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

Ye young debaters over the doctrine
Of the soul’s immortality
I who lie here was the village atheist,
Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments
Of the infidels. But through a long sickness
Coughing myself to death I read the
Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.
And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition
And desire which the Shadow
Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness,
Could not extinguish.
Listen to me, ye who live in the senses
And think through the senses only:
Immortality is not a gift,
Immortality is an achievement;
And only those who strive mightily
Shall possess it. 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Willie Pennington (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

Willie Pennington
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

They called me the weakling, the simpleton,
For my brothers were strong and beautiful,
While I, the last child of parents who had aged,
Inherited only their residue of power.
But they, my brothers, were eaten up
In the fury of the flesh, which I had not,
Made pulp in the activity of the senses, which I had not,
Hardened by the growth of the lusts, which I had not,
Though making names and riches for themselves.
Then I, the weak one, the simpleton,
Resting in a little corner of life,
Saw a vision, and through me many saw the vision,
Not knowing it was through me.
Thus a tree sprang
From me, a mustard seed. 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Willie Metcalf (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Willie Metcalf
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

I was Willie Metcalf.
They used to call me “Doctor Meyers,”
Because, they said, I looked like him.
And he was my father, according to Jack McGuire.
I lived in the livery stable,
Sleeping on the floor
Side by side with Roger Baughman’s bulldog,
Or sometimes in a stall.
I could crawl between the legs of the wildest horses
Without getting kicked–we knew each other.
On spring days I tramped through the country
To get the feeling, which I sometimes lost,
That I was not a separate thing from the earth.
I used to lose myself, as if in sleep,
By lying with eyes half-open in the woods.
Sometimes I taIked with animals– even toads and snakes–
Anything that had an eye to look into.
Once I saw a stone in the sunshine
Trying to turn into jelly.
In April days in this cemetery
The dead people gathered all about me,
And grew still, like a congregation in silent prayer.
I never knew whether I was a part of the earth
With flowers growing in me, or whether I walked–
Now I know. 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

American Wedding (by Joseph Millar) – video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZr4huemGhQ

Video courtesy of PoetryEverywherePTV

Joseph Millar reads his poem “American Wedding” as part of the Poetry Everywhere project airing on public television — produced by David Grubin Productions and WGBH Boston, in association with the Poetry Foundation. Filmed at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.  For more information, visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere.

For more Joseph Millar, visit http://josephmillar.org and check out these titles:

 

Scholfield Huxley (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

Scholfield Huxley
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1 of 33 poems added to the 1916 edition]

God! ask me not to record your wonders,
I admit the stars and the suns
And the countless worlds.
But I have measured their distances
And weighed them and discovered their substances.
I have devised wings for the air,
And keels for water,
And horses of iron for the earth.
I have lengthened the vision you gave me a million times,
And the hearing you gave me a million times,
I have leaped over space with speech,
And taken fire for light out of the air.
I have built great cities and bored through the hills,
And bridged majestic waters.
I have written the Iliad and Hamlet;
And I have explored your mysteries,
And searched for you without ceasing,
And found you again after losing you
In hours of weariness–
And I ask you:
How would you like to create a sun
And the next day have the worms
Slipping in and out between your fingers? 
 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Faith Matheny (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Faith Matheny
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

At first you will know not what they mean,
And you may never know,
And we may never tell you:
These sudden flashes in your soul,
Like lambent lightning on snowy clouds
At midnight when the moon is full.
They come in solitude, or perhaps
You sit with your friend, and all at once
A silence falls on speech, and his eyes
Without a flicker glow at you:
You two have seen the secret together,
He sees it in you, and you in him.
And there you sit thrilling lest the Mystery
Stand before you and strike you dead
With a splendor like the sun’s.
Be brave, all souls who have such visions!
As your body’s alive as mine is dead,
You’re catching a little whiff of the ether
Reserved for God Himself. 
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

J. Milton Miles (by Edgar Lee Masters)

 

J. Milton Miles
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

Whenever the Presbyterian bell
Was rung by itself, I knew it as the Presbyterian bell.
But when its sound was mingled
With the sound of the Methodist, the Christian,
The Baptist and the Congregational,
I could no longer distinguish it,
Nor any one from the others, or either of them.
And as many voices called to me in life
Marvel not that I could not tell
The true from the false,
Nor even, at last, the voice that I should have known.  
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Manowar (by Stephan Anstey)

Manowar
by Stephan Anstey

i started life
in a tall blue glass cylinder

afraid of the air
above

boneless and frigid
i was the only

where there was water
and there was salt

i was alive. i said
nothing. But i hung

on the waves
undulating wildly.

Oh to be so raucous
and alone

again, when the glass shattered
it didn’t matter, that i was jelly

Fish swam past
my arms hanging beneath

imagining an end
to this constant hunger

dragging the threat
of a burning sting

I waited
just for you


* * *

Stephan Anstey is a poet and an artist. As an artist, he is focused on spiritual exploration and the celebration of the individual in mankind’s endless war against an increasingly invasive society. Anstey’s art is primarily a combination of poetry and digital collage, some of which is on display at local galleries. He lives an idyllic life in the historic mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts with his beautiful and beloved bride Ellen and their talented and wonderful children, Emily, a great saxophonist and a classics major at Boston University, and Cameron, an excellent trombonist, and physics and astronomy major also at Boston University.

William Goode (by Edgar Lee Masters)

William Goode
by Edgar Lee Masters
[from Spoon River Anthology, 1915]

To all in the village I seemed, no doubt,
To go this way and that way, aimlessly.
But here by the river you can see at twilight
The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there–
They must fly so to catch their food.
And if you have ever lost your way at night,
In the deep wood near Miller’s Ford,
And dodged this way and now that,
Wherever the light of the Milky Way shone through,
Trying to find the path,
You should understand I sought the way
With earnest zeal, and all my wanderings
Were wanderings in the quest.  
 
 
[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]