Trickle Drops (by Walt Whitman)

Trickle Drops
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving!
O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops,
From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d,
From my face, from my forehead and lips,
From my breast, from within where I was conceal’d, press forth red drops, confession drops,
Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops,
Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten,
Saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet,
Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.



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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.

 

The Hour before Dawn (by William Butler Yeats)

 

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Hour before Dawn
by William Butler Yeats
from Responsibilities [1914]

A cursing rogue with a merry face,
A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
Stumbled upon that windy place
Called Cruachan, and it was as much
As the one sturdy leg could do
To keep him upright while he cursed.
He had counted, where long years ago
Queen Maeve’s nine Maines had been nursed,
A pair of lapwings, one old sheep
And not a house to the plain’s edge,
When close to his right hand a heap
Of grey stones and a rocky ledge
Reminded him that he could make,
If he but shifted a few stones,
A shelter till the daylight broke.

But while he fumbled with the stones
They toppled over; “Were it not
I have a lucky wooden shin
I had been hurt”; and toppling brought
Before his eyes, where stones had been,
A dark deep hollow in the rock.
He gave a gasp and thought to have fled,
Being certain it was no right rock
Because an ancient history said
Hell Mouth lay open near that place,
And yet stood still, because inside
A great lad with a beery face
Had tucked himself away beside
A ladle and a tub of beer,
And snored, no phantom by his look.
So with a laugh at his own fear
He crawled into that pleasant nook.

“Night grows uneasy near the dawn
Till even I sleep light; but who
Has tired of his own company?
What one of Maeve’s nine brawling sons
Sick of his grave has wakened me?
But let him keep his grave for once
That I may find the sleep I have lost.”

“What care I if you sleep or wake
But I’ll have no man call me ghost.”

“Say what you please, but from daybreak
I’ll sleep another century.”

“And I will talk before I sleep
And drink before I talk.”
                                        And he
Had dipped the wooden ladle deep
Into the sleeper’s tub of beer
Had not the sleeper started up.

“Before you have dipped it in the beer
I dragged from Goban’s mountain-top
I’ll have assurance that you are able
To value beer; no half-legged fool
Shall dip his nose into my ladle
Merely for stumbling on this hole
In the bad hour before the dawn.”

“Why, beer is only beer.” 
                                        “But say
I’ll sleep until the winter’s gone,
Or maybe to Midsummer Day,’
And drink, and you will sleep that length.”

“I’d like to sleep till winter’s gone
Or till the sun is in his strength.
This blast has chilled me to the bone.”

“I had no better plan at first.
I thought to wait for that or this;
Maybe the weather was accursed
Or I had no woman there to kiss;
So slept for half a year or so;
But year by year I found that less
Gave me such pleasure I’d forgo
Even a half hour’s nothingness,
And when at one year’s end I found
I had not waked a single minute,
I chose this burrow under ground.
I’ll sleep away all time within it:
My sleep were now nine centuries
But for those mornings when I find
The lapwing at their foolish cries
And the sheep bleating at the wind
As when I also played the fool.”

The beggar in a rage began
Upon his hunkers in the hole,
“It’s plain that you are no right man
To mock at everything I love
As if it were not worth the doing.
I’d have a merry life enough
If a good Easter wind were blowing,
And though the winter wind is bad
I should not be too down in the mouth
For anything you did or said
If but this wind were in the south.”

“You cry aloud, O would ’twere spring
Or that the wind would shift a point,
And do not know that you would bring,
If time were suppler in the joint,
Neither the spring nor the south wind
But the hour when you shall pass away
And leave no smoking wick behind,
For all life longs for the Last Day
And there’s no man but cocks his ear
To know when Michael’s trumpet cries
That flesh and bone may disappear,
And souls as if they were but sighs,
And there be nothing but God left;
But I alone being blessèd keep
Like some old rabbit to my cleft
And wait Him in a drunken sleep.”
He dipped his ladle in the tub
And drank and yawned and stretched him out.
The other shouted, “You would rob
My life of every pleasant thought
And every comfortable thing
And so take that and that.” Thereon
He gave him a great pummelling,
But might have pummelled at a stone
For all the sleeper knew or cared;
And after heaped up stone on stone,
And then, grown weary, prayed and cursed
And heaped up stone on stone again,
And prayed and cursed and cursed and fled
From Maeve and all that juggling plain,
Nor gave God thanks till overhead
The clouds were brightening with the dawn. 


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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.

Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes (by Walt Whitman)

Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

Not heat flames up and consumes,
Not sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air delicious and dry, the air of ripe summer, bears lightly along white
     down-balls of myriads of seeds,
Waited, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;
Not these, O none of these more than the flames of me, consuming, burning for
     his love whom I love,
O none more than I hurrying in and out;
Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same,
O nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds, are borne
     through the open air,
Any more than my soul is borne through the open air,
Wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you.



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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.

 

Adrift! A little boat adrift! (by Emily Dickinson)

Emily Dickinson

[1858]

Adrift! A little boat adrift!
And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
Unto the nearest town?

So Sailors say—on yesterday—
Just as the dusk was brown
One little boat gave up its strife
And gurgled down and down.

So angels say—on yesterday—
Just as the dawn was red
One little boat—o’erspent with gales—
Retrimmed its masts—redecked its sails—
And shot—exultant on! 
 

Chorus Line Up (by Jay Passer)

from Only Human by Definition by Jay Passer
[cover foto by Smith, manipulated by JC]

Chorus Line Up

With piano wire between the ears and
Cap on backwards he won the game.

Thrilled by reward mechanisms, a
Minotaur maze of active contradiction.

The flag waves high and fierce in
Everlastingly fickle company,
Check-out line spirals around the block.

There’s no shortage of flood,
They say one can drown in an inch of bathwater–
Throw that pinup girl a shower cap.

Box seats for the local hanging by lottery,
Second act promises beheading of kings.

Dental floss connecting pacemaker to ignition.

With Modern Warfare ahead by a length
At 10-1 odds
Nobody sleeps tonight.

 
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Jay Passer is the author of ten or so chapbooks, including the newly published At the End of the Street [corrupt press]. A cook by trade, poet by nature and vagabond at heart, he doesn’t own a car but enjoys driving fast. Born in San Francisco in 1965, he loves cats but is allergic to them.

“Chorus Line Up” comes from Passer’s 7th chapbook, Only Human by Definition, available for $6 (includes postage) from Crisis Chronicles Press, 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, Ohio 44111.

Jay Passer — photo courtesy of JP

Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone (by Walt Whitman)

 

Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

Roots and leaves themselves alone are these,
Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side,
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter than vines,
Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the sun is risen,
Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea, to you O sailors!
Frost-mellow’d berries and Third-month twigs offer’d fresh to young persons wandering
     out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form, color, perfume, to you,
If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees.



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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.

 

Running to Paradise (by William Butler Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

Running to Paradise
by William Butler Yeats
from Responsibilities [1914]

As I came over Windy Gap
They threw a halfpenny into my cap,
For I am running to Paradise;
And all that I need do is to wish
And somebody puts his hand in the dish
To throw me a bit of salted fish:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

My brother Mourteen is worn out
With skelping his big brawling lout,
And I am running to Paradise;
A poor life, do what he can,
And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
And I am running to Paradise;
And many a darling wit’s grown dull
That tossed a bare heel when at school,
Now it has filled an old sock full:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

The wind is old and still at play
While I must hurry upon my way,
For I am running to Paradise;
Yet never have I lit on a friend
To take my fancy like the wind
That nobody can buy or bind:
And there the king is but as the beggar. 


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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.

One Sister Have I in Our House (by Emily Dickinson)

Emily Dickinson

[1858]

One Sister have I in our house —
And one a hedge away.
There’s only one recorded,
But both belong to me.

One came the way that I came —
And wore my past year’s gown —
The other as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.

She did not sing as we did —
It was a different tune —
Herself to her a Music
As Bumble-bee of June.

Today is far from Childhood —
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter —
Which shortened all the miles —

And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.

I spilt the dew —
But took the morn, —
I chose this single star
From out the wide night’s numbers —
Sue – forevermore!

Frankie Metro reads at Toxic Abatement, 5 July 2012 – video

http://youtu.be/zSGwoJRK3uI

Frankie Metro reads selections from his chapbook The Anarchist’s Blac Book of Poetry on 5 July 2012 at Viracocha in San Francisisco, California, during Toxic Abatement.  Video courtesy of IAmSammyDesign.

Frankie Metro is the Head Non-Fiction and Associate Fiction editor at Red Fez Publications, where his column “The Left Handed Smoker” runs monthy. He is also The Chemist at the online lit journal The Meth Lab and holds no affiliation with Black Bloc Anarchists.

The Anarchist’s Blac Book of Poetry was published 6/12/2012 by Crisis Chronicles Press. To order, send $7 US to 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, OH 44111.

Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me? (by Walt Whitman)

Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?
by Walt Whitman
from “Calamus” in Leaves of Grass, 1867

Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?



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To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.