“Yes, yes, yes!” yells young Yvonne,
Yelling loudly all day long
Yelling, yowling, yelping, howling,
In the kitchen, on the lawn,
Caterwauling in the hallway,
“Yes, yes, yes!” from dusk till dawn;
Yelling till her mother wonders,
“How long can this noise go on?”
Yelling till her father tells her,
“Yes, all right! Go on, Yvonne!
Do what you wish, do what you want to,
Only please stop yelling so!”
But Yvonne cries, “No, no, no!”
Flying floating free and slow
High or in between or low
Flying’s easy if you try
Take two steps and grab the sky
Flying all last night I found
Air is friendlier than ground
Flying slower than the wind
I took the moonlight in my hand
Flying through the midnight trees
I left the moonlight on the leaves
Flying must have been a dream
But that’s not the way it seemed.
(translated from the German of Ranier Maria Rilke)
As fire lives in the cold matchstick
Before its striking, which when struck
Flicks out white tongues of flame from every side —
So she, within that curious circle, side to side,
Her body quick and hot and bright
Darts out, and back, and dances out again —
And suddenly she blazes up in flame.
Her kindled eyes ignite her hair,
And she with perfect skill whirls up her skirt
Into that swirling pyre,
From out of which, like writhing snakes,
Her naked arms rise rattling, waked by fire.
But then – as if the fire pressed her too close,
She spins it up into a ball – and casts it off,
And spurns it with her heel and with her eye
Imperious it lies, still raging, still alive,
Fueled with itself, and not to be denied –
Till she, unflinching, lifts her face up sweetly
Heavenward, with gentle, loving smile,
And stamps it out with small, firm feet.
Words: my translation of Spanische Tänzerin by Ranier Maria Rilke (ca. 1906) [public domain in U.S.]
Image: Dancer in Pigalle by Gino Severinix (1912) [public domain in U.S.]
Fly sang his death song
All afternoon, mourning sky
Beyond his reaching.
I sweat
in a powerful vision
The white goddess
She play a fast fiddle
She cry shake it
like sweet & hot
scream like a wind
moan like a flood
& we gone rob death!
I watch you
& you all mad with it.
Billy blew a bubble
With a piece of bubblegum.
Betty blew a bubble too.
Baby wanted some.
Baby chewed and Baby blew
Bit by bit by bit by bit;
The bubble grew, and grew… and grew…
Baby wouldn’t quit.
One day Baby’s got to stop
Or else that bubble has to pop.
A crow don’t care
Who knows he’s there.
He caws all day.
Got lots to say:
What’s that?
Who goes?
See that!
Want those!
A crow’s a racket in a tree
For all the world to hear and see.
A cat won’t share
The fact she’s there.
She’ll be where she
Decides to be:
She lies
In wait;
Claws sharp,
Tail straight.
A cat’s a shadow in the grass
You’ll barely notice as you pass.
I saw the cat an hour ago
About the time I heard the crow.
And now I do not see the cat.
And now it’s quiet. Funny, that.
All the sailors lost at sea
Are with the mermaid clan
Enjoying mussels by the shoals
Vacationing in far Japan.
They’ve left their brothers, mothers, lovers
Crying on the shore
For once you’ve heard the mermaids sing
You’ll come home never more.
Thomas Jefferson got squished by a train
Last month. Now the back of his head
Is all smooth, and nobody can remember
If he had a ponytail or regular hair.
Now his motto is just IN GOD
And LIBERTY is smeared out behind him
Smooth, vague, and barely legible.
You can read it only if you already know it’s there.
Reverse, his home’s half-pictured, MONT-something,
Surrounded by noble sentiments half-named:
PLURIBUS. UNITED. FIVE. The rest is gone,
Left on the rails, I guess.
I always heard a coin on the tracks
Could derail a train.
Maybe I just heard wrong. Or maybe
This is a job for Abraham Lincoln.
Bears rarely dance in northern air.
They do not dance much anywhere.
Bears much prefer a quiet lair
And rest and contemplation there.
I think the general sort of bear
Would be astonished and would stare
If any of their kin should dare
To dance about in northern air.
Though some perhaps would nothing care
It might drive others to despair.
Then lucky it’s so very rare.
Bag of Anything 