Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Haunted House Continued...

Nothing to and nothing to hear!
Only across the inner sky
The wing of a shadowy thought flits by,
Vague and featureless, faceless, drear - 
Only a thinness to catch the eye:
Is it a dim foreboding unborn,
Or a buried memory, wasted and worn
As the fading frost of a wintry sigh?
Anon I shall have it! - anon! - it draws nigh!
A night when  - a something it was took place
That drove the blood from the scared moon-face!
Hark! was that the cry of a goat, 
Or the gurgle of water in a throat?
Hush! there is nothing to see or hear,
Only a silent something is near;
No knock, no footsteps three or four,
Only a presence outside the door!
See! the moon is remembering - what?
The wail of a mother-left, lie-alone brat?
Or a raven sharpening its beak to peck?
Or a cold blue knife and a warm white neck?
Or only a heart that burst and ceased 
For a man that went away released?
I know not - know not, but something is coming
Somehow back with an inward humming.

Ha! Look there! Look at that house - 
Forsaken of all things - beetle and mouse!
Mark how it looks! It must have a soul!
It looks, it looks, though it cannot stir;
See the ribs of it - how they stare!
Its blind eyes yet have a seeing air!
It knows it has a soul!
Haggard it hangs o'er the slimy pool
And gapes wide open as corpses gape:
It is the very murderer!
The ghost has modeled himself to the shape
Of this drear house all sodden with woe,
Where the deed was done long, long ago,
And filled with himself his new body full -
To haunt for ever his ghastly crime,
And see it come and go - 
Brooding around it like motionless time,
With a mouth that gapes, and eyes that yawn
Blear and blintering and full of the moon,
Like one aghast at a hellish dawn.
- It is coming, coming soon!

For, ever and always, when round the tune
Grinds on the barrel of organ-Time,
The deed is done; - and it comes anon - 
True to the roll of the clock-faced moon,
True to the ring of the spheric chime,
True to the cosmic rhythm and rime; 
Every point, as it first went on,
Will come and go till all is gone;
And palsied with horror from garret to core,
The house cannot shut its gaping door;
Its burst eye stares as if trying to see,
And it leans as it settling heavily,
Settling heavy with sickness dull:
It also is hearing the soundless humming
Of the wheel that is turning - the thing that is coming.
On the naked rafters of its brain,
Gaunt and wintred, see the train
Of gossiping, scandal-mongering crows,
That watch, all silent, with necks a-strain,
Wickedly knowing, with heads awry,
And the sharpened gleam of a cunning eye -
Watch, through the cracks of the ruined skull,
How the evil business goes!
- Beyond the eyes of the cherubim,
Beyond the ears of the seraphim, 
Outside, forsaken, in the dim
Phantom-haunted chaos grim,
He stands with the deed going on in him!  

...to be continued...

Monday, September 15, 2008

Day 7: The Haunted House by George MacDonald.

Since this is a rather lengthy poem that is difficult to read in one sitting and more difficult and time-consuming to type all at once, I will be posting it segments. I encourage you to read the entire poem, as I continue to post, for its spiritual insight and profundity, as well as for its display of poetic skill. I am accompanying the poem with  a quote by MacDonald that I believe alludes to the underlying message or theme of the poem itself and lends it, perhaps, greater significance. 

"It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart's choice." 

The Haunted House (1883)

This must be the very night!
The moon knows it! - and the trees -
They stand straight upright,
Each a sentinel drawn up,
As if they dared not know
Which way the wind might blow!
The very pool, with dead gray eye,
Dully expectant, feels it nigh,
And begins to curdle and freeze!
And the dark night,
With its fringe of light,
Holds the secret in its cup. 

What can it be, to make
The poplars cease to shiver and shake,
And up in the dismal air
Stand straight and stiff as the human hair
When the human soul is dizzy with dread - 
All but those two that strain
Aside in a frenzy of speechless pain,
Though never a wind sends out a breath
To tunnel the foggy rheum of death?
What can it be has power to scare
The full grown moon to the idiot stare
Of a blasted eye in the midnight air?
Something has gone wrong;
A scream will come tearing out ere long!

Still as death,
Although I listen with bated breath!
Yet something is coming, I know - is coming;
With an inward soundless humming ,
Somewhere in me or in the air - 
I cannot tell -  but its foot is there!
Marching on to an unheard drumming,
Something is coming - coming - 
Growing and coming;
And the moon is aware;
Aghast in the air
At the thing that is only coming, 
With an inward soundless humming,
And an unheard spectral drumming!

....to be continued...

Friday, September 12, 2008

Day 6: When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause
in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Day 4 - l(a by e.e. cummings (1958); Day 5 - On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour by John Keats (1795-1821)

l(a

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness

On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap'd up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending:
'Tis not content so soon to be alone.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Day 3: The Calvinist by Conrad Hilberry (1928)

The Calvinist

I like to think words go
their own way - like waterspout
or sleep or Aztec soup - but
in the chamber just behind

my tongue a Calvinist
sits at a thin-legged desk,
interjecting, editing. He
adds his touch, wrapping

a small message around the leg
of each pigeon as it comes
from the dovecote. The words
fly out, clattering white

against the sky, circling,
flashing in the sun like bits
of torn paper. But then
they feel the compass-pull,

feel the slight weight
of the message on their legs
and in a ragged line
head for home. 

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Day Two: Gary Snyder - How Poetry Comes to Me (1992)

How Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light

Thursday, September 4, 2008

A Week of Poetry. Day 1: Mary Oliver - Mindful

In commemoration of something, anything. (I have yet to decide exactly what) How about: in commemoration of the fact that giraffes display unusually long and beautiful necks and that people are simultaneously being born and are dying, even as I type this, I have decided that everyday, for the next 6-7 days, I will post a poem, written by someone other than me, that I have not yet familiarized myself with. My first choice happens to be a poem from Mary Oliver. And her poem, written in 2004, is entitled, "Mindful". I hope you enjoy it like I have enjoyed it so far. I don't know why I decided to start this on a Thursday night...

Mindful

Every day
I see or I hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for - 
to look, to listen

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy, 
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking 
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant - 
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these - 
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?