Penguin's Poems for Life

by Laura Barber

Spend my whole day in the quest, – who cares?

  But ’tis twilight, you see, – with such suites to explore,

  Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

  ROBERT CRAWFORD

  Home

  Has canary-yellow curtains, so expensive

  At certain times they become unaffordable,

  Cost too much patience. A cartoon voice:

  ‘I’m leaving, Elmer.’ That’s home also, sometimes;

  The Eden a person can’t go back to. Still…

  If you don’t leave it, it’s only a world;

  If you never return, just a place like any other.

  Home isn’t in the Blue Guide, the A–Z

  I only need for those ten thousand streets

  Not one of which has Alice Wales in it.

  At home you bolt on the new pine headboard,

  Crying. You build from your tears

  A hydroponicum; bitter-sweet nutrition

  Becomes the address we ripen in like fruit

  No one thought would grow here. Home

  Is where we hang up our clothes and surnames

  Without thought. Home is the instruction: dream

  home.

  An architecture of faint clicks, and smells that

  haven’t yet quite.

  We grow old in it. Like children, it keeps us young,

  Every evening being twenty-one again

  With the key in the door, coming back from the

  library

  You’re shouting upstairs to me, telling me what

  you are

  In the simplest of words, that I want you to go on

  repeating

  Like a call-sign. You are shouting, ‘I’m home.’

  GRACE NICHOLS

  Like a Beacon

  In London

  every now and then

  I get this craving

  for my mother’s food

  I leave art galleries

  in search of plantains

  saltfish/sweet potatoes

  I need this link

  I need this touch

  of home

  swinging my bag

  like a beacon

  against the cold

  A. K. RAMANUJAN

  Self-Portrait

  I resemble everyone

  but myself, and sometimes see

  in shop-windows,

  despite the well-known laws

  of optics,

  the portrait of a stranger,

  date unknown,

  often signed in a corner

  by my father.

  ROBERT HAYDEN

  Those Winter Sundays

  Sundays too my father got up early

  and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

  then with cracked hands that ached

  from labor in the weekday weather made

  banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

  I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

  When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

  and slowly I would rise and dress,

  fearing the chronic angers of that house,

  Speaking indifferently to him,

  who had driven out the cold

  and polished my good shoes as well.

  What did I know, what did I know

  of love’s austere and lonely offices?

  DILIP CHITRE

  Father Returning Home

  My father travels on the late evening train

  Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light

  Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes

  His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat

  Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books

  Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age

  Fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.

  Now I can see him getting off the train

  Like a word dropped from a long sentence.

  He hurries across the length of the grey platform.

  Crosses the railway line, enters the lane,

  His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries

  onward.

  Home again, I see him drinking weak tea,

  Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.

  He goes into the toilet to contemplate

  Man’s estrangement from a man-made world.

  Coming out he trembles at the sink,

  The cold water running over his brown hands,

  A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.

  His sullen children have often refused to share

  Jokes and secrets with him. He will now go to sleep

  Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming

  Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking

  Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow

  pass.

  VINCENT BUCKLEY

  from Stroke

  VII

  At the merest handshake I feel his blood

  Move with the ebb-tide chill. Who can revive

  A body settled in its final mood?

  To whom, on what tide, can we move, and live?

  Later I wheel him out to see the trees:

  Willows and oaks, the small plants he mistakes

  For rose bushes; and there

  In the front, looming, light green, cypresses.

  His pulse no stronger than the pulse of air.

  Dying, he grows more tender, learns to teach

  Himself the mysteries I am left to trace.

  As I bend to say ‘Till next time’, I search

  For signs of resurrection in his face.

  ELIZABETH JENNINGS

  One Flesh

  Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,

  He with a book, keeping the light on late,

  She like a girl dreaming of childhood,

  All men elsewhere – it is as if they wait

  Some new event: the book he holds unread,

  Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.

  Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,

  How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,

  Or if they do it is like a confession

  Of having little feeling – or too much.

  Chastity faces them, a destination

  For which their whole lives were a preparation.

  Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,

  Silence between them like a thread to hold

  And not wind in. And time itself’s a feather

  Touching them gently. Do they know they’re old,

  These two who are my father and my mother

  Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?

  ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA

  The Unequal Fetters

  Cou’d we stop the time that’s flying

  Or recall it when ’tis past

  Put far off the day of Dying

  Or make Youth for ever last

  To Love wou’d then be worth our cost.

  But since we must lose those Graces

  Which at first your hearts have won

  And you seek for in new Faces

  When our Spring of Life is done

  It wou’d but urge our ruin on

  Free as Nature’s first intention

  Was to make us, I’ll be found

  Nor by subtle Man’s invention

  Yield to be in Fetters bound

  By one that walks a freer round.

  Marriage does but slightly tie Men

  Whil’st close Pris’ners we remain

  They the larger Slaves of Hymen

  Still are begging Love again

  At the full length of all their chain.

  CHARLOTTE MEW

  The Farmer’s Bride

  Three Summers since I chose a maid –

  Too young maybe – but more’s to do

  At harvest-time than bide and woo.

  When us was wed she turned afraid

  Of love an
d me and all things human;

  Like the shut of a winter’s day

  Her smile went out, and ’twasn’t a woman –

  More like a little frightened fay.

  One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

  ‘Out ’mong the sheep, her be,’ they said,

  ’Should properly have been abed;

  But sure enough she wasn’t there

  Lying awake with her wide brown stare.

  So over seven-acre field and up-along across the

  down

  We chased her, flying like a hare

  Before our lanterns. To Church-Town

  All in a shiver and a scare

  We caught her, fetched her home at last,

  And turned the key upon her, fast.

  She does the work about the house

  As well as most, but like a mouse.

  Happy enough to chat and play

  With birds and rabbits and such as they,

  So long as men-folk keep away.

  ‘Not near, not near!’ her eyes beseech

  When one of us comes within reach.

  The women say that beasts in stall

  Look round like children at her call.

  I’ve hardly heard her speak at all.

  Shy as a leveret, swift as he,

  Straight and slight as a young larch tree,

  Sweet as the first wild violets, she,

  To her wild self. But what to me?

  The short days shorten, and the oaks are brown,

  The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,

  One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,

  A magpie’s spotted feathers lie

  On the black earth spread white with rime,

  The berries redden up to Christmas-time.

  What’s Christmas-time without there be

  Some other in the house than we!

  She sleeps up in the attic there

  Alone, poor maid. ’Tis but a stair

  Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,

  The soft young down of her, the brown,

  The brown of her – her eyes, her hair, her hair!

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER

  from The Wife of Bath’s Prologue in

  The Canterbury Tales

  ‘Now sire, thanne wol I telle yow forth my tale.

  As evere moot I drinken win or ale,

  I shal seye sooth: tho housbondes that I hadde,

  As three of hem were goode, and two were badde.

  The thre men were goode, and riche, and olde.

  Unnethe mighte they the statut holde

  In which that they were bounden unto me –

  Ye woot wel what I mene of this, pardee!

  As help me God, I laughe whan I thinke

  How pitously a-night I made hem swinke.

  And by my fey, I tolde of it no stoor.

  They hadde me yeven hir land and hir tresoor;

  Me neded nat do lenger diligence

  To winne hir love, or doon hem reverence.

  They loved me so wel, by God above,

  That I ne tolde no deintee of hir love.

  A wis womman wol bisye hire evere in oon

  To gete hir love, ye, theras she hath noon.

  But sith I hadde hem hoolly in min hond,

  And sith they hadde me yeven al hir lond,

  What sholde I taken kepe hem for to plese,

  But it were for my profit and min ese?

  I sette hem so a-werke, by my fey,

  That many a night they songen ‘weilawey!’

  The bacon was nat fet for hem, I trowe,

  That som men han in Essex at Donmowe.

  moot must; sooth truth; hem them; Unnethe mighte they the statut holde with difficulty could they fulfil the obligation; woot know; swinke labour; fey faith; tolde of it no stoor set no store by it; yeven given; doon hem reverence show them respect; ne tolde no deintee set no store by; bisye hire exert herself; taken kepe be concerned; But unless; a-werke to work; fet fetched

  I governed hem so wel after my lawe,

  That ech of hem ful blisful was and fawe

  To bringe me gaye thinges fro the feire.

  They were ful glad whan I spak to hem feire,

  For God it woot, I chidde hem spitously.

  ‘Now herkneth how I bar me proprely.

  Ye wise wives that konne understonde,

  Thus sholde ye speke and bere hem wrong on honde,

  For half so boldely kan ther no man

  Sweren and lien as a womman kan.

  I sey nat this by wives that ben wise,

  But if it be whan they hem misavise.

  A wis wif, if that she kan hir good,

  Shal beren him on hond the cow is wood,

  And take witnesse of hir owene maide

  Of hir assent – but herkneth how I saide.’

  fawe eager; feire fair; feire kindly; spitously mercilessly; bar me proprely behaved characteristically; bere hem wrong on honde make false allegations against them; hem misavise are misguided; kan hir good knows what’s to her advantage; beren him on hond swear to him; wood mad; Of hir assent with her connivance; herkneth hear

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from The Winter’s Tale, I, ii

  LEONTES (aside):

  Too hot, too hot!

  To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.

  I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances,

  But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment

  May a free face put on, derive a liberty

  From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,

  And well become the agent –’t may, I grant.

  But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,

  As now they are, and making practised smiles

  As in a looking glass; and then to sigh, as ’twere

  The mort o’th’deer – O, that is entertainment

  My bosom likes not, nor my brows!

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Ha’not you seen, Camillo –

  But that’s past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass

  Is thicker than a cuckold’s horn – or heard –

  For to a vision so apparent rumour

  Cannot be mute – or thought – for cogitation

  Resides not in that man that does not think –

  My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess –

  Or else be impudently negative

  To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought – then say

  My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name

  As rank as any flax-wench that puts to

  Before her troth-plight: say’t and justify’t.

  CAMILLO:

  I would not be a stander-by to hear

  My sovereign mistress clouded so without

  My present vengeance taken. ’Shrew my heart,

  You never spoke what did become you less

  Than this; which to reiterate were sin

  As deep as that, though true.

  LEONTES:

  Is whispering nothing?

  Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?

  Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career

  Of laughter with a sigh? – a note infallible

  Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?

  Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift?

  Hours minutes? Noon midnight? And all eyes

  Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,

  That would unseen be wicked – is this nothing?

  Why, then the world and all that’sin’t is nothing;

  The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;

  My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,

  If this be nothing.

  GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

  from Don Juan, Canto III

  V

  ’Tis melancholy and a fearful sign

  Of human frailty, folly, also crime,

  That love and marriage rarely can combine,

  Although they both are born
in the same clime.

  Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine –

  A sad, sour, sober beverage – by time

  Is sharpened from its high celestial flavour

  Down to a very homely household savour.

  VI

  There’s something of antipathy, as ’twere,

  Between their present and their future state.

  A kind of flattery that’s hardly fair

  Is used until the truth arrives too late.

  Yet what can people do, except despair?

  The same things change their names at such a rate;

  For instance, passion in a lover’s glorious,

  But in a husband is pronounced uxorious.

  VII

  Men grow ashamed of being so very fond;

  They sometimes also get a little tired

  (But that, of course, is rare) and then despond.

  The same things cannot always be admired,

  Yet ’tis ‘so nominated in the bond’

  That both are tied till one shall have expired.

  Sad thought! to lose the spouse that was adorning

  Our days, and put one’s servants into mourning.

  VIII

  There’s doubtless something in domestic doings,

  Which forms in fact true love’s antithesis.

  Romances paint at full length people’s wooings,

  But only give a bust of marriages,

  For no one cares for matrimonial cooings;

  There’s nothing wrong in a connubial kiss.

  Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife,

  He would have written sonnets all his life?

  EZRA POUND

  The Bath Tub

  As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,

  When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,

  So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,