Theme For English B

The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you-- Then, it will be true. I wonder if it's that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here

A Silent Sight

a fleet of birds in the sky forming an arrow cutting across the wind to reach their destination.... the shape remains the same the birds keep changing their positions to avoid exhaustion what was the instruction? who was their instructor?

Lit Instructor

Day after day up there beating my wings with all the softness truth requires I feel them shrug whenever I pause: they class my voice among tentative things, And they credit fact, force, battering. I dance my way toward the family of knowing, embracing stray error as a long-lost boy and bringing him home with my fluttering.

Lamia. Part I

Upon a time, before the faery broods Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods, Before King Oberon's bright diadem, Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem, Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns, The ever-smitten Hermes empty left His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft: From high Olympus had he stolen light, On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight

Epitaphs

Her Mother's Epitaph Here lies A worthy matron of unspotted life, A loving mother and obedient wife, A friendly neighbor, pitiful to poor, Whom oft she fed, and clothed with her store; To servants wisely aweful, but yet kind, And as they did, so they reward did find: A true instructor of her family,

Morituri Salutamus: Poem For The Fiftieth Anniversary

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis, Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies. Ovid, Fastorum, Lib. vi. 'O Cæsar, we who are about to die Salute you! ' was the gladiators' cry In the arena, standing face to face With death and with the Roman populace. O ye familiar scenes,- ye groves of pine, That once were mine and are no longer mine,- Thou river, widening through the meadows green

Mugging (I)

I Tonite I walked out of my red apartment door on East tenth street’s dusk— Walked out of my home ten years, walked out in my honking neighborhood Tonite at seven walked out past garbage cans chained to concrete anchors Walked under black painted fire escapes, giant castiron plate covering a hole in ground —Crossed the street, traffic lite red, thirteen bus roaring by liquor store, past corner pharmacy iron grated, past Coca Cola & Mylai posters fading scraped on brick Past Chinese Laundry wood door’d, & broken cement stoop steps For Rent hall painted green & purple Puerto Rican style

An Instructor's Dream

Many decades after graduation the students sneak back onto the school-grounds at night and within the pane-lit windows catch me their teacher at the desk or blackboard cradling a chalk: someone has erased their youth, and as they crouch closer to see more it grows darker and quieter than they have known in their lives,

It Is Believed ~ That Life Is....

It is believed ~ that life is splendid Like a vibrant rainbow in the distance Each hue mirrors our sentiments And we express our aspirations On the drifting creamy clouds Eager to descend on the ground And weave magic in nature. It is believed ~ that life is entertaining It reveals novel things time and again

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Something's Gotta Give! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Am being sent to, sent to A fine finishing school For a refresher course for a refresher course In minding Ps and Qs. So off I am so off I am To Swiss embassy Oft heard they can

Pharaoh And The Sergeant

". . . Consider that the meritorious services of the Sergeant Instructors attached to the Egyptian Army haue been inadequately acknowledged. . . . To the excellence of their work is mainly due the great improvement that has taken place in the soldiers of H.H. the Khedive." -- Extract from Letter, 1897 Said England unto Pharaoh, "I must make a man of you, That will stand upon his feet and play the game; That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian ought to do," And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatisname.

Happy New Year Poem Hunter

May you wake up on January 1st, finding that the world has not come to an end, the lights work, the water faucets flow, and the sky has not fallen? May you ponder how this ultramodern civilization of ours managed to get itself traumatized by a possible slip of a blip on a chip made out of sand?

Love As A Landscape Painter

ON a rocky peak once sat I early, Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving; Stretch'd out like a pall of greyish texture, All things round, and all above it cover'd. Suddenly a boy appear'd beside me, Saying "Friend, what meanest thou by gazing On the vacant pall with such composure? Hast thou lost for evermore all pleasure Both in painting cunningly, and forming?"

Investigating Flora

'Twas in scientific circles That the great Professor Brown Had a world-wide reputation As a writer of renown. He had striven finer feelings In our natures to implant By his Treatise on the Morals Of the Red-eyed Bulldog Ant. He had hoisted an opponent Who had trodden unawares

Ch 01 Manner Of Kings Story 27

A man had attained great excellence in the art of wrestling, who knew three hundred and sixty exquisite tricks and daily exhibited something new. He had a particular affection for the beauty of one of his pupils whom he taught three hundred and fifty-nine tricks, refraining to impart to him only one. At last the youth had attained such power and skill that no one was able to contend with him and he went so far as to say to the sultan: "I allow superiority to my teacher on account of his age and from gratitude for his instruction but my strength is not less than his and my skill equal." The king, who was not pleased with this want of good manners, ordered them to wrestle with each other and a spacious locality having been fixed upon, the pillars of state and courtiers of his majesty made their appearance. The youth made an onslaught like a mad elephant with an impulse which might have uprooted a mountain of brass from its place but the master, who knew that he was in strength superior to himself, attacked him with the rare trick he had reserved to himself and which the youth was unable to elude; whereon the master, lifting him up with his hands from the ground, raised him above his head and then threw him down. Shouts were raised by the spectators and the king ordered a robe of honour with other presents to be given to the teacher but reproached and blamed the youth for having attempted to cope with his instructor and succumbed. He replied: "My lord, he has not vanquished me by his strength but there was a slender part in the art of wrestling which he had withheld from me and had today thereby got the upper hand of me." The master said: "I had reserved it for such an occasion because wise men have said: “Do not give so much strength to thy friend that, if he becomes thy foe, he may injure thee.” Hast thou not heard what the man said who suffered molestation from one whom he had educated? Either fidelity itself does not exist in this world Or nobody practices it in our time. No one had learnt archery from me Without at last making a target of me."

Cymon And Iphigenia. From Boccace

Old as I am, for lady's love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet, Which once inflamed my soul, and still inspires my wit. If love be folly, the severe divine; Has felt that folly, though he censures mine; Pollutes the pleasures of a chaste embrace, Acts what I write, and propagates in grace, With riotous excess, a priestly race. Suppose him free, and that I forge the offence, He showed the way, perverting first my sense:

Public Waste

Walpole talks of "a man and his price." List to a ditty queer -- The sale of a Deputy-Acting-Vice- Resident-Engineer, Bought like a bullock, hoof and hide, By the Little Tin Gods on the Mountain Side. By the Laws of the Family Circle 'tis written in letters of brass That only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the Railways of State,

Don Juan: Canto The Tenth

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found In that slight startle from his contemplation-- 'Tis said (for I 'll not answer above ground For any sage's creed or calculation)-- A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round In a most natural whirl, called 'gravitation;' And this is the sole mortal who could grapple, Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple. Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,

Absalom And Achitophel

In pious times, e'er Priest-craft did begin, Before Polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multiply'd his kind, E'r one to one was, cursedly, confind: When Nature prompted, and no law deny'd Promiscuous use of Concubine and Bride; Then, Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart To Wives and Slaves; And, wide as his Command, Scatter'd his Maker's Image through the Land.

Epipsychidion: Passages Of The Poem, Or Connected Therewith

Here, my dear friend, is a new book for you; I have already dedicated two To other friends, one female and one male,-- What you are, is a thing that I must veil; What can this be to those who praise or rail? I never was attached to that great sect Whose doctrine is that each one should select Out of the world a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion-though 'tis in the code