|
She reclines, more or
less.
Try that posture, it's hardly languor.
Her right arm sharp angles.
With her left she conceals her ambush.
Shoes but not stockings,
how sinister. The flower
behind her ear is naturally
not real, of a piece
with the sofa's drapery.
The windows (if any) are shut.
This is indoor sin.
Above the head of the (clothed) maid
is an invisible voice balloon: slut.
But. Consider the body,
unfragile, defiant, the pale nipples
staring you right in the bull's-eye.
Consider also the black ribbon
around the neck. What's under it?
A fine red threadline, where the head
was taken off and glued back on.
The body's on offer,
but the neck's as far as it goes.
This is no morsel.
Put clothes on her and you'd have a schoolteacher,
the kind with the brittle whiphand.
There's someone else in this room.
You, Monsieur Voyeur.
As for that object of yours
she's seen those before, and better.
I, the head, am the only subject
of this picture.
You, Sir, are furniture.
Get stuffed.
-Margaret Atwood
|
|
little nothings |
|
We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write
poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is
filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are
noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty,
romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
-- John Keating in Dead Poets Society (1989)
|
|
John Keats - When I Have Fears
Margaret Atwood - A Sad Child
Anne Sexton -
Courage
Edgar Allen Poe -
A Dream
Emily Dickenson
-
Hope
Erica Mann Jong -
Another Language
Jessie B. Rittenhouse -
My Wage
Langston Hughes -
Dream Deferred
Louise Fletcher Tarkington -
The Land of Beginning
Again
Maya Angelou -
Alone
Nina Simone -
Richard Rodgers,
Lorenz Hart
Robert Frost -
Fire and Ice
Ronald Koertge -
An Infinite Number of Monkeys
Rudyard Kipling -
The Elephant Child
Rudyard Kipling -
If
Ruth B. Field -
Untitled
Saves the Day -
Blindfolded
Sylvia Plath - Mirror
Unknown -
Beauty of a Woman
Unknown -
Dust If You Must
Unknown -
Early Morning
Unknown -
Fair Death
Unknown -
Honor
Unknown -
If I Knew
Unknown -
I may Never See
Tomorrow
Unknown -
Inscription on Cellar
Walls from WWII
Unknown -
I wish that you could
see me…
Unknown -
Miss Me, But Let Me
Go
Unknown -
A Place for Me
Veronica A. Shoffstall -
After A While
Walt Whitman - I Hear
America Singing
|
|
