Month: July 2020

“‘Ah, Koelue. . .'” by Isaac Rosenberg

"'Ah, Koelue. . .'"

Ah, Koelue !

Had you embalmed your beauty, so

It could not backward go,

Or change in any way,

What were the use, if on my eyes

The embalming spices were not laid

To keep us fixed,

Two amorous sculptures passioned endlessly ?

What were the use, if my sight grew,

And its far branches were cloud-hung,

You small at the roots, like grass,

While the new lips my spirit would kiss

Were not red lips of flesh,

But the huge kiss of power ?

Where yesterday soft hair through my fingers fell,

A shaggy mane would entwine,

And no slim form work fire to my thighs,

But human Life's inarticulate mass

Throb the pulse of a thing

Whose mountain flanks awry

Beg my mastery mine !

Ah ! I will ride the dizzy beast of the world

My road my way

 

Isaac Rosenberg's poem "'Ah, Koelue. . .'" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1916-1917. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below"

Archive.org

Project Gutenberg (HTML version)

“Childhood” by Richard Aldington

"Childhood" 

I.
The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood

Put me out of love with God.

I can't believe in God's goodness;

I can believe

In many avenging gods.

Most of all I believe

In gods of bitter dullness,

Cruel local gods

Who seared my childhood.

 

II.
I've seen people put

A chrysalis in a match-box,

"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come."

But when it broke its shell

It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison

And tried to climb to the light

For space to dry its wings.

 

[ . . . ]

 

Richard Aldington's poem "Childhood" was published in the 1915 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

HathiTrust

The Modernist Journals Project

“Kaleidoscopics” by Ferdinand Reyher

"Kaleidoscopics"

Gondolas with white freightage

Passed,

And muted barcaroles

Destroyed old houses.

 

The iridescent plush rope sways

With the rhythm

Of an old canzone of Genoa

 

He died.

Let us dance elegant fandangos

In blues and golds,

And consort

With blinder things than parchment bats

To gather dripping garlands

Of mottled toadstools

To show the hate we loved him with.

 

[ . . . ]

 

Ferdinand Reyher's poem "Kaleidoscopics" was published in the 1916 Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

“Outskirts” by Sacheverell Sitwell

"Outskirts"

The gold voice of the sunset was most clearly in the air

As I wandered through the outskirts of the town.

 

And here disposed upon the grass, I see

Confetti-thick the amorous couples,—

What thoughts, what scenes, evoke, evaporate

In leaden minds like theirs?

Can I create them? These things

Which mean the happiness of multitudes?

A river bank, grass for a dancing floor,

The concertina's wail, and then the darkening day.

 

Raise your eyes from ground to trees

And see them stretch elastically

Tall and taller,—then look along

 

[ . . . ]

 

Sacheverell Sitwell's poem "Outskirts" was published in the 1918 "cycle" of the Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project