by Yevgeny Yevtushenko Like a reminder of this lifeof trams, sun, sparrows,and the flighty uncontrollednessof streams leaping like thermometers.and because ducks are quacking somewhereabove the crackling of the last, paper-thin ice,and because children are crying bitterly(remember children’s lives are so sweet!)and because in the drunken, shimmering starlightthe moon whoops it up,and a stocking crackles atContinue reading “Memento”
Author Archives: Robin
Gazing at Spring
by Xu Tao Flowers bloom:no oneto enjoy them with.Flowers fall:no onewith whom to grieve.I wonder when love’slongingsstir us most -when flowers bloom,or when flowers fall?
Up sticks and we’re heading home to the land of the Red Dragon
We talked a lot that Sunday, the love of my life and myself. The point is that anything I said involved convincing myself that I would not just hop from job to job. I had responsibilities. I had a family. It was my darling who put her finger on it and broke the deadlock. AsContinue reading “Up sticks and we’re heading home to the land of the Red Dragon”
Verses on a Butterfly
Fair Child of Sun and Summer! we beholdWith eager eyes thy wings bedropp’d with gold;The purple spots that o’er thy mantle spread,The sapphire’s lively blue, the ruby’s red,Ten thousand various blended tints surprise,Beyond the rainbow’s hues or peacock’s eyes:Not Judah’s king in eastern pomp array’d,Whose charms allur’d from far the Sheban maid,High on his glitt’ringContinue reading “Verses on a Butterfly”
For a row of laurel shrubs
They don’t want to be your hedge,Your barrier, your living wall, the no-goGo-between between your propertyAnd the prying of dogs and strangers. They don’tWant to settle any of your old squabblesInside or out of bounds. Their new growthIn eight-foot shoots goes thrusting straightUp in the air each April or goes offHalf-cocked sideways to recconoiterWilder dimensions:Continue reading “For a row of laurel shrubs”
Cantata on the Day of Lenin’s Death
(21 Jan 1924) by Bertolt Brecht The road to hell is paved with good intentions and for the past two years I have saved this cantata so that I could post it on the centenary of Lenin’s death. That was yesterday – I missed it. Never mind, better late than never.1.The day Lenin passed awayAContinue reading “Cantata on the Day of Lenin’s Death”
Dream Barker
by Jean Valentine We met for supper in your flat-bottomed boat.I got there first: in a white dress: I rememberWondering if you’d come. Then you shot over the bank,A Virgilian Nigger Jim, and poled us offTo a little sea-food barker’s cave you knew.What’ll you have? you said. Eaves hung down,Bamboozled claws hung up from theContinue reading “Dream Barker”
January
by John Updike The days are shortThe sun a sparkHung thin betweenThe dark and darkFat snowy footstepsTrack the floorMilk bottles burstOutside the door.The river isA frozen placeHeld still beneathThe trees of lace.The sky is lowThe wind is gray.The radiatorPurrs all day.
It takes a tough wake-up call to tell you that you’re in the wrong job
The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things; of shoes and ships; and sealing wax; of cabbages and kings. If I am the walrus (not the one the Beatles sang about) then Marion was not the carpenter, but the gardener, and a time did come when we had to talk ofContinue reading “It takes a tough wake-up call to tell you that you’re in the wrong job”
Houses of Dreams
by Sarah Teasdale You took my empty dreamsAnd filled them every oneWith tenderness and nobleness,April and the sun.The old empty dreamsWhere my thoughts would throngAre all too full of happinessTo even hold a song.Oh, the empty dreams were dimAnd the empty dreams were wide,They were sweet and shadowy housesWhere my thoughts could hide.But you tookContinue reading “Houses of Dreams”
Robin's Nest 