Poetry

EGO TRIPPING By Nikki Giovanni

I was borne in the Congo
I walked to the Fertile Crescent and built the Sphinx
I designed a pyrmid so tough that a star
That glows every one hunrdred years falls into
The center giving divine perfect light
I am bad

I sat on the throne
Drinking nectar with Allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe
To cool my thirst.
My oldest daughter is Nefertiti
The tears from my birth pains created the Nile
I am a beautiful woman

I gased on a forest and burned out the
Sahara Desert
With a packet of goat's meat
And a change of clothes-
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift-
So swift- you can't catch me

For a bithday present when he was three
I gave my son Hannibal an elepahnt-
He gave me Rome for Mother's Day
My strength flows ever on

My son Noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
As we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself-
And was Jesus!
Men intone my loving name

All praises-All praises
I am the one who would save

I sowed diamonds in my backyard
My bowels deliver uranium
The filings from my fingernails
Are semi-precious jewels
On a trip north I caught a cold an blew my nose
Giving oil to the Arab world
I am so hip-even my errors are correct
I saild east to reach west-and had to round off the
Earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
Across three continents

I am so perfect, so divine, so ethereal, so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
Except by my permission

I mean. . .I . . .can fly
Like a bird in the sky. . .

SICK ROSE By William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick.
The invisible worm
That flies in the night
In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed
of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

KUBLA KHAN By William Blake

In Xanadu di Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdle3d round:
And there were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover
A savafe place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a wanning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And form this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river
Five miles meandering with a with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the fome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a mircle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome!those caves of ice!
And all who heard shoud see them there,
And all should cry, Beware!Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Wave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

The Ćolian Harp

Composed August 20th, 1795

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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My pensive SARA ! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrown
With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leav'd Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love !)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddenning round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)
Shine opposite ! How exquisite the scents
Snatch'd from yon bean-field ! and the world so hush'd !
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.

And that simplest Lute,

Plac'd length-ways in the clasping casement, hark !
How by the desultory breeze caress'd,
Like some coy maid half-yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong ! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Faery-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam'd wing !
O ! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where--
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so fill'd ;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my Love ! as on the midway slope

Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst thro' my half-clos'd eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquility ;
Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various, as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject Lute !

And what if all of animated nature

Be but organic Harps diversly fram'd,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all ?

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof

Darts, O belovéd Woman ! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the Family of Christ !
Well hast thou said and holily disprais'd
These shapings of the unregenerate mind ;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible ! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels ;
Who with his saving mercies healéd me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour'd Maid !

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