poetry
Cavafy, The God Abandons Antony
When suddenly at the midnight hour
you hear the invisible troupe passing by...
don't futilely mourn your luck giving out, your work
collapsing, the designs of your life
that have all proved illusions.
Above all don't fool yourself, don't say it was
a dream, how your ears tricked you.
John Keats, from Lamia
Love in a hut, with water and crust,
Is--Love, forgive us!--cinders, ashes, dust;
Love in a palace is perhaps at last
More grievous torment than a hermit's fast:--
William Wordsworth, from ‘The Thorn’
And to the left, three yards beyond,
You see a little muddy pond
Of water, never dry;
I've measured it from side to side:
'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide.
Ilya Kaminsky
I am reading aloud the book of my life on earth
and confess, I loved grapefruit.
Sarah Hannah
There came a twitch. The tree's seismograph.
I waited until it couldn't get darker.