These are the facts, nothing here but the facts. I was on the road to Damascus via a street in the West Village in New York City, when, in an instant, barometric pressure had dropped 100 MB. Darkness enveloped an eleven-o’clock-morning sun. It may have been a trick of the mind, or some kind of serious panic disorder. Although I could no longer see, I pictured myself a child on a visit to my great grandmother's house in La Salle, Illinois. In my head I felt as though a tornado was approaching...
Abide with me for fast fall eventide. Darkness deepens with alacrity, Nothing halts the night.
Stay with me while time permits, When other helpers fail, And other comforts flee. Accept I mean the best, Help, where others only helpless seem.
I want to be alone with you.
Though so many things to tell, One thing sums it right, One thing huge, deep and great, Its with ocean of delight, My heart embraces you.
You, my love, are all my life today.
Allow my help, I mean to assuage What ever wrongs cause distress, Spare your soul from bottom and regret.
When hopeless seems the word of day, I wish to assure, reveal truth, Though you in mortal moment seem Great light, it is infinity blesses you.
Happy outcome, your every secret dream, An absolute alignment, Gods will be done, That power to carry it out,
And to top it off!
May you receive the greatest gift, That you love prayer and proclaim, When sun arise and you wake to day, Thank you, Lord, for life, And all you have done for me.
How are you to be great poet, When you've got no inspiration, And you're tired, it's late, and Night after night mind runs blank?
How is it you find yourself stuck In the old, worn-out theme, writer’s block, Recall instead that glorious goddess, With whom you spent yesterday morning talking, On the grass, warmed all over, blessed by rays, An eleven-o’clock summer sun?
She’s got it! Beauty, love, and She’s fire, she’s my desire.
Honey, remember, Remember that girl friend of yours? She was the one, who, you said, Had abandoned all hope of love, A boyfriend ditched her, dropped her hard.
She felt awful, bitter, and When ever she referred to him, She called him “boy”. She fell to despair, Claimed, she no longer able, She could not imagine world without him.
I told you, then, were you ever to leave, Break your every solemn vow, and Go into world with out me that I too desire sobriquet. I said,
You might call me Junior!
Junior says, He is lonesome. He misses you terribly. He awaits your return to his arms. He knows your love is right. He loves you. You are his heart. He can not feel a thing without you.
That you had once called him 'dear' Makes him one of the luckiest men alive!
You alone possess his soul. You reside at center of his thoughts. You are his every emotion. You are his goddess; You are his dream come true.
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contènts Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
Should I appear distracted, Look knocked out by the light. You make a very strong performance, A singularity round whose axis my mind spins.
I remember once, years ago, When I landed in New York, After living a year and half in Europe, How the neon of America Seemed so awesomely garish, and bright. Yet, when I close my eyes and picture it,
All seems pale before the radiance of your face.
Two people may meet for morning breakfast, Look out the café's window at the steady rain, Walk here and there along avenues of Inviting store fronts, and before the day is over Fall into hopeless passion one for the other, As though there be something in the air, Perhaps some electromagnetic charge. So the occasional electricity might overwhelm us.
Or cupid steals behind fixtures of thoroughfares. (That day I spied him crouched near a mailbox, When we began to walk main street in Point Pleasant!)
The winged child pulls from his quiver arrows. They drip wet with potion. Once he aims And shoots them, grievously they tear mortal flesh Making for a ruckus extraordinaire And expectations suddenly become great.
This romance presses hard upon me; Its a love I am compelled to profess.
To gain your confidence, To prove my mind has not lost capacity to reason, I couch my verse in mood, subjunctive, A grammar I use hoping to temper My over-wrought affection and quiet, Soften the immodest and elevated parlance.
Were I not to employ this principle of language, One might believe that my love for you be shameless.
The mood may also provide proper relief, For the all, too far-out attitude, the conceit Whose command animates my senses, That I have come to possess, Been granted a gift of prophetic mantle By some great and holy higher power.
Understand. I solely express my own wish and desire, All I say remains contingent, Of a mind still hypothetical and dependent.
I do not use the imperative, I make no demand. I have no special outcome in mind. I live in the fortress called Zion, And come from it in the Pilgrims' coat and hat. I look in the mirror and see their collar and tie. And, like those passengers on board the Mayflower, I know the Lord to be my helper. I fear not.
Who among your former friends has ever said it better?
And were you to live long and hearty life, As all actuaries predict, What future friend might ever say it better?
And should you for a moment consider,
This lyric arrive, transcending everyday concerns, That it join, Sentiment Supreme, Him, the real pilot,
When we drove in the white, Ford van and crossed Jersey's North shore highways, while the brown,
Oh that magic, gentle, dream-like, living, pale, ethereal,
And somewhat golden light accented the downpours, Whose constant unleashed falling, seemed more Like the storm the Lord had promised Noah, Than any explicable, temporary weather.
Wie es eigentlich gewesen war. 'The carriage held but just us -- and immortality.'
And since we first drove around together, Though it is months ago, It feels shorter than the day, I first surmised the engine's mounts Were tied to point, and we, too, were belted, Hurled straight ahead in covenant with eternity.
Chairman, Richard Rosenblum of the Great, The Oh-so-Great, Delegation from the State of New York,
Representatives proclaim their diverse cultures, Highlight separate geographies, timed to a moment, Tied to one central theme, Arizona, Washington, Indiana, Illinois, Texas, Alaska, Chinese, Blacks, Chicanos and I-talo-Americans, All expected to take twenty-five seconds or less:
I am honored to second the nomination,
The man the American people can trust!
It is with my great pleasure,
We are proud to place the name ---
Miss Perez has set a record -- under fifteen seconds!
Let me write a quick note, Simply say I adore you.
Let me take this moment, or two, And publish, 'You are the best thing, That has ever happened in my life!'
May God forgive me; I have no wish to disdain His greatest gift, Yet were fate to bring us to terrible juncture, The crossroads where all choice reduces To either my life, or yours,
Gladly would I give up mine, I would die for you.
Allow me this simple interlude, A paean to the experience, The joy of having had splendid fortune, How wonderful the time I spend with you!
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
The imaginative, poetic power of Chapman's translation of Homer moved John Keats. He wrote this sonnet--after spending all night reading Homer with his friend, Leigh Hunt. “To communicate how profoundly the revelation of Homer's genius affected him, Keats uses imagery of exploration and discovery. In a sense, the reading experience itself becomes a Homeric voyage, both for the poet and the reader.”Keats wrote this poem in October 1816. Chapman's Homer first apppeared in its entirety two hundred years earlier in 1616.
