8/9/2019 Poetry Discussion
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And Then You Kissed Me
by The Cardigans
Man Ive had a few
But they wouldnt quit blow me like you
You gave me your name and sight
With a halo around my eye
And it hits me like never before
That love is a powerful forceYes it struck me that love is as
bored
So I pushed you a little bit more
Love, youre news to me
Youre a little bit more then I thought youd be
A mow in my well fed lawn
Youre a nightmare beating the dawn
Oh it hits me like never before
That love is a powerful force
Yes it struck me that love is a sport
So I pushed you a little bit more
(Chorus)Blue, blue, black and blue
Red blood sticks like glue
True love is cruel love
Red blood say power fuel
Sweet love tasty blood
My heart over-floods
Oh you hit me
Yeah you hit me really hard
Man you hit me
Yeah you hit me right in the heart
Lord Ive had my deal
But I never quite knew how it feels
When love makes you wake up sore
With fists that are ready for more
And it hits me that love is a game
Like in war no one can be blamed
Yes it struck me that love is a sport
So I pushed you a little bit more
(Chorus)
Man you hit me
Yeah you hit me really hardBaby you hit me
Yeah you punched me right in the heart
And then you kissed me
And then you hit me
Oh you hold me with your violent heartbeat at night
Oh you strike me with your silence baby tonight
Why you hold me with your violence baby come hit me
You hold me with your violent heartbeat
My Papas Waltz
Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my headWith a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
For Julia, in Deep Water
John N. Morris
The instructor we hire
because she does not love you
Leads you into the deep water,
The deep end
Where the water is darker
Her open, encouraging arms
That never get nearer
Are merciless for your sake.
You will dream this water always
Where nothing draws nearer,
Wasting your valuable breath
You will scream for your mother
Only your mother is drowning
Forever in the thin air
Down at the deep end.
She is doing nothing,She never did anything harder.
And I am beside her.
I am beside her in this imagination.
We are waiting
Where the water is darker.
You are over your head,
Screaming, you are learning
Your way toward us,
You are learning how
8/9/2019 Poetry Discussion
2/3
In the helpless water
It is with our skill
We live in what kills us.
On The Subway
Sharon Olds
The boy and I face each other.
His feet are huge, in black sneakers
laced with white in a complex pattern like a
set of intentional scars. We are stuck on
opposite sides of the car, a couple of
molecules stuck in a rod of light
rapidly moving through darkness. He has the
casual cold look of a mugger,
alert under hooded lids. He is wearing
red, like the inside of the body
exposed. I am wearing dark fur, the
whole skin of an animal taken and
used. I look at his raw face,he looks at my fur coat, and I
dont
know if I am in his power
he could take my coat so easily, my
briefcase, my life
or if he is in my power, the way I am
living off his life, eating the steak
he does not eat, as if I am taking
the food from his mouth. And he is black
and I am white, and without meaning or
trying to I must profit from his darkness,
the way he absorbs the murderous beams of the
nations head, as black cotton
absorbs the heat of the sun and holds it. There is
no way to know how easy this
white skin makes my life, this
life he could take so easily and
break across his knee like a stick the way his
own back is being broken, the
rod of his soul that at birth was dark and
fluid, rich as the head of a seedling
ready to thrust up into any available light.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
by Wallace Stevens
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirdsFlying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
