English lesson
by Robert Seatter
at Vittorio's place. He counts the years on his
fingers
We are doing Chapter 6: Hobbies, I like doing...
as if he had never counted before.
Roberto is playful and wants to talk about sex in
cars
Lucia says she cries all weekend, every weekend -
and gear sticks. We lose ourselves in body parts:
since Massimo left her. She sits in the flat and
cries.
engine, carburettor, vroom, vroom.
There is nothing else to do.
Carla likes cooking, the gnocchi
The silence pulls at her words, dangling cut-out
and
her grandmother taught her how to make - a
whole day set
aside, potatoes in piles, all the family peeling.
Her fingers forgetful of typewriter keys.
Giancarlo bicycles twenty kilometres every
Sunday
(we imagine his overfed thighs in lycra and
laugh).
He lists all the cups he won when the weekend
was just
one long white road, his podgy hands making
circles,
his moustached mouth the whirring of spokes.
Gianni goes back to his village, kisses his seven
little sisters, loves checking his row of reddening
tomatoes.
He wears different shoes, screwing his face up at
buckled black leather. No briefcase. No boss.
Francesca likes going to the mountains, the lakes,
the sea wherever her friends have houses. We are all
invited.
When you open the windows all the houses have
beautiful views, and there is panettone for
breakfast.
Franco plays cards in the bar with his friends.
Same bar, same friends: every evening playing
poker
foreign on the air, begging to be mistakable:
a disappearing trick against the classroom's white
walls.
Then Roberto claps his hands. He meant to say
he likes practising English. We all groan.
A Wall in Naples
Starshine and Non-Being
by Andrew Motion
by Chuang-Tzu
I have forgotten whatever it was
Starshine asked Non-Being,
I wanted to say. Also the way I wanted
"Master, do you exist? Or do you not exist?"
to say it. Form and Music.
Since he received no answer at all,
Perhaps it had something to do with - no,
Starlight set himself to watch for Non-Being.
that's not it. More likely, I should just
He waited to see if Non-Being would appear.
look at whatever there is
He kept his eyes fixed on the deep Void,
and fix myself to the earth. This wall,
hoping to catch a glimpse of Non-Being.
I mean, which faces me over the street.
All day long he looked.
Smooth as a shaven chin
He saw nothing.
but pocked with the holes that scaffolders left
He listened.
and flicked with an overflow-flag. Which still
He heard nothing.
leaves pigeon-shit, rain-streaks, washing -
Then Starlight cried out at last: "This is IT!"
or maybe the whole thing's really a board
"This is the farthest yet! Who can reach it?
where tiny singing meteors strike.
I can understand the absence of Being.
How can we tell what is true? I rest my case.
But who can understand the absence of Nothing?
I rest my case and cannot imagine a hunger
If now, on top of all this, Non-Being exists,
greater than this. For marks.
Who can understand it?"
For messages sent by hand. For signs of life.
The White Room
The Bright Dresses
by Irene Soriano Flórez
by Robert Seatter
I am now feeling
After your addio - breathless, banal, the click
like a lost camel
of the telephone, I came out into Corso Vittorio
in the Sahara Desert.
Emmanuele. Milan's glorious main street:
I am very young
rows of posh shoe shops, buckles and toecaps
and I've got a lot of things
on tip toe behind thick glass; at the end of the
to learn.
boulevard the cathedral spires like the tails of
Sometimes
old seahorses: rigid, brittle and upside down;
I think:
sunlight all round me in a hot, close envelope,
I don't know anything
with its smell of coffee and expensive briefcases;
I should go to my house
words on the air from the English lesson I had
and begin to study.
just been teaching: "Sylvia never arrives late.
But, then, I think
Tom loves pop music and small dogs."
Why? A lot of the time
This is the present simple for habit. It goes on
knowledge flies after studying.
and on I was saying. Then down the road
Will I fly with English
they came: three bright dresses in yellow, pink
out of this white room?
and peacock blue, blurring to blobs of floating
colour inside the tears in my eyes. They jangled
the words, advanced unbearably bright towards
me: Sylvia loves pop music. Tom never arrives
late. Small dogs. Small dogs. Never. Loves.
The Flatulence Tax
The Sick Child
by John O'Neill
by Robert Louis Stevenson
A flatulence tax on cattle and sheep,
Child. O mother, lay your hand on my brow!
Another rip-off to make us all weep.
O mother, mother, where am I now?
Preserving the ozone at any expense,
Why is the room so gaunt and great?
It's all propaganda that doesn't make sense.
Why am I lying awake so late?
Abandon the flock and abolish the herd,
Mother. Fear not at all: the night is still.
When it comes to survival, then nothing's absurd.
Nothing is here that means you ill.
But what will we eat for daily protein?
Nothing but lamps the whole town through,
The answer is simple, the mighty baked bean.
And never a child awake but you.
So plough in the forage and pastures too
Child. Mother, mother, speak low in my ear,
Put paid to the curse of the cattle pooh.
Some of the things are so great and near,
Then plant all the land with navy beans,
Some are so small and far away,
Belching out gases from smoky machines.
I have a fear that I cannot say.
The resulting erosion will wipe any smiles,
What have I done, and what do I fear,
Make the Greenies appear they're suffering piles.
And why are you crying, mother dear?
With options so few when it comes to a meal,
Mother. Out in the city, sounds begin
And the after-effects still part of the deal.
Thank the kind God, the carts come in!
With the whole population gobbling baked beans,
An hour or two more and God is so kind,
The potential was there for some horrid scenes.
The day shall be blue in the windowblind,
The worst of our fears were about to come true,
Then shall my child go sweetly asleep,
The Follies were gobbling their baked beans too.
And dream of the birds and the hills of sheep.
And adding more fuel to their natural reserve,
The electorate was poised to get its deserve.
Their innards vibrated their faces contorted,
The speaker collapsed and debate was aborted.
Then rising as one from babes to old Granny,
With timing so perfect was almost uncanny.
The whole population let off a great fart,
With a bloody big bang blew the ozone apart.
Mountain Fable
Progress
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
by Osbert Sitwell
The mountain and the squirrel
The city's heat is like a leaden pall—
Had a quarrel;
Its lowered lamps glow in the midnight air
And the former called the latter "Little Prig."
Like mammoth orange-moths that flit and flare
Bun replied,
Through the dark tapestry of night. The tall
"You are doubtless very big;
Black houses crush the creeping beggars down,
But all sorts of things and weather
Who walk beneath and think of breezes cool,
Must be taken in together,
Of silver bodies bathing in a pool;
To make up a year
Or trees that whisper in some far, small town
And a sphere.
Whose quiet nursed them, when they thought
that
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not as large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut."
Was merely metal, not a grave of mould
In which men bury all that's fine and fair.
When they could chase the jewelled butterfly
Through the green bracken-scented lanes or sigh
For all the future held so rich and rare;
When, though they knew it not, their baby cries
Were lovely as the jewelled butterflies.
The City
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
by Charles Hanson Towne
by William Wordsworth
When, sick of all the sorrow and distress
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That flourished in the City like foul weeds,
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
I sought blue rivers and green, opulent meads,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
And leagues of unregarded loneliness
A host, of golden daffodils;
Whereon no foot of man had seemed to press,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
I did not know how great had been my needs,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
How wise the woodland’s gospels and her creeds,
Continuous as the stars that shine
How good her faith to one long comfortless.
And twinkle on the milky way,
But in the silence came a Voice to me;
They stretched in never-ending line
In every wind it murmured, and I knew
Along the margin of a bay:
It would not cease though far my heart might
roam.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
It called me in the sunrise and the dew,
At noon and twilight, sadly, hungrily,
The jealous City, whispering always—“Home!”
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Poetry as a Foreign Language
Gesture, their particular
by Mike Ramsden
Stage of development,
"...Not really sure I'll get much out of it,
The revolution, nationhood.
Understand what's going on,"
The excuses flooded in.
I whined and vacillated.
Yes, I understood in the end.
I was assured he was big
This was not British.
(Though not in size)
This was not our language at all.
Old, blind and from the capital.
So in I went with the rest of the faculty
To the biggest hall on campus,
Packed with more than I'd ever seen before
And when the applause started from the back
And advanced with him to the front,
It was not polite or respectful
But loud and from beyond the palms of hands,
And they were standing and clapping
The old blind poet right up to the stage
With videocams and flashlights on his face
And I knew I'd not seen the likes of this before,
And not only the intoning of the country's prayers
But the readings from the campus luminaries,
Strong declamatory stuff,
Speaking to the audience. You could
Tell this because they'd clap and cheer
Right in the middle of the poet's flow.
All this told me it was not like
My home, my country,
And when the old poet began...
But why go on?
Well, yes, I told myself,
A different tradition,
An oral society, the public
Address to the haggis
Looks down with a sneering scornful opinion
(Translation into standard English)
by Robert Burns
On such a dinner
Fair is your honest happy face
Poor devil, see him over his trash
Great chieftain of the pudding race
As week as a withered rush (reed)
Above them all you take your place
His spindle-shank a good whiplash
Stomach, tripe or guts
His clenched fist…the size of a nut.
Well are you worthy of a grace
Through a bloody flood and battle field to dash
As long as my arm
Oh how unfit
The groaning platter there you fill
But take note of the strong haggis fed Scot
Your buttocks like a distant hill
The trembling earth resounds his tread
Your skewer would help to repair a mill
Clasped in his large fist a blade
In time of need
HeAnd legs and arms and heads he will cut off
While through your pores the juices emerge
Like the tops of thistles
Like amber beads
You powers who make mankind your care
His knife having seen hard labour wipes
And dish them out their meals
And cuts you up with great skill
Old Scotland wants no watery food
Digging into your gushing insides bright
That splashes in dishes
Like any ditch
But if you wish her grateful prayer
And then oh what a glorious sight
Give her a haggis!
Warm steaming, rich
Then spoon for spoon
They stretch and strive
Devil take the last man, on they drive
Until all their well swollen bellies
Are bent like drums
Then, the old gent most likely to rift (burp)
Be thanked, mumbles
Is there that over his French Ragout
Or olio that would sicken a pig
Or fricassee would make her vomit
With perfect disgust
The Blind Boy
No
by Colley Cibber
by Thomas Hood
O say what is that thing call'd Light,
No sun - no moon!
Which I must ne'er enjoy;
No morn - no noon -
What are the blessings of the sight,
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day -
O tell your poor blind boy!
No sky - no earthly view No distance looking blue -
You talk of wondrous things you see;
No road - no street - no "t'other side the way" -
You say the sun shines bright:
No end to any Row -
I feel him warm, but how can he
No indications where the Crescents go -
Or make it day or night?
No top to any steeple No recognitions of familiar people -
My day or night myself I make
No courtesies for showing 'em -
Whene'er I sleep or play;
No knowing 'em! -
And could I ever keep awake
No travelling at all - no locomotion,
With me 'twere always day.
No inkling of the way - no notion -
With heavy sighs I often hear
"No go" - by land or ocean -
You mourn my hapless woe;
No mail - no post -
But sure with patience I can bear
No news from any foreign coast -
A loss I ne'er can know.
No Park - no Ring - no afternoon gentility –
No company - no nobility -
Then let not what I cannot have
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
My cheer of mind destroy;
No comfortable feel in any member -
Whilst thus I sing, I am a king,
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
Although a poor blind boy.
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds November!
To Autumn
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
by John Keats
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.
I
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun,
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
run:
The red-breast whistles from the garden-croft;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.
II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy
hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
III
Where are the songs of spring? Aye, where are
they?
Think not of them, thou hast music too -
It wouldn't do
by John Kay
But,
She said,
I suppose it wouldn't do
For everyone to be the same now,
Would it.
No,
I said,
There'd be less
Interesting people around,
Wouldn't there.
Fewer interesting people,
She said,
But I suppose it wouldn't do
For everyone to speak the same now,
Would it.