Poems

*missing middle* no no see, you're all missing it... it's not dystopic, it's a dystopportunity!

*All Hallows* Even now this landscape is assembling. The hills darken. The oxen sleep in their blue yoke, the fields having been picked clean, the sheaves bound evenly and piled at the roadside among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises: This is the barrenness of harvest or pestilence. And the wife leaning out the window with her hand extended, as in payment, and the seeds distinct, gold, calling *Come here* *Come here, little one* And the soul creeps out of the tree.

Anxiety criticises the weak Consoles with happiness they feel Peace and serenity exist never to heal The insanity that kills.

*Anyone else seen this possibly insane man driving insane truck?* There's this truck, I see it hauling ass everywhere around town like it's blasting across the alkali flats of some future hellscape. This truck has no regard for traffic laws the regular citizen is upheld to. It's missing a headlight and has a stuffed dinosaur shoved in the whole where the light once was. The man inside appears to be some kind of psychotic but handsome construction worker, he leans out the window and calls old men "baby". The truck itself while already loud usually has some sort of loud music emitting from it, last time I saw it was limp bizkits popular 90s track "nookie". Anyone else seen this fool? I can't be the only one. This truck+man inside are lawless hooligans.

THIS WRITING IS FOR MY FRIENDS IN MIND OF ALL COMMON & HIDDEN MEN AND OF THE SECRET PRINCES AND TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WITH ME IN THE COVERT AND IN THE OPEN FROM THE BALCKWALL THE BROADWAY THE CAUSEWAY THE CUT THE FLATS THE LEVEL THE ENVIRONS AND THOSE OTHERS FROM TRAETH MAWR AND LONG MOUNTAIN THE HENDREF AND YR HAFOD THE PENTRE PANDY AND Y DARREN THE MAELORS THE BOUNDARY WALLS AND NO. 4 WORKING ESPECIALLY PTE. R.A. LEWIS-GUNNER FROM NEWPORT MONMOUTHSHIRE KILLED IN ACTION ON THE BOE- SINGHE SECTOR N.W. OF YPRES SOME TIME IN THE WINTER 1916-17 AND TO THE BEARDED INFANTRY WHO EXCHANGED THEIR LONG LOAVES WITH US AT A SECTOR'S BARRIER AND TO THE ENEMY FRONT-FIGHTERS WHO SHARED OUR PAINS AGAINST WHOM WE FOUND OURSELVES BY MISADVENTURE ---- Evil betide me if I do not open the door to know if that is true which is said concerning it. So he opened the door ... and when they had looked, they were conscious of all the evils they had ever sustained, and of all the friends and companions they had lost and of all the misery that had befallen them, as if all had happened in that very spot; ... and because of their perturbation they could not rest.

*We Cry Together* Her shriek is raw, snapping all the world’s quiet As dreams, unborn, tumble into the abyss of almost. I don’t know this sound; an anguish that pierces my soul. With what little strength I have, I grab her hand, Weaving through the grooves of her sorrow, Though my grip is frail. The geography of her face is foreign to me, As the doctor explains the terrain of a pain I cannot mend. A black hole I cannot save her from. Nah, this can’t be right. Look again! Refusing to accept my wife’s body, As the site of such an inexplicable vanishing— A promise left lingering in the world of daydreams. She asks me and the doctor to leave the room, Needing a moment to plead with the universe. From the hallway, I hear her sobbing, an ocean devouring her smile. My knuckles meet the steel door of a sterile hospital room, Attempting to punch away our misfortune, until I can replace it With something she actually deserves. For all of the IVF shots, The nights we debated over names, the anxiety attacks about money, And the moments we pinched ourselves at the idea of being chosen by Saadiq. *Saadiq Joseph*. How do you stitch a wound living in the syllables of a name never called? There is nothing to say, when spun into a vortex of unspeakable loss. We spend weeks huddled around grief like a campfire, Telling silent ghost stories about the people we stopped being Just days before. Nurturing a flame so small it could be mistaken for hope. In the most somber hours, when the world took its deepest breath, I sat beside her, staring at the slight crescent of her unhoused belly, For so long, I swore I heard a heartbeat, but it was actually planets collapsing In the cavities of my chest. And I wondered, how are we going to survive this, And in time, my question was answered: Together.

*TAOING* The way you can go isn’t the real way. The name you can say isn’t the real name. Heaven and earth begin in the unnamed: name’s the mother of the ten thousand things. So the unwanting soul sees what’s hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants. Two things, one origin, but different in name, whose identity is mystery. Mystery of all mysteries! The door to the hidden.

*THE BALLAD OF STEVEN SLATER* Ain't we all had a day When we just had enough Ain't it true each one of us Has been battered, worn, and rough Ain't you never felt irate And won'tcha get irater Well, my friends, we have a hero now I speak of Steven Slater It ain't that easy to ride the skies Laboring for JetBlue A man's got to keep widened eyes For terrorists or shampoo And worser still are the passengers They turn a kind man to a hater Won't nobody stand up to this? One man: Steven Slater There was a particular day And a particular customer Who grew abusive to Steven when he instructed her She was endangering herself And he didn't care to debate her And all at once she struck his head She struck at Steven Slater Some will say he made a scene Or it was a crime But Steven he had had enough And if he has to, he'll do time Perhaps it's great to keep your cool But sometimes it is greater To bid one final fuck you too As did Steven Slater He cursed her on the intercom So that everyone could hear And he then bid his adieu And he grabbed himself a beer And threw open the JetBlue door With an escape slide and its inflater And he slid down, drinking, shouting fuck you Our hero, Steven Slater The police they went after him They caught him in his bed He was supposed to finish work but he was In flagrante delicto instead A hero and a lover now, not a Circumnavigater Say what you will, but tip your hat To a man who had enough A man named Steven Slater.

*nickleback* Some people who have trained themselves to have their emotional catharsis through sophisticated art get annoyed at untrained people having an emotional catharsis through unsophisticated art.

*Count Eberhard’s Hawthorn* Count Eberhard the Beard From Wurttemberg’s domain On a pious journey fared To the shores of Palestine. One day as he was riding A woodland path in spring From a hawthorn bush He took a little cutting. In his iron helmet He placed the hawthorn spray; He carried it off to war Over the flowing sea. And when he was back home He set it in the earth, And soon the leaves and buds Into life were stirred. The count, faithful and true, Each year came to the sprig; He was filled with joy To see it grow so big. The count shrank with age, The sprig became a tree. Beneath it the old man sat In deepest reverie. Its high-arching limbs, Its whisper in his ear Remind him of the past And of the distant shore.

*The Second Coming* Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of *Spiritus Mundi* Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

*The Yellow Bittern* Yellow bittern, there you are now, Skin and bone on the frozen shore. It wasn’t hunger but thirst for a mouthful That left you foundered and me heartsore. What odds is it now about Troy’s destruction With you on the flagstones upside down, Who never injured or hurt a creature And preferred bog water to any wine? Bittern, bittern, your end was awful, Your perished skull there on the road, You that would call me every morning With your gargler’s song as you guzzled mud. And that’s what’s ahead of your brother Cathal (You know what they say about me and the stuff) But they’ve got it wrong and the truth is simple: A drop would have saved that croaker’s life. I am saddened, bittern, and brokenhearted To find you in scrags in the rushy tufts, And the big rats scampering down the rat paths To wake your carcass and have their fun. If you could have got word to me in time, bird, That you were in trouble and craved a sup, I’d have struck the fetters of those lough waters And wet your thrapple with the blow I struck. Your common birds do not concern me, The blackbird, say, or the thrush or crane, But the yellow bittern, my heartsome namesake With my looks and locks, he’s the one I mourn. Constantly he was drinking, drinking, And by all accounts I’ve a name for it too, But every drop I get I’ll sink it For fear I might get my end from drouth. The woman I love says to give it up now Or else I’ll go to an early grave, But I say no and keep resisting For taking drink’s what prolongs your days. You saw for yourself a while ago What happened to the bird when its throat went dry; So my friends and neighbours, let it flow: You’ll be stood no rounds in eternity.

*Summer Night* The sounds Of the Harlem night Drop one by one into stillness. The last player-piano is closed. The last victrola ceases with the "Jazz Boy Blues." The last crying baby sleeps And the night becomes Still as a whispering heartbeat. I toss Without rest in the darkness, Weary as the tired night, My soul Empty as the silence, Empty with a vague, Aching emptiness, Desiring, Needing someone, Something. I toss without rest In the darkness Until the new dawn, Wan and pale, Descends like a white mist Into the court-yard.

**Soledad** *A Cuban Portrait* The shadows Of too many nights of love Have fallen beneath your eyes. Your eyes, So full of pain and passion, So full of lies. So full of pain and passion, Soledad, So deeply scarred, So still with silent cries.

'Of Children in Swaddling Clothes O cities of the sea, I behold in you your citizens, women as well as men tightly bound with stout bonds around their arms and Iegs by folk who will not understand your language; and you will only be able to give vent to your griefs and sense of loss of liberty by making tearful complaints, and sighs, and lamentations one to another; for those who bind you will not understand your language nor will you understand them.'

To whom it may concern, I am requesting and applying for a waiver to enable me to go to the United States of America. Back in 2009 while trying to leave the U.S. after helping an expat return to the States, I was pulled over at Port Huron, Michigan for an exit search that violated the border patrol's own stated protocols. Having led a sheltered life, I failed to think about the power dynamics at work in authoritarian systems and the extent to which the U.S. has criminalized the expectation of reasonable communication between civilians and the authorities who keep them in check. I therefore approached one of the officers to ask what was going on. I had no intention of provoking hostilities. I neither raised my voice nor used incendiary language. But of course the very act of asking questions is considered provocative in such situations. I was ultimately convicted under Michigan statue MCL 750.81d1 for - as the prosecuting attorney convincingly argued in her closing statement - failing to immediately get on the ground after having been punched in the face. Fortunately, the judge in that case chose to ignore the prosecution's request for jail time and released me with a small fine, remarking that I was the kind of guy he'd "like to have a beer with." I like to regard this small endorsement as evidence that my rehabilitation was already under way. Enclosed with my application are reference letters from accomplished professionals in a number of disciplines: law, finance, journalism, science, engineering, literature, even from one of the jurors at my trial who stood at my side during my sentencing in a show of support and whose family was subsequently subjected to ongoing police harassment for reasons that I'm certain are completely unrelated. I also include a CV including the degrees I've earned, the awards I've won, the books, articles, and scientific papers I've written, the twenty languages into which my work has been translated, the courses in which my work is taught, and the impact my work has had in fields ranging from philosophy to computer science to video games. These documents speak to who I am now, and while unlikely to confer the sort of credibility you'd attach to a border guard with 13 weeks of training under their belt, perhaps they'll give you hope that I may yet become a productive member of society. I have learned and grown a great deal since that unfortunate altercation at the Blue Water Bridge. I understand now that the brave members of the border patrol daily risk their lives to protect your citizenry from people like, well, me. Right up to and including that member of the Port Huron detachment who, just days after my arrest, was himself arrested for possession of child pornography. I should have realized it was a mistake to approach the guards on an equal footing as fellow human beings. As a former biologist, I should have known the only appropriate response would be that practiced by subordinate members of other primate species: avoidance of eye contact, servile posture, and reflexive, unquestioned obedience to all commands no matter how perplexing. Realizing my error, I have chosen to follow the lead of that great American Harry Whittington who, after being shot in the face by then Vice President Dick Cheney, actually held a press conference to apologize to Cheney for the incident. In that spirit, I would like to express my sincere remorse that I have cause to reenter the U.S. especially at a time when so many of your own countrymen appear to be going the other way. Perhaps you've heard that Immigration Canada's website crashed on the night of your recent election. If you grant me the requested waiver, however, I can promise that I will not stay a moment longer than is absolutely fucking necessary.

*Any fool can get into an ocean . . .* Any fool can get into an ocean But it takes a Goddess To get out of one. What’s true of oceans is true, of course, Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess To get back out of them Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly Out in the middle of the poem They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the water hardly moves You might get out through all the waves and rocks Into the middle of the poem to touch them But when you’ve tried the blessed water long Enough to want to start backward That’s when the fun starts Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth But it takes a hero to get out of one What’s true of labyrinths is true of course Of love and memory. When you start remembering.

*Eunomia* These things my spirit bids me teach the men of Athens: that Dysnomia brings countless evils for the city, but Eunomia brings order and makes everything proper, by enfolding the unjust in fetters, smoothing those things that are rough, stopping greed, sentencing hybris to obscurity making the flowers of mischief to whither, and straightening crooked judgments. It calms the deeds of arrogance and stops the bilious anger of harsh strife. Under its control, all things are proper and prudence reigns human affairs

*This Be The Verse* They fuck you up, your mum and dad.  They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had  And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn  By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern  And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man.  It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can,  And don’t have any kids yourself.

*The New Colossus* Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse to your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

*041* My lady’s voice on the phone Like an electric thread of silk Drawing me back through night’s dark maze To a stormy city A handful-hundred miles away. “There’s thunder, Can you hear it?” I hear Something too fine, too balanced To be called tangle, Too wisely innocent of plans, devices To be named weave. I press the plastic closer, Try to bring her nearer. “Can you hear the thunder?” But the gale is drowned, The rain hushed, Thunder quieted. She speaks, And a gentler force Overwhelms all of them.

Spring is passing. The birds cry, and the fishes’ eyes are With tears.

KING RICHARD II: No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth, Let's choose executors and talk of wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings; How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus Comes at the last and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence: throw away respect, Tradition, form and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while: I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, How can you say to me, I am a king?

*Prayer for the Mutilated World* what will be left after the last fidget spinner’s spun its last spin after the billboards accrue their thick layer of grit masking advertisements for teeth paste & tanqueray gin after the highways are overtaken by invasive forests after the ministers give up their gods & the rabbis their congregations for drink after new men rise to lead us sheep toward our shearing, to make bed sheets from our hair after the high towers have no airplanes to warn away & instead blink purely toward heaven like children with one red eye after phone lines do nothing but cut the sky into sheet music & our phones are just expensive bricks of metal & glass after our cloud of photographs collapses & all memories retreat back into their privatized skulls after the water taps gasp out their final blessing what then? when even the local militias run out of ammunitions when the blast radii have been chalked & the missiles do all they were built to when us jews have given up our state for that much older country of walking & then that even older religion of dirt when all have succumbed to illness inside the church of our gutted pharmacies when the seas eat their cities when the ground splits like a dress when the trash continent in the mid-atlantic at last opens its mouth to spit what will be left after we’ve left i dare not consider it instead dance with me a moment late in this last extinction that you are reading this must be enough

\#!/usr/bin/perl \# \# asylum.pl \# by Harl close (youreyes); bind (yourself, fast); while ($narcosis) {    exists $to($calm);    not calm; } accept the, anesthesia; seek the, $granted, $asylum' and wait; stat ically; unlink and listen (in, $complicity); for (a, little) {    system ("sync hronicity"); }

*Watermelons* Green Buddhas On the fruit stand. We eat the smile And spit out the teeth.

*Leap Year* All the years of grown’n up, “leap year,” Just meant an extra day of cold and grief. In the gruesome days of February, Before you could turn a calendar leaf. For years I’ve always calculated, Without that extra day in there. By the time I turned eighty, I’d be breathing younger air. Saddled with all the daily ranch work, I never bothered with the solar spin. We just had our yearly chores, That we’d do over and over again. Back in the early days of grades, Far out in a country school. Our teacher taught us a little riddle, That became a Golden Rule. That we could use throughout our lives, To remember each month’s days. And recite it on command, Even in our foggiest lackluster haze. But I’ve always done things my way, To keep track of days gone by. They say dyslexics do that, So here’s my version why. Thirty days has September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty one, Except “January,” that on certain long winters has “forty some.”

*Fear* I fear the vast dimensions of eternity. I fear the gap between the platform and the train. I fear the onset of a murderous campaign. I fear the palpitations caused by too much tea. I fear the drawn pistol of a rapparee. I fear the books will not survive the acid rain. I fear the ruler and the blackboard and the cane. I fear the Jabberwock, whatever it might be. I fear the bad decisions of a referee. I fear the only recourse is to plead insane. I fear the implications of a lawyer’s fee. I fear the gremlins that have colonized my brain. I fear to read the small print of the guarantee. And what else do I fear? Let me begin again.

*Prayer for My Father as a Child* In the house where he sleeps let my ears be the leaves at the window. Let the bulbs of the lamps be my eyes on the animal street. Let the shadows that harbour my unborn body stir when harm is stirring. I’ll sleep in the drawer with the knives. I’ll turn in the locks.

*Ozymandias* In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows:— “I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone, “The King of Kings; this mighty City shows The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,— Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose The site of this forgotten Babylon. We wonder — and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

*Loneliness* Loneliness is a town Where everyone else is dead. The streets are clean, The street markets empty, Suddenly everything's in a true light Through being deserted -- exactly The way it was meant to be. Loneliness is a city Where it's always snowing Prodigiously, and no footsteps ever Profane the layered Drift of the light. And you alone, the unsleeping eye Keeping an eye on the sleepers, you See, comprehend, and can't have enough Of a silence so pristine Nobody fights there, Nobody's lied to, And even the tear in the eye Of the abandoned animals Is too pure to hurt. On the border Between suffering and death, Loneliness is a happy town.

*Fragment 147* someone will remember us                  I say                  even in another time

*Ozymandias* I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."

*[The house was just twinkling in the moon light]* The house was just twinkling in the moon light, And inside it twinkling with delight, Is my baby bright. Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling with the moonlight, Bless my baby bless my baby bright, Bless my baby twinkling with delight, In the house twinkling in the moon light, Her hubby dear loves to cheer when he thinks and he always thinks when he knows and he always knows that his blessed baby wifey is all here and he is all hers, and sticks to her like burrs, blessed baby

The Shortest Day And so the Shortest Day came and the year died And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away. They lighted candles in the winter trees; They hung their homes with evergreen; They burned beseeching fires all night long To keep the year alive. And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake They shouted, revelling. Through all the frosty ages you can hear them Echoing behind us – listen! All the long echoes, sing the same delight, This Shortest Day, As promise wakens in the sleeping land: They carol, feast, give thanks, And dearly love their friends, And hope for peace. And now so do we, here, now, This year and every year. Welcome Yule!

*Ghosts* Having survived the night of rhetoric and childhood I'm left with the image of the three of us: Mother, sister, daughter--an idea of progression-- An idea abandoned at varying distances. The dream was the story of another way to live. As the characters assumed uncontrolled postures There you were among them, knowing what you wanted. What if the night is a book you must dream Someone else's dream over and over, each word A syringe with the job of waking up Some decreased part. Whose face is at the window? An old white sheet with cut-out eyes Held against a face you know, you remember Someone smiling at you like that, a long time ago.

Once upon a midnight dreary, While I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious Volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, Suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, Rapping at my chamber door. "'T is some visitor," I muttered, "Tapping at my chamber door Only this and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember, It was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember Wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; Vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow Sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden Whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore. And the silken, sad, uncertain Rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me,—filled me with fantastic Terrors, never felt before; So that now, to still the beating Of my heart, I stood repeating, " 'T is some visitor entreating Entrance at my chamber door Some late visitor entreating Entrance at my chamber door; This it is and nothing more." Presently my soul grew stronger; Hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly Your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, And so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, Tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"— Here I opened wide the door; Darkness there and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, Long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals Ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, And the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken Was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo Murmured back the word, "Lenore!"— Merely this and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, All my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping Something louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely, that is Something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, And this mystery explore— Let my heart be still a moment And this mystery explore;— 'T is the wind and nothing more." Open here I flung the shutter, When, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven Of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; Not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, Perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas Just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling My sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum Of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, Thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven Wandering from the nightly shore,— Tell me what thy lordly name is On the night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Much I marveled this ungainly Fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning— Little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing That no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing Bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured Bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore." But the Raven, sitting lonely On that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in That one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then he uttered; Not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, As my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Nevermore." Startled at the stillness broken By reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters Is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master Whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster Till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that Melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.' " But the Raven still beguiling All my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in Front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking What this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, Gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore." This I sat engaged in guessing, But no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now Burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, With my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining That the lamplight gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining With the lamplight gloating o'er She shall press, ah, nevermore! Then, methought, the air grew denser, Perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim, whose footfalls Tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee— By these angels he hath sent thee Respite—respite and nepenthe[1] From thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, And forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!— Prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether Tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, On this desert land enchanted— On this home by Horror haunted— Tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?— Tell me—tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil,— Prophet still, if bird or devil!— By that heaven that bends above us,— By that God we both adore,— Tell this soul with sorrow laden If, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden Whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden Whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Be that word our sign of parting, Bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting— "Get thee back into the tempest And the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token Of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!— Quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and Take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." And the Raven, never flitting, Still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas Just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming Of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight o'er him streaming Throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow That lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!