Streamside Exchange
John Pepper Clark
CHILD – River bird, river bird,
Sitting all day long
On hook over grass,
River bird, river bird,
Sing to me a song
Of all the pass
And say,
Will mother come back today?
CHILD – River bird, river bird,
Sitting all day long
On hook over grass,
River bird, river bird,
Sing to me a song
Of all the pass
And say,
Will mother come back today?
Heigho for a glass, heigho for a lass,
A drink and a kiss, I leave you;
Heigho for a friend that sticks till the end —
Good-bye, my lass, don’t you grieve you.
Hurrah for a song that is not too long,
With a jolly roaring chorus,
While our cans beat time to the ringing rhyme
Till the ceiling cracks up
Now the sprinkled blackthorn snow
Lies along the lover’s lane
Where last year we used to go-
Where we shall not go again.
In the hedge the buds are new,
By our wood the violets peer-
Just like last year’s violets too,
But they have no scent this year.
Every bird has heart to sing
Of its nest, warmed by its breast;<br
In vain your bangles cast
Charmed circles at my feet
I am Abiku, calling for the first
And repeated time.
Must I weep for goats and cowries
For palm oil and sprinkled ask?
Yams do not sprout amulets
To earth Abiku’s limbs.
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,
Taken from
“As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete
Was unto me, but why that I ne might
Rest I ne wist, for there n’as erthly wight
[As I suppose] had more of hertis ese
Than I, for I n’ad sickness nor disese.” – Chaucer
What is more gentle than a wind in summer?
What is more soothing than the pretty
PART I
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
‘There was a ship,’
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blith and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
The barbed-wire fences rust
As their cedar uprights blacken
After a night of rain.
Some early, innocent lust
Gets me outdoors to smell
The teasle, the pelted bracken,
The cold, mossed-over well,
Rank with its iron chain,
And takes me off for a stroll.
Wetness has taken over.
From drain and creeper twine
It’s runnelled and trenched and edged
A
Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears – but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me – and upraise
Thy gentle mew – and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish
Think not, Lothario, while I view
The bright expression of thy face,
And on thy cheek of crimson hue
Emotion’s varying beauties trace,
That in my heart one feeling dwells,
But what the coldest must approve,
Nor think my conscious bosom swells
With aught resembling secret love.
No….still these eyes can fix on thine,
Nor fear their keenest glance to meet;
And
Through the house give glimmering light
By the dead and drowsy fire;
Every elf and fairy sprite
hop as light as bird from brier.
Now, until the break of day
Our sails are spread before the wind,
And onward, onward swift we fly;
We’ve left our country far behind,
No prospect now invites the eye,
Save the blue sea, and cloudless sky.
Oh! when I wav’d my last good-bye,
To parents, friends, and Mary dear,
It was not fear that dimm’d mine eye,
This heart ne’er felt a thrill of fear
Elephant, death-bringer!
Elephant, spirit of the bush!
With his one hand he brings two trees to the ground.
If he had two hands, he would tear the sky like an
old rag.
Spirit who eat dog!
Spirit who eat ram!
Spirit who eats palm-fruit, thorns `and all!
With four pestle-legs he flattens the grass,
Where he walks, the grass cannot
Hurrah! to them who do nothing
see nothing feel nothing whose
hearts are fitted with prudence
like a diaphragm across
womb’s beckoning doorway to bar
the scandal of seminal rage. I’m
told the owl too wears wisdom
in a ring of defense round
each vulnerable eye securing it fast
against the darts of sight. Long ago
in the Middle East
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old—
This knight so bold—
And o’er his heart a shadow—
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
Snow falling on China’s land,
Cold is blocking China…
Wind,
Like a wailing old woman,
Closely following
The claws stretching with cold,
To clasp the clothes of passengers,
Endlessly prattling
In words as old as the land…
You, China’s farmhand
Emerging from forest,
Driving a cart,
Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.
Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Beggar,
There he stoops all day,
Wrinkled,
Grey-haired,
Senile,
With his stained beard, and his pavement bowl,
Hand hopefully outstretched,
Entreating,
Entreating with his eyes,
Entreating with his tongue,
Entreating with his hand,
Yet we saunter by,
Eyes earthwards riveted.
Sometimes a gnarled stick,
Sometimes none,
Always the filthy kanzu,
OF THE DESERTED MAIDEN TO HER LOVER .
Go! go! thou hast forgotten all
Thine early vows, so false, so vain!
Thy faithless love I’d not recall,
Could one word make thee mine again!
I lov’d thee with the fondest zeal
That ever warm’d a youthful heart;
And still my prayer is for thy weal,
Although so chang’d, so cold thou art.
While