Suicide
Alice Walker
First, suicide notes should be
(not long) but written
second,
all suicide notes
should be signed
in blood
by hand
and to the point—
that point being, perhaps,
that there is none.
First, suicide notes should be
(not long) but written
second,
all suicide notes
should be signed
in blood
by hand
and to the point—
that point being, perhaps,
that there is none.
Where do you live?
I live in ten thousand years of steep mountain
I live in ten thousand years of crag-rock
And your age?
My age is greater than the mountain’s
Greater than the crag-rock’s
See the golden Leopard with the spots!
The golden cat of the cliffs!
See the Leopard with the bulging cheeks,
The golden Leopard with the wide face, I-Face-
Nothing,
The particoloured one, I-Climb-Into-A-Small-Tree
I rip off the eyebrows!
Clawer am I, dig my nail in deep,
My enemies I leave behind, saying
`This was not one leopard but ten!`
Mr
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often ’tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be moved for days from where it sometime fell.
When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.
Oh,
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,’
BOOK I
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star,
Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands
And why should I be sad?
And why should you be glad?
To-morrow will come
With the sunrise gun,
When I may be glad
While you may be sad —
Ah, should I not wait till then?
What if the skies are gray
And hide the sun away;
To-morrow will come
With the sunrise gun,
The sun will break through,
Da Yanhe, is my wet nurse.
Her name is the name of her village where she was born,
She is a childbride,
Da Yanhe, is my wet nurse.
I am a landlord’s son;
I am also Da Yanhe’s son
Who has brought me up by breastfeeding me.
Da Yanhe raises her family by raising me,
And I have been raised by
Dim vales—and shadowy floods—
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can’t discover
For the tears that drip all over:
Huge moons there wax and wane—
Again—again—again—
Every moment of the night—
Forever changing places—
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
In love they wore themselves in a green embrace.
A silken rain fell through the spring upon them.
In the park she fed the swans and he
whittled nervously with his strange hands.
And white was mixed with all their colours
as if they drew it from the flowering trees.
At night his two finger whistle brought her down
the waterfall
Sleep, sleep, little one, close your eyes, sleep,
little one!
The night comes down, the hour has comes,
tomorrow it will be day.
Sleep, sleep, little one! On your closed eyes day
has fled
You are warm. You have drunk, sleep, sleep,
little one!
Sleep, tomorrow you will be big, you will be
strong.
Sleep, tomorrow you will take the
Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labor, I in labor lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven’s zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th’ eyes of busy fools may be
Pleasure of the night laid legs on my honeypot
To bring alive my unborn children from heaven
Groaning of the day deeper my soul into spirituality
Claw of incantation serrated my waist with beads
They fed me with strange herbs and lizard eggs without honour
Clapping and dancing on naked breasts to their gods
Still and still,
O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas’d eyes, embower’d from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes.
Or wait the Amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or
Barely a breath of air tonight,
skies clouded over unmoving,
releasing a torrent of tears
to the clap of thunder
as we gather thoughts
and wrestle with emotions.
A rainbow over Windsor
fades into darkening sky.
The sun has set on
the passing of a Queen.
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee
Human reason is beautiful and invincible.
No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books,
No sentence of banishment can prevail against it.
It establishes the universal ideas in language,
And guides our hand so we write Truth and Justice
With capital letters, lie and oppression with small.
It puts what should be above things as they are,
Is an
If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And, counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went —
Then you may count that day well spent.
But if, through all the livelong day,
You’ve cheered
Humid seal of soft affections,
Tend’rest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of young connections,
Love’s first snow-drop, virgin kiss.
Speaking silence, dumb confession,
Passion’s birth, and infants’ play,
Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,
Glowing dawn of brighter day.
Sorrowing joy, adieu’s last action,
Ling’ring lips, — no more to join!