[wendy v]

Pity us
by the sea
on the sands
so briefly.


-Samuel Menashe


----


The Pope's Penis

It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver seaweed, the hair
swaying in the dark and the heat -- and at night
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of God.

Sharon Olds


-------

Magnetic

i spell it out on this fridge door
you are so wonderful
i even like th way you snor


- Wendy Cope



-----------

Fragments

I

Locke sank into a swoon;
The garden died;
God took the spinning-jenny
out of his side.

II

Where got I that truth ?
Out of a medium's mouth,
Out of nothing it came,
Out of the forest loam,
Out of the dark night where lay
The crowns of Neneveh.


- Yeats

---

How Ticklishness Evolved

What danger does he shrink from, when my nail
skitters across the boundaries of his tan --
a tiger's whisker-tip, a scorpion's tail ?
What wriggler wrecked a cave bear's dinner plan
by waking up the world's first ticklish man ?

Maybe it was the spider's needle feet
that triggered that first trembling retreat;
perhaps the flicking of a serpent's tongue,
or something more insidious and sweet,
whose touch was feather-soft before it stung.

-Rose Kelleher

--

The angel that presided over my birth
Said, "Little creature formed of joy and mirth,
Go love without the help of any Thing on earth."


-Blake

--


Morning breeze, bring news
of beauty. Slowly, please.

-Shams

------------


Not all those who pass
in front of the Great Mother's Chair
get past with only a stare.
Some she looks at their hands
To see what kind of savages they were.

- Gary Snyder