Poetry

Samizhdat Organza

The Tomb of Edgar Allen Poe

As to himself, at last eternity changes him. The poet reawakens with a naked sword his century appalled at never having heard. That in this voice triumphant death had sung its hymn. They, like a writhing hydra, hearing seraphim bestow a purer sense on the language on the hords, loudly proclaimed that the magic potion had been poured from the dregs of some dishonored mixture of foul slime. From the war between earth and heavnen, what grief! If understanding cannot sculpt a bas-relief to ornament the dazzling tomb of Poe: calm block here fallen from obscure disaster, let this granite at least mark the boundaries ever more to the dark flights of blasphemy hurled to the future.

- Stephane Mallarmel

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll

Dance of Medusa

Give me the snake haired woman to dance out the anger frozen deep inside come mother medusa and wring from the cold hard stone of petrified grief some relief in my bones give me the snaked haired mother in my madness and let spring from my sorrow some winged beauty to fly away with all these burdens all these trials and tribulations give me the snaked haired goddess and let us shout it out, this anger, to the winds.

Alice Guynn

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

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