𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

'A Lounger' By James Whitcomb Riley He leant against a lamp-post, lost In some mysterious reverie: His head was bowed; his arms were crossed; He yawned, and glanced evasively: Uncrossed his arms, and slowly put Them back again, and scratched his side-- Shifted his weight from foot to foot, And gazed out no-ward, idle-eyed. Grotesque of form and face and dress, And picturesque in every way-- A figure that from day to day Drooped with a limper laziness; A figure such as artists lean, In pictures where distress is seen, Against low hovels where we guess No happiness has ever been.

'A Hate Song' By Percy Bysshe Shelley A hater he came and sat by a ditch, And he took an old cracked lute; And he sang a song which was more of a screech 'Gainst a woman that was a brute.

'As The Poems Go' By Charles Bukowski as the poems go into the thousands you realize that you've created very little. it comes down to the rain, the sunlight, the traffic, the nights and the days of the years, the faces. leaving this will be easier than living it, typing one more line now as a man plays a piano through the radio, the best writers have said very little and the worst, far too much.

'The God Abandons Antony' By Gaius Valerius Catullus At midnight, when suddenly you hear an invisible procession going by with exquisite music, voices, don't mourn your luck that's failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive--don't mourn them uselessly: as one long prepared, and full of courage, say goodbye to her, to Alexandria who is leaving. Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these. As one long prepared, and full of courage, as is right for you who were given this kind of city, go firmly to the window and listen with deep emotion, but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward; listen--your final pleasure--to the voices, to the exquisite music of that strange procession, and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

'Beasts Bounding Through Time' By Charles Bukowski Van Gogh writing his brother for paints Hemingway testing his shotgun Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine the impossibility of being human Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town the impossibility of being human Burroughs killing his wife with a gun Mailer stabbing his the impossibility of being human Maupassant going mad in a rowboat Dostoyevsky lined up against a wall to be shot Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller the impossibility Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops the impossibility Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench Chatterton drinking rat poison Shakespeare a plagiarist Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness the impossibility the impossibility Nietzsche gone totally mad the impossibility of being human all too human this breathing in and out out and in these punks these cowards these champions these mad dogs of glory moving this little bit of light toward us impossibly.

'Culture' By Ralph Waldo Emerson Can rules or tutors educate The semigod whom we await? He must be musical, Tremulous, impressional, Alive to gentle influence Of landscape and of sky, And tender to the spirit-touch Of man's or maiden's eye: But, to his native centre fast, Shall into Future fuse the Past, And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast.

'Bertha's Eyes' By Charles Baudelaire You can scorn more illustrious eyes, sweet eyes of my child, through which there takes flight something as good or as tender as night. Turn to mine your charmed shadows, sweet eyes! Great eyes of a child, adorable secrets, you resemble those grottoes of magic where, behind the dark and lethargic, shine vague treasures the world forgets. My child has veiled eyes, profound and vast, and shining like you, Night, immense, above! Their fires are of Trust, mixed with thoughts of Love, that glitter in depths, voluptuous or chaste.

'With A New Graduate, Grieving Over The Loss Of His Wife: Two Poems' By Yu Xuanji i. Immortals don’t remain long in the world of men; suddenly you’ll find ten autumns have gone past. Incense will still be warm beneath mandarin-duck curtains; conversation won’t cease in the parrot’s cage. Morning dew dots the flowers like a sorrowful face; The night wind bends the willows like melancholy eyebrows. Coloured clouds, once gone, leave no word behind; Pan Yue is full of love, though his hair grows white. ii. A sprig of moon cassia blends with grace into the mist; a thousand river peach trees grow red with drops of rain. Get drunk with the winecup! Leave these thoughts of loss; joy and sorrow in the past were as they are today.

'A Girl' By Ezra Pound The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast- Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms. Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child - so high - you are, And all this is folly to the world.

Admin's note: This is the last of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets published in 1609 'Sonnet CLIV' By William Shakespeare The little Love-god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd; And so the general of hot desire Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd. This brand she quenched in a cool well by, Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual, Growing a bath and healthful remedy For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall, Came there for cure, and this by that I prove, Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.