𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

'I Know Not Whether Laws Be Right' By Oscar Wilde I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in jail Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long. But this I know, that every Law That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother's life, And this sad world began, But straws the wheat and saves the chaff With a most evil fan. This too I know — and wise it were If each could know the same — That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.

'I Know Not Whether Laws Be Right' By Oscar Wilde I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in jail Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long. But this I know, that every Law That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother's life, And this sad world began, But straws the wheat and saves the chaff With a most evil fan. This too I know — and wise it were If each could know the same — That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.

'Silk Washing Temple' By Yu Xuanji As the states of Wu and Yue piled plot upon plot, the silk-washing goddess offered ease; a pair of laughing dimples turned the prince’s head, and a hundred thousand soldiers let fall their shining spears. Fan Li, successful, became a recluse; Wu Xu died for his advice. His country was wiped out. And yet, today, by the long river at Zhuji, there’s nothing but a green hill named Zhu Luo.

'Charade' By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Two words there 'are, both short, of beauty rare, Whose sounds our lips so often love to frame, But which with clearness never can proclaim The things whose own peculiar stamp they bear. 'Tis well in days of age and youth so fair, One on the other boldly to inflame; And if those words together link'd we name, A blissful rapture we discover there. But now to give them pleasure do I seek, And in myself my happiness would find; I hope in silence, but I hope for this: Gently, as loved one's names, those words to speak To see them both within one image shrin'd, Both in one being to embrace with bliss.

'for marilyn m.' By Charles Bukowski slipping keenly into bright ashes, target of vanilla tears your sure body lit candles for men on dark nights and now your night is darker than the candle's reach and we will forget you, somewhat, and it is not kind but real bodies are nearer and as the worms pant for your bones, I would so like to tell you that this happens to bears and elephants to tyrants and heroes and ants and frogs, still, you brought us something, some type of small victory, and for this I shall say: good and let us grieve no more; like a flower dried and thrown away, we forget, we remember, we wait. child, child, child, I raise my drink for a full minute and smile.

'How Is Your Heart?' By Charles Bukowski during my worst times on the park benches in the jails or living with whores I always had this certain contentment- I wouldn’t call it happiness- it was more of an inner balance that settled for whatever was occurring and it helped in the factories and when relationships went wrong with the girls. it helped through the wars and the hangovers the back alley fights the hospitals. to awaken in a cheap room in a strange city and pull up the shade- this was the craziest kind of contentment and to walk across the floor to an old dresser with a cracked mirror- see myself, ugly, grinning at it all. what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

'Piano' By David Herbert Lawrence Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

'A Pact' By Ezra Pound I make truce with you, Walt Whitman— I have detested you long enough. I come to you as a grown child Who has had a pig-headed father; I am old enough now to make friends. It was you that broke the new wood, Now is a time for carving. We have one sap and one root— Let there be commerce between us.

'Leda And The Swan' By William Butler Yeats A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

'The Maiden's Sorrow' By William Cullen Bryant Seven long years has the desert rain Dropped on the clods that hide thy face; Seven long years of sorrow and pain I have thought of thy burial-place. Thought of thy fate in the distant west, Dying with none that loved thee near; They who flung the earth on thy breast Turned from the spot williout a tear. There, I think, on that lonely grave, Violets spring in the soft May shower; There, in the summer breezes, wave Crimson phlox and moccasin flower. There the turtles alight, and there Feeds with her fawn the timid doe; There, when the winter woods are bare, Walks the wolf on the crackling snow. Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away; All my task upon earth is done; My poor father, old and gray, Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone. In the dreams of my lonely bed, Ever thy form before me seems; All night long I talk with the dead, All day long I think of my dreams. This deep wound that bleeds and aches, This long pain, a sleepless pain-- When the Father my spirit takes, I shall feel it no more again.