Instructions

I read two books recently by Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere and Stardust. They were rather sweet fantasies, with a touch of whimsy, and I enjoyed them very much. Thank you to my daughter for sending them to me. Nowhere was the darker of the two. I enjoyed the author playing with the names of the London subway stations, and with the homeless who seek shelter there. A man falls into an alternate reality where he becomes part of the community of street people living below London. He is suddenly invisible to those in his previous life, including his former co-workers and former fiance, even when he is standing right in front of them. At the same time his life is more real than it ever was before.

Just in case you ever drop into another reality:

Instructions
by Neil Gaiman

Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never
saw before.
Say "please" before you open the latch,
go through,
walk down the path.
A red metal imp hangs from the green-painted
front door,
as a knocker,
do not touch it; it will bite your fingers.
Walk through the house. Take nothing. Eat
nothing.
However, if any creature tells you that it hungers,
feed it.
If it tells you that it is dirty,
clean it.
If it cries to you that it hurts,
if you can,
ease its pain.

From the back garden you will be able to see the
wild wood.
The deep well you walk past leads to Winter's
realm;
there is another land at the bottom of it.
If you turn around here,
you can walk back, safely;
you will lose no face. I will think no less of you.

Once through the garden you will be in the
wood.
The trees are old. Eyes peer from the under-
growth.
Beneath a twisted oak sits an old woman. She
may ask for something;
give it to her. She
will point the way to the castle.
Inside it are three princesses.
Do not trust the youngest. Walk on.
In the clearing beyond the castle the twelve
months sit about a fire,
warming their feet, exchanging tales.
They may do favors for you, if you are polite.
You may pick strawberries in December's frost.
Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where
you are going.
The river can be crossed by the ferry. The ferry-
man will take you.
(The answer to his question is this:
If he hands the oar to his passenger, he will be free to
leave the boat.
Only tell him this from a safe distance.)

If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe.
Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that
witches are often betrayed by their appetites;
dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always;
hearts can be well-hidden,
and you betray them with your tongue.

Do not be jealous of your sister.
Know that diamonds and roses
are as uncomfortable when they tumble from
one's lips as toads and frogs:
colder, too, and sharper, and they cut.

Remember your name.
Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found.
Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped
to help you in their turn.
Trust dreams.
Trust your heart, and trust your story.
When you come back, return the way you came.
Favors will be returned, debts will be repaid.
Do not forget your manners.
Do not look back.
Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall).
Ride the silver fish (you will not drown).
Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur).

There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is
why it will not stand.

When you reach the little house, the place your
journey started,
you will recognize it, although it will seem
much smaller than you remember.
Walk up the path, and through the garden gate
you never saw before but once.
And then go home. Or make a home.
And rest.

And, another bit of fantasy:

Song
by John Donne

Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me, where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’ stinging
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’est born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
Nowhere
Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find’st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet,
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come to two, or three.

Father's Day

I don't have many poems specifically for fathers, or mothers either, for that matter. Do poets not have parents? Do they not love them? Maybe loving parents just make boring poetry - not enough angst. I tried Googling mother +poetry, but the results were more greeting card verse than anything. So I am posting a couple of poems that sort of relate to fathers, and that will have to do.

My own father is wonderful. The greatest gift he gave me was an ability to be myself. He always said I could be anything I wanted if I worked for it. He expected the same things from all his children, son and daughters, except in one area: He always told us girls, "Put a little lipstick on before you go out. You never know who you might meet."

My husband is also a wonderful father, but that is a blog my son or daughter must write. Liz?

Poor children, with such stable parents, can they ever be poets?

This first poem is about a father "dancing" with his child, something I remember my father doing with me.

My Papa’s Waltz
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Theodore Roethke

I love this next poem. The poet does not actually have a child, so he holds on to his "inner child" and shows it the moon.

Moon
The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.

It’s as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge
where he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby’s face to the sky
to see for the first time
the earth’s bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.

And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.

And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand.

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.

Billy Collins

Three Poems for Memorial Day

The Bivouac of the Dead

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

Theodore O'Hara




Not for a Nation

Not for the flag
Of any land because myself was born there
Will I give up my life.
But I will love that land where man is free,
And that I will defend.

Edna St Vincent Millay


War Song

Soldier in a curious land
All across a swaying sea,
Take her smile and lift her hand—
Have no guilt of me.

Soldier, when were soldiers true?
If she’s kind and sweet and gay,
Use the wish I send to you—
Lie not lone til day!

Only, for the nights that were,
Soldier, and the dawns that came,
When in sleep you turn to her
Call her by my name.

Dorothy Parker

Love Your Neighbor Part 2

Interval of Joy

just as I was saying I would stop writing about love and lust
and write something instead about the unhappiness of my neighbor
I met you and fell into complete confusion
and all my resolutions went up in air
now see where I sit and write songs again
burning for your somewhat green eyes
thirsting for your saliva
recollecting our one love-walk in the country
when the mosquitoes bit us in confused bewilderment
at this incomparable devotion of ours
and the thorns pierced into our bodies
astonished at the extent of our indifference

it was an interval of joy

may the unhappy forgive me for it
I have not yet suffered enough
for the pain of my neighbor to touch me

Dinos Christianopoulos

Love Your Neighbor

We are to love God above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If you don’t know who your neighbor is, I refer you to the parable of the Good Samaritan. I refer you to my parents.

If you needed help, my parents would give you help – not always money, which wasn’t plentiful – but certainly a bed to lie in and a place at the table.

When I was quite young a woman and her two children came to stay with us for a couple of weeks while she was getting a divorce. My father worked with her husband, which made it kind of awkward for him, but “He was abusing them”, my mother said, and that was enough.

A young woman living next to us had two illegitimate children. The oldest, a boy about two, was taken away from her for neglect about the time the baby was born. My mother thought she was neglecting the baby, too, so she told her, “If you don’t want to take care of that baby, give it to me.” The baby came home with her. She got the crib and bottles out of the attic, and the baby stayed for about three months before the woman went to court, got both the children back, and moved away.

Foreign students stayed with us, sometimes for only a few days while they were touring America. One, a college student from Zanzibar stayed a year. He was a dark skinned Muslim, rather quiet and modest. He was afraid of the family dog. My mother, never one to turn down an opportunity to learn something, studied the Koran with him.

We lived near the state fairgrounds, so in August we sometimes had workers or entertainers stay with us during Fair Week. I remember one summer a group of acrobats stayed. I don’t think my parents even charged them room and board. My mother said they had a hard life.

My sister broke up with a guy one time and when he lost his apartment, my mother gave him a room until he could find another. My sister was pissed, to tell the truth.

Then, after I left home and got married, my folks gave shelter to a family of Laotian refugees and their blind baby. They gave my mother parasites.

A Vietnamese high school student stayed for two years.

A Chinese college student stayed for about six years. My parents loaned her money to start law school so she wouldn’t have to go back to China. She is still close to the family. My father gave her away at her wedding.

This all in addition to various family members who stayed for varying lengths of time, Democratic campaign workers who stayed during the Iowa caucuses, and people they invited home from the soup kitchen they cooked at on Thursday nights.

My parents knew who their neighbors were.