If you can keep your head when all about youAre 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... Continue Reading →
Butcher Shop
Sometimes walking late at nightI stop before a closed butcher shop.There is a single light in the storeLike the light in which the convict digs his tunnel. An apron hangs on the hook:The blood on it smeared into a mapOf the great continents of blood,The great rivers and oceans of blood. There are knives that... Continue Reading →
Baby’s World
I wish I could take a quiet corner in the heart of my baby's veryown world.I know it has stars that talk to him, and a sky that stoopsdown to his face to amuse him with its silly clouds and rainbows.Those who make believe to be dumb, and look as if they nevercould move, come... Continue Reading →
A Mid-Summer Noon in the Australian Forest
Not a bird disturbs the air,There is quiet everywhere;Over plains and over woodsWhat a mighty stillness broods. Even the grasshoppers keepWhere the coolest shadows sleep;Even the busy ants are foundResting in their pebbled mound;Even the locust clingeth nowIn silence to the barky bough:And over hills and over plainsQuiet, vast and slumberous, reigns. Only there's a... Continue Reading →
Composed upon Westminster Bridge
Earth has not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty:This City now doth, like a garment, wearThe beauty of the morning; silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lieOpen unto the fields, and to the sky;All bright and glittering in the smokeless... Continue Reading →
Night of the Scorpion
I remember the night my motherwas stung by a scorpion. Ten hoursof steady rain had driven himto crawl beneath a sack of rice. Parting with his poison – flashof diabolic tail in the dark room –he risked the rain again. The peasants came like swarms of fliesand buzzed the name of God a hundred timesto... Continue Reading →
Ramrowriter 