"FOR YOU: ANTHOPHILOUS, LOVER OF FLOWERS"
By Reginald Dwayne Betts
For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers,
greenish roses, chrysanthemums, lilies: retrophilia,
philocaly, philomath, sarcophilous—all this love,
of the past, of beauty, of knowledge, of flesh this is
catalogue & counter: philalethist, negrophile, neophile.
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 negro homo walks downward the street, taps Newport
out against a brick wall & stares at you. Love
that: lygophilia, lithophilous. Be with stones,
with darkness. We are drinking glass house. Philopornist,
philotechnical. Why non worship the demimonde?
Love that—a corner room, any is non there,
all the clutter you lot proceed secret. Palaeophile,
ornithophilous: you, antiquarian, pollinated past times birds.
All this a means to dream greenish rose petals on the bed you lot love
petrophilous, stigmatophilia: alive nigh rocks, tattoo hurt
for you lot topophilia: what house create you lot love? All these words
for dearest (for you), all these ways to tell believe
inward symphily, to tell allow us alive nigh each other.
How tin you lot write virtually flowers? You don't. The bloom writes the fundamental notes of your soul.
Something virtually sharing all this beauty inward 1 house too thus beingness a business office of love.
........How virtually having a Briar Patch inward the middle of baseball game field, with thorny petty xanthous plants too wooded houses with wild ducks walking all over the place.
Or maybe a floral scene with a petty English linguistic communication tea with clotted cheese too scones is to a greater extent than to your liking, sir.
I ALLOW MYSELF
By Dorothea Grossman
I allow myself
the luxury of breakfast
(I am no nun, for Christ’s sake).
Charmed equally I am
past times the sputter of bacon,
too the eye-opening properties
of eggs,
it’s the coffee
that’s actually sacramental.
In the erstwhile days,
I spread fires too floods too pestilence
on my toast.
Nowadays, I’m to a greater extent than selective,
I entirely read my horoscope
past times the silence glow of the marmalade.
MORITURI SALUTAMUS: POEM FOR THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1825 IN BOWDOIN COLLEGE
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"O Cæsar, nosotros who are virtually to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing confront to face
With decease too with the Roman populace.
O ye familiar scenes,—ye groves of pine,
That 1 time were mine too are no longer mine,—
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
To the vast sea, thus nigh too soundless unseen,—
Ye halls, inward whose seclusion too repose
Phantoms of fame, similar exhalations, rose
And vanished,—we who are virtually to die,
Salute you world too air too bounding main too sky,
And the Imperial Sunday that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove too town.
[The End]