Culture Poems
The Gods Of Greece
by Friedrich Schiller
Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!
Then, through a veil of dreams
......
Bagpipe Music
by Louis Macneice
It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.
John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumbbells to use when he was fifty.
......
Early One October Morning
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
The smell of humidor
Charmed the old house and
Frightened me as I ascended the
Narrow stairwell that gentle
October morning.
The song of autumn was playing
Low, and with astute grace.
Silent, the royal smell wafted between Cuba
And Denmark,
Across fat rank grass of fecund roots.
......
Discrimination
by Adelaide Rhead
Why do you think you're better
If your culture is not the same?
Yes, maybe you seem different
But deep inside all are the same.
Why do they think they're better?
If one is black and one is white,
If one is man and one is woman.
They are the same, that is their right.
......
The Dream Of Wearing Shorts Forever
by Les Murray
To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass,
to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches,
or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
......
One-Minute Fool
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
At this road of congruity, has he frowned
At flagellation.
Abnegation has long ceased to be his watchword,
And conforming his values, has he arranged
His worth in sterling grace.
He's a sybarite, this philistine
In every sixty second has he guarded
His loincloth to blink at the
Naked day, but has prepared the ground
......
Mad Waters
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Mad waters come our way.
Seasons are gleaned from lean stems
beneath bloodless rocks;
thresholds, scorched, reprint footsteps
of dark ages replete with foul breath.
Alas, mad days are here.
And with clouds mourning near
disconsolate skies,
the heavens themselves lay siege on
......
Yesterday II
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Yesterday reclines on the tenuous
breath of ancestral drums,
and summons protocols for the crowning
of tomorrow.
A martinet, yonder, celebrates the sepia
aura in the spine of the vista of the last days;
atavism unfetters the imprecation of hastening
Dawns.
And angels lengthen azure apparels,
......
Yesterday
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Blithe humour yearns for
Pridian vagaries before now,
Trusting the mooring of able
Ships on clear waters of
Mirror images.
Wistful, our call on the sere
Tongue of harmattan, when
Pines whistled in unison to
Welcome straying and returning
Birds – black confetti over
......
Towards the East
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Craving the pulse of newness and
freshness of hatchlings,
dawn opens wide its door.
Towards the East,
the paterfamilias' familiar terrain of open lineage;
a lone pendant smiles.
It holds aloft the cemetery bliss,
opening buds of petals and re-greening blades
......
