Poems that drop you in your tracks

[annaswirls]

TO BRING THE DEAD TO LIFE

To bring the dead to life
Is no great magic.
Few are wholly dead:
Blow on a dead man's embers
And a live flame will start.

Let his forgotten griefs be now,
And now his withered hopes;
Subdue your pen to his handwriting
Until it prove as natural
To sign his name as yours.

Limp as he limped,
Swear by the oaths he swore;
If he wore black, affect the same;
If he had gouty fingers,
Be yours gouty too.

Assemble tokens intimate of him --
A ring, a hood, a desk:
Around these elements then build
A home familiar to
The greedy revenant.

So grant him life, but reckon
That the grave which housed him
May not be empty now:
You in his spotted garments
Shall yourself lie wrapped.


Robert Graves

 

[cherries_on_snow]

The Hardness Scale

by Joyce Peseroff

Diamonds are forever so I gave you quartz
which is #7 on the hardness scale
and it's hard enough to get to know anybody these days
if only to scratch the surface
and quartz will scratch six other mineral surfaces:
it will scratch glass
it will scratch gold
it will even
scratch your eyes out one morning--you can't be
too careful.
Diamonds are industrial so I bought
a ring of topaz
which is #8 on the hardness scale.
I wear it on my right hand, the way it was
supposed to be, right? No tears and fewer regrets
for reasons smooth and clear as glass. Topaz will
scratch glass,
it will scratch your quartz,
and all your radio crystals. You'll have to be silent
the rest of your days
not to mention your nights. Not to mention
the night you ran away very drunk very
very drunk and you tried to cross the border
but couldn't make it across the lake.
Stirring up geysers with the oars you drove the red canoe
in circles, tried to pole it but
your left hand didn't know
what the right hand was doing.
You fell asleep
and let everyone know it when you woke up.
In a gin-soaked morning (hair of the dog) you went
hunting for geese,
shot three lake trout in violation of the game laws,
told me to clean them and that
my eyes were bright as sapphires
which is #9 on the hardness scale.
A sapphire will cut a pearl
it will cut stainless steel
it will cut vinyl and mylar and will probably
cut a record this fall
to be released on an obscure label known only to afficionados.
I will buy a copy.
I may buy you a copy
depending on how your tastes have changed.
I will buy copies for my friends
we'll get a new needle,
a diamond needle,
which is #10 on the hardness scale
and will cut anything.
It will cut wood and mortar,
plaster and iron,
it will cut the sapphires in my eyes and I will bleed
blind as 4 A.M. in the subways when even degenerates
are dreaming, blind as the time
you shot up the room with a new hunting rifle
blind drunk
as you were.
You were #11 on the hardness scale
later that night
apologetic as
you worked your way up
slowly from the knees
and you worked your way down
from the open-throated blouse.
Diamonds are forever so I give you softer things.

 

[Sealace]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning


VI

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforth in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore--
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

One Art (Elizabeth Bishop)

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

 

[Sealace]

this is a GOOD thread and I found apoem that belongs here, deserves to be read..oh well, just my opinion

heres the link--

http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/html/Lindsay.html

omg I am not sure how I got to this post, but what an intense poem

 

[sugarmountain]

omg I am not sure how I got to this post, but what an intense poem

I second that sealace.....way intense.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Handmade

for Dossie

Give it up.

Arch
Your back,
Beat the mattress with your arms
Like wings,
Grab handfuls of
The sheet

And spread
Till you feel the pull
In the sockets of
Your thighs--

Spread for me.

Let it feel good--
The last finger,
The thumb tucked in,
my hand sliding in
The length of another knuckle

Until the idea that
This time it might really happen
Closes your cunt up
Tighter than a valve in the aorta
Sealing itself against
The heart's great thrust of blood.

I don't mind.
We can wait here,
You and I,
Until you decide
How much of me you want.

I move the tips of my fingers
Like a sea-flower
Combing the ebb tides for crumbs.
I slip more grease
Inside you,
And it melts off my fingers,
Dissolved by the heat
Of your lust.

You reach for me with your ass,
And I begin to fuck you again,
Pushing from the shoulder.
You distract yourself by
Making a noise
Your hips can keep time to.
You do not feel yourself slip down
Another crucial half-inch
Onto the biggest part of my hand.

You give,
Elastic in your need,
You give a little more,
You hover--

Contractions build
Too deep for you to feel them,
The tremors that herald
Orgasm.

For a split second,
You open
Like a balloon being blown up,
Like the tunnel that runs
Beneath the curling lip
Of an incoming wave.

We both yell
As I glide in.
The bolt of pain is
Followed by
Exquisite fullness.

You clamp around me,
Taking my measure,
Driving yourself crazy
Trying to push me out.

I push back.
I punish.
I coax.
I persuade.
I preach.
I lie.

And because you believe me
It is suddenly true

And you give
It all
To me

So hard
That if my fist wasn't in you
There would be come
All over
My face.

~ Pat Califia, The Zenith of Desire

 

[Seduceros2]

For Kazuko

The bolero, silk-tassled, the fuchsia
scarf come off: all that black hair

for the asking! You are unbraiding
small braids, your face full

behind a curtain of dark breath. Why
am I suprised when your lids emerge

from the fragrant paint? Now the couch
is baring its red throat, and now

you must understand me: your breasts,
so tiny, wound---or more precisely, echo

all the breasts which cannot swell, which
we prefer. I would like to lose myself

in those hushing thighs; but
sadness is not enough. A phallus

walks your dreams, Kazuko, lovely and
unidentified. Here is an anthology of wishes

if fucking were graceful, desire an alibi.


~Rita Dove

 

[Seduceros2]

Portrait of a Lady

Your thighs are appletrees
whose blossoms touch the sky.
Which sky? The sky where Watteau hung a lady's
slipper. Your knees
are a southern breeze---or
a gust of snow. Agh! what
sort of man was Fragonard?
---as if that answered
anything. Ah, yes---below
the knees, since the tune
drops that way, it is
one of those white summer days,
the tall grass of your ankles
flickers upon the shore---
Which shore?---
the sand clings to my lips---
Which shore?
Agh, petals maybe. How
should I know?
Which shore? Which shore?
I said petals from an appletree.


William Carlos Williams

 

[clutching_calliope]

Rilke - Blank Joy

.....

 

[annaswirls]

While Pies Revolve in the Refrigerated Dark
~The RainMan

..................... Which of them will wander the sidewalks all night
..................... while the pies revolve in the refrigerated dark—
..............................................................................Kim Addonizio


The diner closes. I step out onto Hollywood & Vine
in the middle of the night, onto the empty sidewalk
that leads wherever empty sidewalks lead.
I don’t think I’m allowed to stand here
either all night without ordering something,

and I begin to wonder exactly what it is I want—
what unexplainable comfort,
in what uncomfortable place. I know
what I don’t want—I don’t want to go home

and continue to die politely. I don’t want
to crawl into the comfortable canyon
of our bed, where I’m told echo
after echo to be content
with unhappiness. I don’t want to return

to that turning, that familiar way of surrender
and sacrifice, a willing lamb,
the open, gurgling throat
from which the blood of a chosen defeat gushes
and I just go on and on and on watching

and bleeding. There’s something different out here
in the dark that I want.
And I know full well, no matter what
its name claims, this is not a city of angels.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Hand Games

Intent gets blocked by noise.
How often what we spoke
in the bathtub, weeping
water to water, what we framed
lying flat in bed to the spiked
night is not the letter that arrives,
the letter we thought we sent. We drive
toward each other on expressways
without exits. The telephone
turns our voices into codes,
then decodes the words falsely,
terms of an equation
that never balances, a scale
forever awry with a foot
stuck up lamely like a scream.

Drinking red wine from a sieve,
trying to catch love in words,
its strong brown river in flood
pours through our weak bones.
A kitten will chase the beam of a flash
light over the floor. We learn
some precious and powerful forces
can not be touched, and what
we touch plump and sweet
as a peach from the tree, a tomato
from the vine, sheds the name
as if we tried to write in pencil
on its warm and fragrant skin.

Mostly the television is on
and the washer is running and the kettle
shrieks it's boiling while the telephone
rings. Mostly we are worrying about
the fuel bill and how to pay the taxes
and whether the diet is working
when the moments of vulnerability
lights on the nose like a blue moth
and flitters away through clouds of mosquitos
and the humid night. In the leaking
sieve of our bodies we carry
the blood of our love.

by Marge Piercy
from The Moon is Always Female

 

[Seduceros2]

To His Coy Mistress

Andrew Marvell. 1621–1678

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave 's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.


[slow-chapt=slow-jawed, slowly devouring.]

 

[darkecstacy]

Extract from 'Letter to the Twins' by Don Paterson

First, she will address you in a tongue
so secret she must close her mouth on yours.
In the surves and corners of this silent song
will lie the whole code of your intercourse.

Then, as you break, at once you understand
how the roses of her breast will draw in tight
at your touch, how that parched scrubland
between her thighs breaks open into wet

suddenly, as though you'd found the stream
running through it like a seam of milk;
know, by its tiny pulse and its low gleam
just where the pearl sits knuckled in its silk

how that ochre-pink anemone relaxes
and unknots under your light hand and white spit;
and how that lovely mouth that has no kiss
will take the deepest you can plant in it;

 

[Seduceros2]

"Japan" by Billy Collins.

Japan


Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Billy Collins

 

[clutching_calliope]

<I will put Chaos into fourteen lines> Edna St. Vincent Millay

.....

 

[Tzara]

I had to drag this thread up from the Lit morgue (and let me tell you, it was pure hell wrestling its rigor mortised limbs up the stairs from the basement) because it is the only appropriate thread for my personal mash note that follows.

You have been warned.

I am taking a writing class, and as part of that class we are reading stories and poems and "this is how you dolts should write" kind of things from a pair of thick college anthologies. You've probably all been there, if you've been to college. If you haven't, think high school English where you have to buy the textbook (and it's really expensive and you'd really rather spend the money on taking Sam to that midnight showing of Pandora's Box, 'cuz she (Sam) is both really hot and really smart and maybe some of that Louise Brooks heat will wear off on her and you'll get luckier than you've been for a long time). Or think the girl equivalent of all that if you're female and if there is a girl equivalent to all that which there may not be.

Anyway.

I was, as usual, avoiding doing the actual assignment and just randomly reading around at poems in the (Did I say "thick?" Really really thick.) text. And, as sometimes happens, which is one of the truly great things about reading, I read this poem, which absolutely knocked me out:

Persimmons

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
slapped the back of my head
and made me stand in the corner
for not knowing the difference
between persimmon and precision.
How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.
Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.
Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one
will be fragrant. How to eat:
put the knife away, lay down the newspaper.
Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.
Chew on the skin, suck it,
and swallow. Now, eat
the meat of the fruit,
so sweet,
all of it, to the heart.

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.
In the yard, dewy and shivering
with crickets, we lie naked,
face-up, face-down,
I teach her Chinese.
Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I've forgotten.
Naked: I've forgotten.
Ni, wo: you and me.
I part her legs,
remember to tell her
she is beautiful as the moon.

Other words
that got me into trouble were
fight and fright, wren and yarn.
Fight was what I did when I was frightened,
fright was what I felt when I was fighting.
Wrens are small, plain birds,
yarn is what one knits with.
Wrens are soft as yarn.
My mother made birds out of yarn.
I loved to watch her tie the stuff;
a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class
and cut it up
so everyone could taste
a Chinese apple. Knowing
it wasn't ripe or sweet, I didn't eat
but watched the other faces.

My mother said every persimmon has a sun
inside, something golden, glowing,
warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper,
forgotten and not yet ripe.
I took them and set them both on my bedroom windowsill,
where each morning a cardinal
sang, The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding
he was going blind,
my father sat up all one night
waiting for a song, a ghost.
I gave him the persimmons,
swelled, heavy as sadness,
and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lighting
of my parents' cellar, I rummage, looking
for something I lost.
My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,
black cane between his knees,
hand over hand, gripping the handle.
He's so happy that I've come home.
I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.
All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find a box.
Inside the box I find three scrolls.
I sit beside him and untie
three paintings by my father:
Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.
Two cats preening.
Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,
asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,
the strength, the tense
precision in the wrist.
I painted them hundreds of times
eyes closed. These I painted blind.
Some things never leave a person:
scent of the hair of one you love,
the texture of persimmons,
in your palm, the ripe weight.

This poem is by some guy named Li-Young Lee whom I had never heard of before. You may think differently (though if you do, you are a complete idiot, totally insensitive, a Yankees fan, and probably someone who votes Republican) but I think this poem is simply fabulous.

OK, OK. I know I shouldn't quote it without permission. But it is so good I want you all to run out and find this guy's books and buy them immediately. My only excuse.

Sometimes, when they hit you right, you are drunk in love with words.

OK. Hit me with that whiskey one more time.

 

[ghost_girl]

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

7. Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

 

[sophieloves]

Persimmons

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
slapped the back of my head
and made me stand in the corner
for not knowing the difference
between persimmon and precision.
How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.
Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.
Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one
will be fragrant. How to eat:
put the knife away, lay down the newspaper.
Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.
Chew on the skin, suck it,
and swallow. Now, eat
the meat of the fruit,
so sweet,
all of it, to the heart.

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.
In the yard, dewy and shivering
with crickets, we lie naked,
face-up, face-down,
I teach her Chinese.
Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I've forgotten.
Naked: I've forgotten.
Ni, wo: you and me.
I part her legs,
remember to tell her
she is beautiful as the moon.

Other words
that got me into trouble were
fight and fright, wren and yarn.
Fight was what I did when I was frightened,
fright was what I felt when I was fighting.
Wrens are small, plain birds,
yarn is what one knits with.
Wrens are soft as yarn.
My mother made birds out of yarn.
I loved to watch her tie the stuff;
a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class
and cut it up
so everyone could taste
a Chinese apple. Knowing
it wasn't ripe or sweet, I didn't eat
but watched the other faces.

My mother said every persimmon has a sun
inside, something golden, glowing,
warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper,
forgotten and not yet ripe.
I took them and set them both on my bedroom windowsill,
where each morning a cardinal
sang, The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding
he was going blind,
my father sat up all one night
waiting for a song, a ghost.
I gave him the persimmons,
swelled, heavy as sadness,
and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lighting
of my parents' cellar, I rummage, looking
for something I lost.
My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,
black cane between his knees,
hand over hand, gripping the handle.
He's so happy that I've come home.
I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.
All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find a box.
Inside the box I find three scrolls.
I sit beside him and untie
three paintings by my father:
Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.
Two cats preening.
Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,
asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,
the strength, the tense
precision in the wrist.
I painted them hundreds of times
eyes closed. These I painted blind.
Some things never leave a person:
scent of the hair of one you love,
the texture of persimmons,
in your palm, the ripe weight.

this


ahhhhhhh



i feel enriched

 

[RhymeFairy]

Collectively
by Angeline©



Elliot called it "The Collective I,"
meaning you understand that if I
say "rosebush by the garden fence,"

you feel mulch under your shoes.
A thorny stem inclines toward you,
and the sun, which casts slats of shadow

onto the lawn, is warm on your cheek
even as you know you're reading my poem
because you're cerebral. Being human,

you have higher-order thinking skills,
so if I say it's the beginning of summer,
it rained last night and this morning

the grass is damp, if I say a few drops
have slipped from oak leaves to your hair,
aren't you there? Morning feels fresh,

you shake your head "Yes," and another
drop falls from you to one rose petal
just starting to bloom, It's still my poem,

but aren't you there? Faintly glowing
with the blush of some memory close
enough to mine to be your hair, your oak,

your rose? You can bend to touch it
if you want. It's our experience now,
even if it never happened anywhere

but here. It's a poem, but listen
in whatever part of your imagination
links my words to your heart. Hear

the screen door slam? Look up. Your father
is smiling at you and the garden and morning.
When he lifts you up and sings your name,

you will still be reading this poem,
but you will have become a moment
in my life, and I will know yours.



This is just an awesome read. It makes one feel circles but also, one is a part, of said such circle. Nice write with feeling and trust. Of course, you must read ALL of Angelines' writes. She is incomparably creative ~

 

[ghost_girl]

Meat and potatoes

 

[ghost_girl]

Sometimes We Lie, by Hector Lopez

Sometimes We Lie


I lay next to her and she was distant
The thermostat was on a program
Too cold for both of us

Too much in my head kept me from sleep
So I asked, “What happened in Kerrville?”
“What do you mean?” she said

She never answered a question with a question
I am the Sephardic one (nice stereotype)
Unusual for a gentile I thought

Ok maybe I rubbed off on her a bit
I gave her the benefit of the doubt
Three weeks later, I saw her kissing another man

Wanting a confession, I asked again
More directly, “Are you having an affair?”
“No don’t be silly, I love you”

The next day I packed her things while she was at work
I wrote her a note and I was not cruel
It simply said, “Goodbye”

 

[RhymeFairy]

Color
by The_Fool©


Color her…indisposed.

Black wrapped tight
Across her eyes.

Blue tangled around her wrists
Cinching her tight
In repose.

Consider him…intangible.

Hot breath
Offers sunshine in summertime
As he breaths in her scent and exhales.

His touch,
The wind wrapped
In silken leopard skin.

The breeze of his touch
Explores her terrain
Inciting sighs and smiles.


The contour changes
Beneath scarf-wrapped fingers
As grain waves in the wind.

Tropical licks
Yield moans
For hot wet kisses.

The curve of her waist
Offers a valley
Designed just for his tongue.

He tastes the landscape
As he touches
Almost trembling.






I love The Fool's writing and this is but just a taste of his sultry charm. Sexy, erotic and just right ~!!!

~ jus sayin' ~~ *grins*

 

[secretgarden07]

A Poem that Stuns me:


the City in Which I Love You by Li-Young Lee


It is 7 pages long, so google it to read it...or get the book, so beautiful.

 

[LoneliestPoet]

Breathtaking Poems!

Fly, it's an excellent poem, but I don't get that drop-me-in-my-tracks feel from it. Though, I know what you're talking about. I've read poems that have just blown me away. I'll post one if I can find where I saved them.

Wicked Eve,

What drops Fly in his tracks doesn't have to drop you in yours, too! Everyone is different. I am sure the poem which drops you in your tracks, Fly might say, "You must be joking?" Everyone's personal preferences is what the world go around. I love oysters (out of the can, fried, baked)! Yummy! But, I know people who would gag at the sight or smell of them.

~LoneliestPoet

Oh, a poem that drops me in my tracks?

Deirdre

Do not let any woman read this verse!
It is for men, and after them their sons,
And their sons' sons!

The time comes when our hearts sink utterly;
When we remember Deirdre, and her tale,
And that her lips are dust.

Once she did tread the earth: men took her hand;
They looked into her eyes and said their say,
And she replied to them.

More than two thousand years it is since she
Was beautiful: she trod the waving grass;
She saw the clouds.

Two thousand years! The grass is still the same;
The clouds as lovely as they were that time
When Deirdre was alive.

But there has been again no woman born
Who was so beautiful; not one so beautiful
Of all the women born.

Let all men go apart and mourn together!
No man can ever love her! Not a man
Can dream to be her lover!

No man can bend before her! No man say ---
What could one say to her? There are no words
That one could say to her!

Now she is but a story that is told
Beside the fire! No man can ever be
The friend of that poor queen!

~ James Stephens