At This Moment of Time

Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear
The Ace of Spades. They fear
Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,
Sweet with decision. And they distrust
The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,
Then the colored lights, rising.
Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume
Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,
Locked in the stone of his act and office.
While the brass band brightly bursts over the water
They stand in the crowd lining the shore
Aware of the water beneath Him. They know it. Their eyes
Are haunted by water

Disturb me, compel me. It is not true
That "no man is happy," but that is not
The sense which guides you. If we are
Unfinished (we are, unless hope is a bad dream),
You are exact. You tug my sleeve
Before I speak, with a shadow's friendship,
And I remember that we who move
Are moved by clouds that darken midnight.



Cf Delmore Schwartz

Mr. Brain was a hermit dwarf who liked to eat
shellfish off the moon. He liked to go into a tree
then because there is a little height to see a
little further, which may reveal now the stone, a
pebble--it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon
that you can make sure of.

So Mr Brain opened his mouth to let a moonbeam into his head.



By Russell Edson

The Panther

His gaze, from the constantly passing bars,
Has grown so weary that it can hold no more.
To him it is as if there are a thousand bars,
And beyond those thousand bars, no world.

The gentle slink of his powerful, supple stride,
Turning in on itself in ever-smaller circles,
Is as a ritual dance of strength around a center
In which a great will stands paralyzed.

Occasionally the curtain of his pupils
Will silently rise, admitting an image.
Passing through the tense stillness of his limbs,
It plunges into his heart and is no more.

Written by Rainer Maria Rilke
*Translated by Robert Spielman

*There have been many translations done of this poem but this one is among my favorites.