CONCRETE POETRY

The Altar
BY GEORGE HERBERT

A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,

Made of a heart and cemented with tears;
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workman's tool hath touch'd the same.
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow'r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame
To praise thy name.
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.
 CONCRETE POETRY

Easter Wings
BY GEORGE HERBERT

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne

And still with sicknesses and shame.
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
FREE VERSE
FREE VERSE
 SONNET

Italian Sonnet
by James DeFord

Turn back the heart you've turned away

Give back your kissing breath
Leave not my love as you have left
The broken hearts of yesterday
But wait, be still, don't lose this way
Affection now, for what you guess
May be something more, could be less
Accept my love, live for today.
Your roses wilted, as love spurned
Yet trust in me, my love and truth
Dwell in my heart, from which you've turned
My strength as great as yours aloof.
It is in fear you turn away
And miss the chance of love today!
 SONNET

Sonnet Number 18
by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
 LIMERICK

There was an Old Man with a Beard

By Edward Lear

“There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, ‘It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”
 LIMERICK

Othello
By William Shakespeare

“And let me the canakin clink, clink;

And let me the canakin clink
A soldier’s a man;
A life’s but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.”
 CINQUAIN

Triad
by Adelaide Crapsey

These be
three silent things:
The falling snow . . . the hour
Before the dawn . . . the mouth of one
Just dead.

CINQUAIN
The Guarded Wound
by Adelaide Crapsey

If it
Were lighter touch
Than petal of flower resting
On grass, oh still too heavy it were,
Too heavy!

VILLANELLE
One Art
by 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.

VILLANELLE
Do not go gentle into that good night
by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

HAIKU
From Selected Haiku
Nick Virgilio (1928-1989)

Lily:
out of the water
out of itself

From Selected Haiku

Nick Virgilio (1928-1989)

Bass
picking bugs
off the moon

HAIKU
From Book of Haikus
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

Snow in my shoe
Abandoned
Sparrow’s nest

From Haiku: This Other World

Richard Wright (1908-1960)

Whitecaps on the bay:

A broken signboard banging
In the April wind.

BALLAD

Ballad of the Cool Fountain

Anonymous Spanish poetess (15th century)

Fountain, coolest fountain,

Cool fountain of love,
Where all the sweet birds come
For comforting–but one,
A widow turtledove,
Sadly sorrowing.
At once the nightingale,
That wicked bird, came by,
And spoke these honied words:
"My lady, if you will,
I shall be your slave."
"You are my enemy:
Begone, you are not true!
Green boughs no longer rest me,
Nor any budding grove.
Clear springs, where there are such,
Turn muddy at my touch.
I want no spouse to love
Nor any children either.
I forego that pleasure
And their comfort too.
No, leave me; you are false
And wicked–vile, untrue!
I’ll never be your mistress!
I’ll never marry you!"

BALLAD

From As You Came from the Holy

Land
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618)

"As you came from the holy land

Of Walsinghame,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?"
"How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one
As I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?"
"She is neither white nor brown,
But as the heavens fair,
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth or in the air."
"Such an one did I meet, good Sir,
Such an angelic face.
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear
By her gait, by her grace."
"She hath left me all alone,
All alone as unknown.
Who sometimes did lead me with herself,
And me loved as her own."
"What’s the cause that she leaves you alone
And a new way doth take,
Who loved you once as her own
And her joy did make?"
"I have loved her all my youth,
But now old as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree."