poetry

128d

Are you a poet writing about #Texas, or a poet rooted in Texas? We'd love to see your work!

Submissions are OPEN for our magazine's #poetry section, now through May 31, 2026. Send in your best, previously unpublished poem of up to 45 lines. 1 poem is selected per issue, and receives a $100 honorarium. Send your work to poetry@texasobserver.org!

Image of a Texas roadway, leading out to mountains under a big sky. Are you a poet writing about Texas? Are you a Texas rooted poet? The Texas Observer wants your best poem. 1 poem selected per issue. $100 honorarium. Previously unpublished poems. Poem up to 45 lines. Submit your poem! Submissions close May 31, 2026. poetry@texasobserver.org

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122d

Lorrayne
before you hit me with that object
shaped like a toblerone
let me explain…

—Hugh McMillan, “The X Files: Bonnybridge, October ’95”
published in Aphrodite’s Anorak (Peterloo, 1996)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/x-files-bonnybridge-october-95/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #XFiles #TheXFiles #TheTruthIsOutThere

The X Files: Bonnybridge, October ’95
Hugh McMillan

Lorrayne
before you hit me with that object
shaped like a toblerone
let me explain.
We only went for a half pint and a whisky
then set off home but somehow
lost two hours on a thirty minute journey.
My mind’s a blank
but Brian clearly saw
Aliens with black eyes and no lips
leading us onto a kind of craft.
I tried to lash out, explain that I was late,
but they used some kind of numbing ray on me:
it put me in this state.
Lorrayne, don’t you see what it explains?
All the times I crawled home with odd abrasions.
Put that down Lorrayne,
don’t you see I have to go again,
for the sake of future generations?

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93d

Where’s Brude? Where’s Brude?
So many souls to be saved!

—Edwin Morgan, “Columba’s Song”
in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

9 June is the feast day of St Columba (c521–97 CE), who led the Irish monastic missions to Dál Riata & the kingdoms of the Picts

1/4

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #StColumba #saint

Columba's Song
by Edwin Morgan

Where's Brude? Where's Brude?
So many souls to be saved!
The bracken is thick, the wildcat is quick,
the foxes dance in the moonlight,
the salmon dance in the waters,
the adders dance in the thick brown bracken.
Where's Brude? Where's man?
There's too much nature here,
eagles and deer,
but where's the mind and where's the soul?
Show me your kings, your women, the man of the plough.
And cry me to your cradles.
It wasn't for a fox or an eagle I set sail!

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121d

You told me the brightest flowers grow on sand.

By the breakwater, a frayed nest of fishers’ rope
twined into a bouquet: pale blue, green, teal,
and peach; a twisted tale of what growth is…

—Jane McKie, “Rope”
published in nobody remembers the birdman: New Writing Scotland 40

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws40/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Jane McKie
ROPE

You told me the brightest flowers grow on sand.

By the breakwater, a frayed nest of fishers’ rope
twined into a bouquet: pale blue, green, teal,
and peach; a twisted tale of what growth is.
But you are right – they are flowers in the way
of any weathered thing, unpicking itself,
or hollowing itself into something eye-catching,
essential: a split egg of rock, a breaking wave.

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121d

An Evening of Poetry with Scottish Carcanet
30 July, Topping Books, Edinburgh – from £5

A special collaborative event between three Scottish Carcanet poets – Jay Gao, Anthony V. Capildeo, & Colin Bramwell – celebrating their latest bodies of work, ranging from a book-length sequence told in the language of trees, to a vibrant selection of essays that explore a life in poetry, to a bold reimagining of Fernando Pessoa's poetry in Scots.

https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/edinburgh/an-evening-of-poetry-with-scottish-carcanet/

#Scottish #literature #poetry

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84d

They crashed among the spider-nets
spluttering and breathing hoarsely,
chasing fish out of the water,
calling one another and disappearing…

—“Dolphins at Cochin” by poet, playwright & novelist Tom Buchan (1931–1995), born #OTD, 19 June

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/dolphins-cochin/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #naturepoetry #dolphins #Kochi

Dolphins at Cochin
Tom Buchan

They crashed among the spider-nets
spluttering and breathing hoarsely,
chasing fish out of the water,
calling one another and disappearing.

Lime-green bellies and smiling mouths
sliced upwards obliquely;
calm humorous eyes regarded us for a moment
and splashed back.

Sea-marks of dolphins
moved among the dozens of jockeying sails:
a mile out, in the breaking waves,
we could see the flash of more dolphins.

On the bridge of our tanker
the grey paint blistered in the heat; above us
the siren mooed to come in at the jetty:
the water green and translucent.

The smell of crude oil, of ginger
drying in the yards; piles of coloured fish;
the creak of a wooden capstan,
monkeys quarrelling on top of the parked cars.

And suddenly there was a dolphin
inside our slow bow-wave: revolving, amused,
not realising our incomprehension
of his vivid thoughts.

Two dolphins came skidding round the point,
screeched to a standstill
blowing vapour and circling each other;
then they raced on again, leaping.

We watched them helplessly
from our primitive element
able only to think up cold metaphors
or to anthropomorphize.

But they wheeled – dolphins!
their liquid backs, their arched fins
moving steadily out from the shore
towards the hilarious ocean.

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121d

Happy National Limerick Day!

A limerick is a five-line humorous poem with a distinct AABBA rhyme scheme and a bouncy rhythm.

Edward Lear (born today) popularised the form in the 19th century, frequently using them in his #Book of Nonsense.

What is your favourite limerick? Feel free to share 😉

#limerick #today #LimerickDay #onthisday #poetry #poem #writing #reading #books #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #poetrycommunity #poet #EdwardLear #PoetrySky #poetrylovers #poemaday

Tooters toot limerick

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122d

The Golden Bough is a fantastical object in the Aeneid, an epic poem by the 1st century BCE Roman poet Virgil. The Trojan hero Aeneas is tasked to find the bough and remove it from its host tree to prove his divine favour before his journey into the Underworld.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bough_(Aeneid)

There are several versions of Aeneid at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Aeneid

#Books #Literature #Poetry

Aeneas, holding the golden bough and accompanied by the Cumaean Sibyl, approaches the entrance to the Elysian Fields. From folio 52r of the 4th-century manuscript known as the Vatican Vergil (Vergilius Vaticanus).

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vergilius_Vaticanus_(Vat._lat._3225),_fol_52r_-_Aeneas_and_the_Sibyl_at_the_entrance_to_the_Elysian_Fields_(detail).jpg

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120d

Poetry in the Rose Garden
23 May, Scottish Poetry Rose Garden, Queen’s Park, Glasgow. Free.

Join the Friends of Queen’s Park to celebrate the launch of Gillian Dawson’s nature‑based haiku, plus an in‑situ reading of Catherine Eunson’s sonnet corona, The Scottish Poetry Rose Garden.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-in-the-rose-garden-tickets-1989016230087

#Scottish #literature #poetry #haiku #naturepoetry #Glasgow

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33d

Twa Cats anes on a Cheese did light,
To which baith had an equal Right,
But Disputes, sic as aft arise,
Fell out at sharing of the Prize…

—Allan Ramsay (1686–1758), “The twa Cats & the Cheese”
digitised by the National Library of Scotland

Today, 8 August, is International Cat Day
😾 😾 🧀 🐵

https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/105690319

#Scottish #literature #poem #Scots #Scotslanguage #poem #poetry #18thcentury #fable #humor #humour #cats #InternationalCatDay

The twa Cats and the Cheese
Fable IX
by Allan Ramsay

Twa Cats anes on a Cheese did light,
To which baith had an equal Right,
But Disputes, sic as aft arise,
Fell out at sharing of the Prize;
Fair Play said ane, Ye bite o’er thick
Thae Teeth of yours gang wonder quick:
Let’s part it, else lang or the Moon
Be chang’d, the Kebuck will be done.

But wha’s to do’t,—They’re Parties baith,
And ane may do the other Skaith,
Sae with Consent away they trudge,
And laid the Cheese before a Judge,
A Monkey with a campsho Face,
Clerk to a Justice of the Peace,
A Judge he seem’d in Justice skill’d,
When he his Master’s Chair fill’d;
Now Umpire chosen for Division,
Baith sware to stand by his Decision.
Demure he looks.—The Cheese he pales,—
He prives it good,—Ca’s for the Scales,
His Knife whops throw’t,—In twa it fell,
He puts ilk Haff in either Shell;
Said he, We’ll truly weigh the Case,
And strickest Justice shall have Place,
Then lifting up the Scales, he fand
The tane bang up, the ither stand;
Syne out he took the heaviest Haff,
And ate a Knoost o’t quickly aff,
And try’d it syne,—It now prov’d light,
Friend Cats, said he, We’ll do ye right.
Then to the ither Haff he fell,
And laid till’t teughly Tooth and Nail,
Till weigh’d again it lightest prov’d:
The Judge wha this sweet Process lov’d,
Still weigh’d the Case, and still ate on,
Till Clients baith were weary grown,

And tenting how the Matter went,
Cry’d, Come, come Sir, We’re baith content.
Ye Fools, quoth he, and Justice too
Maun be content as well as you.
Thus grumbled they, thus he went on,
Till baith the Haves were near hand done;
Poor Pousies now the Daffine saw
Of gawn for Nignyes to the Law:
And bill’d the Judge that he wad please
To give them the remaining Cheese:
To which his Worship grave reply’d,
The Dues of Court maun first be paid.
Now Justice pleas’d,—What’s to the Fore
Will but right scrimply clear your Score;
That’s our Decreet,—Gae Hame and Sleep,
And thank us ye’re win aff sae cheap.

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113d

#heavy #poetry

Edited 113d ago

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119d

Narrative Poems: ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ by Robert Burns & ‘Peter Grimes’ by George Crabbe

In this extract from the LRB Podcast, Seamus Perry, Mark Ford & Andrew O’Hagan discuss the moral & stylistic turns of ‘Tam o’ Shanter’, its influence on Wordsworth & Coleridge, & what it owes to the Augustan perfectionism of Pope. They also examine a much darker example of Romantic narrative poetry: George Crabbe’s ‘Peter Grimes’

https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/narrative-poems-tam-o-shanter-by-robert-burns-and-peter-grimes-by-george-crabbe

#Scottish #literature #poetry #RobertBurns #Romanticism

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118d

I never felt so much
Since I have felt at all
The tingling smell and touch
Of dogrose and sweet briar,
Nettles against the wall,
All sours and sweets that grow
Together or apart…

—“A Birthday”, by poet, novelist & translator Edwin Muir (1887–1959), born #OTD, 15 May

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thCentury #EdwinMuir #Orkney

"A Birthday"
by Edwin Muir

I never felt so much
Since I have felt at all
The tingling smell and touch
Of dogrose and sweet briar,
Nettles against the wall,
All sours and sweets that grow
Together or apart
In hedge or marsh or ditch.
I gather to my heart
Beast, insect, flower, earth, water, fire,
In absolute desire,
As fifty years ago.

Acceptance, gratitude:
The first look and the last
When all between has passed
Restore ingenuous good
That seeks no personal end
Nor strives to mar or mend.
Before I touched the food
Sweetness ensnared my tongue;
Before I saw the wood
I loved each nook and bend,
The track going right and wrong;
Before I took the road
Direction ravished my soul.
Now that I can discern
It whole or almost whole,
Acceptance and gratitude
Like travellers return
And stand where they first stood.

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33d

What innocence? Whose guilt? What eyes? Whose breast?
Crumpled orphan, nembutal bed,
white hearse, Los Angeles…

—Edwin Morgan, “The Death of Marilyn Monroe”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

The funeral of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) took place #OTD, 8 August, 1962

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #MarilynMonroe

Edwin Morgan
The Death of Marilyn Monroe

What innocence? Whose guilt? What eyes? Whose breast?
Crumpled orphan, nembutal bed,
white hearse, Los Angeles,
DiMaggio! Los Angeles! Miller! Los Angeles! America!
That Death should seem the only protector –
That all arms should have faded, and the great cameras and lights
become an inquisition and a torment –
That the many acquaintances, the autograph-hunters, the
inflexible directors, the drive-in admirers should become
a blur of incomprehension and pain –
That lonely Uncertainty should limp up, grinning, with
bewildering barbiturates, and watch her undress and lie
down and in her anguish
call for him! call for him to strengthen her with what could
only dissolve her! A method
of dying, we are shaken, we see it. Strasberg!
Los Angeles! Olivier! Los Angeles! Others die
and yet by this death we are a little shaken, we feel it,
America.
Let no one say communication is a cantword.
They had to lift her hand from the bedside telephone.
But what she had not been able to say
perhaps she had said. “All I had was my life.
I have no regrets, because if I made
any mistakes, I was responsible.
There is now – and there is the future.
What has happened is behind. So
it follows you around? So what?” – This
to a friend, ten days before.
And so she was responsible.
And if she was not responsible, not wholly responsible, Los Angeles?
Los Angeles? Will it follow you around? Will the slow
white hearse of the child of America follow you around?

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118d

The English poet Roger McGough sends readers’ eyes travelling to and fro the way a tennis ball would across a net when they read 40-Love. Indeed, the poem itself – like the “middle aged couple” he writes about – is split by such a ‘net.’

#poetry #reading #Love #poem #poet #McGough #graficpoem #poems #bookstodon @bookstodon #books #book #poemaday #poetrycommunity #pictures #readers #readersofmastodon #booksky #bookish #BookTok #bookclub #readit #Bookwyrm #tennis #booklovers

Roger McGough, 40-Love

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117d

Wring the Scottish rain clouds dry;
Take sleet, the driving snow, the hail;
Winter twilight; the summer’s sun slowed down
to pearl-sheen dusk on hillsides, city-roofs,
on lochs at midnight.
And, most of all, take the years that have already run
to dust, the dust we spill behind us…

—Ron Butlin, “A Recipe for Whisky”
published in WITHOUT A BACKWARD GLANCE (Barzan 2005)

Today, 17 May, is World Whisky Day 🥃
Slàinte mhath!

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #whisky #WorldWhiskyDay

A Recipe for Whisky
Ron Butlin

Wring the Scottish rain clouds dry;
Take sleet, the driving snow, the hail;
Winter twilight; the summer’s sun slowed down
to pearl-sheen dusk on hillsides, city-roofs,
on lochs at midnight.
And, most of all, take the years that have already run
to dust, the dust we spill behind us . . .

All this, distill. And cask. And wait.
The senselessness of human things resolves
to who we are – our present fate.
Let’s taste, let’s savour and enjoy.
Let’s share once more.
Another glass for absent friends. Pour
until the bottle’s done.

Here’s life! Here’s courage to go on!

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117d

THE CITY IS A MAGIC SCULPTURE OF
THE GROUP MIND THE CITY IS A
MYSTIC DREAM OF FOREST MEMORY\
WALLS ARE THE LAST GASP OF FAILING
IDEOLOGIES…

—Robert Montgomery, billboard poem

https://www.robertmontgomery.org/b6hov0ii4s1uuvhwr33vbfj0ihu8hj

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #art #visualart #billboard

$A street corner in Shoreditch, London, UK. A white billboard stands above a single-storey building on the corner. The street curves away, with a black sign saying "24hr CAR WASH in yellow letters, and a lamp-post carries a speed-limit sign reading "20 ZONE". A young woman is crossing the street, possibly holding something in her arms. She is wearing a red shirt, a grey tank-top and an orange skirt. A couple of other people can be seen further down the street, standing on the pavements and talking to each other. Beyond the billboard we can see some trees, and a red-brick wall, possibly sheltering a low-level train line. Further in the distance, beyond the wall, a slender modern multi-storey building of glass and concrete rises up against a pale grey sky. The white billboard has large black capital letters on it. They read: THE CITY IS A MAGIC SCULPTURE OF THE GROUP MIND THE CITY IS A MYSTIC DREAM OF FOREST MEMORY\ WALLS ARE THE LAST GASP OF FAILING IDEOLOGIES | FROM THE NEW GENERA- TION A PSYCHIC LOVE WAVE WILL EX- PLODE ACROSS ALL COUNTRIES \ IMMI- GRANTS WILL BE HUGGED IN THE STRE- ETS /YOU WILL RISE IN AIR BALLOONS/ THE FUTURE IS A RISK OF OUR HEARTS Below the billboard is another poster, the same width as the billboard, but black, with white lettering. The letters get bigger, running the full width of the poster. The poster reads: THE FUTURE IS AN INVISIBLE PLAYGROUND/ YA NO SOMOS TUS SIERVOS /NO PASARAN |$

Edited 117d ago

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117d

Having spent the week in Yorkshire, I couldn’t resist picking up The Poems of Sylvia Plath, a new landmark edition edited by Amanda Golden and Karen V. Kukil and published just last week. This edition draws on decades of research and almost doubles the content of the 1981 Collected Poems.

The second image here is from a visit to Plath’s grave at the church at Heptonstall, back in September 2020. I still find it hard to believe that she was only 30 when she died, and yet she produced so much incandescent work.

#SylviaPlath #Poetry #Poets #Faber #AmandaGolden #KarenVKukil #Heptonstall #Yorkshire #Bookstodon @bookstodon

A large hardback volume, The Poems of Sylvia Plath, resting in the corner of an inglenook in front of a basket of logs. The book features a cover image by Justine Ellis.

The cover text reads:

Edited by Amanda Golden and Karen V.

THE
POEMS
OF
SYLVIA
PLATH

A simple granite headstone in a cemetery. The ground around the grave is overgrown. The headstone has some stones laid on top of it. Its text reads:

IN MEMORY
SYLVIA PLATH HUGHES
1932 - 1963
EVEN AMIDST FIERCE FLAMES
THE GOLDEN LOTUS CAN BE PLANTED

The word HUGHES has been defaced/erased.

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80d

It is a land of wee
hard men and all I
am wanted for is to
stand and cheer…

Prof Alan Riach considers the life & work of the poet & playwright Joan Ure (1918–1978) – born #OTD, 22 June

1/6

https://www.thenational.scot/news/17455955.joan-ure-the-scots-poet-and-playwright-who-set-a-precedent/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poet #drama #playwright #20thcentury #womenwriters

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108d

Like all those red-faced boys
in brand-new football strips

dribbling a ball around
in a circle of streetlight

or practicing their footwork
in the park

in Cowdenbeath, Arbroath,
Kirkcudbright, Govan,

I wanted the triumph of willpower
over strength

grace over
money…

—John Burnside, “Euro 96: A Fan’s Farewell”

A poem for World Football Day ⚽

https://www.un.org/en/observances/football-day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #JohnBurnside #football #soccer #WorldFootballDay

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108d

Tha sinn air a bhith ri rudan do-dhèanta a-rithist.
A’ crochadh san adhair, a’ feitheamh diog, tiotag, linn,
nas fhàide nas àirde na bu chòir a bhith comasach.
Chaidh leintean-T a dhèanamh dhinn mus do landaig sinn…

—Pàdraig MacAoidh, “Ris an do-dhèanta”

A poem for World Football Day ⚽

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/ris-an-do-dheanta/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #football #soccer #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #WorldFootballDay

Ris an do-dhèanta
Pàdraig MacAoidh

Tha sinn air a bhith ri rudan do-dhèanta a-rithist.
A’ crochadh san adhair, a’ feitheamh diog, tiotag, linn,
nas fhàide nas àirde na bu chòir a bhith comasach.
Chaidh leintean-T a dhèanamh dhinn mus do landaig sinn.

Tha sinn air fhaighinn tharais air na rudan as miosa,
a’ coiseachd nam mìltean fada sin – coig ceud, coig mìle –
gus cnàmhan agus buill-nasg a chur ceart, gus ar corragan a shìneadh,
agus mion-car a chur air an t-saoghal, tharais air a’ bhàr.

O agus chum sin ar n-anail nar milleanan,
air bhoile le chèile, a’ coimhead bàla a’ tùirling
na àrc àbhaisteach mìorbhaileach coileanta
agus a’ tuiteam, meath mar bhogha-frois, dhan talamh.

Seadh, rinn sinn rudan do-dhèanta. Ach a-nis –
ann am Miami, Boston, ge b’àit – tha againn rin dèanamh
a-rithist. Agus an uairsin, yes sir, nì sinn boogie,
ri òran sam bith a tha sinn ag iarraidh.

At the Impossible
Peter Mackay

We’ve been at the impossible again. Levitating.
Hanging in the air one, two seconds, an age,
longer and higher than should be possible.
The T-shirts were printed before we’d hit the ground.

We have recovered from the worst of times,
walking long miles – five hundred, five thousand –
to wrest bones and ligaments back to fitness
and tip the world over with the last skelf of skin.

And we have held a million breaths
in frantic unison, watching a ball tumble
in its everyday, humdrum perfect parabola,
to fall plump as a rainbow back to earth.

O we’ve been at the impossible but must now –
in Miami, Boston, anywhere, anyhow –
do it all over again. And then yes sir, we shall boogie,
absolutely, to whatever song we choose.

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80d

Having glided smoothly upwards –

Up ...!
And up ...!
And up ...!

Behold, Tony Blair standing where he should be –
poised sixty years and more above
the city of his birth…

—Ron Butlin, “Tony Blair’s Butterfly Effect”
published in THE MAGICIANS OF SCOTLAND (Birlinn, 2015)

Listen to Ron Butlin read this poem on the Poetry Archive:

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/tony-blairs-butterfly-effect/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #PimeMinister #TonyBlair #ButterflyEffect

Tony Blair’s butterfly effect – when these wings beat,
distant city walls tumble,
men, women and children die.

Edited 80d ago

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107d

I see the old woman behind the flowering broom.
I have followed her from poem to poem …

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Old Woman”
published in Deer on the High Hills: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Old Woman
Iain Crichton Smith

I see the old woman behind the flowering broom.
I have followed her from poem to poem

and her grey coat is almost hidden by that yellow and red
on a May day with white clouds overhead

billowing with pillows. Yes, she carries her bag
home from the village shop.
And behind her a stag

in my imagination rears its magnificent head
out of the stones and flowers and small hills of the dead.

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106d

Uncomfortable Truths – Voices of the Commonwealth
12 June, Waterstones Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow – free

Four leading poets from across the Commonwealth – Imtiaz Dharker, Peter MacKay, Nick Makoha & Fawzia Muradali Kane – celebrate its diverse voices & perspectives, but also read powerful work challenging uncomfortable truths & engage in active discussions.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uncomfortable-truths-voices-of-the-commonwealth-tickets-1987490015137

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Commonwealth #identity

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81d

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver…

—Don Paterson, “Waking with Russell”
Selected Poems (Faber, 2012)

A poem for Father’s Day

https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571281800-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Father #FathersDay

Waking with Russell
by Don Paterson

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver;
and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin
but his own smile, or one I’d rediscovered.
Dear son, I was mezzo del cammin
and the true path was as lost to me as ever
when you cut in front and lit it as you ran.
See how the true gift never leaves the giver:
returned and redelivered, it rolled on
until the smile poured through us like a river.
How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men!
I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.

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