RUBATO
purple
partridge
press
edition
toronto
mcmlviii
[unnumbered page]
[blank page]
dialectic i
MARGARET PORTER
wEARY, the green fuse that drives like water from the weary place
Heavy, the long light that leans from heaven on the grieving grace
For nightingales in sorrow sleep shall sing as ever sang
Our flutes in dark waters
Or our choir children in the presence of death
Sudden, the brown roses that drop their petals on the sudden peace
Gentle, the requiem that lightly echoes from the song’s increase
For shadows across waking worlds shall fall as ever fell
Our tears before daffodils,
And our dark silences in the company of joy. [unnumbered page]
tea for two
ANNETTE OELBAUM COHEN
yOUR Tea,
Of course my dear,
And how would you like your Tea?
All red with the blood of that poor girl you just ran through with your hatpin;
All black with the mud that you ladle with your sugar spoon;
All white with the snow of that last winter when you stole poor, poor Celia’s beau?
Pardon my dear?
Oh no, I never drink Tea.
Cake? Cake?
All sweet; all sugar.
Oh yes I’ll have Cake!
Choke on Cake;
Spit Cake;
Sit;
Scream till I cut the Cake with my screams!
Oh yes there’s nothing like Cake.
I love Tea Parties don’t you? [unnumbered page]
parade
LIZ HUBBELL
tIP-toed at the window
His first real look
Nothing.
Behind, the bluebird sings, the soft sun is warm
The wind is white
He is sure.
Before, the twisted tree is concrete clay
The safe sun beams within its crystal globe
Humanity hopeless, blinded by machine
Gropes along this hollow dead-end road.
Now a star rides proudly through the sky
Showering earth with sparks of coloured fire
Gold, black, red, black, black gre—
The world is still
Life sits on edge
Suspended.
No wind, yet brittle grass shatters by the road
The world is still
Where is the child?
There is no child, now or ever
He has run terrified into the sunset. [unnumbered page]
once ago
ANNETTE OELBAUM COHEN
oNCE ago I saw destiny;
And like a jet bead
Cut and polished to a star
He was all dark all light.
Once ago I saw beauty;
And like a diamond
Fine-faced beyond belief
She was all fire all ice.
Once ago I saw you;
And like a tear
Dropped from eternity’s eye
You were all love all hate.
Everything. [unnumbered page]
woman
ZIBA FISHER
jUST a sea-side tree, and me.
To climb up there, and gently pluck the fruit there-of…
To taste the pure sweet meat
And know knowledge.
To find up there a steady bough, and sit there-on…
To ponder the two curved blues
Always so
And never else.
Such my goal might be
By the sea
The old sea
The sea of tides, and waves, and swells,
Of tears tons
Weeping on the powdered shore. [unnumbered page]
poet
JOHN ROBERT COLOMBO
i thought of Moses
with Abraham before him
and then I knew my God.
I thought of man
with Christ before him
and then I had my image.
So I wrought my thought and image
and joined them day and night
but, as man was mad and God was dead,
I chose another myth. [unnumbered page]
to-
CHRISTOPHER PRIESTLEY
wHERever in the dusk I go
Between the walls of rainy streets,
Wherever in the misty glow
Of lamplit parks I walk alone,
Your countenance in all things meets
My glance, and is in all things known.
But when I find you face to face
The rapture of the waste returns:
Within your lips the rivers race
Of crimson, and your level browed
Regard ambiguously burns
With ardours of nocturnal cloud. [unnumbered page]
dialectic ii
MARGARET POTTER
rEMEMBER now how rhythms ruled the urn
And symmetry shaped towers from chaotic dust,
Ponder the pride of pedestals and plumes
And the pomp of trumpets blaring down the void,
And catch a concept from the falling wind.
Consider now how mystery moves the leaf
And time cuts chasms in the patterned planes,
Figure the frailty of birds and bones
And the brittle weakness in the turning wheel,
And ring a riddle from the polished rod.
Build temples in time and fragments in eternity
For mind makes diamonds tombs of agate hours
And light goes where it will. [unnumbered page]
across the sea of time
LIZ HUBBELL
aCROSS the sea of time my wind will blow
And touching green to greener depths achieve
A studied sounding, casting out the slow
Sure line to where the sun in shallows leaves
His warmth and then flows back to colder deeps.
And soon time’s waves will break across my shore
To carry forth the shining hours that sleep
Upon my sands; remembering April’s store
Of gentle violets in green pools; and songs
In auburn autumn tell that winter’s come.
And now time’s waves are breaking on my shore
Till bleached and white and numbered in the sun-
Drenched sea, my happiness that knows no crime
Is brought like hollow sea-shells back to time. [unnumbered page]
aere perennius
CHRISTOPHER PRIESTLEY
tURN, look behind into the night snow
Where feet have lunged and plunging into deeps
Have traced our journey; here under the glow
Of the rushing lamp see how the blizzard creeps
And falls whirling down in a pyre of silver.
Below the drifts of grass my poem sleeps
Where the shattered lamps of travellers melt and flow
Into the earth: my voice like fire leaps,
And crumbled as I spoke; the ashes blow,
And all my words are drowned in time’s winter. [unnumbered page]
love song
ZIBA FISHER
i have seen you stand by a cliff-side, and the wind
blew your hair, and pressed your skirt snug; and
you were beautiful, and I loved you.
I have heard you speak quiet words, kind, and full
of woman’s compassion; and you were lovely, and I
loved you
We have shared timelessness, and together gained
bliss, and you love me, and I love you. [unnumbered page]
à mon bien-aimé
RUTH BROWN
tU es la bête noire de ma vie,
La lumière de mon jour,
L’amour de ma nuit,
L’objet de mes pleurs.
Venez! mon bien-aimé et puis allons
Au monde sans bout que nous avons,
Ou cascadent des étoiles filantes,
Manne céleste du temps violent
Belle passion de vie tombant.
Maintenant, tu m’aimes, mon amour,
Mais je t’aime maintenant pour toujours.
Mon ami! Ma vie! Je t’adore.
Quand tu pars, me tuez le corps. [unnumbered page]
unity
ZIBA FISHER
i have waited on a ground-warm morning
For my love, with an afternoon’s eyes, warm;
To press her loving lips to mine…
To catch forever with a sigh.
New leaves fallen pillowed, pillowed,
And I ached inside with a secret joy.
Green grow the rush is on
Greed sow the hush is done
Grieve now the thrush is gone
Grief plough the push is on
I loved that ground-warm morning
With a heart that could never die. [unnumbered page]
sonnet
MARGARET PORTER
nOW other loves like swans shall glide
Quiet and slow across the heart,
Where following shadows cannot hide
A brightness as the waters part;
Now other summers shall unfold
Their benediction on the mind,
And cover with a constant gold
The shadowed thoughts no sun can find.
Passage of idle swans may chide
The surface with a languid ease,
And light laced in the leaves may hide
The dark solemnity of trees.
Let now the winter branches sleep
And no new death-song pierce the deep. [unnumbered page]
sonnet
JOHN ROBERT COLOMBO
fORGIVE me as I rise and leave, my love,
for I must go; forget me as I part
or think that it is foolish when I claim
that fate can force my flight away like this.
You cry, my love, and whisper to remain,
to seize that villain sun and smother it
into a moon which harbours flesh and bone,
as once did years, dark curse, before this night.
But now between each tear, my love, your eyes
flash shadows of a star upon the moon
which once we saw and knew, as your eyes show
all love, all faith, which I can never share.
For your eyes, my love, when we lie as one,
mirror mine, a dark soul, a driven sun. [unnumbered page]
the love that was
RUTH BROWN
lOVE was a harvest full tender,
Till he said that we must part.
Love ripened in sweet surrender,
Then he took away my heart.
Now the love that was is over.
What a rare and lovely flower!
The love to be forever more
Was the harvest of an hour. [unnumbered page]
passion
JOHN ROBERT COLOMBO
tHE wind was wild that day
It blew a rose my way.
I caught it with no sound
And dashed it to the ground.
But then as I had feared
A greenish stalk appeared.
And where the rose had bled
There grew a human head.
I looked—but turned away
The wind was wild that day. [unnumbered page]
the lover
LIZ HUBBELL
wHERE willows trail green hair across the sky
And clouds wind-blown sit lowly on the grass
Soft hands twine softer flowers while I lie
Beneath the world and tell my soul to pass.
Soft hands twin cornflowers streaked with deepest blue
Between red daisies, and sweet peas now cling
Beside pink roses moist and quick with dew
While all about her hair swift flowing sings.
Beside pink roses lilies treacherous white
Are woven gladly, sadly through my wreath
My wreath that subtly turns out early light
That cunning hides the stained thorn underneath.
My wreath that weaves a heart and soul amiss
The heart God sold to her for flaming life
The soul I loved exchanged for one hot kiss
Till all betrayed is fired in golden strife. [unnumbered page]
the gorgon
CHRISTOPHER PRIESTLEY
lATE in the afternoon we came to the valley they spoke of.
Shadows were traced like claw marks over the levels of gravel
Cast by what seemed then to be some huge temple in ruin,
Countless pillars erect or fallen; but as we descended
Soon we saw that these were the trunks and boles of an ancient
Forest changed into stone and blurred by the fretting of winds. But
Now no ripple of air made sand grains whisper: the stillness
Lay like frost in the flowering sun. And suddenly someone
Cried out, pointed; and there we saw thick legions of granite
Men, some felled where they ran, some crouched where terror had bowed them;
Some, their arms outstretched, at a slant lay propped on their fingers.
One we came upon stood loke a proud king’s monument: Hesper
Flamed at his shoulder; the darkness lapped like waves on his neck. And
We walked onward in silence, our feet not changing the pebbles. [unnumbered page]
lights in fog
ROBERT B. STEINFL
tHE fog
In the town
In the streets
In my heart and soul
Wrapped all around
Is just
The fog…
The lights
Slowly dying
Yet struggling
To live in fogginess
Moving with cars
And trembling
In twos…
They
Even they
Are in pairs
But I am here alone
And wandering
Without
A goal…
Oh,
If I can’t
See you again
In the moonlight or sunshine
Perhaps we will
Meet again
In a fog… [unnumbered page]
sic transit
NATHAN A. CERVO
dON Juan was known
Upon occasion
To ply his mandoline with skill—
To pluck the string
Of passion
And make ladies groan
To feel his notes sweet thrill.
But Juan is dust today
And Spanish ladies play
Without him.
Francis of the loving hemp
(In burlap bag
Of sanctity and grace)
Did once to sparrows speak
And make the grinning fishes jump
And wag
Their tails to look upon his face.
Bur Frank is grass today
And sparrows sing as gay
Without him.
Caesar conquered Gaul
And gave his lip
To drink the teeming cup of Rome
With laurel in his hair.
The magistrate of all,
The very ship
Of state, the pillar of his home,
He is but air today
And laurels mark the way
Without him. [unnumbered page]
song for our times
KEN HANLY
tHE voices of the night are many:
The whine of straining gears,
The hiss of raw gases
From a million exhaust pipes.
The low whisper of two people
While the motor idles
With a steady hum.
Look down at the night,
And at the city,
At the halo spread beneath the street light,
At the car parked between the street lights
Parked with headlights dimmed,
Two shadows close together in the front.
Multiply now that scarcely audible whisper,
And those scarcely visible shadows,
And the dim cars between the lights;
Feel your little car sink
Shrink and drop away,
You and she lost somewhere
In that infinite city and night.
Then love will become so simple—
As easy to operate as your automatic transmission. [unnumbered page]
spectre
ANNETTE OELBAUM COHEN
eCHO comes now treading down those halls
Of antiseptic mien; the voice of man
Like thunder loud, like thunder never seen.
Why comes the Echo to this white pure place
Of ether smells? And crying out
As tortured souls charred in a thousand hells.
The Echo stops, stand reaching towards a room
That has no door; but falls away—
Forbidden entrance where He’s been before.
Comes Silence slowly sliding long the halls
Without a ward; and Echo yields
Before the sound that never yet was heard.
And in that room the once-gilt Phoenix lies,
Her cycle shattered; exposed to fall-
Out, faded quite away. The one idea that mattered.
Dread screams of death or stench of rotten pus
Cannot be found; with filagree
And fluffy mould Her once-proud body crowned.
So Hope is dead, She died in Beauty’s robes
And mourning Echo too; lone Silence points
The irony and horror of that doorless view. [unnumbered page]
consummatus est
NATHAN A. CERVO
hANGING from a tree, by the neck,
He turned to me, grinning, and said,
“The wreck you see was scholarly
Accomplished.” And where his tears fell
Mushrooms sprang.
I, standing in the grass, was sick
To see the garden of his head:
The snails that were his eyes, the sea
Of white hair crazed about his skull,
And the hate
Blistering his lips. The rope, thick
Under his chin, swung by the wind,
Tolled his head. “Ah, child, do you see
The laurel at my back, and hell
At my feet?”
I, standing in the grass, was sick
To touch each blade, to hold the wind,
To hear the rook’s wild caw in the free
Ecstasy of life. I was full
Of the grasp
Of the glory of things! The click
Of his heels, the chatter of dead
Teeth there in the creak of the tree,
The fly on his tongue, and the lull
Of despair,
Hanging from a tree, by the neck,
What all to me—the unlearned
In methods of death! And, no plea
In my heart, I turned in the swell
Of new praise! [unnumbered page]
[blank page]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
EDITOR
John Robert Colombo
TYPOGRAPHER
Harold D. Kurschenska, LTDC
PAPER
Acme Paper Products Co. Ltd
TYPE-SETTING
University of Toronto Press
PRINTING FACILITIES
R. G. & J. W. English
Like its predecessor CHIAROSCURO, this booklet is a collection of new poems by
young Canadian poets. It was designed and printed at the Purple Partridge Press by
Harold D. Kurschenska and was financed entirely by the poets themselves, all of whom
are students at the University of Toronto. Kindly address all communication to: The
Editor, 114 Pandora Avenue, Kitchener, Ontario. Printed in Canada, 1958.
[unnumbered page]
[2 blank pages]
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.