Nativity Scene

It seemed an inauspicious birth,

another mouth to feed on earth.

A stable in a crowded town,

the only lodging to be found.

Caesar Augustus had decreed

a census of his realm proceed.

As Bethlehem is David’s town

Its narrow streets were filled with sound.

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poem by John F. McCullagh
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The Milkman and a Widow's cry

The old Mill by the Riverside
And a middle aged widow stands
At the rickety gate.
The handsome lad who brings milk
Early in the morning
And the Sun pretends
As an Onlooker.
She took the boy inside
And locked the door.
Asked the boy to sit on the sofa
She's seated close to him and relaxed.
The boy seemed to be totally perplexed!
She took out a small book from her nightgown pocket
And gave it to the boy to read aloud.
He reads; 'When the daybreak
Perhaps a boy comes with milk
He looks like our neighbor Midwife's son
Let him read this in my absence.
Believe me, I am reborn your old soldier
And you don't feel lonely

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poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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To a new-born poem

The midwife’s tidying up
with professional detachment

and there you are; wrinkled; pink
with a glow that no man ever made;

and I, a part of you for ever, yet
knowing, now, you’re you…

one day in a little time
I’ll take you for your first High Street outing
in the pram or baby buggy;

trying to pretend you’re someone else’s…
not one I’d fight my life for..

pausing to allow some friendly soul
to glance permission to have a peep;

smile; glow; say a few kind words;

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Corinna

This day (the year I dare not tell)
Apollo play'd the midwife's part;
Into the world Corinna fell,
And he endued her with his art.

But Cupid with a Satyr comes;
Both softly to the cradle creep;
Both stroke her hands, and rub her gums,
While the poor child lay fast asleep.

Then Cupid thus: 'This little maid
Of love shall always speak and write;'
'And I pronounce,' the Satyr said,
'The world shall feel her scratch and bite.'

Her talent she display'd betimes;
For in a few revolving moons,
She seem'd to laugh and squall in rhymes,
And all her gestures were lampoons.

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poem by Jonathan Swift
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Teenage Wildlife

Well, how come you only want tomorrow
With its promise of something hard to do
A real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
Blue skies above and sun on your arms strength your stride
And hope in those squeaky clean eyes
Youll get chilly receptions everywhere you go
Blinded with desire - I guess the season is on
So you train by shadow boxing, search for the truth
But its all, but its all used up
Break open your million dollar weapon
And push your luck, still you push, still you push your
Luck
A broken nosed mogul are you
One of the new wave boys
Same old thing in brand new drag
Comes sweeping into view, oh ho ho ho ho ho
As ugly as a teenage millionaire
Pretending its a whizz kid world
Youll take me aside, and say
Well, david, what shall I do?

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song performed by David Bowie
Added by Lucian Velea
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To The Disciples...

he always tells them
you are not just horses that are led to the brook to drink water
to satisfy your thirst,
not just empty glasses where hot water is poured
where some goes into an expected breaking
you are not just shirts and pants to be buttoned and unbuttoned
not just headgears to be worn and displayed in school
not just any knife to be sharpened
or pencils

you are not my things
not the objects but will always be subjects with minds of your own
with destinies already reserved at the end
there is nothing to worry, even if you do not believe it,
everything is written,
there are already maps, and what we do is merely to read them
and find out where those treasures lie

as Socrates once in his short life emphasized
he is just the midwife and you are those pregnant women

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poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Lament

When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.

When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles' pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of bitches),
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,

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poem by Dylan Thomas
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Machines

It's a Machine's world
Don't tell me I ain't got no soul
When the machines take over
It ain't no place for you and me.
They tell me I don't care
But deep inside I'm just a man
They freeze me they burn me
They squeeze me they stress me
With smoke-blackened pistons of steel they compress me
But no-one, but no-one, but no-one can wrest me away
Back to Humans.
We have no disease, no troubles of mind
No thank you please, no regard for the time
We never cry, we never retreat
We have no conception of love or defeat.
What's that Machine noise
It's bytes and megachips for tea
It's that Machine, boys
With Random Access Memory
Never worry, never mind

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song performed by Queen
Added by Lucian Velea
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Machines (12" Remix Version)

It's a Machine's world
Don't tell me I ain't go a soul
When the machines take over
It ain't no place for you and me.
They tell me don't care
But deep inside I'm just a man
They freeze me they burn me
They squeeze me they stress me
With smoke-blackened pistons of steel they compress me
But no-one, but no-one, but no-one can wrest me away
Back to Humans.
"We have no disease, no trouble of mind
"We're fighting for peace, no regard for the time
"We never cry, we never retreat
"We have no conception of love of defeat."
What's tahat the Machine noise
It's bytes and megachips for tea
It's that Machine, boys
With Random Access Memory
Never worry, never mind

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song performed by Queen
Added by Lucian Velea
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Somewhere In The Middle Of This Journey

somewhere in the middle of this journey
is the chaos of our presence
we like to dislodge and vomit of this
nostalgia of where we come from
we like to go back to the womb
and regret having grown our legs

we blame the hands of the midwife
we want to pinpoint who slapped us
we like to hear the sound of vengeance
of our first cries

did we cry for help? did i cry because
i never asked to be put here?
or did i cry because i am just making a lot of nonsense
about my innocence about despair?

i get some names of fathers and mothers and siblings
i write them on a page of a book and i ask what if they were not there

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poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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An Elegy on the Lady Markham

As unthrifts groan in straw for their pawn'd beds,
As women weep for their lost maidenheads,
When both are without hope or remedy,
Such an untimely grief I have for thee.
I never saw thy face, nor did my heart
Urge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert;
But being lifted hence, that, which to thee
Was death's sad dart, proved Cupid's shaft to me.
Whoever thinks me foolish that the force
Of a report can make me love a corse,
Know he that when with this I do compare
The love I do a living woman bear,
I find myself most happy: now I know
Where I can find my mistress, and can go
Unto her trimm'd bed, and can lift away
Her grass-green mantle, and her sheet display;
And touch her naked; and though th' envious mold
In which she lies uncover'd, moist, and cold,
Strive to corrupt her, she will not abide
With any art her blemishes to hide,

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poem by Francis Beaumont
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A House of Memories

Four generations of my family have lived in that house,
everytime I pass it fresh memories are aroused.
It was once filled with laughter, music and conversation,
now there’s only creaking floors and insect habitation.

My younger sister and brother were born in the master bedroom
and their cries are in my memories as they left mum’s womb.
With the midwife shouting for more hot water and towels,
and dad pacing the floor listening for the new baby’s howl.

The happy times ended when sis fell from her bedroom window,
we all blamed ourselves and for years we suffered in sorrow.
Mum and dad spoke as if she was still about the house each day;
to them reality had died and their sadness was hidden away.

Soon after my older brother went to war at the age of eighteen,
he was captured by the enemy and never again seen.
My granddad was killed whilst working underneath his car,
the jack gave way and he wasn’t missed for over an hour.

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poem by Orlando Belo
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Old Town Types No. 10 - Big Doc Littlejohn

Big Doc. Littlejohn, and ugly man and tall,
He wasn't very graceful, no part of him was small;
Big, frame, big head, huge hands, and red;
But gentle as a woman's as he stooped above the bed,
His great voice muted and the jaw out-thrust
And something there behind his eyes that captured human trust -
Big John Littlejohn, who drove until he died,
In his abbot buggy to the farms outside.

The family physician and the family's true friend;
No household in that wide, new land but loved him to the end;
And the old, fat midwife revered him as a saint:
'Sent straight from God, me dear,' says she. 'A human man she ain't.
No human flesh could bear it, no heart withstand the test,
The slavin', drivin', day an' night with no full hour of rest.'
But Big John Littlejohn, with one of his tired smiles,
Climbed in his abbot buggy for another seven miles.

He'd never met a vitamin, he seldom sought a knife;
But he healed full many a body and he saved full many a life.

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Deeds And Relationships

Deeds that you perform have life
like living beings. Every action
is virtually the deed’s midwife
whose job is to prevent retraction
of something that may either lead
to benefit or punishment,
the punishment part of the deed,
like an investment, spent
long after it has been performed.

We reap from deeds what we have sown
not as a measure made for measure,
but because the deed has grown,
and finally provides displeasure
if the deed was wrong, and when
correct and virtuous can provide
a benefit like interest men
deserve––and God does not deride.

Relationships are forms of deeds––

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poem by Gershon Hepner
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Bagpipe Music

It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.

John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumbbells to use when he was fifty.

It's no go the Yogi-man, it's no go Blavatsky,
All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.

Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather,
Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna.
It's no go your maidenheads, it's no go your culture,
All we want is a Dunlop tire and the devil mend the puncture.

The Laird o' Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober,
Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over.

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poem by Louis Macneice
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In Imitation of E. of Rochester : On Silence

I.
Silence! coeval with Eternity;
Thou wert, ere Nature's-self began to be,
'Twas one vast Nothing, all, and all slept fast in thee.

II.
Thine was the sway, ere heav'n was form'd, or earth,
Ere fruitful Thought conceiv'd creation's birth,
Or midwife Word gave aid, and spoke the infant forth.

III.
Then various elements, against thee join'd,
In one more various animal combin'd,
And fam'd the clam'rous race of busy Human-kind.

IV.
The tongue mov'd gently first, and speech was low,
'Till wrangling Science taught it noise and show,
And wicked Wit arose, thy most abusive foe.

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poem by Alexander Pope
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A Saint About To Fall

A saint about to fall,
The stained flats of heaven hit and razed
To the kissed kite hems of his shawl,
On the last street wave praised
The unwinding, song by rock,
Of the woven wall
Of his father's house in the sands,
The vanishing of the musical ship-work and the chucked bells,
The wound-down cough of the blood-counting clock
Behind a face of hands,
On the angelic etna of the last whirring featherlands,
Wind-heeled foot in the hole of a fireball,
Hymned his shrivelling flock,
On the last rick's tip by spilled wine-wells
Sang heaven hungry and the quick
Cut Christbread spitting vinegar and all
The mazes of his praise and envious tongue were worked in flames and shells.

Glory cracked like a flea.
The sun-leaved holy candlewoods

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poem by Dylan Thomas
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Elegy XX: To His Mistress Going to Bed

Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labor, I in labor lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now it is bed time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown, going off, such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
Off with that wiry coronet and show
The hairy diadem which on you doth grow:
Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread
In this love's hallowed temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes, heaven's angels used to be
Received by men; thou, Angel, bring'st with thee

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poem by John Donne
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To His Mistress Going to Bed

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing though they never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you, that now 'tis your bed time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
Off with that wiry coronet and show
The hairy diadem which on you doth grow;
Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread
In this love's hallowed temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Received by men; thou angel bring'st with thee

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poem by John Donne
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Women Who Are Well-behaved

Women who are well-behaved
do not make history, and they
take second place to the depraved,
whom history gives right of way,
for though officially the word condemns
the women who’re considered lawless,
they’re given diamonds and gems
for being flexible, not flawless.

Kathryn Harrison reviews “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (“We’re No Angels, ” NYT, September 30,2007) :
Ulrich, a Harvard historian whose “Midwife’s Tale” won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for history, uses “three classic works in Western feminism” as a springboard for examining the theme of “bad” behavior. Could the popularity of her slogan, she wondered, be explained by “feminism, postfeminism or something much older? ” The answer emerges in Ulrich’s choice of texts: Christine de Pizan’s “Book of the City of Ladies, ” written in 1405; Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Eighty Years and More, ” published in 1898; and “A Room of One’s Own, ” based on two lectures Virginia Woolf gave in 1928 — all works by women who “turned to history as a way of making sense of their own lives.” History, Ulrich reminds us, “isn’t just what happens in the past, ” but what we choose to remember. As much invention as discovery, history attempts to make the chaotic present into a coherent picture by comparing it to images, equally artificial, fashioned from events long past. Pizan, Stanton, Woolf: three women with “intellectual fathers” and “domestic mothers, ” who were “raised in settings that simultaneously encouraged and thwarted their love of learning” and “married men who supported their intellectual ambitions.” For each, her “moment of illumination came through an encounter with an odious book” expressing man’s “disdain” for women. Pizan responded to a 15th- century satire containing “diatribes” against her sex, Stanton to law tomes that set forth the rights of husbands and fathers over their wives and daughters, Woolf to “The Mental, Moral and Physical Inferiority of the Female Sex, ” an imagined history representing what she discovered in the reading room of the British Museum.

9/30/07

poem by Gershon Hepner
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