Topic: Emily Dickinson

[dc_chance]

           Dying

I heard a fly buzz when I died;
      The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
      Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
      And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
      Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away
      What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
      There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
      Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
      I could not see to see.

[dc_chance]

I lived on dread; to those who know
The stimulus there is

In danger, other impetus
Is numb and vital-less.

As 't were a spur upon the soul,
A fear will urge it where

To go without the spectre's aid
Were challenging despair.

[dc_chance]

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
 

[dc_chance]

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect

When it began, or if there was
A time when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain

Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

 

[Jennifer-]

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

[dc_chance]

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.

"And I for truth,--the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms.

Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
 

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
 

[Jennifer-]

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect

When it began, or if there was
A time when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain

Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

 

 

[Nichi]

I'm ceded--I've stopped being Theirs--
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I've finished threading--too--

Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace--
Unto supremest name--
Called to my full--The Crescent dropped--
Existence's whole Arc, filled up,
With one small Diadem.

My second Rank--too small the first--
Crowned--Crowning--on my Father's breast--
A half unconscious Queen--
But this time--Adequate--Erect,
With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose--just a Crown--

Emily Dickinson

[Nichi]

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses — past the headlands —
Into deep Eternity—

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?

—Emily Dickinson

[Nichi]

This was a Poet--It is That
  Distills amazing sense
  From ordinary Meanings--
  And Attar so immense

  From the familiar species
  That perished by the Door--
  We wonder it was not Ourselves
  Arrested it--before--

  Of Pictures, the Discloser--
  The Poet--it is He--
  Entitles Us--by Contrast--
  To ceaseless Poverty--

  Of Portion --so unconscious--
  The Robbing--could not harm--
  Himself--to Him--a Fortune--
  Exterior--to Time--            (448)

~Emily Dickinson~

[Nichi]

  After great pain, a formal feeling comes--
  The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs--
  The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
  And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

  The Feet, mechanical, go round--
  Of Ground, or Air, or Ought--
  A Wooden way
  Regardless grown,
  A Quartz contentment, like a stone--

  This is the Hour of Lead--
  Remembered, if outlived,
  As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--
  First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--   


Dickinson

[Nichi]

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
  And Mourners to and fro
  Kept treading--treading--till it seemed
  That Sense was breaking through--

  And when they all were seated,
  A Service, like a Drum--
  Kept beating--beating--till I thought
  My Mind was going numb--

  And then I heard them lift a Box
  And creak across my Soul
  With those same Boots of Lead, again,
  Then Space--began to toll,

  As all the Heaven were a Bell,
  And Being, but an Ear,
  And I, and Silence, some strange Race
  Wrecked, solitary, here--

  And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
  And I dropped down, and down--
  And hit a World, at every plunge,
  And finished knowing--then--   (280)


Dickinson

[Nichi]

And now I'll confess it. I've wanted to like her for years. I did a paper on her in college. I've appreciated and understood her solitude, her singularity, her unrequited love, her usage of shamanistic images. But I cannot flow with her work. She is without a doubt the most difficult poet in the English language to understand and love, except for, perhaps, Gerard Manley Hopkins. In the assertion of her Will, she robbed herself of the music... I try and try to bypass it, but I just can't.

There is a stabbing quality to the pen in the hands of the Victorians. I wonder, sometimes, if it was actually self-flagellation.

And I say all this knowing that one of my Muses has the same, stilted, guttural, Germanic ambiance.  I worked hard to outgrow it.

[runningstream]

there was a woman on the radio

speaking of the "soul" today

she kept saying things like "quite "

and " what 'one' does when 'one' is invited "

type stuff it was too formal for me so i changed the station