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Katherine Mansfield
Come, let us all sing very high
And all sing very loud
And keep on singing in the street
Until there’s quite a crowd;
And keep on singing in the house
And up and down the stairs;
Then underneath the furniture
Let’s all play Polar bears;
And crawl about with doormats on,
And growl and howl and squeak,
Then in the garden let us fly
And play at hide and seek;
And “Here we gather Nuts and May,”
“I wrote a Letter” too,
“Here we go round the Mulberry Bush,”
“The Child who lost its shoe”;
infirm as a child born yesterday
I am vexed to see myself
in my glass of wine
red and old
My birthday is water in wine,
an impertinent chance.
I do not concern myself with it.
Give me rage
and I shall go on:
I was a changeling.
The man in whose place I troll
was born happy.
no notice taken
of her passed out in the cake—
birthday rum
I once gave my friend a sock on her birthday, attached to the bright fabric is a note reading.
You're a free elf.
Today is a special day for you
What fun things you're going to do
Festivities and cake
Oh, the meals and friends you'll make...
But for me, it's just a Tuesday.
This day's the day your world opened
And you're praising yourself for not having broken
But you don't really see
What this all means to me
'Cause it's just a Tuesday.
It's supposed to be special
It's supposed to be alright
But I'm feeling stressful
And you're glowing too bright
Because today has lost its shine
And I'm losing my mind
I wake up back aching from soft bed Pat
gone to class Ron to work (I
never heard a sound) its my birthday. I put on
birthday pants birthday shirt go to ADAM'S buy a
pepsi for breakfast come home drink it take a
pill I'm high. I do three Greek lessons
to make up for cutting class. I read birthday book
(from Joe) on Juan Gris real name Jose Victoriano
Gonzales stop in the middle read all
my poems gloat a little over new ballad quickly skip old
sonnets imitations of Shakespeare. Back to books. I read
poems by Auden Spenser Pound Stevens and Frank O Hara. I hate
books.
I wonder if Jan or Helen or Babe
ever think about me. I wonder if Dave Bearden still
dislikes me. I wonder if people talk about me
The way with June is this:
it ends
(and first it's my sister's birthday)
then it ends
Today in the smell of
elderberry blossoms
today in the colour of
rice crispies on a steel spoon of milk
today in the hand of
putty & windowglass of
getting confused/fingers/putty oil/ not really finding/
a way/looks bad/keeps falling out/the depth/of the
impossibility/thickness/frush/fruss/infinite heartless
boredom/shit/frustration
of desire to know/therefore control
Or Awhile
birthday—
too busy catching up
to blow out candles
warming from
the inside
Baby Babbles--only one,
Now to sit up has begun.
Little Babbles quite turned two
Walks as well as I and you.
And Miss Babbles one, two, three
Has a teaspoon at her tea.
But her Highness at four
Learns to open the front door.
And her Majesty--now six,
Can her shoestring neatly fix.
Babbles, Babbles, have a care,
You will soon put up your hair!
I wonder how long it has been
Since this old calendar hung here,
With my birthday date upon it,
Nothing else--not a word of writing--
Not a mark of any hand.
Perhaps it was my father
Who left it thus
For me to see.
Perhaps my mother
Smiled as she saw it;
But in later years did not smile.
If I could tear it down,
From the wall
Somehow
I would be content.
But I am afraid, as a little child, to touch it.
For ever wave, for ever float and shine
Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine
Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine,
A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread
Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead,
Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o'erhead.
This vine bore many blossoms, which were years.
Their petals, red with joy, or bleached by tears,
Waved to and fro i' the winds of hopes and fears.
Here all men clung, each hanging by his spray.
Anon, one dropped; his neighbor 'gan to pray;
And so they clung and dropped and prayed, alway.
But I did mark one lately-opened bloom,
Wherefrom arose a visible perfume
That wrapped me in a cloud of dainty gloom.