Wendy Cope

Engineers' Corner

Why isn't there an Engineers' Corner in Westminster Abbey? In Britain we've always made more

fuss of a ballad than a blueprint ... How many schoolchildren dream of becoming great

engineers?

Advertisement placed in The Times by the Engineering Council

We make more fuss of ballads than of blueprints --

That's why so many poets ends up rich,

While engineers scrape by in cheerless garrets.

Who needs a bridge or dam? Who needs a ditch?

Whereas the person who can write a sonnet

Has got it made. It's always been the way,

For everybody knows that we need poems

And everybody reads them every day.

Yes, life is hard if you choose engineering --

You're sure to need another job as well;

You'll have to plan your projects in the evenings

Instead of going out. It must be hell.

While well-heeled poets ride around in Daimlers,

You'll burn the midnight oil to earn a crust,

With no hope of a statue in the Abbey,

With no hope, even, of a modest bust.

No wonder small boys dream of writing couplets

And spurn the bike, the lorry and the train.

There's far too much encouragement for poets --

That's why the country's going down the drain.

Progress

by Emma LaRocque

Earth poet

So busy

weaving

magic

into words

so busy

placing

patterns

quilting

stars

so busy

making

the sun

dance

so busy

singing

your songs

in circles

so busy

tipping

moons

in dreams

Earth poet

so busy

touching

the land

scape

mad modern man

must make me

look at

cold steel spires

stealing earth and sun

dance

Summer Night ~ Langston Hughes

The sounds

Of the Harlem night

Drop one by one into stillness.

The last player-piano is closed.

The last victrola ceases with the

“Jazz Boy Blues.”

The last crying baby sleeps

And the night becomes

Still as a whispering heartbeat.

I toss

Without rest in the darkness,

Weary as the tired night,

My soul

Empty as the silence,

Empty with a vague,

Aching emptiness,

Desiring,

Needing someone,

Something.

I toss without rest

In the darkness

Until the new dawn,

Wan and pale,

Descends like a white mist

Into the court-yard.

“Dover Beach”

Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

“Lies”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Lying to the young is wrong.

Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.

Telling them

that God’s in his heaven

and all’s well with the world

is wrong.

They know what you mean.

They are people too.

Tell them the difficulties

can’t be counted,

and let them see

not only

what will be

but see

with clarity

these present times.

Say obstacles exist they must encounter,

sorrow comes,

hardship happens.

The hell with it.

Who never knew

the price of happiness

will not be happy.

Forgive no error

you recognize,

it will repeat itself,

a hundredfold

and afterward

our pupils

will not forgive in us

what we forgave.

El Greco: Espolio

Earle Birney

The carpenter is intent on the pressure of his hand

on the awl and the trick of pinpointing his strength

through the awl to the wood which is tough

He has no effort to spare for despoilings

or to worry if he'll be cut in on the dice

His skill is vital to the scene and the safety of the state

Anyone can perform the indignities It's his hard arms

and craft that hold the eyes of the convict's women

There is the problem of getting the holes exact

(in the middle of this elbowing crowd)

and deep enough to hold the spikes

after they've sunk through those bared feet

and inadequate wrists he knows are waiting behind him

He doesn't sense perhaps that one of the hands

is held in a curious gesture over him--

giving or asking forgiveness?-

but he'd scarcely take time to be puzzled by poses

Criminals come in all sorts

as anyone knows who makes crosses

are as mad or sane as those who decide on their killings

Our one at least has been quiet so far

though they say he talked himself into this trouble

a carpenter's son who got notions of preaching

Well here's a carpenter's son who'll have carpenter sons

God willing and build what's wanted

temples or tables mangers or crosses

and shape them decently

working alone in that firm and profound abstraction

which blots out the bawling of rag-snatchers

To construct with hands knee-weight braced thigh

keeps the back turned from death

But it's too late now for the other carpenter's boy

to return to this peace before the nails are hammered

Point Grey 1960