Tiger: Alec Derwent Hope At noon thepaper tigers roar — Miroslav Holub The paper tigers roar at noon; The sun is hot, the sun is high. They roar in chorus, not in tune, Their plaintive, savage hunting cry. O, when you hear them, stop your...
Death of the Bird: Alec Derwent Hope For every bird there is this last migration; Once more the cooling year kindles her heart; With a warm passage to the summer station Love pricks the course in lights across the chart. Year after year a speck...
The Pleasure of Princes: Alec Derwent Hope What pleasures have great princes? These: to know Themselves reputed mad with pride or power; To speak few words — few words and short bring low This ancient house, that city with flame devour; To make old men,...
Phallus: Alec Derwent Hope This was the gods’ god, The leashed divinity, Divine divining rod And Me within the me. By mindlight tower and tree Its shadow on the ground Throw, and in darkness she Whose weapon is her wound Fends off the knife, the...
Conquistador: Alec Derwent Hope I sing of the decline of Henry Clay Who loved a white girl of uncommon size. Although a small man in a little way, He had in him some seed of enterprise. Each day he caught the seven-thirty train To work,...
The School of Night: Alec Derwent Hope What did I study in your School of Night? When your mouth’s first unfathomable yes Opened your body to be my book, I read My answers there and learned the spell aright, Yet, though I searched and...
Crossing the Frontier: Alec Derwent Hope Crossing the frontier they were stopped in time, Told, quite politely, they would have to wait: Passports in order, nothing to declare And surely holding hands was not a crime Until they saw how, ranged across the gate, All...
The Return of Persephone: Alec Derwent Hope Gliding through the still air, he made no sound; Wing-shod and deft, dropped almost at her feet, And searched the ghostly regiments and found The living eyes, the tremor of breath, the beat Of blood in all that...
Easter Hymn: Alec Derwent Hope Make no mistake; there will be no forgiveness; No voice can harm you and no hand will save; Fenced by the magic of deliberate darkness You walk on the sharp edges of the wave; Trouble with soul again the putrefaction...
Morning Coffee: Alec Derwent Hope Reading the menu at the morning service: – Iced Venusberg perhaps, or buttered bum – Orders the usual sex-ersatz, and, nervous, Glances around – Will she or won’t she come? The congregation dissected into pews Gulping their strip teas in...
