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Best Poems From
ANTHONY WEIR
(13th September 1941)
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25.
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The Empty House
We are always having and wanting to have
more than that we wanted to have
and had not - so always we do
in order to compensate for what
others did or did not do to or for us
And we have no peace to be
may never have been at all
living our lives without being
always blocking each other
making war on ourselves, each other,
the world
trying to blot out the wanting
by doing and having.
We all move in the same mad direction
away from ourselves, away from being
ourselves, being animals, being voyagers,
being.
The smell of my armpit is ocean
In it I can learn to be.
Anthony Weir
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26.
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The Nearest to Joy
The nearest to joy
I have known
since I was a boy
on my own
in an attic of junk
was seeing the joy
in my teacher, my dog
as he gnawed at a bone
or romped in a field
or played tug-of-war with a brush.
Anthony Weir
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27.
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'When you are very old...'
translation of a famous sonnet by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)
from Sonnets for Hιlθne
When you are very old, at evening, by the fire,
spinning wool by candlelight and winding it in skeins,
you will say in wonderment as you recite my lines:
'Ronsard admired me in the days when I was fair.'
Then not one of your servants dozing gently there
hearing my name's cadence break through your low repines
but will start into wakefulness out of her dreams
and bless your name - immortalised by my desire.
I'll be underneath the ground, and a boneless shade
taking my long rest in the scented myrtle-glade,
and you'll be an old woman, nodding towards life's close,
regretting my love, and regretting your disdain.
Heed me, and live for now: this time won't come again.
Come, pluck now - today - life's so quickly-fading rose.
(translation by Anthony Weir)
Anthony Weir
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28.
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Where can I put the Symbols?
Where can I put the symbol of Honour and
the symbol of Justice?
Where can I put the symbol of Hope and
the symbol of Compassion?
Where can I put the symbol of Love?
In our time pedestals
have been smashed to bits
- which I am putting
on my mother's grave.
Anthony Weir
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