Saturday poetry

If I had to tell what the world is for me

I would take a hamster or a hedgehog or a mole

and place him in a theater seat one evening

and, bringing my ear close to his humid snout,

would listen to what he says about the spotlights,

sounds of the music, and movements of the dance. 

Czesław Miłosz, "Throughout our lands"

Poem

I guess it seems as a good day as any to read Tony Harrison's poem V.

Thought for the day

to hell with anything unrefined
has always been my motto

-- from archy & mehitabel

A'thing that ony man can be's
A mockery o' his soul at last.
The mair it shows't the better, and
I'd suner be a tramp than king,
Lest in the pride o' place and poo'er
I e'er forgot my waesomeness.
Sae to debauchery and dirt,
And to disease and daith I turn,
Sin' otherwise my seemin' worth
'Ud block my view o' what is what,
And blin' me to the irony
Of bein' a grocer 'neth the sun,
A lawyer gin Justice ope'd her een,
A pedant like an ant promoted,
A parson buttonholin' God...

Hugh MacDiarmid