The free bird thinks of

Caged Bird another breeze

BY MAYA ANGELOU and the trade winds soft
through the sighing trees
A free bird leaps and the fat worms waiting
on the back of the wind on a dawn bright lawn
and floats downstream and he names the sky his
till the current ends own.
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays But a caged bird stands on
and dares to claim the sky. the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a
But a bird that stalks nightmare scream
down his narrow cage his wings are clipped and
can seldom see through his feet are tied
his bars of rage so he opens his throat to
his wings are clipped and sing.
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
The caged bird sings of things unknown
with a fearful trill but longed for still
of things unknown and his tune is heard
but longed for still on the distant hill
and his tune is heard for the caged bird
on the distant hill sings of freedom.
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
A Martian Sends a for movement, so quick there
is a film
Postcard to watch for anything missed.
Home (1979) But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with
Craig Raine impatience.
Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
Links Off In homes, a haunted
Caxtons are mechanical birds apparatus sleeps,
with many wings that snores when you pick it
and some are treasured for up.
their markings – If the ghost cries, they carry it
they cause the eyes to melt to their lips and soothe it to
or the body to shriek without sleep
pain. with sounds. And yet, they
I have never seen one fly, but wake it up
sometimes they perch on the deliberately, by tickling with a
hand. finger.
Mist is when the sky is tired of Only the young are allowed to
flight suffer
and rests its soft machine on openly. Adults go to a
ground: punishment room
then the world is dim and with water but nothing to eat.
bookish They lock the door and suffer
like engravings under tissue the noises
paper. alone. No one is exempt
Rain is when the earth is and everyone’s pain has a
television. different smell.
It has the property of making At night, when all the colours
colours darker. die,
Model T is a room with the they hide in pairs
lock inside – and read about themselves –
a key is turned to free the in colour, with their eyelids
world shut.
 pinched into what
beggar's chalky palm--
Coins they circulate like
tarnished red blood cells,
BY RICHARD NEWMAN all of us exchanging the
merest film
My change: a nickel caked
of our lives, and the lives
with finger grime;
of those long dead.
two nicked quarters not
long for this life, worth
And now my turn in the
more for keeping dead
convenience store,
eyes shut than bus fare;
I hand over my fist of
a dime, shining in
change, still warm,
sunshine like a new dime;
to the bored, lip-pierced
grubby pennies, one
check-out girl, once more
stamped the year of my
to be spun down cigarette
birth,
machines, hurled
no brighter than I from 40
in fountains, flipped for
years of wear.
luck--these dirty charms
chiming in the dark
What purses, piggy banks,
pockets of the world.
and window sills
have these coins known,
their presidential heads
Washing You moaned,
complained, and learned
And this is what I
remember by the dark

The Coins the rules of work.

Your boots, enlarging as
Whitewash of the byre
wall among shuffling
By Douglas Dunn the day wore on, boots.
You’d start at seven, Were weighted by the She knew me, but she
and then you’d bend magnets of the earth, couldn’t tell my face
your back And rain in the face was From an Irish boy’s, and
Until they let you stand also to have she apologised
up straight, your hands Something in common And roughed my hair as
Pressed on your kidneys with bedraggled Irish. into my cupped hands
as you groaned for You held your hands She poured a dozen
lunch, into the rain, then pennies of the realm
Thick sandwiches in watched And placed two florins
grease-proofed bundles, Brown water drip along there, then cupped her
piled your chilling fingers hands
Beside the jackets by Until you saw the colour Around my hands, like
the hawthorn hedges. of your skin praying together.
And then you’d bend Through rips disfiguring It is not good to feel you
your little back again your gloves of mud. have no future.
Until they let you stand It was the same for My clotted hands turned
up straight. Your hands, everyone. All day coins to muddy copper.
On which the earth had That bead of sweat I tumbled all my coins
dried in layers, itched, tickled your smeared upon our table.
itched, nose My mother ran a basin
Though worse still was And a glance upwards of hot water.
that ache along the tips would show you trees We bathed my wages
Of every picking finger, and clouds and we scrubbed them
each broken nail In turbulent collusions of clean.
That scraped the ground the sky Once all that sediment
for sprawled potatoes With ground and ground was washed away,
The turning digger with sky, and you That residue of field
churned out of the drills. portrayed caked on my money,
Muttering strong Irish Among the wretched of I filled the basin to its
men and women worked the native earth. brim with cold;
Quicker than local boys. Towards the end you felt And when the water
You had to watch them. you understood settled I could see
They had the trick of The happy rancour of Two English kings
sideways-bolted spuds the Irish howkers. among their drowned
Fast to your ear, and the When dusk came down, Britannias.
upset wire basket you stood beside the
That broke your heart byre
but made the Irish laugh. For the farmer’s wife to
pay the labour off.
 when your depths
Love Song resound.
Yet everything that
How can I keep my soul in touches us, me and you,
me, so that takes us together like a
it doesn't touch your soul? violin's bow,
How can I raise which draws one voice
it high enough, past you, out of two separate
to other things? strings.
I would like to shelter it, Upon what instrument are
among remote we two spanned?
lost objects, in some dark And what musician holds
and silent place us in his hand?
that doesn't resonate Oh sweetest song.