Carrion Comfort, Gerard Manley Hopkins

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

in summer after a flood we went hiking

if ever we passed that tree again,
with branches like hanging spines,
i would not lose the stink of the fish
the maggots ate, nor the sight of their
supine white bellies, how the dried scales
caught rainbows in each tiny cell.
how some of their eyes were open,
some were closed, but some were open
and they watched in glassed stillness
our boots, our hands clasping our face,
the flies surrounding lean silver crescents.

Dreams of an English Major

Last night I had a dream that we were supposed to read the first two acts of Macbeth for my next class. But I didn't have the book and didn't do it. I was called on and my professor asked me what was on the wall in the second act. I said, "I spent so much time reading the first act, I just didn't get to the second act." My professor nodded, knowing I hadn't done any of the reading, but I felt some what justified.

In my dream, the first act of Macbeth was only a page long and when I found out, I was so embarrassed that I ran out of the classroom crying. What worse was that at that moment I knew the answer about what was on the wall--a clock was on the wall.

I ran out of the classroom and this girl I taught Latin with was there and she tried to give me a smoothie and I said, "No fuck you" and she said, "You are the meanest person in the world." Then she began to scream and holler until Professor Dugan came out of the classroom and told us to quiet down.

What I find so amazing about this dream is that I remembered from my mediocre 10th grade English class that in Act 2 Scene 1 of Macbeth that a clock is mentioned! How's that for memory!