The following two poems are collages I made for a friend's birthday. I cannot claim authorship, as I only wove them together from others' words. I would be interested to know which parts you can identify.

 

September hurls the honeycomb of light

far above the stony gardens.

Summer's Sibyl does not want to die yet.

September is the cruellest month.

 

Go down, beautiful sun, they did not

look upon you much, they did not know you, saint,

for effortless and silent

you rose above the troublesome.

 

That time of year you may in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

 

When forty winters shall besiege my brow

And dig deep trenches in my beauty's field

I look in my glass, and tell the face I view:

Now is the time to form another.

 

The happiest day – the happiest hour

My seared and blighted heart has known,

The highest hope of pride and power,

I feel has flown.

 

For the time of youth has fled,

And grey hairs are on my head.

The stars have become worn…

Look into my wandered face.

 

Alas, where am I to find, once

it is winter, the flowers, and where

the sunshine,

and the shadow of the earth?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Come into the park thought dead and see:

The shimmering of far smiling coasts -

The pure clouds'  unexpected blue

Light up the ponds and the coloured paths.

 

Soon you will see, when the veil falls,

the blue skies unobstructed,

the subdued world, autumnal strong,

is flowing in warm gold.

 

And possibly, in spite of it all,

we have, fuming for error,

created a wandering universe

through the language of breath!

 

We have blown the clarion

of beginning again and again,

inscribed the grain of sand, swift as the wind,

before it became light again!

 

No, Time, you shall not boast that I do change.

Your pyramids built up with newer might

To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,

They are but dressings of a former sight.

 

Ye words, up, follow me!,

and if we are farther,

too far gone, let us once more go

farther, towards no end.

 

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rime.

O, none, because that miracle has might,

That in black ink my life may still shine bright.