Tuesday, January 20, 2009

President Barack Obama's Inaugural Speech

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Earlier today, I posted the Inaugural poem for Abraham Lincoln's 1865 Inauguration.

If you would like to see and read President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address, click here.

(Disclaimer: I own this non-profit site.)
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Abraham Lincoln's 1865 Inaugural Poem

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Abraham Lincoln
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An Inaugural Poem,

Dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee

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March 4, 1861 - Match 4, 1865.


In the glorious days of old,
When all manly words were gold,
The pledge of haughty Southern Knight
Was held as true and kept as bright
As if it had been coined in heaven,
And to the world by angels given.

But when the curse of slavery fell,
As though a pestilence from hell
Had poisoned all the land!
A direful demon took command;
And they who owed their country all,
Struck at her life, contrived her fall,

But first they broke their solemn word,
Before they drew the murderous sword,
Forgot their creed, so orthodox,
And scorned the sacred ballot-box;
Then here, where Freedom's temple stood,
Tried to let loose the tide of blood.

Oh! doubtful day, four years ago!
When, threatened by the assassin foe,
Our President was sworn to stand
By God and by his Native Land;
But traitors failed, because they knew
Their plots were clear to patriots true.

And when the fiends of civil war
Filled all the South with blood and fire,
Long swayed the dreadful, doubtful fight,
And the world shuddered at the sight:
Thousands of all our boldest braves
Fought, fell, and died in honored graves.

For days, for months, for lingering years,
This strife of kindred and this flow of tears,
Was grimly fought and bitterly maintained
Till none could tell which side had gained:
But now, at last, a rescued nation
Hails here her perfect vindication.

And God is good, for he has said,
(Oh voice to wake the myriad dead!)
If your first oath was sworn in gloom,
Unknowing then your fate or doom;
At your to-day's inauguration
You do behold your land's salvation.

No scowling traitors in this hour
Will dare to thwart the people's power:
No forsworn plotters can implore
That Freedom's temple may run o'er
With the heart's blood of him who won
The post twice filled by Washington.

For like to him so Lincoln ran
The race for Liberty and Man,
And like to him a people's voice
Proclaimed him twice the nation's choice;
And by this act have set their seal
To show the gratitude they feel.

Now as the President ascends
Yon marble flight, and lowly blends
Before the majesty of the laws,
And vows to serve his country's cause,
Nothing but victory for the Union
Will gladden all that vast communion.

Before him frown no angry foemen,
For all are friends and sturdy yeomen;
But gazing up and to him listening,
Behold the face of Johnson glistening--
He who in renowned December
Fought the great fight we all remember;

Who, without sign of fear or favor,
Struck 'gainst traitors with best endeavor--
Made them quail beneath his glances,
And fly before his bold advances,
And now, from rescued Tennessee,
Takes part in this, Our Jubilee.

Oh! History, with thy impartial pen,
Tell us in what age of godlike men
Hast thou been ever called to write
A page so wondrous and so bright?
Where is the struggle that can equal
That of which to-day's the sequel?
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From the Chronicle Junior.

Printed in the Inauguration Procession of Lincoln & Johnson.

Washington, D.C., March 4th, 1865.


American Treasures of the Library of Congress
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Saturday, January 17, 2009

Mild Nights (Anca Vlasopolos)

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It’s a mild night we stand in--all friends
recapping the gathering, thrusts and parries,
touché and worse, wounds

a shape cuts itself out of darkness
to cross the barely lit street
a cat with a kitten held by the nape
only this is no maternal hold
this no offspring of hers
this one knows and screams and screams
and screams
till the street falls silent as we
now that death has fed


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Anca Vlasopolos is the author of The New Bedford Samurai (Twilight Times Books, 2007); Penguins in a Warming World (Ragged Sky Press, 2007); No Return Address: A Memoir of Displacement (Columbia University Press, 2000); a poetry e-chapbook, Sidereal and Closer Griefs, print chapbooks Through the Straits, at Large and The Evidence of Spring; and a detective novel, Missing Members (trans. Miembros Ausentes, Madrid, 2009). She has also placed over two hundred poems and short stories in literary magazines.
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Copyright 2009, Anca Vlasopolos

Posted with permission from author.

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Friday, January 16, 2009

Burying the Next-Door Neighbor (Anca Vlasopolos)

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like patches off an old quilt beaten for
dust her mind began to unravel

detach float settle unexpectedly
end up being fingered stepped on each day

she would stop my garden travails
air at five-minute intervals the same griefs

stuck record looped tape
memory digging wrongs

then she began to forget how to drink
feed breathe yet not how to love

for her mind’s divorce decree from her body
didn’t betray dog and cats in her care

yet despite that coming apart
or perhaps because the holding together

no longer scattered laser focus of knowing
she prophesied her near ones’ raptor gyres

and they swooped as she told me and told
and they carried her away in the night

now a dumpster sits in the driveway
colossal black bags appear at the curb
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Anca Vlasopolos is the author of The New Bedford Samurai (Twilight Times Books, 2007); Penguins in a Warming World (Ragged Sky Press, 2007); No Return Address: A Memoir of Displacement (Columbia University Press, 2000); a poetry e-chapbook, Sidereal and Closer Griefs, print chapbooks Through the Straits, at Large and The Evidence of Spring; and a detective novel, Missing Members (trans. Miembros Ausentes, Madrid, 2009). She has also placed over two hundred poems and short stories in literary magazines.

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Copyright 2009, Anca Vlasopolos

Posted with permission from author.


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Raptors in Motion



aquiline

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