The Man In The Bowler Hat

Related poetry:

1. To Be Blind Is it sounds converging, Sounds nearing, Infringement, impingement, Impact, contact With surfaces of the sounds Or surfaces without the sounds: Diagrams, skeletal, strange? Is it winds curling round invisible corners? Polyphony of perfumes? Antennae discovering an axis, erecting the architecture of a world? Is it orchestration of the finger-tips, graph of a fugue: Scaffold for […]...
2. Ionian Just because we’ve torn their statues down, And cast them from their temples, Doesn’t for a moment mean the gods are dead. Land of Ionia, they love you yet, Their spirits still remember you. When an August morning breaks upon you A vigour from their lives stabs through your air; And sometimes an ethereal and […]...
3. 32. Song-Green Grow the Rashes Chor.-Green grow the rashes, O; Green grow the rashes, O; The sweetest hours that e’er I spend, Are spent amang the lasses, O. THERE’S nought but care on ev’ry han’, In ev’ry hour that passes, O: What signifies the life o’ man, An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O. Green grow, &c. The war’ly race […]...
4. The Window She looks out in the blue morning And sees a whole wonderful world She looks out in the morning And sees a whole world She leans out of the window And this is what she sees A wet rose singing to the sun With a chorus of red bees She leans out of the window […]...
5. IMPOSSIBILITIES: TO HIS FRIEND My faithful friend, if you can see The fruit to grow up, or the tree; If you can see the colour come Into the blushing pear or plum; If you can see the water grow To cakes of ice, or flakes of snow; If you can see that drop of rain Lost in the wild […]...
6. TO ELECTRA I dare not ask a kiss, I dare not beg a smile; Lest having that, or this, I might grow proud the while. No, no, the utmost share Of my desire shall be, Only to kiss that air That lately kissed thee,...
7. Dartside, 1849 I cannot tell what you say green leaves, I cannot tell what you say : But I know that there is a spirit in you, And a word in you this day. I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks, I cannot tell what you say : But I know that there is a spirit […]...
8. Modern Love XXXIII: In Paris, at the Louvre ‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! The young Pharsalians did not disarray Less willingly their locks of floating silk: That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk Of heaven might still be feasting through […]...
9. A Goodnight Go to sleep-though of course you will not – To tideless waves thundering slantwise against Strong embankments, rattle and swish of spray Dashed thirty feet high, caught by the lake wind, Scattered and strewn broadcast in over the steady Car rails! Sleep, sleep! Gulls’ cries in a wind-gust Broken by the wind; calculating wings set […]...
10. A transport one cannot contain A transport one cannot contain May yet a transport be Though God forbid it lift the lid Unto its Ecstasy! A Diagram of Rapture! A sixpence at a Show With Holy Ghosts in Cages! The Universe would go!...
11. Black On Black Serrations of chimneys Stone-black perforate Velvet-black dark. A tree coils in core of darkness. My swinging Hands Incise the night. A man slips into a doorway, Black hole in blackness, and drowns there. A second man passing traces The diagram of his steps On invisible pavement. Rain Draws black parallel threads Through the hollow of […]...
12. Because My Faltering Feet Because my faltering feet may fail to dare The first descendant of the steps of Hell Give me the Word in time that triumphs there. I too must pass into the misty hollow Where all our living laughter stops: and hark! The tiny stuffless voices of the dark Have called me, called me, till I […]...
13. Quickstep Acknowledge the drum’s whisper. Yield to its velvet Nudge. Cut a slow air- Curve. Then dip (hip to hip): Sway, swing, pedantically Poise. Now recover, Converting the coda To prelude of sway-swing- Recover. Acknowledge The drum-crack’s alacrity – Acrid exactitude – Catch it, then slacken, Then catch as cat catches Rat. Trace your graph: Loop, […]...
14. No One So Much As You No one so much as you Loves this my clay, Or would lament as you Its dying day. You know me through and through Though I have not told, And though with what you know You are not bold. None ever was so fair As I thought you: Not a word can I bear Spoken […]...
15. Layover Making love in the sun, in the morning sun In a hotel room Above the alley Where poor men poke for bottles; Making love in the sun Making love by a carpet redder than our blood, Making love while the boys sell headlines And Cadillacs, Making love by a photograph of Paris And an open […]...
16. Saturday Paseo: Adelina Oranges Do not grow in the sea Neither is there love in Sevilla. You in Dark and the I the sun that’s hot, Loan me your parasol. I’ll wear my jealous reflection, Juice of lemon and lime- And your words, Your sinful little words- Will swim around awhile. Oranges Do not grow in the sea, […]...
17. Together Splashing along the boggy woods all day, And over brambled hedge and holding clay, I shall not think of him: But when the watery fields grow brown and dim, And hounds have lost their fox, and horses tire, I know that he’ll be with me on my way Home through the darkness to the evening […]...
18. Recovering Amid The Farms Every morning the sad girl brings her three sheep And two lambs laggardly to the top of the valley, Past my stone hut and onto the mountain to graze. She turned twelve last year and it was legal For the father to take her out of school. She knows Her life is over. The sadness […]...
19. Song of Karen, the Dancing Child (O little white feet of mine) Out in the storm and the rain you fly; (Red, red shoes the colour of wine) Can the children hear my cry? (O little white feet of mine) Never a child in the whole great town; (Red, red shoes the colour of wine) Lights out and the blinds pulled […]...
20. Lily Magnolia Enclosure Autumn hill gather surplus shine Fly bird chase before companion. Colour green moment bright, Sunset mist no fixed place. The autumn hill gathers remaining light, A flying bird chases its companion before. The green colour is momentarily bright, Sunset mist has no fixed place....
21. Wait till the Majesty of Death Wait till the Majesty of Death Invests so mean a brow! Almost a powdered Footman Might dare to touch it now! Wait till in Everlasting Robes That Democrat is dressed, Then prate about “Preferment” And “Station,” and the rest! Around this quiet Courtier Obsequious Angels wait! Full royal is his Retinue! Full purple is his […]...
22. Grandeur loneliness is a state The lonely cannot reach It carries a grandeur That doesn’t fit into Bed-sitters or rejected Ideas – it’s the label stuck On the bottle after The tables have gone...
23. Against Evil Company Why should I join with those in Play, In whom I’ve no delight, Who curse and swear, but never pray, Who call ill Names, and fight. I hate to hear a wanton Song, Their Words offend my Ears: I should not dare defile my Tongue With Language such as theirs. Away from Fools I’ll turn […]...
24. Voices NOW I make a leaf of Voices-for I have found nothing mightier than they are, And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place. O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices? Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I […]...
25. Early Nightingale When first we hear the shy-come nightingales, They seem to mutter o’er their songs in fear, And, climb we e’er so soft the spinney rails, All stops as if no bird was anywhere. The kindled bushes with the young leaves thin Let curious eyes to search a long way in, Until impatience cannot see or […]...
26. Prayer For a New Mother The things she knew, let her forget again- The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold, The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold. Let her have laughter with her little one; Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing, Grant her her right to whisper to […]...
27. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 05: Melody In A Restaurant The cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us, Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes; You strike a match and stare upon the flame. The tiny fire leaps in your eyes a moment, And dwindles away as silently as it came. This melody, you say, has certain voices- They rise like nereids from a river, singing, […]...
28. XVII (Thinking, Tangling Shadows…) Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude. You are far away too, oh farther than anyone. Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images, Burying lamps. Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there! Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes, Taciturn miller, Night falls on you face downward, far from the city. Your presence is foreign, as strange to […]...
29. And We Shall Not Get Excited And we shall not get excited. Because a translator May not get excited. Calmly, we shall pass on Words from man to son, from one tongue To others’ lips, un- Knowingly, like a father who passes on The features of his dead father’s face To his son, and he himself is like neither of them. […]...
30. Editor Whedon To be able to see every side of every question; To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long; To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose, To use great feelings and passions of the human family For base designs, for cunning ends, To wear a mask like the Greek actors […]...
31. The Recumbent Posture The day after Christmas, young Albert Were what’s called, confined to his bed, With a tight kind of pain in his stummick And a light feeling up in his head. His parents were all in a fluster When they saw little lad were so sick, They said, ‘Put out your tongue!’, When they’d seen it […]...
32. One The mosquito is so small It takes almost nothing to ruin it. Each leaf, the same. And the black ant, hurrying. So many lives, so many fortunes! Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances Down to the ponds and through the pinewoods. Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour Before the slug creeps […]...
33. To a Poet There is a lovely noise about your name, Above the shoutings of the city clear, More than a moment’s merriment, whose claim Will greater grow with every mellowed year. The people will not bear you down the street, Dancing to the strong rhythm of your words, The modern kings will throttle you to greet The […]...
34. Voices of the Air But then there comes that moment rare When, for no cause that I can find, The little voices of the air Sound above all the sea and wind. The sea and wind do then obey And sighing, sighing double notes Of double basses, content to play A droning chord for the little throats The little […]...
35. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
36. Noises I woke up this morning With the city’s noises Fusing into my dream A pride of lions Roaring in anger The traffic, it must have been A hunter shouting something But I probably heard a street vendor For a moment, total silence Then a shot rings out in the wild Perhaps a car’s broken exhaust […]...
37. In Memory Of My Mother I do not think of you lying in the wet clay Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see You walking down a lane among the poplars On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday You meet me and you say: ‘Don’t forget to see about the cattle ‘ […]...
38. Not Even My Pride Shall Suffer Much Not even my pride shall suffer much; Not even my pride at all, maybe, If this ill-timed, intemperate clutch Be loosed by you and not by me, Will suffer; I have been so true A vestal to that only pride Wet wood cannot extinguish, nor Sand, nor its embers scattered, for, See all these years, […]...
39. Apollonius Of Tyana In Rhodes Apollonius was talking about Proper education and conduct with a young Man who was building a luxurious House in Rhodes. “As for me” said the Tyanian At last, “when I enter a temple However small it may be, I very much prefer To see a statue of ivory and gold Than a clay and vulgar […]...
40. Threshold I was not aware of the moment When I first crossed the threshold of this life. What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery Like a bud in the forest at midnight! When in the morning I looked upon the light I felt in a moment that I was no […]...