The Tenor Man

Related poetry:

1. Pink Champagne (for Digby Fairweather) Not blues in twelve But there is joy And pink champagne, The maker’s music Trading eights In syncopated synergy From Dixieland to Rock ‘n’ Roll, And here the cornet-master Leads in tones A trumpet cannot blow. The sidemen nod their harmonies, Engrossed; Their music coursing Through an energy of swing; Piano-player’s fingers Dancing round the […]...
2. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
3. Purple Martins IF we were such and so, the same as these, Maybe we too would be slingers and sliders, Tumbling half over in the water mirrors, Tumbling half over at the horse heads of the sun, Tumbling our purple numbers. Twirl on, you and your satin blue. Be water birds, be air birds. Be these purple […]...
4. Sonnet (1928) I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low, Of some song sung to rest the tired dead, A song to fall like water on my head, And over quivering limbs, […]...
5. String Bass Some like to dominate, Others caress A voluptuous rhythm On pliant strings. This pulse drives life Through wanton counterpoint, The heart and harmony Of things....
6. The Truce of Night Lo, it is dark, Save for the crystal spark Of a virgin star o’er the purpling lea, Or the fine, keen, silvery grace of a young Moon that is hung O’er the priest-like firs by the sea; Lo, it is still, Save for the wind of the hill, And the luring, primeval sounds that fill […]...
7. Hate ONE man killed another. The saying between them had been “I’d give you the shirt off my back.” The killer wept over the dead. The dead if he looks back knows the killer was sorry. It was a shot in one second of hate out of ten years of love. Why is the sun a […]...
8. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
9. Despair I have experienc’d The worst, the World can wreak on me the worst That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb With whisper’d Discontents the dying prayer I have beheld the whole of all, wherein My Heart had any interest in this Life, To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes That nothing now is […]...
10. Milton I Lover of beauty, walking on the height Of pure philosophy and tranquil song; Born to behold the visions that belong To those who dwell in melody and light; Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright! What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong, Fighting for freedom in a […]...
11. Fate That you are fair or wise is vain, Or strong, or rich, or generous; You must have also the untaught strain That sheds beauty on the rose. There is a melody born of melody, Which melts the world into a sea. Toil could never compass it, Art its height could never hit, It came never […]...
12. Always I am not jealous Of what came before me. Come with a man On your shoulders, Come with a hundred men in your hair, Come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet, Come like a river Full of drowned men Which flows down to the wild sea, To the eternal surf, to […]...
13. Your Poem My poem may be yours indeed In melody and tone, If in its rhythm you can read A music of your own; If in its pale woof you can weave Your lovelier design, ‘Twill make my lyric, I believe, More yours than mine. I’m but a prompter at the best; Crude cues are all I […]...
14. Simple pleasures that you bring Do you mind if I write a few lines for you tonight? I’m fuelled for sure, perhaps a bit ebullient, (now there’s a rhyme that will be hard to find A word to suit!) I’ll try, but time will surely take A pensive break and provide a chance to make A consequence. Am I afraid […]...
15. Romance I WILL make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me, Of green days in forests and blue days at sea. I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and […]...
16. Barter Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things; Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children’s faces looking up, Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell; Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms […]...
17. Echo How sweet the answer Echo makes To music at night, When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes, And far away, o’er lawns and lakes, Goes answering light. Yet Love hath echoes truer far, And far more sweet, Than e’er beneath the moonlight’s star, Of horn or lute, or soft guitar, The songs repeat. ‘Tis […]...
18. How a Little Girl Sang Ah, she was music in herself, A symphony of joyousness. She sang, she sang from finger tips, From every tremble of her dress. I saw sweet haunting harmony, An ecstasy, an ecstasy, In that strange curling of her lips, That happy curling of her lips. And quivering with melody Those eyes I saw, that tossing […]...
19. The Peaceful Shepherd If heaven were to do again, And on the pasture bars, I leaned to line the figures in Between the dotted starts, I should be tempted to forget, I fear, the Crown of Rule, The Scales of Trade, the Cross of Faith, As hardly worth renewal. For these have governed in our lives, And see […]...
20. Careers Father is quite the greatest poet That ever lived anywhere. You say you’re going to write great music – I chose that first: it’s unfair. Besides, now I can’t be the greatest painter and do Christ and angels, or lovely pears and apples and grapes on a green dish, or storms at sea, or anything […]...
21. If All the Skies If all the skies were sunshine, Our faces would be fain To feel once more upon them The cooling splash of rain. If all the world were music, Our hearts would often long For one sweet strain of silence, To break the endless song. If life were always merry, Our souls would seek relief, And […]...
22. To Cesario CESARIO, thy Lyre’s dulcet measure, So sweetly, so tenderly flows; That could my sad soul taste of pleasure, Thy music would soften its woes. But ah, gentle soother, where anguish Takes root in the grief-stricken heart; ‘Tis the triumph of sorrow to languish, ‘Tis rapture to cherish the smart. The mind where pale Mis’ry sits […]...
23. King of the River If the water were clear enough, If the water were still, But the water is not clear, The water is not still, You would see yourself, Slipped out of your skin, Nosing upstream, Slapping, thrashing, Tumbling Over the rocks Till you paint them With your belly’s blood: Finned Ego, Yard of muscle that coils, Uncoils. […]...
24. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 07: Two Lovers: Overtones Two lovers, here at the corner, by the steeple, Two lovers blow together like music blowing: And the crowd dissolves about them like a sea. Recurring waves of sound break vaguely about them, They drift from wall to wall, from tree to tree. ‘Well, am I late?’ Upward they look and laugh, They look at […]...
25. To the Snake Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck And stroked your cold, pulsing throat As you hissed to me, glinting Arrowy gold scales, and I felt The weight of you on my shoulders, And the whispering silver of your dryness Sounded close at my ears Green Snake I swore to my companions that certainly […]...
26. The Princess: A Medley: Our Enemies have Fall'n Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: the seed, The little seed they laugh’d at in the dark, Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk Of spanless girth, that lays on every side A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: they came; The leaves were wet […]...
27. Prairie Waters by Night CHATTER of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water-sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains. And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir […]...
28. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
29. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
30. The Hawk ‘Call down the hawk from the air; Let him be hooded or caged Till the yellow eye has grown mild, For larder and spit are bare, The old cook enraged, The scullion gone wild.’ ‘I will not be clapped in a hood, Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist, Now I have learnt to be […]...
31. The Hermit WHAT moves that lonely man is not the boom Of waves that break agains the cliff so strong; Nor roar of thunder, when that travelling voice Is caught by rocks that carry far along. ‘Tis not the groan of oak tree i its prime, When lightning strikes its solid heart to dust; Nor frozen pond […]...
32. The Children Dancing Away, sad thoughts, and teasing Perplexities, away! Let other blood go freezing, We will be wise and gay. For here is all heart-easing, An ecstasy at play. The children dancing, dancing, Light upon happy feet, Both eye and heart entrancing Mingle, escape, and meet; Come joyous-eyed and advancing Or floatingly retreat. Now slow, now swifter […]...
33. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
34. Break, Break, Break Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the […]...
35. Listening ‘T is you that are the music, not your song. The song is but a door which, opening wide, Lets forth the pent-up melody inside, Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong Sings but of you. Throughout your whole life long Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide This perfect beauty; waves within a […]...
36. Memorial To D. C (Vassar College, 1918) O, loveliest throat of all sweet throats, Where now no more the music is, With hands that wrote you little notes I write you little elegies!...
37. And Death Shall Have No Dominion And death shall have no dominion. Dead mean naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the […]...
38. Song (From the diaries of Malte Laurids Brigge) You, whom I do not tell that all night long I lie weeping, Whose very being makes me feel wanting Like a cradle. You, who do not tell me, that you lie awake Thinking of me: What, if we carried all these longings within us Without ever being […]...
39. Music When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dreams burns each enchanted face, With […]...
40. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 01: Clairvoyant ‘This envelope you say has something in it Which once belonged to your dead son-or something He knew, was fond of? Something he remembers?- The soul flies far, and we can only call it By things like these. . . a photograph, a letter, Ribbon, or charm, or watch. . . ‘ . . . […]...