Swing Shift Blues

Related poetry:

1. Father Death Blues (Don't Grow Old, Part V) Hey Father Death, I’m flying home Hey poor man, you’re all alone Hey old daddy, I know where I’m going Father Death, Don’t cry any more Mama’s there, underneath the floor Brother Death, please mind the store Old Aunty Death Don’t hide your bones Old Uncle Death I hear your groans O Sister Death how […]...
2. Swing high and swing low Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow – It’s off for a sailor thy father would go; And it’s here in the harbor, in sight of the sea, He hath left his wee babe with my song and with me: “Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow!” Swing high […]...
3. Beta Blogger Blues Have you switched to Beta yet? It’s an even bet that if you have You quite regret your impulse To accept the canny invitation. It’s okay, I hear you say, the crew’s A clever team and give you confidence They’ll solve the sorry logon glitch And while a bitch to reach your Blog in Beta […]...
4. The Morning Half-Life Blues Girls buck the wind in the grooves toward work In fuzzy coats promised to be warm as fur. The shop windows snicker Flashing them hurrying over dresses they cannot afford: You are not pretty enough, not pretty enough. Blown with yesterday’s papers through the boiled coffee morning We dream of the stop on the subway […]...
5. While Someone Telephones Wasted, wasted minutes that couldn’t be worse, Minutes of a barbaric condescension. Stare out the bathroom window at the fir-trees, At their dark needles, accretions to no purpose Woodenly crystallized, and where two fireflies Are only lost. Hear nothing but a train that goes by, must go by, like tension; Nothing. And wait: Maybe even […]...
6. Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
7. Song For The Severed Head In 'The King Of The Great Clock Tower&#039 Saddle and ride, I heard a man say, Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea, What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower? All those tragic characters ride But turn from Rosses’ crawling tide, The meet’s upon the mountain-side. A slow low note and an iron bell. What brought them there so far from their […]...
8. The Swing How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, River and trees and cattle and all Over the countryside Till I […]...
9. Swing Song The blatant horns blare strident sound; Delighted, you laugh and seize My passive arm, but I have found Content in the harmonies. They sound, are silent; please or annoy, Are not clever, cruel, or coy Like human qualities. See agile fingers in frantic flight Along the smoking row Of piano keys cut from ebony night […]...
10. September We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold: No clock counts this. When kisses are repeated and the arms hold There is no telling where time is. It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still: Behind the eye a star, Under the silk of the wrist a sea, tell Time is nowhere. We stand; […]...
11. Wedding Wind The wind blew all my wedding-day, And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind; And a stable door was banging, again and again, That he must go and shut it, leaving me Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain, Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick, Yet seeing nothing. When he came back He said […]...
12. Po' Boy Blues When I was home de Sunshine seemed like gold. When I was home de Sunshine seemed like gold. Since I come up North de Whole damn world’s turned cold. I was a good boy, Never done no wrong. Yes, I was a good boy, Never done no wrong, But this world is weary An’ de […]...
13. The Blues What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet And boarding a downtown bus, headed for lessons? I had pieces to learn by heart, but at twelve You think the heart and memory are different. “‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works Backwards,’ the Queen remarked.” Alice in Wonderland. Although I knew the […]...
14. Blues Those five or six young guys Lunched on the stoop That oven-hot summer night Whistled me over. Nice And friendly. So, I stop. MacDougal or Christopher Street in chains of light. A summer festival. Or some Saint’s. I wasn’t too far from Home, but not too bright For a nigger, and not too dark. I […]...
15. The Blues When the shoe strings break On both your shoes And you’re in a hurry- That’s the blues. When you go to buy a candy bar And you’ve lost the dime you had- Slipped through a hole in your pocket somewhere- That’s the blues, too, and bad!...
16. On the March So the time seems come at last, And the drums go rolling past, And above them in the sunlight Labour’s banners float and flow; They are marching with the sun, But I look in vain for one Of the men who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago. They were men who did the […]...
17. The Weary Blues Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway. . . He did a lazy sway. . . To the tune o’ those Weary […]...
18. WINTER BLUES For Penny Abraham I wish I had Auden’s penchant For going about in carpet slippers Or the late HRH Margaret’s panache- A chauffered Rolls with six outriders- This late December day with its sparkle of sun on frost I’d so much rather be in Haworth’s cobbled street With cascades of carols in torchlit procession Or […]...
19. Rhapsody on a Windy Night TWELVE o’clock. Along the reaches of the street Held in a lunar synthesis, Whispering lunar incantations Dissolve the floors of memory And all its clear relations Its divisions and precisions, Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum, And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman […]...
20. Kemang Afternoon Blues 1/ Had it not been for the traffic jam You’d have thought being elsewhere Most the niceties seemed so foreign Speaking a tongue so unfamiliar 2/ The bookstore you were in Saw a sea of printed words Of books beyond reach So beautiful they were doomed 3/ Even a minute you were denied A meeting […]...
21. Long highway blues highway dancing During a long day Of running My thumb, Carrying me nowhere Grew tired, A sunset and beauty Carved the sky Her eyes and hair A tattoo upon my soul Wouldn’t let go I had nowhere to run And so, Highway dancing And nowhere To call home. Walking the long black road Alone Believing […]...
22. Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
23. The Junk Man I AM glad God saw Death And gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired Of living: When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and The connections loose And the clock goes on ticking and telling the wrong time From hour to hour And people around the house […]...
24. A Green Crab's Shell Not, exactly, green: Closer to bronze Preserved in kind brine, Something retrieved From a Greco-Roman wreck, Patinated and oddly Muscular. We cannot Know what his fantastic Legs were like Though evidence Suggests eight Complexly folded Scuttling works Of armament, crowned By the foreclaws’ Gesture of menace And power. A gull’s Gobbled the center, Leaving this […]...
25. The Stupid Jerk I’m Obsessed With The stupid jerk I’m obsessed with Stands so close to me I can feel his breath On my neck And smell The way he would smell If we slept together Because he is the stupid jerk I’m obsessed with And that is his primary function in life To be a stupid jerk I can obsess […]...
26. Michael “There’s something in your face, Michael, I’ve seen it all the day; There’s something quare that wasn’t there when first ye wint away. . . .” “It’s just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right, That puts the stiffinin’ in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . .” “There’s […]...
27. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
28. Never Suddenly, desperately I thought, “No, never In millions of minutes Can I for one second Calm-leaving my own self Like clothes on a chair-back And quietly opening The door of one house (No, not one of all millions) Of blood, flesh and brain, Climb the nerve-stair and look From the tower, from the windows Of […]...
29. Traveling Dream I am packing to go to the airport But somehow I am never packed. I keep remembering more things I keep forgetting. Secretly the clock is bolting Forward ten minutes at a click Instead of one. Each time I look away, it jumps. Now I remember I have to find The cats. I have four […]...
30. The Bulls Six bulls I saw as black as jet, With crimsoned horns and amber eyes That chewed their cud without a fret, And swished to brush away the flies, Unwitting their soon sacrifice. It is the Corpus Christi fête; Processions crowd the bannered ways; Before the alters women wait, While men unite in hymns of praise, […]...
31. Two Items STRONG rocks hold up the riksdag bridge… always strong river waters shoving their shoulders against them… In the riksdag to-night three hundred men are talking to each other about more potatoes and bread for the Swedish people to eat this winter. In a boat among calm waters next to the running waters a fisherman sits […]...
32. July 10 The sky was a midnight blue Velvet cloth draping A birdcage and no moon But the breeze was whistling And the sound of a car On Valentine Place was The rush of a waterfall On the phone in New York City And that’s when the muse Turned up with curly brown locks She was a […]...
33. The Apparitions Because there is safety in derision I talked about an apparition, I took no trouble to convince, Or seem plausible to a man of sense. Distrustful of thar popular eye Whether it be bold or sly. Fifteen apparitions have I seen; The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger. I have found nothing half so good […]...
34. Twelve O'Clock Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons now. I have been at my Book all the morning. You say it is only twelve o’clock. Suppose it isn’t any later; Can’t you ever think it is afternoon when it is only twelve O’clock? I can easily imagine now that the sun has reached the […]...
35. The Death Of Santa Claus He’s had the chest pains for weeks, But doctors don’t make house Calls to the North Pole, He’s let his Blue Cross lapse, Blood tests make him faint, Hospital gown always flap Open, waiting rooms upset His stomach, and it’s only Indigestion anyway, he thinks, Until, feeding the reindeer, He feels as if a monster […]...
36. Song To Celia – II Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I’ll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove’s nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent […]...
37. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
38. There's the Battle of Burgoyne There’s the Battle of Burgoyne Over, every Day, By the Time that Man and Beast Put their work away “Sunset” sounds majestic But that solemn War Could you comprehend it You would chastened stare...
39. Named He’d spent his life trying to control the names people gave him; Oh the unfair and the accurate equally hurt. Just recently he’d been a son-of-a-bitch and sweetheart in the same day, And once again knew what antonyms Love and control are, and how comforting it must be to have a business card – Manager, […]...
40. Sonnet XV: Since to Obtain Thee His Remedy for Love Since to obtain thee nothing will be stead, I have a med’cine that shall cure my love, The powder of her heart dried, when she is dead, That gold nor honor ne’er had power to move, Mixt with her tears, that ne’er her true-love crost Nor at fifteen ne’er long’d to […]...