Crossing the Frontier
Crossing the frontier they were stopped in time,
Told, quite politely, they would have to wait:
Passports in order, nothing to declare
And surely holding hands was not a crime
Until they saw how, ranged across the gate,
All their most formidable friends were there.
Wearing his conscience like a crucifix,
Her father, rampant, nursed the Family Shame;
And, armed wlth their old-fashioned dinner-gong,
His aunt, who even when they both were six,
Had just to glance towards a childish game
To make them feel that they were doing wrong.
And both their mothers, simply weeping floods,
Her head-mistress, his boss, the parish priest,
And the bank manager who cashed their cheques;
The man who sold him his first rubber-goods;
Dog Fido, from whose love-life, shameless beast,
She first observed the basic facts of sex.
They looked as though they had stood there for hours;
Two furtive birds stopped courting and flew off;
While in the grass beside the road the flowers
Kept up their guilty traffic with the bees.
Nobody stirred. Nobody risked a cough.
Nobody spoke. The minutes ticked away;
The dog scratched idly. Then, as parson bent
And whispered to a guard who hurried in,
The customs-house loudspeakers with a bray
Of raucous and triumphant argument
Broke out the wedding march from Lohengrin.
He switched the engine off: “We must turn back.”
She heard his voice break, though he had to shout
Against a din that made their senses reel,
And felt his hand, so tense in hers, go slack.
But suddenly she laughed and said: “Get out!
Change seatsl Be quickl” and slid behind the wheel.
And drove the car straight at them with a harsh,
Dry crunch that showered both with scraps and chips,
Drove through them; barriers rising let them pass
Drove through and on and on, with Dad’s moustache
Beside her twitching still round waxen lips
And Mother’s tears still streaming down the glass.
Related poetry:
- Last Night I Drove A Car Last night I drove a car not knowing how to drive not owning a car I drove and knocked down people I loved …went 120 through one town. I stopped at Hedgeville and slept in the back seat …excited about my new life....
- From crossing the line (1) a great man There was a great man So great he couldn’t be criticised in the light Who died And for a whole week people turned up their collars over their ears And wept with great gossiping Houses wore their roofs at a mournful angle And television announcers carried their eyes around in long […]...
- Crossing Nation Under silver wing San Francisco’s towers sprouting thru thin gas clouds, Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure Berkeley hills pine-covered below Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence Declaration typewriter at window silver panorama in natural eyeball Sacramento valley rivercourse’s Chinese dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields to Sierras […]...
- Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 1 FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face; Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face. Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are […]...
- A Channel Crossing Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone, Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone: Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as […]...
- Arithmetic on the Frontier A great and glorious thing it is To learn, for seven years or so, The Lord knows what of that and this, Ere reckoned fit to face the foe The flying bullet down the Pass, That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.” Three hundred pounds per annum spent On making brain and body meeter For […]...
- From The Frontier Of Writing The tightness and the nilness round that space When the car stops in the road, the troops inspect Its make and number and, as one bends his face Towards your window, you catch sight of more On a hill beyond, eyeing with intent Down cradled guns that hold you under cover And everything is pure […]...
- Lament of the Frontier Guard By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand, Lonely from the beginning of time until now! Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn. I climb the towers and towers To watch out the barbarous land: Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert. There is no wall left to this village. Bones white […]...
- The Pagan World In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble lay; He drove abroad, in furious guise, Along the Appian way. He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crowned his hair with flowers- No easier nor no quicker passed The impracticable hours. The brooding East with awe beheld Her impious younger world. The […]...
- Crossing The Bar Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, […]...
- First Party At Ken Kesey's With Hell's Angels Cool black night thru redwoods Cars parked outside in shade Behind the gate, stars dim above The ravine, a fire burning by the side Porch and a few tired souls hunched over In black leather jackets. In the huge Wooden house, a yellow chandelier At 3 A. M. the blast of loudspeakers Hi-fi Rolling Stones […]...
- Crossing The Atlantic We sail out of season into on oyster-gray wind, Over a terrible hardness. Where Dickens crossed with mal de mer In twenty weeks or twenty days I cross toward him in five. Wraped in robes Not like Caesar but like liver with bacon I rest on the stern Burning my mouth with a wind-hot ash, […]...
- Cavalry Crossing a Ford A LINE in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands; They take a serpentine course-their arms flash in the sun-Hark to the musical clank; Behold the silvery river-in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink; Behold the brown-faced men-each group, each person, a picture-the negligent rest on the saddles; Some emerge on the […]...
- Metaphors Of A Magnifico Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges, Into twenty villages, Or one man Crossing a single bridge into a village. This is old song That will not declare itself. . . Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are Twenty men crossing a bridge Into a village. […]...
- Denied The winds came out of the west one day, And hurried the clouds before them; And drove the shadows and mists away, And over the mountains bore them. And I wept, ‘Oh, wind, blow into my mind, Blow into my soul and heart, And scatter the clouds that hang lile shrouds, And make the shadows […]...
- The Spring And The Fall In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year, I walked the road beside my dear. The trees were black where the bark was wet. I see them yet, in the spring of the year. He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach That was out of the way and hard […]...
- The Deacon's Masterpiece Or, The Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay": A Logical Story Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day, And then, of a sudden, it ah, but stay, I’ll tell you what happened without delay, Scaring the parson into fits, Frightening people out of their wits, Have you ever heard […]...
- Paths I shall tread, another year, Ways I walked with Grief, Past the dry, ungarnered ear And the brittle leaf. I shall stand, a year apart, Wondering, and shy, Thinking, “Here she broke her heart; Here she pled to die.” I shall hear the pheasants call, And the raucous geese; Down these ways, another Fall, I […]...
- Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death He kindly stopped for me The Carriage held but just Ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the School, where Children strove At recess in the ring We passed […]...
- Mothers Are a Special Gift Mothers are a special gift sent From God above, They bless us with their nurturing, And fill us with their love. They pick us up when we are down, And when we’re sad they know, They’re always there to lend a hand, And guide us as we go. And mothers are like special jewels That […]...
- The Unpardonable Sin This is the sin against the Holy Ghost: – To speak of bloody power as right divine, And call on God to guard each vile chief’s house, And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine:- To go forth killing in White Mercy’s name, Making the trenches stink with spattered brains, Tearing the nerves […]...
- Hamlet Off-Stage: Hambeau Heartbroke Horny Ophelia claims we’re dead and gives me back All my Frank Zappa and the Mothers albums. I nearly claw out of my shell and say, “You can’t,” but for a moment I’ve nothing To quote. I’m rot, mortis of broken heart. Hog wash! Lovers don’t die of broken hearts. Lovebirds perish because of broken heads, […]...
- Cells I’ve a head like a concertina: I’ve a tongue like a button-stick: I’ve a mouth like an old potato, and I’m more than a little sick, But I’ve had my fun o’ the Corp’ral’s Guard: I’ve made the cinders fly, And I’m here in the Clink for a thundering drink and blacking the Corporal’s eye. […]...
- Where It Was At Back Then Husband, Last night I dreamt They cut off your hands and feet. Husband, You whispered to me, Now we are both incomplete. Husband, I held all four In my arms like sons and daughters. Husband, I bent slowly down And washed them in magical waters. Husband, I placed each one Where it belonged on you. […]...
- Across Kansas My family slept those level miles But like a bell rung deep till dawn I drove down an aisle of sound, Nothing real but in the bell, Past the town where I was born. Once you cross a land like that You own your face more: what the light Struck told a self; every rock […]...
- Buckingham Palace They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace – Christopher Robin went down with Alice. Alice is marrying one of the guard. “A soldier’s life is terrible hard,” Says Alice. They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace – Christopher Robin went down with Alice. We saw a guard in a sentry-box. “One of the sergeants looks after their […]...
- There Is No God, the Wicked Sayeth “There is no God,” the wicked saith, “And truly it’s a blessing, For what He might have done with us It’s better only guessing.” “There is no God,” a youngster thinks, “or really, if there may be, He surely did not mean a man Always to be a baby.” “There is no God, or if […]...
- Mowing There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound And that was why it whispered and did […]...
- Death sets a Thing significant Death sets a Thing significant The Eye had hurried by Except a perished Creature Entreat us tenderly To ponder little Workmanships In Crayon, or in Wool, With “This was last Her fingers did” Industrious until The Thimble weighed too heavy The stitches stopped by themselves And then ’twas put among the Dust Upon the Closet […]...
- The Houses ‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard; By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate, On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate. For my house and thy house no help shall we find Save […]...
- The Routine Things Around The House When Mother died I thought: now I’ll have a death poem. That was unforgivable. Yet I’ve since forgiven myself As sons are able to do Who’ve been loved by their mothers. I stared into the coffin Knowing how long she’d live, How many lifetimes there are In the sweet revisions of memory. It’s hard to […]...
- The Sun kept setting setting still The Sun kept setting setting still No Hue of Afternoon Upon the Village I perceived From House to House ’twas Noon The Dusk kept dropping dropping still No Dew upon the Grass But only on my Forehead stopped And wandered in my Face My Feet kept drowsing drowsing still My fingers were awake Yet why […]...
- Murderers He was my best and oldest friend. I’d known him all my life. And yet I’m sure towards the end He knew I loved his wife, And wonder, wonder if it’s why He came so dreadfully to die. He drove his car at racing speed And crashed into a tree. How could he have so […]...
- The Bagel I stopped to pick up the bagel Rolling away in the wind, Annoyed with myself For having dropped it As if it were a portent. Faster and faster it rolled, With me running after it Bent low, gritting my teeth, And I found myself doubled over And rolling down the street Head over heels, one […]...
- Hannah Armstrong I wrote him a letter asking him for old times’ sake To discharge my sick boy from the army; But maybe he couldn’t read it. Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter. But maybe that was lost in the mails. So I traveled all the way […]...
- The Gardener LXXV: At Midnight At midnight the would-be ascetic Announced: “This is the time to give up my Home and seek for God. Ah, who has Held me so long in delusion here?” God whispered, “I,” but the ears Of the man were stopped. With a baby asleep at her breast Lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on One side […]...
- A Ballad of Hell ‘A letter from my love to-day! Oh, unexpected, dear appeal!’ She struck a happy tear away, And broke the crimson seal. ‘My love, there is no help on earth, No help in heaven; the dead-man’s bell Must toll our wedding; our first hearth Must be the well-paved floor of hell.’ The colour died from out […]...
- A Smuggler's Song If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the […]...
- Psalm 124 A song for the fifth of November. Had not the Lord, may Isr’el say, Had not the Lord maintained our side, When men, to make our lives a prey, Rose like the swelling of the tide; The swelling tide had stopped our breath, So fiercely did the waters roll, We had been swallowed deep in […]...
- The Landlady This is the lair of the landlady She is A raw voice Loose in the rooms beneath me. The continuous henyard Squabble going on below Thought in this house like The bicker of blood through the head. She is everywhere, intrusive as the smells That bulge in under my doorsill; She presides over my Meagre […]...