Alone

Related poetry:

1. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
2. Nothing grows except the grass Nothing grows except the grass. Nothing leaps into sight except some stone And what the stone contains and protects. Here, far from the beach, Far from the place where the water Returns every so often Rusted metal, mouldy wood, The corpse of a dolphin or a turtle. The wind does not blow with the force […]...
3. Discovery When you are slightly drunk Things are so close, so friendly. The road asks to be walked upon, The road rewards you for walking With firm upward contact answering your downward contact Like the pressure of a hand in yours. You think – this studious balancing Of right leg while left leg advances, of left […]...
4. Who is now Reading This? WHO is now reading this? May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life, Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me, Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision, Or may-be one who is puzzled at me. As if I […]...
5. What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead for Day? ‘Tis late your Sunrise vex their face And Purple Ribaldry of Morning Pour as blank on them As on the Tier of Wall The Mason builded, yesterday, And equally as cool What care the Dead for Summer? The Solstice had no Sun Could […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. You, Andrew Marvell And here face down beneath the sun And here upon earth’s noonward height To feel the always coming on The always rising of the night To feel creep up the curving east The earthy chill of dusk and slow Upon those under lands the vast And ever climbing shadow grow And strange at Ecbatan the […]...
8. Jack McGuire They would have lynched me Had I not been secretly hurried away To the jail at Peoria. And yet I was going peacefully home, Carrying my jug, a little drunk, When Logan, the marshal, halted me, Called me a drunken hound and shook me, And, when I cursed him for it, struck me With that […]...
9. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
10. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
11. Prisoners Usually at the helipad I see them stumble-dance Across the hot asphalt With crokersacks over their heads, Moving toward the interrogation huts, Thin-framed as box kites Of sticks & black silk Anticipating a hard wind That’ll tug & snatch them Out into space. I think Some must be laughing Under their dust-colored hoods, Knowing rockets […]...
12. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
13. Well I Remember How You Smiled Well I remember how you smiled To see me write your name upon The soft sea-sand. . . “O! what a child! You think you’re writing upon stone!” I have since written what no tide Shall ever wash away, what men Unborn shall read o’er ocean wide And find Ianthe’s name again....
14. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
15. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
16. The Soldier He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled, That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust, But still lies pointed as it ploughed the dust. If we who sight along it round the world, See nothing worthy to have been its mark, It is because like men we look too near, Forgetting that as […]...
17. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
18. Summer Holiday When the sun shouts and people abound One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze And the iron age; iron the unstable metal; Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow- ered-up cities Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster. Roots will not pierce the heaps […]...
19. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
20. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
21. A Stone Is Nobody's A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner. Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the Rest of his life. His mother asked why. He said, because it’s held captive, because it is Captured. Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know Whether it’s […]...
22. Dream Song 103: I consider a song will be as humming-bird I consider a song will be as humming-bird Swift, down-light, missile-metal-hard, & strange As the world of anti-matter Where they are wondering: does time run backward— Which the poet thought was true; Scarlatti-supple; But can Henry write it? Wreckt, in deep danger, he shook once his head, Returning to meditation. And word had sped All […]...
23. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
24. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
25. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
26. So proud she was to die So proud she was to die It made us all ashamed That what we cherished, so unknown To her desire seemed So satisfied to go Where none of us should be Immediately that Anguish stooped Almost to Jealousy...
27. INSPIRATION FROM A VISITATION OF MY MUSE Memories bursting like tears or waves On some lonely Adriatic shore Beating again and again Threshings of green sea foam Flecked like the marble Leonardo Chipped for his ‘Moses’. And my tears came as suddenly In that dream, criss-crossed With memory and desire. Grandad Nicky had worked Down the pits for a pittance To bring […]...
28. As Much As You Can Even if you cannot shape your life as you want it, At least try this As much as you can; do not debase it In excessive contact with the world, In the excessive movements and talk. Do not debase it by taking it, Dragging it often and exposing it To the daily folly Of relationships […]...
29. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
30. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
31. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
32. On Now, Although The Year Be Done ON now, although the year be done, Now, although the love be dead, Dead and gone; Hear me, O loved and cherished one, Give me still the hand that led, Led me on....
33. An Antiquated Tree An Antiquated Tree Is cherished of the Crow Because that Junior Foliage is disrespectful now To venerable Birds Whose Corporation Coat Would decorate Oblivion’s Remotest Consulate....
34. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
35. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
36. HIS POETRY HIS PILLAR Only a little more I have to write: Then I’ll give o’er, And bid the world good-night. ‘Tis but a flying minute, That I must stay, Or linger in it: And then I must away. O Time, that cut’st down all, And scarce leav’st here Memorial Of any men that were; How many lie forgot […]...
37. Cherries and birds cherries are so vulnerable Blinking their way from green To polished red in trees Guileless to stave off birds A murmur does its rounds And when the bright day comes And ripeness throws its coyness In the air a seething mesh Of wings and whetted beaks (knowing its cherry-right) Falls upon the fleshy fruit And […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. Shells from the Coast mistaking Shells from the Coast mistaking I cherished them for All Happening in After Ages To entertain a Pearl Wherefore so late I murmured My need of Thee be done Therefore the Pearl responded My Period begin...
40. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...