An Aquarium

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1. At the Aquarium of the Pacific I saw a brilliant angelfish whose tail And fins shimmered yellow until it turned And silver spread like an undercoat of fur When stroked against the nap, across its scales. Black as caviar and rimmed with gold, Its eyes, though flat as dimes, looked deep as wells. The clownfish cruising by above the shells, Its […]...
2. Disillusionment Of Ten O'clock The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk […]...
3. Impression Du Matin The Thames nocturne of blue and gold Changed to a Harmony in grey: A barge with ochre-coloured hay Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold The yellow fog came creeping down The bridges, till the houses’ walls Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul’s Loomed like a bubble o’er the town. Then suddenly arose […]...
4. Ode To a Large Tuna in the Market Among the market greens, A bullet From the ocean Depths, A swimming Projectile, I saw you, Dead. All around you Were lettuces, Sea foam Of the earth, Carrots, Grapes, But Of the ocean Truth, Of the unknown, Of the Unfathomable Shadow, the Depths Of the sea, The abyss, Only you had survived, A pitch-black, varnished […]...
5. The Pike In the brown water, Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine, Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds, A pike dozed. Lost among the shadows of stems He lay unnoticed. Suddenly he flicked his tail, And a green-and-copper brightness Ran under the water. Out from under the reeds Came the olive-green light, And orange […]...
6. The Gardener LXXXIV: Over the Green Over the green and yellow rice-fields Sweep the shadows of the autumn Clouds followed by the swift-chasing Sun. The bees forget to sip their honey; Drunken with light they foolishly hover And hum. The ducks in the islands of the river Clamour in joy for mere nothing. Let none go back home, brothers, This morning, […]...
7. 1777 I The Trumpet-Vine Arbour The throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are Wide open, And the clangour of brass beats against the hot sunlight. They bray and blare at the burning sky. Red! Red! Coarse notes of red, Trumpeted at the blue sky. In long streaks of sound, molten metal, The vine declares itself. Clang! […]...
8. To God the Father To the little, pitiful God I make my prayer, The God with the long grey beard And flowing robe fastened with a hempen girdle Who sits nodding and muttering on the all-too-big throne Of Heaven. What a long, long time, dear God, since you set the Stars in their places, Girded the earth with the […]...
9. Thompson's Lunch Room Grand Central Station Study in Whites Wax-white Floor, ceiling, walls. Ivory shadows Over the pavement Polished to cream surfaces By constant sweeping. The big room is coloured like the petals Of a great magnolia, And has a patina Of flower bloom Which makes it shine dimly Under the electric lamps. Chairs are ranged in rows Like sepia seeds […]...
10. LE PANNEAU Under the rose-tree’s dancing shade There stands a little ivory girl, Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl With pale green nails of polished jade. The red leaves fall upon the mould, The white leaves flutter, one by one, Down to a blue bowl where the sun, Like a great dragon, writhes in gold. The […]...
11. Sketch THE shadows of the ships Rock on the crest In the low blue lustre Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide. A long brown bar at the dip of the sky Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt. The lucid and endless wrinkles Draw in, lapse and withdraw. Wavelets crumble and […]...
12. Tartary If I were Lord of Tartary, Myself, and me alone, My bed should be of ivory, Of beaten gold my throne; And in my court should peacocks flaunt, And in my forests tigers haunt, And in my pools great fishes slant Their fins athwart the sun. If I were Lord of Tartary, Trumpeters every day […]...
13. Grey Evening When you went, how was it you carried with you My missal book of fine, flamboyant hours? My book of turrets and of red-thorn bowers, And skies of gold, and ladies in bright tissue? Now underneath a blue-grey twilight, heaped Beyond the withering snow of the shorn fields Stands rubble of stunted houses; all is […]...
14. The Captured Goddess Over the housetops, Above the rotating chimney-pots, I have seen a shiver of amethyst, And blue and cinnamon have flickered A moment, At the far end of a dusty street. Through sheeted rain Has come a lustre of crimson, And I have watched moonbeams Hushed by a film of palest green. It was her wings, […]...
15. The Hon. Sec The flag that hung half-mast today Seemed animate with being As if it knew for who it flew And will no more be seeing. He loved each corner of the links- The stream at the eleventh, The grey-green bents, the pale sea-pinks, The prospect from the seventh; To the ninth tee the uphill climb, A […]...
16. Blue Blue, but you are Rose, too, And buttermilk, but with blood Dots showing through. A little salty your white Nape boy-wide. Glinting hairs Shoot back of your ears’ Rose That tongues like to feel The maze of, slip into the funnel, Tell a thunder-whisper to. When I kiss, your eyes’ straight Lashes down crisp go […]...
17. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
18. Summer Colours Long curls Lightest blond Like silver and gold In the saffron sun Summer dresses Cool white Show lots of skin Golden brown Painted toenails Fierce red In summer shoes Walk by And catch eyes Green and blue Behind black shades Against the gleam...
19. A Winter Ride Who shall declare the joy of the running! Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight! Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather, Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light. Everything mortal has moments immortal, Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright. So with the stretch of the white road before me, Shining snowcrystals rainbowed […]...
20. For Anne Gregory ‘Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.’ ‘But I can get a hair-dye And set such colour there, Brown, or black, or carrot, That young men in despair May love me for myself alone And not […]...
21. Half Moon in a High Wind MONEY is nothing now, even if I had it, O mooney moon, yellow half moon, Up over the green pines and gray elms, Up in the new blue. Streel, streel, White lacey mist sheets of cloud, Streel in the blowing of the wind, Streel over the blue-and-moon sky, Yellow gold half moon. It is light […]...
22. Trees In The Garden Ah in the thunder air How still the trees are! And the lime-tree, lovely and tall, every leaf silent Hardly looses even a last breath of perfume. And the ghostly, creamy coloured little tree of leaves White, ivory white among the rambling greens How evanescent, variegated elder, she hesitates on the green grass As if, […]...
23. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song No, I shall not say why it is that I love you- Why do you ask me, save for vanity? Surely you would not have me, like a mirror, Say ‘yes,-your hair curls darkly back from the temples, Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness, Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils […]...
24. The Winds of Angus THE GREY road whereupon we trod became as holy ground: The eve was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound: And burning multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind, Too swift and hurried in their flight to leave their tale behind. Twin gates unto that living world, dark honey-coloured eyes, […]...
25. Ballad of Another Ophelia Oh the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, Lamps in a wash of rain! Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard, Oh tears on the window pane! Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, Full of disappointment and of rain, Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow […]...
26. Humming Bird Woman WHY should I be wondering How you would look in black velvet and yellow? in orange and green? I who cannot remember whether it was a dash of blue Or a whirr of red under your willow throat- Why do I wonder how you would look in humming-bird feathers?...
27. Mine Eyes Were Swift To Know Thee MINE eyes were swift to know thee, and my heart As swift to love. I did become at once Thine wholly, thine unalterably, thine In honourable service, pure intent, Steadfast excess of love and laughing care: And as she was, so am, and so shall be. I knew thee helpful, knew thee true, knew thee […]...
28. The Kingfisher The kingfisher rises out of the black wave Like a blue flower, in his beak He carries a silver leaf. I think this is The prettiest world so long as you don’t mind A little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life That doesn’t have its splash of happiness? There are […]...
29. Silver Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps the dog; From their shadowy cote […]...
30. Childhood I The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood Put me out of love with God. I can’t believe in God’s goodness; I can believe In many avenging gods. Most of all I believe In gods of bitter dullness, Cruel local gods Who scared my childhood. II I’ve seen people put A chrysalis in a […]...
31. An Opera House Within the gold square of the proscenium arch, A curtain of orange velvet hangs in stiff folds, Its tassels jarring slightly when someone crosses the stage behind. Gold carving edges the balconies, Rims the boxes, Runs up and down fluted pillars. Little knife-stabs of gold Shine out whenever a box door is opened. Gold clusters […]...
32. A London Thoroughfare. 2 A. M They have watered the street, It shines in the glare of lamps, Cold, white lamps, And lies Like a slow-moving river, Barred with silver and black. Cabs go down it, One, And then another. Between them I hear the shuffling of feet. Tramps doze on the window-ledges, Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks. The city is […]...
33. The Blue Scarf Pale, with the blue of high zeniths, shimmered Over with silver, brocaded In smooth, running patterns, a soft stuff, with dark knotted fringes, It lies there, Warm from a woman’s soft shoulders, and my fingers close on it, Caressing. Where is she, the woman who wore it? The scent of her Lingers and drugs me! […]...
34. Flounder Here, she said, put this on your head. She handed me a hat. You ’bout as white as your dad, And you gone stay like that. Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down Around each bony ankle, And I rolled down my white knee socks Letting my thin legs dangle, Circling them just above water And […]...
35. The Paper Windmill The little boy pressed his face against the window-pane And looked out At the bright sunshiny morning. The cobble-stones of The square Glistened like mica. In the trees, a breeze danced and Pranced, And shook drops of sunlight like falling golden coins into the brown Water Of the canal. Down stream slowly drifted a long […]...
36. The Fairy Goldsmith Here’s a wonderful thing, A humming-bird’s wing In hammered gold, And store well chosen Of snowflakes frozen In crystal cold. Black onyx cherries And mistletoe berries Of chrysoprase, Jade buds, tight shut, All carven and cut In intricate ways. Here, if you please Are little gilt bees In amber drops Which look like honey, Translucent […]...
37. October Beauty has a tarnished dress, And a patchwork cloak of cloth Dipped deep in mournfulness, Striped like a moth. Wet grass where it trails Dyes it green along the hem; She has seven silver veils With cracked bells on them. She is tired of all these Grey gauze, translucent lawn; The broad cloak of Herakles. […]...
38. Blue Winter Winter uses all the blues there are. One shade of blue for water, one for ice, Another blue for shadows over snow. The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice- Both different blues. And hills row after row Are colored blue according to how for. You know the bluejay’s double-blur device Shows best when there […]...
39. The Space Coast Florida An Airedale rolling through green frost, Cabbage palms pointing their accusing leaves At whom, petulant waves breaking at my feet. I ran from them. Nights, yellow lights Scoured sand. What was ever found But women in skirts folded around the men They loved that Friday? No one found me. And how could that have […]...
40. The Summer I Was Sixteen The turquoise pool rose up to meet us, Its slide a silver afterthought down which We plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles. We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy. Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted Up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool Lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated, We […]...