Tom Collins

Related poetry:

1. How News must feel when travelling How News must feel when travelling If News have any Heart Alighting at the Dwelling ‘Twill enter like a Dart! What News must think when pondering If News have any Thought Concerning the stupendousness Of its perceiveless freight! What News will do when every Man Shall comprehend as one And not in all the Universe […]...
2. The Answer Bill has left his house of clay, Slammed the door and gone away: How he laughed but yesterday! I had two new jokes to tell, Salty, but he loved them well: Now I see his empty shell. Poker-faced he looks at me; Peeved to miss them jokes – how h Would have belly-laughed with glee! […]...
3. 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....
4. To an Ungentle Critic The great sun sinks behind the town Through a red mist of Volnay wine…. But what’s the use of setting down That glorious blaze behind the town? You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look For newer pictures in this book; You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine. A fresh wind fills the evening air With […]...
5. Let Evening Come Let the light of late afternoon Shine through chinks in the barn, moving Up the bales as the sun moves down. Let the cricket take up chafing As a woman takes up her needles And her yarn. Let evening come. Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned In long grass. Let the stars appear And […]...
6. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
7. Purgatory And suppose the darlings get to Mantua, Suppose they cheat the crypt, what next? Begin With him, unshaven. Though not, I grant you, a Displeasing cockerel, there’s egg yolk on his chin. His seedy robe’s aflap, he’s got the rheum. Poor dear, the cooking lard has smoked her eye. Another Montague is in the womb […]...
8. Meditation on a Bone A piece of bone, found at Trondhjem in 1901, with the following runic inscription (about A. D. 1050) cut on it: I loved her as a maiden; I will not trouble Erlend’s detestable wife; better she should be a widow. Words scored upon a bone, Scratched in despair or rage Nine hundred years have gone; […]...
9. The Fairies' Siege I have been given my charge to keep Well have I kept the same! Playing with strife for the most of my life, But this is a different game. I’11 not fight against swords unseen, Or spears that I cannot view Hand him the keys of the place on your knees ‘Tis the Dreamer whose […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. The Appology ‘Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule I am alone forbid to play the fool To follow through the Groves a wand’ring Muse And fain’d Idea’s for my pleasures chuse Why shou’d it in my Pen be held a fault Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought Whilst Lamia to […]...
12. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
13. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
14. Black Harry's Team No soft-skinned Durham steers are they, No Devons plump and red, But brindled, black and iron-grey That mark the mountain-bred; For mountain-bred and mountain-broke, With sullen eyes agleam, No stranger’s hand could put a yoke On old Black Harry’s team. Pull out, pull out, at break of morn The creeks are running white, And Tiger, […]...
15. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
16. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
17. Richard Pigott, the Forger Richard Pigott, the forger, was a very bad man, And to gainsay it there’s nobody can, Because for fifty years he pursued a career of deceit, And as a forger few men with him could compete. For by forged letters he tried to accuse Parnell For the Phoenix Park murders, but mark what befell. When […]...
18. Dream Song 22: Of 1826 I am the little man who smokes & smokes. I am the girl who does know better but. I am the king of the pool. I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut. I am a government official & a goddamned fool. I am a lady who takes jokes. I am the enemy […]...
19. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
20. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
21. Everybody Tells Me Everything I find it very difficult to enthuse Over the current news. Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens, And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
24. 543. Song-News, lassies, news THERE’S news, lassies, news, Gude news I’ve to tell! There’s a boatfu’ o’ lads Come to our town to sell. Chorus.-The wean wants a cradle, And the cradle wants a cod: I’ll no gang to my bed, Until I get a nod. Father, quo’ she, Mither, quo she, Do what you can, I’ll no gang […]...
25. Ah! Yet Consider it Again! “Old things need not be therefore true,” O brother men, nor yet the new; Ah! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again! The souls of now two thousand years Have laid up here their toils and tears, And all the earnings of their pain, Ah, yet consider it again! We! what […]...
26. The most pathetic thing I do The most pathetic thing I do Is play I hear from you I make believe until my Heart Almost believes it too But when I break it with the news You knew it was not true I wish I had not broken it Goliah so would you...
27. 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 […]...
28. Outside Fargo, North Dakota Along the sprawled body of the derailed Great Northern freight car, I strike a match slowly and lift it slowly. No wind. Beyond town, three heavy white horses Wade all the way to their shoulders In a silo shadow. Suddenly the freight car lurches. The door slams back, a man with a flashlight Calls me […]...
29. Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife, Our chance to live depends on such a sign While others talk and The Pentagon from the moon Is bouncing exact commands: “Forget your faith; Be ready for whatever […]...
30. The Only News I know The Only News I know Is Bulletins all Day From Immortality. The Only Shows I see Tomorrow and Today Perchance Eternity The Only One I meet Is God The Only Street Existence This traversed If Other News there be Or Admirable Show I’ll tell it You...
31. In the Depths It is not sweet content, be sure, That moves the nobler Muse to song, Yet when could truth come whole and pure From hearts that inly writhe with wrong? ‘T is not the calm and peaceful breast That sees or reads the problem true; They only know, on whom ‘t has prest Too hard to […]...
32. Sheep and Lambs All in the April evening, April airs were abroad; The sheep with their little lambs Passed me by on the road. The sheep with their little lambs Passed me by on the road; All in the April evening I thought on the Lamb of God. The lambs were weary and crying With a weak, human […]...
33. To My Brother George Many the wonders I this day have seen: The sun, when first he kissed away the tears That filled the eyes of Morn;-the laurelled peers Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;- The ocean with its vastness, its blue green, Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, Its voice mysterious, which […]...
34. Domestic Scene The meal was o’er, the lamp was lit, The family sat in its glow; The Mother never ceased to knit, The Daughter never slacked to sew; The Father read his evening news, The Son was playing solitaire: If peace a happy home could choose I’m sure you’d swear that it was there. BUT The Mother: […]...
35. Sonnet III THe souerayne beauty which I doo admyre, Witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed: The light wherof hath kindled heauenly iyre, In my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed. That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view: But looking still on her I stand […]...
36. Dream Song 125: Bards freezing, naked, up to the neck in water Bards freezing, naked, up to the neck in water, Wholly in dark, time limited, different from Initiations now: The class in writing, clothed & dry & light, Unlimited time, till Poetry takes some, Nobody reads them though, No trumpets, no solemn instauration, no change; No commissions, ladies high in soulful praise (pal) none, Costumes as […]...
37. To One Who Has Been Long In City Pent To one who has been long in city pent, ‘Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven, to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. Who is more happy, when, with heart’s content, Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair Of wavy grass, and reads a […]...
38. I'll tell you how the Sun rose I’ll tell you how the Sun rose A Ribbon at a time The Steeples swam in Amethyst The news, like Squirrels, ran The Hills untied their Bonnets The Bobolinks begun Then I said softly to myself “That must have been the Sun”! But how he set I know not There seemed a purple stile That […]...
39. A Poetry Reading At West Point I read to the entire plebe class, In two batches. Twice the hall filled With bodies dressed alike, each toting A copy of my book. What would my Shrink say, if I had one, about Such a dream, if it were a dream? Question and answer time. “Sir,” a cadet yelled from the balcony, And […]...
40. Blindness OUR true hearts are forever lonely: A wistfulness is in our thought: Our lights are like the dawns which only Seem bright to us and yet are not. Something you see in me I wis not: Another heart in you I guess: A stranger’s lips-but thine I kiss not, Erring in all my tenderness. I […]...