After Auschwitz

Related poetry:

1. If I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again – Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) A hurrying man-who happened to […]...
2. Auschwitz Rose There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar, A rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name. The world forgot her, and is not the same. I love her and would not forget desire, But keep her memory exalted flame To justify the thistles and the nettles. On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles; They […]...
3. Elephant Dormitory An elephant went to bed and pulled a crazy quilt up under Its tusks. But just as the great gray head began filling with the gray Wrinkles of sleep it was awakened by the thud of its tail Falling out of bed. Would you get my tail? said the elephant to another Elephant also tucked […]...
4. The Assassin The correct death is written in. I will fill the need. My bow is stiff. My bow is in readiness. I am the bullet and the hook. I am cocked and held ready. In my sights I carve him Like a sculptor. I mold out His last look at everyone. I carry his eyes and […]...
5. Morning Poem #40 pink around a Circle of pink Around a shimmer Of found reason Pink around a Glimmering white Shaked around A sound blue Somehow in the Touch of green Looped inside Loops abound A bound ribbon A hope bow bows In a rare season...
6. Praise (I) To write a verse or two is all the praise That I can raise: Mend my estate in any ways, Thou shalt have more. I go to Church; help me to wings, and I Will thither fly; Or, if I mount unto the sky, I will do more. Man is all weakness; there is no […]...
7. Poets to Come POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for; But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, Arouse! Arouse-for you must justify me-you must answer. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance […]...
8. Brother And Sister “SISTER, sister, go to bed! Go and rest your weary head.” Thus the prudent brother said. “Do you want a battered hide, Or scratches to your face applied?” Thus his sister calm replied. “Sister, do not raise my wrath. I’d make you into mutton broth As easily as kill a moth” The sister raised her […]...
9. Scented Herbage of My Breast SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death, Perennial roots, tall leaves-O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves, Every year shall you bloom again-out from where you retired, you shall emerge again; O I do not […]...
10. In Tara's Halls A man I praise that once in Tara’s Hals Said to the woman on his knees, ‘Lie still. My hundredth year is at an end. I think That something is about to happen, I think That the adventure of old age begins. To many women I have said, ”Lie still,” And given everything a woman […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. June Sick Room The birds’ shrill fluting Beats on the pink blind, Pierces the pink blind At whose edge fumble the sun’s Fingers till one obtrudes And stirs the thick motes. The room is a close box of pink warmth. The minutes click. A man picks across the street With a metal-pointed stick. Three clocks drop each twelve […]...
13. On An Old Roundel Death, from thy rigour a voice appealed, And men still hear what the sweet cry saith, Crying aloud in thine ears fast sealed, Death. As a voice in a vision that vanisheth, Through the grave’s gate barred and the portal steeled The sound of the wail of it travelleth. Wailing aloud from a heart unhealed, […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. 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...
16. 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...
17. The Gardener LXXXI: Why Do You Whisper So Faintly Why do you whisper so faintly in My ears, O Death, my Death? When the flowers droop in the Evening and cattle come back to their Stalls, you stealthily come to my side And speak words that I do not Understand. Is this how you must woo and win Me with the opiate of drowsy […]...
18. The Cold Heaven Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. An Antheme O sing a new song to the Lord, Praise in the hight and deeper strayne; Come beare your parts with one accord, Which you in Heaven may sing againe. Yee elders all, and all the crowd That in white robes apparrell’d stands Like Saints on earth, sing out aloud, Think now the palmes are in […]...
21. 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!...
22. Inner Man It isn’t the body That’s a stranger. It’s someone else. We poke the same Ugly mug At the world. When I scratch He scratches too. There are women Who claim to have held him. A dog Follows me about. It might be his. If I’m quiet, he’s quieter. So I forget him. Yet, as I […]...
23. Butterflies Eyes aloft, over dangerous places, The children follow the butterflies, And, in the sweat of their upturned faces, Slash with a net at the empty skies. So it goes they fall amid brambles, And sting their toes on the nettle-tops, Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles, They wipe their brows and the hunting stops. […]...
24. The watchers against their beliefs a blue spot came slowly Out of the green Nobody expected such a thing to occur On a thursday The watchers switched over from their electronic Eye to their notes The evidence undeniably placed thursday as the day Of the pink circle They recorded having seen another pink circle In a strange […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Should You Ask At Midnight What would I do without your voice to wake me? Cor ad cor loquitur, I’m loath to know. Kitsch operas sound, unhesitant to shake me, The sheers undrawn, the heavens hardly showing, My camisole askew, of lace-trimmed black – Not red, not white; not passionate or pure. I raise the volume, and the voices crack- […]...
27. The Addict Sleepmonger, Deathmonger, With capsules in my palms each night, Eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey. I’m the queen of this condition. I’m an expert on making the trip And now they say I’m an addict. Now they ask why. WHY! Don’t they know that I promised […]...
28. 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...
29. 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....
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. 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 […]...
32. The Round Light splashed this morning On the shell-pink anemones Swaying on their tall stems; Down blue-spiked veronica Light flowed in rivulets Over the humps of the honeybees; This morning I saw light kiss The silk of the roses In their second flowering, My late bloomers Flushed with their brandy. A curious gladness shook me. So I […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. 1926 The porchlight coming on again, Early November, the dead leaves Raked in piles, the wicker swing Creaking. Across the lots A phonograph is playing Ja-Da. An orange moon. I see the lives Of neighbors, mapped and marred Like all the wars ahead, and R. Insane, B. with his throat cut, Fifteen years from now, in […]...
35. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
36. The Fabulists When all the world would keep a matter hid, Since Truth is seldom Friend to any crowd, Men write in Fable, as old AEsop did, Jesting at that which none will name aloud. And this they needs must do, or it will fall Unless they please they are not heard at all. When desperate Folly […]...
37. How happy is the little Stone How happy is the little Stone That rambles in the Road alone, And doesn’t care about Careers And Exigencies never fears Whose Coat of elemental Brown A passing Universe put on, And independent as the Sun Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute Decree In casual simplicity...
38. Old Tom The harridan who holds the inn At which I toss a pot, Is old and uglier than sin, I’m glad she knows me not. Indeed, for me it’s hard to think, Although my pow’s like snow, She was the lass so fresh and pink I courted long ago. I wronged her, yet it’s sadly true […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. If I Could Mourn Like A Mourning Dove It is what recurs that we believe, Your face not at one moment looking Sideways up at me anguished or Elate, but the old words welling up by Gravity rearranged: Two weeks before you died in Pain worn out, after my usual casual sign-off With All my love, your simple Solemn My love to you, […]...