For Johnny Pole On The Forgotten Beach

Related poetry:

1. I Saw From the Beach I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining, A bark o’er the waters move gloriously on; I came when the sun o’er that beach was declining, The bark was still there, but the waters were gone. And such is the fate of our life’s early promise, So passing the spring-tide of joy we […]...
2. The Beach Squat, unshaven, full of gas, Joseph Samuels, former clerk In four large cities, out of work, Waits in the darkened underpass. In sanctuary, out of reach, He stares at the fading light outside: The rain beginning: hears the tide That drums along the empty beach. When drops first fell at six o’clock, The bathers left. […]...
3. Johnny Boer Men fight all shapes and sizes as the racing horses run, And no man knows his courage till he stands before a gun. At mixed-up fighting, hand to hand, and clawing men about They reckon Fuzzy-Wuzzy is the hottest fighter out. But Fuzzy gives himself away his style is out of date, He charges like […]...
4. Hostel Beach, Oneroa The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach, If the tide was out you’d reach a tiny bay beyond The cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete For blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood; A risky place to contemplate the games we planned, We […]...
5. The Haunted Beach Upon a lonely desart Beach Where the white foam was scatter’d, A little shed uprear’d its head Though lofty Barks were shatter’d. The Sea-weeds gath’ring near the door, A sombre path display’d; And, all around, the deaf’ning roar, Re-echo’d on the chalky shore, By the green billows made. Above, a jutting cliff was seen Where […]...
6. Pretty Halcyon Days How pleasant to sit on the beach, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun, With ocean galore within reach, And nothing at all to be done! No letters to answer, No bills to be burned, No work to be shirked, No cash to be earned, It is pleasant to sit on the beach […]...
7. Beach Glass While you walk the water’s edge, Turning over concepts I can’t envision, the honking buoy Serves notice that at any time The wind may change, The reef-bell clatters Its treble monotone, deaf as Cassandra To any note but warning. The ocean, Cumbered by no business more urgent Than keeping open old accounts That never balanced, […]...
8. OPEN TABLE MANY a guest I’d see to-day, Met to taste my dishes! Food in plenty is prepar’d, Birds, and game, and fishes. Invitations all have had, All proposed attending. Johnny, go and look around! Are they hither wending? Pretty girls I hope to see, Dear and guileless misses, Ignorant how sweet it is Giving tender kisses. […]...
9. Let It Be Forgotten Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold. Let it be forgotten forever and ever, Time is a kind friend, he will make us old. If anyone asks, say it was forgotten Long and long ago, As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed […]...
10. On the Beach at Night, Alone ON the beach at night alone, As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining-I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future. A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all, All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids, […]...
11. Under A Telephone Pole I AM a copper wire slung in the air, Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow. Night and day I keep singing humming and thrumming: It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the Tears, the work and want, Death and laughter of men and […]...
12. Euclid OLD Euclid drew a circle On a sand-beach long ago. He bounded and enclosed it With angles thus and so. His set of solemn greybeards Nodded and argued much Of arc and circumference, Diameter and such. A silent child stood by them From morning until noon Because they drew such charming Round pictures of the […]...
13. Long-Legged Fly That civilisation may not sink, Its great battle lost, Quiet the dog, tether the pony To a distant post; Our master Caesar is in the tent Where the maps ate spread, His eyes fixed upon nothing, A hand under his head. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence. That the […]...
14. Subject to Change A reflection on my students They are so beautiful, and so very young They seem almost to glitter with perfection, These creatures that I briefly move among. I never get to stay with them for long, But even so, I view them with affection: They are so beautiful, and so very young. Poised or clumsy, […]...
15. Buffalo Bill BOY heart of Johnny Jones-aching to-day? Aching, and Buffalo Bill in town? Buffalo Bill and ponies, cowboys, Indians? Some of us know All about it, Johnny Jones. Buffalo Bill is a slanting look of the eyes, A slanting look under a hat on a horse. He sits on a horse and a passing look is […]...
16. On the desert On the desert A silence from the moon’s deepest valley. Fire rays fall athwart the robes Of hooded men, squat and dumb. Before them, a woman Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles And distant thunder of drums, While mystic things, sinuous, dull with terrible colour, Sleepily fondle her body Or move at her will, […]...
17. On a Hill-top BEARDED with dewy grass the mountains thrust Their blackness high into the still grey light, Deepening to blue: far up the glimmering height In silver transience shines the starry dust. Silent the sheep about me; fleece by fleece They sleep and stir not: I with awe around Wander uncertain o’er the giant mound, A fire […]...
18. The Beach Louder than gulls the little children scream Whom fathers haul into the jovial foam; But others fearlessly rush in, breast high, Laughing the salty water from their mouthes Heroes of the nursery. The horny boatman, who has seen whales And flying fishes, who has sailed as far As Demerara and the Ivory Coast, Will warn […]...
19. On the Beach at Fontana Wind whines and whines the shingle, The crazy pierstakes groan; A senile sea numbers each single Slimesilvered stone. From whining wind and colder Grey sea I wrap him warm And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder And boyish arm. Around us fear, descending Darkness of fear above And in my heart how deep unending Ache of […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Whether they have forgotten Whether they have forgotten Or are forgetting now Or never remembered Safer not to know Miseries of conjecture Are a softer woe Than a Fact of Iron Hardened with I know...
22. The Changeling ( From The Tent on the Beach ) FOR the fairest maid in Hampton They needed not to search, Who saw young Anna favor Come walking into church, Or bringing from the meadows, At set of harvest-day, The frolic of the blackbirds, The sweetness of the hay. Now the weariest of all mothers, The saddest two years’ bride, She scowls in the face […]...
23. The To-Be-Forgotten I I heard a small sad sound, And stood awhile among the tombs around: “Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are you distrest, Now, screened from life’s unrest?” II “O not at being here; But that our future second death is near; When, with the living, memory of us numbs, And blank oblivion comes! III “These, […]...
24. God-Forgotten I towered far, and lo! I stood within The presence of the Lord Most High, Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win Some answer to their cry. “The Earth, say’st thou? The Human race? By Me created? Sad its lot? Nay: I have no remembrance of such place: Such world I fashioned not.” […]...
25. But Not Forgotten I think, no matter where you stray, That I shall go with you a way. Though you may wander sweeter lands, You will not soon forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head, Nor all the tremulous things I said. You still will see me, small and white And smiling, in the […]...
26. What Forgotten Realm? Let me introduce to you My poetry: it’s an island flying From book to book Searching for The page where it was born, Then stops at my house, both wings wounded, For its meals of flesh and cold phrases. I paid dearly for the poem’s visit! My best words lie down to sleep in the […]...
27. Forgotten Language Once I spoke the language of the flowers, Once I understood each word the caterpillar said, Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly In my bed. Once I heard and answered all the questions Of the crickets, And joined the crying of each falling […]...
28. The Eagle That is Forgotten Sleep softly… eagle forgotten… under the stone. Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own. “We have buried him now,” thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced. They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced. They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you, day […]...
29. Forgotten Master As you gaze beyond the bay With such wanness in your eyes, You who have out-stayed your day, Seeing other stars arise, Slender though your lifehold be, Still you dream beside the sea. We, alas! may live too long, Know the best part of us die; Echo of your even-song Hushes down the darkling sky. […]...
30. Kallundborg Church ( From The Tent on the Beach) “Tie stille, barn min! Imorgen kommer Fin, Fa’er din, Og gi’er dich Esbern Snares öine og hjerte at lege med!” Zealand Rhyme. “BUILD at Kallundborg by the sea A church as stately as church may be, And there shalt thou wed my daughter fair,” Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare. And the Baron […]...
31. There is a Zone whose even Years There is a Zone whose even Years No Solstice interrupt Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon Whose perfect Seasons wait Whose Summer set in Summer, till The Centuries of June And Centuries of August cease And Consciousness is Noon....
32. Tell as a Marksman were forgotten Tell as a Marksman were forgotten Tell this Day endures Ruddy as that coeval Apple The Tradition bears Fresh as Mankind that humble story Though a statelier Tale Grown in the Repetition hoary Scarcely would prevail Tell had a son The ones that knew it Need not linger here Those who did not to Human […]...
33. Identity 1) An individual spider web Identifies a species: An order of instinct prevails through all accidents of circumstance, though possibility is High along the peripheries of Spider webs: you can go all around the fringing attachments and find Disorder ripe, Entropy rich, high levels of random, numerous occasions of accident: 2) the possible settings Of […]...
34. The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, And frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say, God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words Get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according To which nation. French has no word for home, And we have no word […]...
35. Elevation Above the ponds, beyond the valleys, The woods, the mountains, the clouds, the seas, Farther than the sun, the distant breeze, The spheres that wilt to infinity My spirit, you move with agility And, like a good swimmer who swoons in the wave You groove the depths immensity gave, The inexpressible and male ecstasy. >From […]...
36. Heartbeat Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart Which safely exists in the center of all things? His giant heartbeat is diverted in us Into little pulses. And his giant grief Is, like his giant jubilation, far too Great for us. And so we tear ourselves away From him time after time, remaining only […]...
37. He Remembers Forgotten Beauty When my arms wrap you round I press My heart upon the loveliness That has long faded from the world; The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled In shadowy pools, when armies fled; The love-tales wrought with silken thread By dreaming ladies upon cloth That has made fat the murderous moth; The roses that of […]...
38. An Ending Early March. The cold beach deserted. My kids Home in a bare house, bundled up And listening to rock music Pirated from England. My wife Waiting for me in a bar, alone For an hour over her sherry, and none Of us knows why I have to pace Back and forth on this flat And […]...
39. How to Leave the World that Worships should Let faxes butter-curl on dusty shelves. Let junkmail build its castles in the hush Of other people’s halls. Let deadlines burst And flash like glorious fireworks somewhere else. As hours go softly by, let others curse The roads where distant drivers queue like sheep. Let e-mails fly like panicked, tiny birds. Let phones, unanswered, ring […]...
40. The Fury Of Earth The day of fire is coming, the thrush, Will fly ablaze like a little sky rocket, The beetle will sink like a giant bulldozer, And at the breaking of the morning the houses Will turn into oil and will in their tides Of fire be a becoming and an ending, a red fan. What then, […]...