Home ⇒ 📌Anne Sexton ⇒ Mr. Mine
Mr. Mine
Notice how he has numbered the blue veins
In my breast. Moreover there are ten freckles.
Now he goes left. Now he goes right.
He is buiding a city, a city of flesh.
He’s an industrialist. He has starved in cellars
And, ladies and gentlemen, he’s been broken by iron,
By the blood, by the metal, by the triumphant
Iron of his mother’s death. But he begins again.
Now he constructs me. He is consumed by the city.
>From the glory of words he has built me up.
>From the wonder of concrete he has molded me.
He has given me six hundred street signs.
The time I was dancing he built a museum.
He built ten blocks when I moved on the bed.
He constructed an overpass when I left.
I gave him flowers and he built an airport.
For traffic lights he handed at red and green
Lollipops. Yet in my heart I am go children slow.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Related poetry:
- Mine Sweepers Dawn off the Foreland the young flood making Jumbled and short and steep Black in the hollows and bright where it’s breaking Awkward water to sweep. “Mines reported in the fairway, “Warn all traffic and detain. “‘Sent up Unity, Cralibel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.” Noon off the Foreland the first ebb making Lumpy and […]...
- Sky Harbor The flock of pigeons rises over the roof, And just beyond them, the shimmering asphalt fields Gather their dull colored airliners. It is the very early night, A young brunette sits before the long Darkening glass of the airport’s west wall. She smells coffee burning And something else her old mother’s Bureau filled with mothballs. […]...
- Night Movement-New York IN the night, when the sea-winds take the city in their arms, And cool the loud streets that kept their dust noon and afternoon; In the night, when the sea-birds call to the lights of the city, The lights that cut on the skyline their name of a city; In the night, when the trains […]...
- If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine, If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign, If you’re proud because of fortune or the clever things you do Then I’ll play no second fiddle: I’m a prouder man than you! If you think that your profession […]...
- Mine and Thine Two words about the world we see, And nought but Mine and Thine they be. Ah! might we drive them forth and wide With us should rest and peace abide; All free, nought owned of goods and gear, By men and women though it were Common to all all wheat and wine Over the seas […]...
- City of Ships CITY of ships! (O the black ships! O the fierce ships! O the beautiful, sharp-bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!) City of the world! (for all races are here; All the lands of the earth make contributions here;) City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides! City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling […]...
- If Thou'lt Be Mine If thou’lt be mine, the treasures of air, Of earth, and sea, shall lie at thy feet; Whatever in Fancy’s eye looks fair, Or in Hope’s sweet music sounds most sweet, Shall be ours if thou wilt be mine, love! Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we rove, A voice divine shall talk in each stream; […]...
- Land Mine A grey gull hovered overhead, Then wisely flew away. ‘In half a jiffy you’ll be dead,’ I thought I heard it say; As there upon the railway line, Checking an urge to cough, I laboured to de-fuse the mine That had not yet gone off. I tapped around the time-clock rim, Then something worried me. […]...
- The Treasure When colour goes home into the eyes, And lights that shine are shut again, With dancing girls and sweet birds’ cries Behind the gateways of the brain; And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close The rainbow and the rose:- Still may Time hold some golden space Where I’ll unpack that scented store Of […]...
- City Trees The trees along this city street, Save for the traffic and the trains, Would make a sound as thin and sweet As trees in country lanes. And people standing in their shade Out of a shower, undoubtedly Would hear such music as is made Upon a country tree. Oh, little leaves that are so dumb […]...
- Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing The light along the hills in the morning Comes down slowly, naming the trees White, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate. Notice what this poem is not doing. A house, a house, a barn, the old Quarry, where the river shrugs How much of this place is yours? Notice what this poem is […]...
- The Moths There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know What kind, that glimmers By mid-May In the forest, just As the pink mocassin flowers Are rising. If you notice anything, It leads you to notice More And more. And anyway I was so full of energy. I was always running around, looking At this and […]...
- Scholfield Huxley God! ask me not to record your wonders, I admit the stars and the suns And the countless worlds. But I have measured their distances And weighed them and discovered their substances. I have devised wings for the air, And keels for water, And horses of iron for the earth. I have lengthened the vision […]...
- A Garden In Chicago In the mid-city, under an oiled sky, I lay in a garden of such dusky green It seemed the dregs of the imagination. Hedged round by elegant spears of iron fence My face became a moon to absent suns. A low heat beat upon my reading face; There rose no roses in that gritty place […]...
- Bus Stop Lights are burning In quiet rooms Where lives go on Resembling ours. The quiet lives That follow us – These lives we lead But do not own – Stand in the rain So quietly When we are gone, So quietly. . . And the last bus Comes letting dark Umbrellas out – Black flowers, black […]...
- Cities Can we believe by an effort Comfort our hearts: It is not waste all this, Not placed here in disgust, Street after street, Each patterned alike, No grace to lighten A single house of the hundred Crowded into one garden-space. Crowded can we believe, Not in utter disgust, In ironical play But the maker of […]...
- Our Lady of the Mine The Blue Horizon wuz a mine us fellers all thought well uv, And there befell the episode I now perpose to tell uv; ‘T wuz in the year uv sixty-nine, somewhere along in summer, There hove in sight one afternoon a new and curious comer; His name wuz Silas Pettibone, a’ artist by perfession, With […]...
- The Widow's Lament In Springtime Sorrow is my own yard Where the new grass Flames as it has flamed Often before but not With the cold fire That closes round me this year. Thirtyfive years I lived with my husband. The plumtree is white today With masses of flowers. Masses of flowers Load the cherry branches And color some bushes […]...
- Cold Iron Cold is for the mistress silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.” “Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall, “But Iron Cold Iron is master of them all.” So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege, Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege. “Nay!” said the […]...
- Dedication To the City of Bombay The Cities are full of pride, Challenging each to each This from her mountain-side, That from her burthened beach. They count their ships full tale Their corn and oil and wine, Derrick and loom and bale, And rampart’s gun-flecked line; City by City they hail: “Hast aught to match with […]...
- America, America! I am a poet of the Hudson River and the heights above it, the lights, the stars, and the bridges I am also by self-appointment the laureate of the Atlantic – of the peoples’ hearts, crossing it to new America. I am burdened with the truck and chimera, hope, acquired in the sweating sick-excited passage […]...
- Tangibles (Washington, August, 1918)I HAVE seen this city in the day and the sun. I have seen this city in the night and the moon. And in the night and the moon I have seen a thing this city gave me nothing of in the day and the sun. The float of the dome in the […]...
- Absence My shadow I woke to a wind swirling the curtains light and dark And the birds twittering on the roofs, I lay cold In the early light in my room high over London. What fear was it that made the wind sound like a fire So that I got up and looked out half-asleep At […]...
- The Punisher I have fetched the tears up out of the little wells, Scooped them up with small, iron words, Dripping over the runnels. The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still I watched the tears on the guilty cheek of the boys Glitter and spill. Cringing Pity, and Love, white-handed, came Hovering about […]...
- The Gift “He gave her class. She gave him sex.” Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers He gave her money. She gave him head. He gave her tips on “aggressive growth” mutual funds. She gave him a red rose and a little statue of eros. He gave her Genesis 2 (21-23). She gave him Genesis […]...
- A Teamster's Farewell Sobs En Route to a Penitentiary GOOD-BY now to the streets and the clash of wheels and Locking hubs, The sun coming on the brass buckles and harness knobs. The muscles of the horses sliding under their heavy Haunches, Good-by now to the traffic policeman and his whistle, The smash of the iron hoof on […]...
- Not Mine All my life to pretend this world of theirs is mine And to know such pretending is disgraceful. But what can I do? Suppose I suddenly screamed And started to prophesy. No one would hear me. Their screens and microphones are not for that. Others like me wander the streets And talk to themselves. Sleep […]...
- I Don't Know If History Repeats Itself I don’t Know if history repeats itself But I do know that you don’t. I remember that city was didvided Not only between Jews and Arabs, But Between me and you, When we were there together. We made ourselves a womb of dangers We built ourselves a house of deadening wars Like men of far […]...
- A Mine there is no Man would own A Mine there is no Man would own But must it be conferred, Demeaning by exclusive wealth A Universe beside Potosi never to be spent But hoarded in the mind What Misers wring their hands tonight For Indies in the Ground!...
- Myself and Mine MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever, To stand the cold or heat-to take good aim with a gun-to sail a boat-to manage horses-to beget superb children, To speak readily and clearly-to feel at home among common people, And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea. Not for an embroiderer; (There will always […]...
- The Notice that is called the Spring The Notice that is called the Spring Is but a month from here Put up my Heart thy Hoary work And take a Rosy Chair. Not any House the Flowers keep The Birds enamor Care Our salary the longest Day Is nothing but a Bier....
- Always Mine! Always Mine! No more Vacation! Term of Light this Day begun! Failless as the fair rotation Of the Seasons and the Sun. Old the Grace, but new the Subjects Old, indeed, the East, Yet upon His Purple Programme Every Dawn, is first....
- Mother o' Mine If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! I know whose love would follow me still, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! If I were drowned in the deepest sea, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! I know whose tears would come down to me, Mother […]...
- Many workmen Many workmen Built a huge ball of masonry Upon a mountain-top. Then they went to the valley below, And turned to behold their work. “It is grand,” they said; They loved the thing. Of a sudden, it moved: It came upon them swiftly; It crushed them all to blood. But some had opportunity to squeal....
- Saturday's Child Some are teethed on a silver spoon, With the stars strung for a rattle; I cut my teeth as the black racoon For implements of battle. Some are swaddled in silk and down, And heralded by a star; They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown On a night that was black as tar. For […]...
- Our Eyes Our eyes are limpid drops of water. In each drop exists a tiny sign of our genius Which has given life to cold iron. Our eyes are limpid drops of water Merged absolutely in the Ocean That you could hardly recognize the drop in a block of ice in a boiling pan. The masterpiece of […]...
- Mine Host There stands a hostel by a travelled way; Life is the road and Death the worthy host; Each guest he greets, nor ever lacks to say, “How have ye fared?” They answer him, the most, “This lodging place is other than we sought; We had intended farther, but the gloom Came on apace, and found […]...
- Intimates Don’t you care for my love? she said bitterly. I handed her the mirror, and said: Please address these questions to the proper person! Please make all requests to head-quarters! In all matters of emotional importance Please approach the supreme authority direct! – So I handed her the mirror. And she would have broken it […]...
- THE LAST TIME EVER 1 am peering through blackness 2 am i feel your heart pounding 3 am your fingers running up my spine 4 am my beard between your breasts 5 am sun rising over the pyramid 6 am ordering coffee and toast 7 am showering together 8 am locking both suitcases 9 am spreading marmalade on bacon […]...
- Only a Shrine, but Mine Only a Shrine, but Mine I made the Taper shine Madonna dim, to whom all Feet may come, Regard a Nun Thou knowest every Woe Needless to tell thee so But can’st thou do The Grace next to it heal? That looks a harder skill to us Still just as easy, if it be thy […]...