Small Wire

Related poetry:

1. On The Wire O God, take the sun from the sky! It’s burning me, scorching me up. God, can’t You hear my cry? Water! A poor, little cup! It’s laughing, the cursed sun! See how it swells and swells Fierce as a hundred hells! God, will it never have done? It’s searing the flesh on my bones; It’s […]...
2. Bird On The Wire Like a bird on the wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free. Like a worm on a hook, Like a knight from some old fashioned book I have saved all my ribbons for thee. If I, if I have been unkind, I hope that you […]...
3. Barb-Wire Bill At dawn of day the white land lay all gruesome-like and grim, When Bill Mc’Gee he says to me: “We’ve got to do it, Jim. We’ve got to make Fort Liard quick. I know the river’s bad, But, oh! the little woman’s sick. . . why! don’t you savvy, lad?” And me! Well, yes, I […]...
4. The Tragedy Oh, I never felt so wretched, and things never looked so blue Since the days I gulped the physic that my Granny used to brew; For a friend in whom I trusted, entering my room last night, Stole a bottleful of Heenzo from the desk whereon I write. I am certain sure he did it […]...
5. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
6. Her Lips Are Copper Wire whisper of yellow globes Gleaming on lamp-posts that sway Like bootleg licker drinkers in the fog And let your breath be moist against me Like bright beads on yellow globes Telephone the power-house That the main wires are insulate (her words play softly up and down Dewy corridors of billboards) Then with your tongue remove […]...
7. Sonnet XIV: Alas, Have I Not Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend, Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire, Than did on him who first stole down the fire, While Love on me doth all his quiver spend, But with your rhubarb words you must contend, To grieve me worse, in saying that desire Doth plunge my well-form’d […]...
8. Baby Picture It’s in the heart of the grape Where that smile lies. It’s in the good-bye-bow in the hair Where that smile lies. It’s in the clerical collar of the dress Where that smile lies. What smile? The smile of my seventh year, Caught here in the painted photograph. It’s peeling now, age has got it, […]...
9. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
10. The Agony Philosophers have measur’d mountains, Fathom’d the depths of the seas, of states, and kings, Walk’d with a staff to heav’n, and traced fountains: But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to measure it doth more behove: Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love. Who would know SIn, let him repair […]...
11. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
12. All that I do All that I do Is in review To his enamored mind I know his eye Where e’er I ply Is pushing close behind Not any Port Nor any flight But he doth there preside What omnipresence lies in wait For her to be a Bride...
13. Sonnet LXXX O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might, To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame! But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, My saucy bark […]...
14. Sonnet 80: O, how I faint when I of you do write O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame. But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, My saucy bark, […]...
15. The Cut Well, what’s the matter? there’s a face What! has it cut a vein? And is it quite a shocking place? Come, let us look again. I see it bleeds, but never mind That tiny little drop; I don’t believe you’ll ever find That crying makes it stop. ‘Tis sad indeed to cry at pain, For […]...
16. Sonnet XXXVIII: Sitting Alone, Love Sitting alone, Love bids me go and write; Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay, Boasting that she doth still direct the way, Or else Love were unable to endite. Love, growing angry, vexed at the spleen And scorning Reason’s maimed argument, Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent, Where she with Love conversing hath not […]...
17. Killing The Love I am the love killer, I am murdering the music we thought so special, That blazed between us, over and over. I am murdering me, where I kneeled at your kiss. I am pushing knives through the hands That created two into one. Our hands do not bleed at this, They lie still in their […]...
18. Love's Language How does Love speak? In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek, And in the pallor that succeeds it; by The quivering lid of an averted eye – The smile that proves the parent to a sigh – Thus doth Love speak. How does Love speak? By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak Of bounding […]...
19. How brittle are the Piers How brittle are the Piers On which our Faith doth tread No Bridge below doth totter so Yet none hath such a Crowd. It is as old as God Indeed ’twas built by him He sent his Son to test the Plank, And he pronounced it firm....
20. On the Religious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson, my Christian Friend, Deceased Dec. 16, 1646 When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God, Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever. Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour, Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod; But, as […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. Cups of Coffee THE HAGGARD woman with a hacking cough and a deathless love whispers of white Flowers… in your poem you pour like a cup of coffee, Gabriel. The slim girl whose voice was lost in the waves of flesh piled on her bones… and The woman who sold to many men and saw her breasts shrivel… […]...
23. Sonnet XXI So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse Making a couplement of proud compare, With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, With April’s first-born flowers, and all […]...
24. Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that muse So is it not with me as with that muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven it self for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, With April’s first-born flowers, and […]...
25. Sonnet XLII: Some Men There Be Some men there be which like my method well And much commend the strangeness of my vein; Some say I have a passing pleasing strain; Some say that im my humor I excel; Some, who not kindly relish my conceit, They say, as poets do, I use to feign, And in bare words paint out […]...
26. Hymn 140 A living and a dead faith. Collected from several scriptures. Mistaken souls, that dream of heav’n, And make their empty boast Of inward joys, and sins forgiv’n, While they are slaves to lust! Vain are our fancies, airy flights, If faith be cold and dead; None but a living power unites To Christ the living […]...
27. NOT EVERY DAY FIT FOR VERSE ‘Tis not ev’ry day that I Fitted am to prophesy: No, but when the spirit fills The fantastic pannicles, Full of fire, then I write As the Godhead doth indite. Thus enraged, my lines are hurl’d, Like the Sibyl’s, through the world: Look how next the holy fire Either slakes, or doth retire; So the […]...
28. The Mare's Nest Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse Was good beyond all earthly need; But, on the other hand, her spouse Was very, very bad indeed. He smoked cigars, called churches slow, And raced but this she did not know. For Belial Machiavelli kept The little fact a secret, and, Though o’er his minor sins she wept, […]...
29. When, Like A Running Grave When, like a running grave, time tracks you down, Your calm and cuddled is a scythe of hairs, Love in her gear is slowly through the house, Up naked stairs, a turtle in a hearse, Hauled to the dome, Comes, like a scissors stalking, tailor age, Deliver me who timid in my tribe, Of love […]...
30. Love (I) Immortal love, authour of this great frame, Sprung from that beautie which can never fade; How hath man parcel’d out thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made, While mortall love doth all the title gain! Which siding with invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain, […]...
31. Sonnet VI: Some Lovers Speak Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain, Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires: Of force of heav’nly beams, infusing hellish pain: Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires. Some one his song in Jove, and Jove’s strange tales attires, Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden […]...
32. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
33. Sonnet 14 XIV When Faith and Love which parted from thee never, Had ripen’d thy just soul to dwell with God, Meekly thou didst resign this earthy load Of Death, call’d Life; which us from Life doth sever Thy Works and Alms and all thy good Endeavour Staid not behind, nor in the grave were trod; But […]...
34. Hymn 133 Love and charity. 1 Cor. 13:2-7, 13. Let Pharisees of high esteem Their faith and zeal declare, All their religion is a dream, If love be wanting there. Love suffers long with patient eye, Nor is provoked in haste; She lets the present injury die, And long forgets the past. [Malice and rage, those fires […]...
35. Sonnet XIII: Bring, Brick to Deck My Brow Bring, bring to deck my brow, ye Sylvan girls, A roseate wreath; nor for my waving hair The costly band of studded gems prepare, Of sparkling crysolite or orient pearls: Love, o’er my head his canopy unfurls, His purple pinions fan the whisp’ring air; Mocking the golden sandal, rich and rare, Beneath my feet the […]...
36. The Truth of Woman Woman’s faith, and woman’s trust – Write the characters in the dust; Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon’s pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, And more permanent, I ween, Than the thing those letters mean. I have strain’d the spider’s thread ‘Gainst the promise of […]...
37. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
38. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. Poor Cock Robin My garden robin in the Spring Was rapturous with glee, And followed me with wistful wing From pear to apple tree; His melodies the summer long He carolled with delight, As if he could with jewelled song Find favour in my sight. And now that Autumn’s in the air He’s singing singing still, And yet […]...