The Balance Wheel

Related poetry:

1. The Broken Balance I. Reference to a Passage in Plutarch’s Life of Sulla The people buying and selling, consuming pleasures, talking in the archways, Were all suddenly struck quiet And ran from under stone to look up at the sky: so shrill and mournful, So fierce and final, a brazen Pealing of trumpets high up in the air, […]...
2. To Whom It May Concern In Autumn, As in Spring, The sap flows, The sap wishes to race Against heartbeats Before the winter, Before the winter Buries us In her usual shroud of ice. I turn to you Knowing that Unrequited love Is good For poetry, Knowing that pain Will nudge the muse As well as anything, Knowing that you […]...
3. For The Anniversary Of My Death Every year without knowing it I have passed the day When the last fires will wave to me And the silence will set out Tireless traveller Like the beam of a lightless star Then I will no longer Find myself in life as in a strange garment Surprised at the earth And the love of […]...
4. THE NEW REMORSE The sin was mine; I did not understand. So now is music prisoned in her cave, Save where some ebbing desultory wave Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand. And in the withered hollow of this land Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave, That hardly can the leaden willow crave One silver […]...
5. My wheel is in the dark! My wheel is in the dark! I cannot see a spoke Yet know its dripping feet Go round and round. My foot is on the Tide! An unfrequented road Yet have all roads A clearing at the end Some have resigned the Loom Some in the busy tomb Find quaint employ Some with new stately […]...
6. God's Wheel GOD says to me with a kind Of smile, “Hey how would you like To be God awhile And steer the world?” “Okay,” says I, “I’ll give it a try. Where do I set? How much do I get? What time is lunch? When can I quit?” “Gimme back that wheel,” says GOD. “I don’t […]...
7. The Wheel Through winter-time we call on spring, And through the spring on summer call, And when abounding hedges ring Declare that winter’s best of all; And after that there s nothing good Because the spring-time has not come – Nor know that what disturbs our blood Is but its longing for the tomb....
8. Sparkles from The Wheel 1 WHERE the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day, Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching-I pause aside with them. By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging, A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife; Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone-by foot and knee, With […]...
9. Hamlet Off-Stage: She Wheel Ophelia puked hourly dawn till dusk, Retching mucous slobber, then spewing air. Scum that I am, I never stopped thinking What a beauty: small Icelandic hooters, Femme d’Bumpers, on whom all fun depends. Woman’s the car, man the hood ornament. She lay there so sick she wasn’t human, More an engine blowing jello gaskets. Yet, […]...
10. Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel MOTHER, I cannot mind my wheel; My fingers ache, my lips are dry: O, if you felt the pain I feel! But O, who ever felt as I? No longer could I doubt him true All other men may use deceit; He always said my eyes were blue, And often swore my lips were sweet....
11. Stars Wheel in Purple Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare As Hesperus, nor yet so great a star As bright Aldeboran or Sirius, Nor yet the stained and brilliant one of War; Stars turn in purple, glorious to the sight; Yours is not gracious as the Pleiads are Nor as Orion’s sapphires, luminous; Yet disenchanted, cold, […]...
12. 378. Song-Bessy and her Spinnin Wheel O LEEZE me on my spinnin’ wheel, And leeze me on my rock and reel; Frae tap to tae that cleeds me bien, And haps me biel and warm at e’en; I’ll set me down and sing and spin, While laigh descends the simmer sun, Blest wi’ content, and milk and meal, O leeze me […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. A Song of the Republic Sons of the South, awake! arise! Sons of the South, and do. Banish from under your bonny skies Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies. Making a hell in a Paradise That belongs to your sons and you. Sons of the South, make choice between (Sons of the South, choose true), The Land of Morn […]...
15. Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing The world is full of women Who’d tell me I should be ashamed of myself If they had the chance. Quit dancing. Get some self-respect And a day job. Right. And minimum wage, And varicose veins, just standing In one place for eight hours Behind a glass counter Bundled up to the neck, instead of […]...
16. Her Kind I have gone out, a possessed witch, Haunting the black air, braver at night; Dreaming evil, I have done my hitch Over the plain houses, light by light: Lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in […]...
17. Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone, For love is but a skein unwound Between the dark and dawn. A lonely ghost the ghost is That to God shall come; I – love’s skein upon the ground, My body […]...
18. The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter After Li Po While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played at the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. […]...
19. Blue Bridge Praise the good-tempered summer And the red cardinal That jumps Like a hot coal off the track. Praise the heavy leaves, Heroines of green, frosted With silver. Praise the litter Of torn paper, mulch And sticks, the spiny holly, Its scarlet land mines. Praise the black snake that whips And shudders its way across my […]...
20. Elegy For My Father HLF, August 8, 1918-August 22, 1997 “Bequeath us to no earthly shore until Is answered in the vortex of our grave The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.” -Hart Crane, “Voyages” “If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it” -Ludwig Wittgenstein Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly Past the long edge of the […]...
21. My Home This is the place that I love the best, A little brown house, like a ground-bird’s nest, Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees, Summer retreat of the birds and bees. The tenderest light that ever was seen Sifts through the vine-made window screen Sifts and quivers, and flits and falls On home-made carpets and […]...
22. Anxiety The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun, The crisping steam of a train Melts in the air, while two black birds Sweep past the window again. Along the vacant road, a red Bicycle approaches; I wait In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy To leap down at our gate. He has passed us by; but […]...
23. Bound Home to Mount Song The limpid river, past its bushes Running slowly as my chariot, Becomes a fellow voyager Returning home with the evening birds. A ruined city-wall overtops an old ferry, Autumn sunset floods the peaks. …Far away, beside Mount Song, I shall close my door and be at peace....
24. Falltime GOLD of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon, Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue, Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts, Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence, Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long, Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers […]...
25. La Vita Nuova Last summer, in the blue heat, Over the beach, in the burning air, A legless beggar lurched on calloused fists To where I waited with the sun-dazed birds. He said, “The summer boils away. My life Joins to another life; this parched skin Dries and dies and flakes away, Becomes your costume when the torn […]...
26. The Upstairs Room It must have been in March the rug wore through. Now the day passes and I stare At warped pine boards my father’s father nailed, At the twisted grain. Exposed, where emptiness allows, Are the wormholes of eighty years; four generations’ shoes Stumble and scrape and fall To the floor my father stained, The new […]...
27. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
28. Heart of Copper The Candidate, answering a question About El Salvador, generalized By saying he thought We should support human rights Everywhere they were being abrogated South Korea, South Africa Or South Yemen. He didn’t have The moral perspicuity To mention South Dakota. Perhaps it’s too far north....
29. The Belltower the weighing is done in autumn And the sifting What is to be threshed Is threshed in autumn What is to be gathered is taken The wind does not die in autumn The moon Shifts endlessly thru flying clouds In autumn the sea is high & a golden light plays everywhere Making it harder To […]...
30. The Daughter Goes To Camp In the taxi alone, home from the airport, I could not believe you were gone. My palm kept Creeping over the smooth plastic To find your strong meaty little hand and Squeeze it, find your narrow thigh in the Noble ribbing of the corduroy, Straight and regular as anything in nature, to Find the slack […]...
31. Spring Birds’ love and birds’ song Flying here and there, Birds’ songand birds’ love And you with gold for hair! Birds’ songand birds’ love Passing with the weather, Men’s song and men’s love, To love once and forever. Men’s love and birds’ love, And women’s love and men’s! And you my wren with a crown of […]...
32. Arrival Across a thousand miles of sea, a hundred leagues of land, Along a path I had not traced and could not understand, I travelled fast and far for this, to take thee by the hand. A pilgrim knowing not the shrine where he would bend his knee, A mariner without a dream of what his […]...
33. On The Move 'Man, You Gotta Go The blue jay scuffling in the bushes follows Some hidden purpose, and the gush of birds That spurts across the field, the wheeling swallows, Have nested in the trees and undergrowth. Seeking their instinct, or their pose, or both, One moves with an uncertain violence Under the dust thrown by a baffled sense Or the […]...
34. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
35. Purity Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing That thy living touch is upon all my limbs. I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing That thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind. I shall ever try […]...
36. The Moment The moment when, after many years Of hard work and a long voyage You stand in the centre of your room, House, half-acre, square mile, island, country, Knowing at last how you got there, And say, I own this, Is the same moment when the trees unloose Their soft arms from around you, The birds […]...
37. Cocoon For A Skeleton Clothes: to compose The furtive, lone Pillar of bone To some repose. To let hands shirk Utterance behind A pocket’s blind Deceptive smirk. To mask, belie The undue haste Of breast for breast Or thigh for thigh. To screen, conserve The pose, when death Half strips the sheath And leaves the nerve. To edit, glose […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. Two Sonnets In Memory (Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti) Executed August 23, 1927 I As men have loved their lovers in times past And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace, So have we loved sweet Justice to the last, That now lies here in an unseemly place. The child will quit the cradle and grow wise And stare […]...
40. The Fury Of Sunrises Darkness As black as your eyelid, Poketricks of stars, The yellow mouth, The smell of a stranger, Dawn coming up, Dark blue, No stars, The smell of a love, Warmer now As authenic as soap, Wave after wave Of lightness And the birds in their chains Going mad with throat noises, The birds in their […]...