The Play

Related poetry:

1. At play Play that you are mother dear, And play that papa is your beau; Play that we sit in the corner here, Just as we used to, long ago. Playing so, we lovers two Are just as happy as we can be, And I’ll say “I love you” to you, And you say “I love you” […]...
2. We play at Paste We play at Paste Till qualified, for Pearl Then, drop the Paste And deem ourself a fool The Shapes though were similar And our new Hands Learned Gem-Tactics Practicing Sands...
3. They All Want to Play Hamlet THEY all want to play Hamlet. They have not exactly seen their fathers killed Nor their mothers in a frame-up to kill, Nor an Ophelia dying with a dust gagging the heart, Not exactly the spinning circles of singing golden spiders, Not exactly this have they got at nor the meaning of flowers-O flowers, flowers […]...
4. Time to play It is a pristine page, clean on the blue screen Where I compose, I don’t expect it to stay that way As words glow from blunt, abused fingers, as insistent Sounds in my head translate into sentence structures, As lips articulate the rhythms and the sounds of the Jumbled lexis as swiftly as I can […]...
5. We do not play on Graves We do not play on Graves Because there isn’t Room Besides it isn’t even it slants And People come And put a Flower on it And hang their faces so We’re fearing that their Hearts will drop And crush our pretty play And so we move as far As Enemies away Just looking round to […]...
6. Behind the Scenes The actor struts his little hour, Between the limelight and the band; The public feel the actor’s power, Yet nothing do they understand Of all the touches here and there That make or mar the actor’s part, They never see, beneath the glare, The artist striving after art. To them it seems a labour slight […]...
7. I play at Riches to appease I play at Riches to appease The Clamoring for Gold It kept me from a Thief, I think, For often, overbold With Want, and Opportunity I could have done a Sin And been Myself that easy Thing An independent Man But often as my lot displays Too hungry to be borne I deem Myself what […]...
8. Come and Play in the Garden Little sister, come away, And let us in the garden play, For it is a pleasant day. On the grass-plat let us sit, Or, if you please, we’ll play a bit, And run about all over it. But the fruit we will not pick, For that would be a naughty trick, And very likely make […]...
9. Modern Love XIII: I Play for Seasons, Not Eternities ‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!’ Says Nature, laughing on her way. ‘So must All those whose stake is nothing more than dust!’ And lo, she wins, and of her harmonies She is full sure! Upon her dying rose, She drops a look of fondness, and goes by, Scarce any retrospection in her eye; For […]...
10. She died at play She died at play, Gambolled away Her lease of spotted hours, Then sank as gaily as a Turn Upon a Couch of flowers. Her ghost strolled softly o’er the hill Yesterday, and Today, Her vestments as the silver fleece Her countenance as spray....
11. She lay as if at play She lay as if at play Her life had leaped away Intending to return But not so soon Her merry Arms, half dropt As if for lull of sport An instant had forgot The Trick to start Her dancing Eyes ajar As if their Owner were Still sparkling through For fun at you Her Morning […]...
12. The Bird did prance the Bee did play The Bird did prance the Bee did play The Sun ran miles away So blind with joy he could not choose Between his Holiday The morn was up the meadows out The Fences all but ran, Republic of Delight, I thought Where each is Citizen From Heavy laden Lands to thee Were seas to cross […]...
13. Called Into Play Fall fell: so that’s it for the leaf poetry: Some flurries have whitened the edges of roads And lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: & Turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I going to Find something to write about I haven’t already Written away: I will have to stop short, look Down, look […]...
14. It is easy to work when the soul is at play It is easy to work when the soul is at play But when the soul is in pain The hearing him put his playthings up Makes work difficult then It is simple, to ache in the Bone, or the Rind But Gimlets among the nerve Mangle daintier terribler Like a Panter in the Glove...
15. 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 […]...
16. Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play; Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow: And some are sung, and that was yesterday, And some are unsung, and that may be tomorrow. Go forth; and if it be o’er stony way, Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow: And it was […]...
17. Let Us play Yesterday Let Us play Yesterday I the Girl at school You and Eternity the Untold Tale Easing my famine At my Lexicon Logarithm had I for Drink ‘Twas a dry Wine Somewhat different must be Dreams tint the Sleep Cunning Reds of Morning Make the Blind leap Still at the Egg-life Chafing the Shell When you […]...
18. Holy Sonnet VI: This Is My Play's Last Scene, Here Heavens Appoint This is my play’s last scene, here heavens appoint My pilgrimage’s last mile; and my race Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace, My span’s last inch, my minute’s latest point, And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoint My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space; But my ever-waking part shall see that […]...
19. While Summer Suns O’er the Gay Prospect Play’d While summer suns o’er the gay prospect play’d, Through Surrey’s verdant scenes, where Epsom spread ‘Mid intermingling elms her flowery meads, And Hascombe’s hill, in towering groves array’d, Rear’d its romantic steep, with mind serene, I journey’d blithe. Full pensive I return’d; For now my breast with hopeless passion burn’d, Wet with hoar mists appear’d […]...
20. Two Songs From A Play I I saw a staring virgin stand Where holy Dionysus died, And tear the heart out of his side. And lay the heart upon her hand And bear that beating heart away; Of Magnus Annus at the spring, As though God’s death were but a play. Another Troy must rise and set, Another lineage feed […]...
21. Work and Play The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer, A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage, A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air. But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust In shimmering exhaust Searching to slake Its fever in ocean Will play and be idle or else it will bust. The swallow […]...
22. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
23. 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!...
24. The Little House of Lost Play (Mar Vanwa Tyalieva) We knew that land once, You and I, And once we wandered there In the long days now long gone by, A dark child and a fair. Was it on the paths of firelight thought In winter cold and white, Or in the blue-spun twilit hours Of little early tucked-up beds In drowsy summer night, […]...
25. (As sung by Mr. Charles Charrington in the play of "The Three Wayfarers") (As sung by Mr. Charles Charrington in the play of “The Three Wayfarers”) O MY trade it is the rarest one, Simple shepherds all My trade is a sight to see; For my customers I tie, and take ’em up on high, And waft ’em to a far countree! My tools are but common ones, […]...
26. 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...
27. Sonnet 128: How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st, Upon that blessèd wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, […]...
28. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. Of Modern Poetry The poem of the mind in the act of finding What will suffice. It has not always had To find: the scene was set; it repeated what Was in the script. Then the theatre was changed To something else. Its past was a souvenir. It has to be living, to learn the speech of the […]...
31. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
32. THE PLAY HOUSE We had a new house And split the decorating. You took the piled rolls of paper, While I stacked the cans of gloss, One to each corner-white-what else? And when we began our slow labour We did not even sigh except in some relief In being there at last. There were no spaces for our […]...
33. Running To Paradise As I came over Windy Gap They threw a halfpenny into my cap. For I am running to paradise; And all that I need do is to wish And somebody puts his hand in the dish To throw me a bit of salted fish: And there the king is but as the beggar. My brother […]...
34. Chicago Poet I SALUTED a nobody. I saw him in a looking-glass. He smiled-so did I. He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning-so did I. Everything I did he did. I said, “Hello, I know you.” And I was a liar to say so. Ah, this looking-glass man! Liar, fool, dreamer, play-actor, Soldier, dusty drinker of […]...
35. A Good Play We built a ship upon the stairs All made of the back-bedroom chairs, And filled it full of soft pillows To go a-sailing on the billows. We took a saw and several nails, And water in the nursery pails; And Tom said, “Let us also take An apple and a slice of cake;” Which was […]...
36. On A Gentlewoman That Sung And Play'd Upon A Lute Be silent you still musique of the Sphears, And every sense make haste to be all ears, And give devout attention to her aires, To which the Gods doe listen as to prayers Of pious votaries; the which to heare Tumult would be attentive, and would swear To keep lesse noise at Nile, if there […]...
37. Soap Suds This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child. […]...
38. The Poet Words flow onto paper like rain, forming giant rivers Of unseen lands. The very force guides us along a journey That holds of great adventure. We are the explorers of the literary world. We must find the courage to write what Others are unable to, with the greatest Of passion. A poet dreams. and then […]...
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. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...