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1. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
2. Late Love How they strut about, people in love, How tall they grow, pleased with themselves, Their hair, glossy, their skin shining. They don’t remember who they have been. How filmic they are just for this time. How important they’ve become – secret, above The order of things, the dreary mundane. Every church bell ringing, a fresh […]...
3. Four Trees upon a solitary Acre Four Trees upon a solitary Acre Without Design Or Order, or Apparent Action Maintain The Sun upon a Morning meets them The Wind No nearer Neighbor have they But God The Acre gives them Place They Him Attention of Passer by Of Shadow, or of Squirrel, haply Or Boy What Deed is Theirs unto the […]...
4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs No matter what life you lead The virgin is a lovely number: Cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper, Arms and legs made of Limoges, Lips like Vin Du Rhône, Rolling her china-blue doll eyes Open and shut. Open to say, Good Day Mama, And shut for the thrust Of the unicorn. She is unsoiled. She […]...
5. God's-Acre I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God’s-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o’er the sleeping dust. God’s-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, Their bread […]...
6. Clothes chapter X And the weaver said, “Speak to us of Clothes.” And he answered: Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind […]...
7. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
8. My God He sees thee My God He sees thee Shine thy best Fling up thy Balls of Gold Till every Cubit play with thee And every Crescent hold Elate the Acre at his feet Upon his Atom swim Oh Sun but just a Second’s right In thy long Race with him!...
9. Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit snow doesn’t land At your feet but keeps falling below You): single-cell-plant chains, shreds Of zooplankton’s mucus food traps, Fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts, Sand grains, pollen….And inside These jagged falling islands Live more microlives, […]...
10. The Missal Makers To visit the Escurial We took a motor bus, And there a guide mercurial Took charge of us. He showed us through room after room, And talked hour after hour, Of place, crypt and royal tomb, Of pomp and power. But in bewilderment of grace What pleased me most of all Were ancient missals proud […]...
11. One Day is there of the Series One Day is there of the Series Termed Thanksgiving Day. Celebrated part at Table Part in Memory. Neither Patriarch nor Pussy I dissect the Play Seems it to my Hooded thinking Reflex Holiday. Had there been no sharp Subtraction From the early Sum Not an Acre or a Caption Where was once a Room Not […]...
12. MY PERFECT ROSE At ten she came to me, three years ago, There was ‘something between us’ even then; Watching her write like Eliot every day, Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat, Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet; Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’. […]...
13. Elizabeth Gone 1. You lay in the nest of your real death, Beyond the print of my nervous fingers Where they touched your moving head; Your old skin puckering, your lungs’ breath Grown baby short as you looked up last At my face swinging over the human bed, And somewhere you cried, let me go let me […]...
14. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
15. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
16. Colonel Martin I The Colonel went out sailing, He spoke with Turk and Jew, With Christian and with Infidel, For all tongues he knew. ‘O what’s a wifeless man?’ said he, And he came sailing home. He rose the latch and went upstairs And found an empty room. The Colonel went out sailing. II ‘I kept her […]...
17. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
18. Larry Levis My poem would eat nothing. I tried giving it water But it said no, Worrying me. Day after day, I held it up to the llight, Turning it over, But it only pressed its lips More tightly together. It grew sullen, like a toad Through with being teased. I offered it money, My clothes, my […]...
19. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
20. The Chimney-Sweeper (Experience) A little black thing among the snow: Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe! Where are thy father & mother? say? They are both gone up to the church to pray. Because I was happy upon the heath. And smil’d among the winters snow: They clothed me in the clothes of death. And taught me […]...
21. The Consecrating Mother I stand before the sea And it rolls and rolls in its green blood Saying, “Do not give up one god For I have a handful.” The trade winds blew In their twelve-fingered reversal And I simply stood on the beach While the ocean made a cross of salt And hung up its drowned And […]...
22. The Frog Prince Frau Doktor, Mama Brundig, Take out your contacts, Remove your wig. I write for you. I entertain. But frogs come out Of the sky like rain. Frogs arrive With an ugly fury. You are my judge. You are my jury. My guilts are what We catalogue. I’ll take a knife And chop up frog. Frog […]...
23. Wedding Each strips his own skin Each bares his own constellation Which has never seen the night Each fills his skin with rocks And plays with it Lit by his own stars Who doesn’t stop till dawn Who doesn’t bat an eyelid or fall Earns his own skin (This game is rarely played)...
24. Abou Ben Adhem Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold:- Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the Presence in the room […]...
25. Once I saw mountains angry Once I saw mountains angry, And ranged in battle-front. Against them stood a little man; Aye, he was no bigger than my finger. I laughed, and spoke to one near me, “Will he prevail?” “Surely,” replied this other; “His grandfathers beat them many times.” Then did I see much virtue in grandfathers At least, for […]...
26. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Poetry Of Departures Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand, As epitaph: He chucked up everything And just cleared off, And always the voice will sound Certain you approve This audacious, purifying, Elemental move. And they are right, I think. We all hate home And having to be there: I detect my room, It’s specially-chosen junk, The good books, the good […]...
29. Lost in the Prairie In one of fhe States of America, some years ago, There suddenly came on a violent storm of snow, Which was nearly the death of a party of workmen, Who had finished their day’s work – nine or ten of them. The distance was nearly twenty miles to their camp, And with the thick falling […]...
30. The singing in god's acre Out yonder in the moonlight, wherein God’s Acre lies, Go angels walking to and fro, singing their lullabies. Their radiant wings are folded, and their eyes are bended low, As they sing among the beds whereon the flowers delight to grow, “Sleep, oh, sleep! The Shepherd guardeth His sheep. Fast speedeth the night away, Soon […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. Sestina: Here In Katmandu We have climbed the mountain. There’s nothing more to do. It is terrible to come down To the valley Where, amidst many flowers, One thinks of snow, As formerly, amidst snow, Climbing the mountain, One thought of flowers, Tremulous, ruddy with dew, In the valley. One caught their scent coming down. It is difficult to […]...
33. Bat His awful skin Stretched out by some tradesman Is like my skin, here between my fingers, A kind of webbing, a kind of frog. Surely when first born my face was this tiny And before I was born surely I could fly. Not well, mind you, only a veil of skin From my arms to […]...
34. Paradise Motel Millions were dead; everybody was innocent. I stayed in my room. The President Spoke of war as of a magic love potion. My eyes were opened in astonishment. In a mirror my face appeared to me Like a twice-canceled postage stamp. I lived well, but life was awful. There were so many soldiers that day, […]...
35. Parabola Year after year the princess lies asleep Until the hundred years foretold are done, Easily drawing her enchanted breath. Caught on the monstrous thorns around the keep, Bones of the youths who sought her, one by one Rot loose and rattle to the ground beneath. But when the Destined Lover at last shall come, For […]...
36. An Acre Of Grass Picture and book remain, An acre of green grass For air and exercise, Now strength of body goes; Midnight, an old house Where nothing stirs but a mouse. My temptation is quiet. Here at life’s end Neither loose imagination, Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bonc, Can make the truth known. […]...
37. Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire-nil nisi divinum stabile est; caetera fumus-the gondola Stopped, the old palace was there, how charming its grey and pink-goats and Monkeys, with such hair too!-so the countess passed on until she came through the Little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed. BURBANK crossed a little bridge Descending at a […]...
38. Admire their style I’m reading fellow poets’ blogs today, A sustaining source of entertainment; I admire their style without exciting comment Or resorting to an unkind eye, simple though It is to sigh about uneasy affirmation. I hope when they read me (if they ever do) They rest as easy on my lack of finished form, The hazy, […]...
39. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
40. At Cheyenne Young Lochinvar came in from the West, With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest; The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat, His No. Brogans were chuck full of feet, His girdle was horrent with pistols and things, And he flourished a handful of aces on kings. The fair Mariana sate […]...