That’s What I Said

Related poetry:

1. Boots We’re foot slog slog slog sloggin’ over Africa Foot foot foot foot sloggin’ over Africa (Boots boots boots boots movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no discharge in the war! Seven six eleven five nine-an’-twenty mile to-day Four eleven seventeen thirty-two the day before (Boots boots boots boots movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no […]...
2. Upstairs I TOO have a garret of old playthings. I have tin soldiers with broken arms upstairs. I have a wagon and the wheels gone upstairs. I have guns and a drum, a jumping-jack and a magic lantern. And dust is on them and I never look at them upstairs. I too have a garret of […]...
3. The Anniversary “This bunch of violets,” he said, “Is for my daughter dear. Since that glad morn when she was wed It is today a year. She lives atop this flight of stairs Please give an arm to me: If we can take her unawares How glad she’ll be!” We climbed the stairs; the flight was four, […]...
4. Opposites The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child Walked out into the street And splashed in all the pubbles till She had such shocking feet The Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child Stayed quietly in the house And sat upon the fender stool As still as any mouse. The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child Her hands were black as ink; She would come running through the house And begging for […]...
5. The Conversation Of Prayer The conversation of prayers about to be said By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs Who climbs to his dying love in her high room, The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move And the other full of tears that she will be dead, Turns in […]...
6. Death In Leamington She died in the upstairs bedroom By the light of the ev’ning star That shone through the plate glass window From over Leamington Spa Beside her the lonely crochet Lay patiently and unstirred, But the fingers that would have work’d it Were dead as the spoken word. And Nurse came in with the tea-things Breast […]...
7. The People Upstairs The people upstairs all practise ballet Their living room is a bowling alley Their bedroom is full of conducted tours. Their radio is louder than yours, They celebrate week-ends all the week. When they take a shower, your ceilings leak. They try to get their parties to mix By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks, […]...
8. House TWO Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs, and an old soldier, Uncle Joe. Two Swede boys go upstairs and see Joe. His wife is dead, his only son is dead, and his two daughters in Missouri and Texas don’t want him around. The boys and Uncle Joe crack walnuts with a hammer […]...
9. Boots We’ve travelled per Joe Gardiner, a humping of our swag In the country of the Gidgee and Belar. We’ve swum the Di’mantina with our raiment in a bag, And we’ve travelled per superior motor car, But when we went to Germany we hadn’t any choice, No matter what our training or pursuits, For they gave […]...
10. Footsteps On an ebony bed decorated With coral eagles, sound asleep lies Nero unconscious, quiet, and blissful; Thriving in the vigor of flesh, And in the splendid power of youth. But in the alabaster hall that encloses The ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi How restive are his Lares. The little household gods tremble, And try to […]...
11. Blue Maroons “YOU slut,” he flung at her. It was more than a hundred times He had thrown it into her face And by this time it meant nothing to her. She said to herself upstairs sweeping, “Clocks are to tell time with, pitchers Hold milk, spoons dip out gravy, and a Coffee pot keeps the respect […]...
12. Restless It is that perennial immateriality dwelling between living and dying Crouched in the corners and grappling by the hinges Only to remain unseen; We weave our web of what we believe we understand Of the relationship of our acts and events Only to remain misunderstood; From that odd wisp of steam of heated discussions To […]...
13. The Long Small Room THE long small room that showed willows in the west Narrowed up to the end the fireplace filled, Although not wide. I liked it. No one guessed What need or accident made them so build. Only the moon, the mouse, and the sparrow peeped In from the ivy round the casement thick. Of all they […]...
14. Hope The spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life. The week is dealt out like a hand That children pick up card by card. One keeps getting the same hand. One keeps getting the same card. But twice a day except on Saturday The wheel stops, there is a crack in Time: With a hiss of […]...
15. I. The Witch of Coös I stayed the night for shelter at a farm Behind the mountains, with a mother and son, Two old-believers. They did all the talking. MOTHER: Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits She could call up to pass a winter evening, But won’t, should be burned at the stake or something. Summoning spirits isn’t […]...
16. O Why Do You Walk (a Parody) O why do you walk through the fields in boots, Missing so much and so much? O fat white woman whom nobody shoots, Why do you walk through the fields in boots, When the grass is soft as the breast of coots And shivering-sweet to the touch?...
17. To Germany You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed, And no man claimed the conquest of your land. But gropers both through fields of thought confined We stumble and we do not understand. You only saw your future bigly planned, And we, the tapering paths of our own mind, And in each others dearest […]...
18. THE PAGE AND THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER PAGE. WHERE goest thou? Where? Miller’s daughter so fair! Thy name, pray? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. ‘Tis Lizzy. PAGE. Where goest thou? Where? With the rake in thy hand? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. Father’s meadows and land To visit, I’m busy. PAGE. Dost go there alone? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. By this rake, sir, ’tis shown That we’re making the hay; […]...
19. By This Pitch And Motion In the upstairs hallway, complacent sunlight Stings the walls with gold and translucent almond Over Turkish runners betraying patterns Faded with travel. At their raveled edges, my daughter slumbers In the room from which this lost sun arranges Through a window high on an eastern sill of Drapes and black lacquer. Past the pillowcase where […]...
20. Remembered Women FOR a woman’s face remembered as a spot of quick light on the flat land of dark night, For this memory of one mouth and a forehead they go on in the gray rain and the mud, they go on among the boots and guns. The horizon ahead is a thousand fang flashes, it is […]...
21. Pals Take a hold now On the silver handles here, Six silver handles, One for each of his old pals. Take hold And lift him down the stairs, Put him on the rollers Over the floor of the hearse. Take him on the last haul, To the cold straight house, The level even house, To the […]...
22. Starlings in Winter Chunky and noisy, But with stars in their black feathers, They spring from the telephone wire And instantly They are acrobats In the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, They swing over buildings, Dipping and rising; They float like one stippled star That opens, Becomes for a moment fragmented, Then closes again; […]...
23. Eating Poetry Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad And she walks with her hands in her dress. The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs […]...
24. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
25. Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring Seven stars in the still water, And seven in the sky; Seven sins on the King’s daughter, Deep in her soul to lie. Red roses are at her feet, (Roses are red in her red-gold hair) And O where her bosom and girdle meet Red roses are hidden there. Fair is the knight who lieth […]...
26. Climbing You I want to understand the steep thing That climbs ladders in your throat. I can’t make sense of you. Everywhere I look you’re there A vast landmark, a volcano Poking its head through the clouds, Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput. I climb into your eyes, looking. The pupils are black painted stage flats. They can be […]...
27. Fire-Caught The gold moth did not love him So, gorgeous, she flew away. But the gray moth circled the flame Until the break of day. And then, with wings like a dead desire, She fell, fire-caught, into the flame....
28. The Borders To say that she came into me, From another world, is not true. Nothing comes into the universe And nothing leaves it. My mother-I mean my daughter did not Enter me. She began to exist Inside me-she appeared within me. And my mother did not enter me. When she lay down, to pray, on me, […]...
29. The Quarrel The word I spoke in anger Weighs less than a parsley seed, But a road runs through it That leads to my grave, That bought-and-paid-for lot On a salt-sprayed hill in Truro Where the scrub pines Overlook the bay. Half-way I’m dead enough, Strayed from my own nature And my fierce hold on life. If […]...
30. A Book Full of Pictures Father studied theology through the mail And this was exam time. Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book Full of pictures. Night fell. My hands grew cold touching the faces Of dead kings and queens. There was a black raincoat in the upstairs bedroom Swaying from the ceiling, But what was it doing there? […]...
31. Little Little Man Little little man, little little man, Set free your canary that wants to fly. I am that canary, little little man, Leave me to fly. I was in your cage, little little man, Little little man who gave me my cage. I say “little little” because you don’t understand me Nor will you understand. Nor […]...
32. A MEMORY AT SIXTY They have vanished, the pop men with their varnished crates Of Tizer and dandy, American ice-cream soda and one percent shandy. The clunk of frothy quarts dumped on donkey-stoned doorsteps Is heard no more, nor the neighs of restless mares between the shafts. The shining brass of harness hangs in bar-rooms or droops From imitation […]...
33. Home Burial He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see From up there always for […]...
34. In the Trenches I snatched two poppies From the parapet’s ledge, Two bright red poppies That winked on the ledge. Behind my ear I stuck one through, One blood red poppy I gave to you. The sandbags narrowed And screwed out our jest, And tore the poppy You had on your breast… Down – a shell – O! […]...
35. The Free-Selector's Daughter I met her on the Lachlan Side A darling girl I thought her, And ere I left I swore I’d win The free-selector’s daughter. I milked her father’s cows a month, I brought the wood and water, I mended all the broken fence, Before I won the daughter. I listened to her father’s yarns, I […]...
36. Flight Of Stairs Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers Before they close them. They curiously investigate […]...
37. Why? American Detectives Never remove their hats When investigating murders In other people’s flats. P. S. Chinese Tecs Are far more dreaded! And they always appear Bare-headed!...
38. Marble Stairs Grievance On Marble Stairs Still grows the white dew That has all night Soaked her silk slippers, But she lets down Her crystal blind now And sees through glaze The moon of autumn....
39. True Love In silence the heart raves. It utters words Meaningless, that never had A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed, Freckled. In a big black Buick, Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat In front of the drugstore, sipping something Through a straw. There is nothing like Beauty. It stops your heart. […]...
40. 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 […]...