THE DREAMER, THE SLEEP

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1. Understanding lemons lemons don’t let you admire yourself too much They stick from their tree like awkward thoughts Demanding a truth be told even if the tongue Would prefer a far more sickly explanation Lemons are perfect though for the need to jump Straight out of bed on the eagerest of mornings Into the task that must […]...
2. The Dreamer The lone man gazed and gazed upon his gold, His sweat, his blood, the wage of weary days; But now how sweet, how doubly sweet to hold All gay and gleamy to the campfire blaze. The evening sky was sinister and cold; The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow; The uncommiserating land, so old, So […]...
3. LEFTOVERS Empty chocolate boxes, a pillowcase with an orange at the bottom, Nuts and tinsel with its idiosyncratic rustle and brilliant sheen And the reflection in it of paper-chains hand-made and stuck with Flour-paste stretching from the light-bowl to every corner of the room. Father Christmas himself was plastic and his vast stomach painted red With […]...
4. THE DAYS GO BY for Daniel Weissbort Some poems meant only for my eyes About a grief I can’t let go But I want to, want to throw It away like an old worn-out cloak Or screw up like a ball of over-written Trash and toss into the corner bin. I said it must come up or out I […]...
5. I Sleep a Lot I sleep a lot and read St. Thomas Aquinas Or The Death of God (that’s a Protestant book). To the right the bay as if molten tin, Beyond the bay, city, beyond the city, ocean, Beyond the ocean, ocean, till Japan. To the left dry hills with white grass, Beyond the hills an irrigated valley […]...
6. Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright Sleep! sleep! beauty bright, Dreaming o’er the joys of night; Sleep! sleep! in thy sleep Little sorrows sit and weep. Sweet Babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles. As thy softest limbs I feel, Smiles as of the morning steal O’er thy cheek, and […]...
7. Come Sleep, O Sleep! The Certain Knot Of Peace Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release, Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low; With shield of proof shield me from out the press Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw! O make in me […]...
8. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
9. Clothes Put on a clean shirt Before you die, some Russian said. Nothing with drool, please, No egg spots, no blood, No sweat, no sperm. You want me clean, God, So I’ll try to comply. The hat I was married in, Will it do? White, broad, fake flowers in a tiny array. It’s old-fashioned, as stylish […]...
10. Campo di Fiori In Rome on the Campo di Fiori Baskets of olives and lemons, Cobbles spattered with wine And the wreckage of flowers. Vendors cover the trestles With rose-pink fish; Armfuls of dark grapes Heaped on peach-down. On this same square They burned Giordano Bruno. Henchmen kindled the pyre Close-pressed by the mob. Before the flames had […]...
11. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
12. City That Does Not Sleep In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody. Nobody is asleep. The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins. The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream, And the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner The unbelievable alligator […]...
13. Elizabeth Elizabeth, it surely is most fit [Logic and common usage so commanding] In thy own book that first thy name be writ, Zeno and other sages notwithstanding; And I have other reasons for so doing Besides my innate love of contradiction; Each poet – if a poet – in pursuing The muses thro’ their bowers […]...
14. A Suggestion As I go and shop, sir! If a car I stop, sir! Where you chance to sit, And you want to read, sir! Never mind or heed, sir! I’ll not care a bit. For it’s now aesthetic To be quite athletic. That’s our fad, you know. I can hold the strap, sir! And keep off […]...
15. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
16. To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses’ day, their morning star! If works, not th’ author’s, their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your book? But these, desir’d by you, the maker’s ends Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends. Yet satires, since […]...
17. A long long Sleep A famous Sleep A long long Sleep A famous Sleep That makes no show for Morn By Stretch of Limb or stir of Lid An independent One Was ever idleness like This? Upon a Bank of Stone To bask the Centuries away Nor once look up for Noon?...
18. Forgetfulness The name of the author is the first to go Followed obediently by the title, the plot, The heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel Which suddenly becomes one you have never read, Never even heard of, As if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor Decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the […]...
19. A FINE MADNESS Any poets about or bored muses fancying a day out? Rainy, windy, cold Leeds City Station Half-way through its slow chaotic transformation Contractors’ morning break, overalls, hard hats and harness Flood McDonalds where I sip my tea and try to translate Valйry. London has everything except my bardic inspiration I’ve only to step off the […]...
20. Autumn Day Four Translations Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow on the sundials And let loose the wind in the fields. Bid the last fruits to be full; Give them another two more southerly days, Press them to ripeness, and chase The last sweetness into the heavy wine. Whoever has no house […]...
21. I Am Going to Sleep Teeth of flowers, hairnet of dew, Hands of herbs, you, perfect wet nurse, Prepare the earthly sheets for me And the down quilt of weeded moss. I am going to sleep, my nurse, put me to bed. Set a lamp at my headboard; A constellation; whatever you like; All are good: lower it a bit. […]...
22. Sleep COME, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving Lock me in delight awhile; Let some pleasing dreams beguile All my fancies; that from thence I may feel an influence All my powers of care bereaving! Though but a shadow, but a sliding, Let me know some little joy! We that suffer long annoy Are contented with […]...
23. Sleep Do you give yourself to me utterly, Body and no-body, flesh and no-flesh Not as a fugitive, blindly or bitterly, But as a child might, with no other wish? Yes, utterly. Then I shall bear you down my estuary, Carry you and ferry you to burial mysteriously, Take you and receive you, Consume you, engulf […]...
24. To Say Before Going To Sleep I would like to sing someone to sleep, Have someone to sit by and be with. I would like to cradle you and softly sing, Be your companion while you sleep or wake. I would like to be the only person In the house who knew: the night outside was cold. And would like to […]...
25. Ode To Sleep On this my pensive pillow, gentle Sleep! Descend, in all thy downy plumage drest: Wipe with thy wing these eyes that wake to weep, And place thy crown of poppies on my breast. O steep my senses in oblivion’s balm, And sooth my throbbing pulse with lenient hand; This tempest of my boiling blood becalm! […]...
26. Before Sleep I was in love with anatomy The symmetry of my body Poised for flight, The heights it would take Over parents, lovers, a keen Riding over truth and detail. I thought growing up would be This rising from everything Old and earthly, Not these faltering steps out the door Every day, then back again....
27. Sleep Sleep, when a soul that her own clouds cover Wails that sorrow should always keep Watch, nor see in the gloom above her Sleep, Down, through darkness naked and steep, Sinks, and the gifts of his grace recover Soon the soul, though her wound be deep. God beloved of us, all men’s lover, All most […]...
28. Sleep There was a man who didn’t know how to sleep; nodding Off every night into a drab, unprofessional sleep. Sleep that He’d grown so tired of sleeping. He tried reading The Manual of Sleep, but it just put him To sleep. That same old sleep that he had grown so tired of Sleeping. . . […]...
29. If I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again – Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) A hurrying man-who happened to […]...
30. Sleep Now, O Sleep Now Sleep now, O sleep now, O you unquiet heart! A voice crying “Sleep now” Is heard in my heart. The voice of the winter Is heard at the door. O sleep, for the winter Is crying “Sleep no more.” My kiss will give peace now And quiet to your heart – Sleep on in peace […]...
31. Before Sleep The lateral vibrations caress me, They leap and caress me, They work pathetically in my favour, They seek my financial good. She of the spear stands present. The gods of the underworld attend me, O Annubis, These are they of thy company. With a pathetic solicitude they attend me; Undulant, Their realm is the lateral […]...
32. Not to sleep Not to sleep all the night long, for pure joy, Counting no sheep and careless of chimes Welcoming the dawn confabulation Of birch, her children, who discuss idly Fanciful details of the promised coming – Will she be wearing red, or russet, or blue, Or pure white? – whatever she wears, glorious: Not to sleep […]...
33. Sleep Come Sleep; O Sleep! the certain knot of peace, The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release, Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low; With shield of proof shield me from out the prease Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw: O make in me […]...
34. Those Images What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There’s better exercise In the sunlight and wind. I never bade you go To Moscow or to Rome. Renounce that drudgery, Call the Muses home. Seek those images That constitute the wild, The lion and the virgin, The harlot and the child. Find in […]...
35. To Sleep O soft embalmer of the still midnight, Shutting, with careful fingers and benign, Our gloom-pleas’d eyes, embower’d from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine: O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes, Or wait the “Amen,” ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling […]...
36. Sleep she was a short one Getting fat and she had once been Beautiful and She drank the wine She drank the wine in bed and Talked and screamed and cursed at Me And i told her Please, I need some Sleep. -sleep? sleep? ya son of a Bitch, ya never sleep, ya Don’t need any […]...
37. Sleep In the night of weariness Let me give myself up to sleep without struggle, Resting my trust upon thee. Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship. It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day To renew its sight in a […]...
38. I Fellowed Sleep I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain, Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper’s eye, Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon. So, planning-heeled, I flew along my man And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky. I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather, Reaching a second ground […]...
39. Bells, Pool And Sleep Bells overbrim with sound And spread from cupolas Out through the shaking air Endless unbreaking circles Cool and clear as water. A stone dropped in the water Opens the lips of the pool And starts the unovertaking Rings, till the pool is full Of waves as the air of bells. The deep-sea bell of sleep […]...
40. The Sleep-Worker When wilt thou wake, O Mother, wake and see – As one who, held in trance, has laboured long By vacant rote and prepossession strong – The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly; Wherein have place, unrealized by thee, Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong, Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song, And curious […]...