Book Passion

Related poetry:

1. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. Remember Him, Whom Passion's Power Remember him, whom Passion’s power Severely – deeply – vainly proved: Remember thou that dangerous hour, When neither fell, though both were loved. That yielding breast, that melting eye, Too much invited to be blessed: That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh, The wilder wish reproved, repressed. Oh! let me feel that all I lost But […]...
4. Book Ends I Baked the day she suddenly dropped dead We chew it slowly that last apple pie. Shocked into sleeplessness you’re scared of bed. We never could talk much, and now don’t try. You’re like book ends, the pair of you, she’d say, Hog that grate, say nothing, sit, sleep, stare… The ‘scholar’ me, you, worn […]...
5. Trilogy of Passion: I. TO WERTHER [This poem, written at the age of seventy-five, was appended to An edition of ‘Werther,’ published at that time.] ONCE more, then, much-wept shadow, thou dost dare Boldly to face the day’s clear light, To meet me on fresh blooming meadows fair, And dost not tremble at my sight. Those happy times appear return’d once […]...
6. Reason and Passion XV And the priestess spoke again and said: “Speak to us of Reason and Passion.” And he answered saying: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and […]...
7. The Height of the Ridiculous I WROTE some lines once on a time In wondrous merry mood, And thought, as usual, men would say They were exceeding good. They were so queer, so very queer, I laughed as I would die; Albeit, in the general way, A sober man am I. I called my servant, and he came; How kind […]...
8. I Go Back To The House For A Book I turn around on the gravel And go back to the house for a book, Something to read at the doctor’s office, And while I am inside, running the finger Of inquisition along a shelf, Another me that did not bother To go back to the house for a book Heads out on his own, […]...
9. The Passion I Ere-while of Musick, and Ethereal mirth, Wherwith the stage of Ayr and Earth did ring, And joyous news of heav’nly Infants birth, My muse with Angels did divide to sing; But headlong joy is ever on the wing, In Wintry solstice like the shortn’d light Soon swallow’d up in dark and long out-living night. […]...
10. Growing Old What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not for this alone. Is it to feel our strength – Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow […]...
11. The Book of Urizen: Chapter VII 1. They named the child Orc, he grew Fed with milk of Enitharmon 2. Los awoke her; O sorrow & pain! A tight’ning girdle grew, Around his bosom. In sobbings He burst the girdle in twain, But still another girdle Opressd his bosom, In sobbings Again he burst it. Again Another girdle succeeds The girdle […]...
12. A Soliloquy Of The Full Moon, She Being In A Mad Passion Now as Heaven is my Lot, they’re the Pests of the Nation! Wherever they can come With clankum and blankum ‘Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation, With fun, jeering Conjuring Sky-staring, Loungering, And still to the tune of Transmogrification Those muttering Spluttering Ventriloquogusty Poets With no Hats Or Hats that are rusty. They’re my […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. When I read the Book WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life? And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life; Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or […]...
15. Leisure What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full […]...
16. A Fleeting Passion Thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not romp, Let’s grimly kiss with bated breath; As quietly and solemnly As Life when it is kissing Death. Now in the silence of the grave, My hand is squeezing that soft breast; While thou dost in such passion lie, It mocks me with its look of rest. But […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. Trilogy of Passion: II. ELEGY When man had ceased to utter his lament, A god then let me tell my tale of sorrow. WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now In the still-closed blossoms of this day? Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou; What wav’ring thoughts within the bosom play No longer doubt! Descending from the […]...
19. Passion SOME have won a wild delight, By daring wilder sorrow; Could I gain thy love to-night, I’d hazard death to-morrow. Could the battle-struggle earn One kind glance from thine eye, How this withering heart would burn, The heady fight to try! Welcome nights of broken sleep, And days of carnage cold, Could I deem that […]...
20. Sestina for Jim Cummins In Iowa, Jim dreamed that Della Street was Anne Sexton’s Twin. Dave drew a comic strip called the “Adventures of Whitman,” About a bearded beer-guzzler in Superman uniform. Donna dressed like Wallace Stevens In a seersucker summer suit. To town came Ted Berrigan, Saying, “My idea of a bad poet is Marvin […]...
21. The Book of Urizen: Chapter IX 1. Then the Inhabitants of those Cities: Felt their Nerves change into Marrow And hardening Bones began In swift diseases and torments, In throbbings & shootings & grindings Thro’ all the coasts; till weaken’d The Senses inward rush’d shrinking, Beneath the dark net of infection. 2. Till the shrunken eyes clouded over Discernd not the […]...
22. The Book of Urizen: Chapter VI 1. But Los saw the Female & pitied He embrac’d her, she wept, she refus’d In perverse and cruel delight She fled from his arms, yet he followd 2. Eternity shudder’d when they saw, Man begetting his likeness, On his own divided image. 3. A time passed over, the Eternals Began to erect the tent; […]...
23. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
24. The Book of Urizen: Chapter V 1. In terrors Los shrunk from his task: His great hammer fell from his hand: His fires beheld, and sickening, Hid their strong limbs in smoke. For with noises ruinous loud; With hurtlings & clashings & groans The Immortal endur’d his chains, Tho’ bound in a deadly sleep. 2. All the myriads of Eternity: All […]...
25. Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing The light along the hills in the morning Comes down slowly, naming the trees White, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate. Notice what this poem is not doing. A house, a house, a barn, the old Quarry, where the river shrugs How much of this place is yours? Notice what this poem is […]...
26. Accepted You are no longer young, Nor are you very old. There are homes where those belong. You know you do not fit When you observe the cold Stares of those who sit In bath-chairs or the park (A stick, then, at their side) Or find yourself in the dark And see the lovers who, In […]...
27. Bridge Over The Aire Book 6 THE WALK TO THE PARADISE GARDENS 1 Bonfire Night beckoned us to the bridge By Saint Hilda’s where we started down Knostrop to chump but I trailed behind With Margaret when it was late September The song of summer ceased and fires in Blackleaded grates began and we were Hidden from the others by the […]...
28. The Travail Of Passion When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide; When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay; Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side, The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream; We will bend down and loosen our hair over you, That […]...
29. While we were fearing it, it came While we were fearing it, it came But came with less of fear Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it fair There is a Fitting a Dismay A Fitting a Despair ‘Tis harder knowing it is Due Than knowing it is Here. They Trying on the Utmost The Morning it is new […]...
30. Said Death to Passion Said Death to Passion “Give of thine an Acre unto me.” Said Passion, through contracting Breaths “A Thousand Times Thee Nay.” Bore Death from Passion All His East He sovereign as the Sun Resituated in the West And the Debate was done....
31. La Passion Vaincue On the Banks of the Severn a desperate Maid (Whom some Shepherd, neglecting his Vows, had betray’d,) Stood resolving to banish all Sense of the Pain, And pursue, thro’ her Death, a Revenge on the Swain. Since the Gods, and my Passion, at once he defies; Since his Vanity lives, whilst my Character dies; No […]...
32. Bridge Over The Aire Book 5 MOORING POSTS 1 The mooring posts marked on the South Leeds map Of 1908 still line the Aire’s side, huge, red With rust, they stand by the Council’s Transpennine Trail opposite the bricked and boarded up Hunslet Mills with trees growing from its top storey, roofless, Open to the enormous skies of our childhood. The […]...
33. Trilogy of Passion: III. ATONEMENT [Composed, when 74 years old, for a Polish lady, who excelled in Playing on the pianoforte.] PASSION brings reason who can pacify An anguish’d heart whose loss hath been so great? Where are the hours that fled so swiftly by? In vain the fairest thou didst gain from fate; Sad is the soul, confused the […]...
34. The Book of Annandale I Partly to think, more to be left alone, George Annandale said something to his friends – A word or two, brusque, but yet smoothed enough To suit their funeral gaze-and went upstairs; And there, in the one room that he could call His own, he found a sort of meaningless Annoyance in the mute […]...
35. Turns And Movies: Rose And Murray After the movie, when the lights come up, He takes her powdered hand behind the wings; She, all in yellow, like a buttercup, Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings; And with a silent, gliding step they move Over the footlights, in familiar glare, Panther-like in the Tango whirl of love, He […]...
36. The Book of Urizen: Chapter IV a 1. Los smitten with astonishment Frightend at the hurtling bones 2. And at the surging sulphureous Perturbed Immortal mad raging 3. In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre Round the furious limbs of Los 4. And Los formed nets & gins And threw the nets round about 5. He watch’d in shuddring fear The dark […]...
37. 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 […]...
38. The Maid-Servant At The Inn “It’s queer,” she said; “I see the light As plain as I beheld it then, All silver-like and calm and bright- We’ve not had stars like that again! “And she was such a gentle thing To birth a baby in the cold. The barn was dark and frightening- This new one’s better than the old. […]...
39. Endymion: Book IV Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse! O first-born on the mountains! by the hues Of heaven on the spiritual air begot: Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot, While yet our England was a wolfish den; Before our forests heard the talk of men; Before the first of Druids was a child; Long […]...
40. Endymion: Book II O Sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm! All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm, And shadowy, through the mist of passed years: For others, good or bad, hatred and tears Have become indolent; but touching thine, One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine, One kiss brings honey-dew from buried days. […]...