On Reading A Recent Greek Poet

Related poetry:

1. Dream Song 48: He yelled at me in Greek He yelled at me in Greek, My God! —It’s not his language And I’m no good at—his Aramaic, Was—I am a monoglot of English (American version) and, say pieces from A baker’s dozen others: where’s the bread? But rising in the Second Gospel, pal: The seed goes down, god dies, A rising happens, Some crust, […]...
2. Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet At this height, Kansas Is just a concept, A checkerboard design of wheat and corn No larger than the foldout section Of my neighbor’s travel magazine. At this stage of the journey I would estimate the distance Between myself and my own feelings Is roughly the same as the mileage From Seattle to New York, […]...
3. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
4. Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels (with apologies to Frederic Taber Cooper) I well recall (and who does not) The circus bill-board hippopotamus, Whose wide distended jaws For fear and terror were good cause. That month, that vasty carmine cave, Could munch with ease a Nubian slave; In fact, the bill-board hippopot- Amus could bolt a house and lot! Wide opened, […]...
5. DEATH OF A POET for Wendy Oliver, who knew him I am the sick animal you dream you are caring for In the long avenues of night I cannot find a name For the sickness except the despair of a poet sensing his veins Silt up like the delta of a neglected river with none of the solace Sidney […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. The Poetry Reading at high noon At a small college near the beach Sober The sweat running down my arms A spot of sweat on the table I flatten it with my finger Blood money blood money My god they must think I love this like the others But it’s for bread and beer and rent Blood money […]...
8. Diya {original title is Greek, Delta-iota-psi-alpha} Look, Dear, how bright the moonlight is to-night! See where it casts the shadow of that tree Far out upon the grass. And every gust Of light night wind comes laden with the scent Of opening flowers which never bloom by day: Night-scented stocks, and four-o’clocks, and that Pale yellow disk, upreared on its tall […]...
9. Variations of Greek Themes I A HAPPY MAN (Carphyllides) When these graven lines you see, Traveler, do not pity me; Though I be among the dead, Let no mournful word be said. Children that I leave behind, And their children, all were kind; Near to them and to my wife, I was happy all my life. My three sons […]...
10. The Ballad Of Reading Gaol (In memoriam C. T. W. Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards Obiit H. M. prison, Reading, Berkshire July 7, 1896) I He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom […]...
11. [Greek Title] Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee, O Willer masked and dumb! Who makest Life become, – As though by labouring all-unknowingly, Like one whom reveries numb. How much of consciousness informs Thy will Thy biddings, as if blind, Of death-inducing kind, Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill But moments in Thy […]...
12. A Poet at Twenty Images leap with him from branch to branch. His eyes Brighten, his head cocks, he pauses under a green bough, Alert. And when I see him I want to hide him somewhere. The other wood is past the hill. But he will enter it, and find the particular maple. He will walk through the door […]...
13. A Greek Girl I may not weep, not weep, and he is dead. A weary, weary weight of tears unshed Through the long day in my sad heart I bear; The horrid sun with all unpitying glare Shines down into the dreary weaving-room, Where clangs the ceaseless clatter of the loom, And ceaselessly deft maiden-fingers weave The fine-wrought […]...
14. Greek Love-Talk What I have already learned as a lover, I see you, beloved, learning angrily; Then for you it distantly departed, Now your destiny stands in all the stars. Over your breasts we will together contend: Since as glowingly shining they’ve ripened, So also your hands desire to touch them And their own pleasure superintend....
15. To the dead poet of obscurity (In honor of the dead unpublished poet) Well done! You have won! You should not feel sorry. Your unpublished poems -always remember- Have not been buried, Haven’t bent Under the strength of time. Like gold Inside the soil They remain, They never melt. They may be late But they will be given To their people […]...
16. Fragment of a Greek Tragedy CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom Whence by what way how purposed art thou come To this well-nightingaled vicinity? My object in inquiring is to know. But if you happen to be deaf and dumb And do not understand a word I say, Then wave your hand, to signify as much. […]...
17. The Greek National Anthem We knew thee of old, Oh divinely restored, By the light of thine eyes And the light of they Sword. From the graves of our slain Shall thy valour prevail As we greet thee again Hail, Liberty! Hail! Long time didst thou dwell Mid the peoples that mourn, Awaiting some voice That should bid thee […]...
18. Echoes From the Greek Mythology I – STARLIGHT With two bright eyes, my star, my love, Thou lookest on the stars above: Ah, would that I the heaven might be With a million eyes to look on thee. Plato. II – ROSELEAF A little while the rose, And after that the thorn; An hour of dewy morn, And then the […]...
19. On a Theme in the Greek Anthology Thy petals yet are closely curled, Rose of the world, Around their scented, golden core; Nor yet has Summer purpled o’er Thy tender clusters that begin To swell within The dewy vine-leaves’ early screen Of sheltering green. O hearts that are Love’s helpless prey, While yet you may, Fly, ere the shaft is on the […]...
20. A Thought or Two on Reading Pomfret's I have been reading Pomfret’s “Choice” this spring, A pretty kind of sort of kind of thing, Not much a verse, and poem none at all, Yet, as they say, extremely natural. And yet I know not. There’s an art in pies, In raising crusts as well as galleries; And he’s the poet, more or […]...
21. My young son asks me My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics? What is the use, I feel like saying. That two pieces Of bread are more than one’s about all you’ll end up with. My young son asks me: Must I learn French? What is the use, I feel like saying. This State’s collapsing. And if you […]...
22. LAO-TSE PREPARES A VERDICT Nothing of what I say May deviate the fall of a leaf. A word will not Detain the other one. It’s useless for me to dedicate A truth to these listeners: They will turn it into pieces. From its pieces Lao-Tsé will be born....
23. Who is now Reading This? WHO is now reading this? May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life, Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me, Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision, Or may-be one who is puzzled at me. As if I […]...
24. Mother and Poet I. Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea. Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast And are wanting a great song for Italy free, Let none look at me! II. Yet I was a poetess only last […]...
25. Silence of reading i like the silence of reading Flat on my stomach on the woollen floor My legs waving upwards like the fronds of ferns And in my mind Gigantic screaming monsters Or the mystery ship Scuttling crablike to the shore I am lost to the spell of words The enchantment of sea in the silent shell […]...
26. Reading the Obituaries Now the Barbaras have begun to die, Trailing their older sisters to the grave, The Helens, Margies, Nans-who said goodbye Just days ago, it seems, taking their leave A step or two behind the hooded girls Who bloomed and withered with the century- The Dorotheas, Eleanors and Pearls Now swaying on the edge of memory. […]...
27. Lines On Reading Too Many Poets Roses, rooted warm in earth, Bud in rhyme, another age; Lilies know a ghostly birth Strewn along a patterned page; Golden lad and chimbley sweep Die; and so their song shall keep. Wind that in Arcadia starts In and out a couplet plays; And the drums of bitter hearts Beat the measure of a phrase. […]...
28. A Poetry Reading At West Point I read to the entire plebe class, In two batches. Twice the hall filled With bodies dressed alike, each toting A copy of my book. What would my Shrink say, if I had one, about Such a dream, if it were a dream? Question and answer time. “Sir,” a cadet yelled from the balcony, And […]...
29. If your Nerve, deny you If your Nerve, deny you Go above your Nerve He can lean against the Grave, If he fear to swerve That’s a steady posture Never any bend Held of those Brass arms Best Giant made If your Soul seesaw Lift the Flesh door The Poltroon wants Oxygen Nothing more...
30. Reading The Brothers Grimm To Jenny Jenny, your mind commands Kingdoms of black and white: You shoulder the crow on your left, The snowbird on your right; For you the cinders part And let the lentils through, And noise falls into place As screech or sweet roo-coo, While in my own, real, world Gray foxes and gray wolves Bargain eye to […]...
31. Written Before Re-Reading King Lear O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute. Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
32. To A Young Poet Who Killed Himself When you had played with life a space And made it drink and lust and sing, You flung it back into God’s face And thought you did a noble thing. “Lo, I have lived and loved,” you said, “And sung to fools too dull to hear me. Now for a cool and grassy bed With […]...
33. On Reading Omar Khayyam [During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.] In the midst of the battle I turned, (For the thunders could flourish without me) And hid by a rose-hung wall, Forgetting the murder about me; And wrote, from my wound, on the stone, In mirth, half prayer, half play: – “Send me a picture book, Send me […]...
34. A Study Of Reading Habits When getting my nose in a book Cured most things short of school, It was worth ruining my eyes To know I could still keep cool, And deal out the old right hook To dirty dogs twice my size. Later, with inch-thick specs, Evil was just my lark: Me and my coat and fangs Had […]...
35. The Poet's Forge He lies on his back, the idling smith, A lazy, dreaming fellow is he; The sky is blue, or the sky is gray, He lies on his back the livelong day, Not a tool in sight, say what they may, A curious sort of smith is he. The powers of the air are in league […]...
36. John Wasson Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing, One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing, Lengthening out the farewell to me off to the war with the British, And then the long, hard years down to the day of Yorktown. And then […]...
37. Girl In A Miniskirt Reading The Bible Outside My Window Sunday, I am eating a Grapefruit, church is over at the Russian Orthadox to the West. She is dark Of Eastern descent, Large brown eyes look up from the Bible Then down. a small red and black Bible, and as she reads Her legs keep moving, moving, She is doing a slow rythmic dance Reading […]...
38. A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode Of Paolo And Francesca As Hermes once took to his feathers light, When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept, So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes; And seeing it asleep, so fled away, Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies, Nor unto […]...
39. Rainbow (II) You made us hopeful, LORD; where is your Hope When every lovely Rainbow bright and chill Reflects your Will? You made us artful, LORD; where is your Art, As we connive our way to easeful death: Sad waste of Breath! You made us needful, LORD; what is your Need, When all desire lies in imperfection? […]...
40. ON FIRST READING JOHN GOODBY'S 'IRISH POETRY SINCE 1950&#039 Barbarous insult to Yeats’ memory and Claudel’s Allen, thank God you are dead, you who breathed the air of Apollinaire, Ghost of Reverdy bear witness to the mendacity of his clamour, Hart Crane, rise from the estuary of the great river you drowned in, John Clare, rise from your country churchyard grave, Gray, from your […]...