On The Critical Attitude

Related poetry:

1. The Sugar-Plum Tree Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree? ‘T is a marvel of great renown! It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea In the garden of Shut-Eye Town; The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet (As those who have tasted it say) That good little children have only to eat Of […]...
2. Attitude To A Miss That night was to decide If she and I Were to be lovers. Under cover Of darkness No one would see, you see. I bent over her, it’s the truth, And as I did, It’s the truth, I swear it, I said Like a kindly parent: “Passion’s a precipice – So won’t you please Move […]...
3. One Size Fits All: A Critical Essay Though Already Perhaps However. On one level, Among other things, With And with. In a similar vein To be sure: Make no mistake. Nary a trace. However, Aside from With And with, Not And not, Rather Manifestly Indeed. Which is to say, In fictional terms, For reasons that are never made clear, Not without meaning, […]...
4. Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun Too volatile, am I? too voluble? too much a word-person? I blame the soup:I’m a primordially Stirred person. Two pronouns and a vehicle was Icarus with wings. The apparatus of his selves made an ab- Surd person. The sound I make is sympathy’s:sad dogs are tied afar. But howling I become an ever more un- […]...
5. Mengcheng Col New house Mengcheng entrance Old tree surplus sorrow willow Come person again for who Only sorrow former person be Who will come after, I do not know, He must feel sorrow for those in the past....
6. To His Two Children In the land of Wu the mulberry leaves are green, And thrice the silkworms have gone to sleep. In East Luh where my family stay, I wonder who is sowing those fields of ours. I cannot be back in time for the spring doings, Yet I can help nothing, traveling on the river. The south […]...
7. Behavior BEHAVIOR-fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself, Nature and the Soul expressed-America and freedom expressed-In it the finest art, In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance, In it physique, intellect, faith-in it just as much as to manage an army or a city, or to write a book-perhaps more, The youth, […]...
8. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
9. My Heart Is Heavy My heart is heavy with many a song Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree, But I can never give you one My songs do not belong to me. Yet in the evening, in the dusk When moths go to and fro, In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen, Take it, no one […]...
10. The bottle tree A bottle tree bloometh in Winkyway land – Heigh-ho for a bottle, I say! A snug little berth in that ship I demand That rocketh the Bottle-Tree babies away Where the Bottle Tree bloometh by night and by day And reacheth its fruit to each wee, dimpled hand; You take of that fruit as much […]...
11. Says 1 I SAY whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is finally right. 2 I say nourish a great intellect, a great brain; If I have said anything to the contrary, I hereby retract it. 3 I say man shall not hold property in man; I say the least developed person on earth […]...
12. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. My Orcha'd in Linden Lea ‘Ithin the woodlands, flow’ry gleaded, By the woak tree’s mossy moot, The sheenen grass-bleades, timber-sheaded, Now do quiver under voot; An’ birds do whissle over head, An’ water’s bubblen in its bed, An’ there vor me the apple tree Do lean down low in Linden Lea. When leaves that leately wer a-springen Now do feade […]...
15. THE OWLS UNDER the overhanging yews, The dark owls sit in solemn state, Like stranger gods; by twos and twos Their red eyes gleam. They meditate. Motionless thus they sit and dream Until that melancholy hour When, with the sun’s last fading gleam, The nightly shades assume their power. From their still attitude the wise Will learn […]...
16. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
17. Safety-Clutch Once I seen a human ruin In a elevator-well. And his members was bestrewin’ All the place where he had fell. And I says, apostrophisin’ That uncommon woful wreck: “Your position’s so surprisin’ That I tremble for your neck!” Then that ruin, smilin’ sadly And impressive, up and spoke: “Well, I wouldn’t tremble badly, For […]...
18. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
19. A SIMPLE POEM I want you to continue writing Because I will not always be around With lips that will never touch mine Read your poems out loud So that the words are left engraved On the wall Make me feel your voice rush through me Like a breeze from Oyá I want to hear about Puerto Rico […]...
20. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
21. The Robbers Alas! I see that thrushes three Are ravishing my old fig tree, In whose green shade I smoked my pipe And waited for the fruit to ripe; From green to purple softly swell Then drop into my lap to tell That it is succulently sweet And excellent to eat. And now I see the crimson […]...
22. There Was a Cherry-Tree There was a cherry-tree. Its bloomy snows Cool even now the fevered sight that knows No more its airy visions of pure joy As when you were a boy. There was a cherry-tree. The Bluejay sat His blue against its white O blue as jet He seemed there then! But now Whoever knew He was […]...
23. Foreign Lands Up into the cherry tree Who should climb but little me? I held the trunk with both my hands And looked abroad in foreign lands. I saw the next door garden lie, Adorned with flowers, before my eye, And many pleasant places more That I had never seen before. I saw the dimpling river pass […]...
24. A Song Of A Young Lady To Her Ancient Lover Ancient Person, for whom I All the flattering youth defy, Long be it e’er thou grow old, Aching, shaking, crazy cold; But still continue as thou art, Ancient Person of my heart. On thy withered lips and dry, Which like barren furrows lie, Brooding kisses I will pour, Shall thy youthful heart restore, Such kind […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Penniwit, the Artist I lost my patronage in Spoon River From trying to put my mind in the camera To catch the soul of the person. The very best picture I ever took Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law. He sat upright and had me pause Till he got his cross-eye straight. Then when he was ready […]...
27. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
28. TO BLOSSOMS Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, Why do ye fall so fast? Your date is not so past, But you may stay yet here a-while, To blush and gently smile; And go at last. What, were ye born to be An hour or half’s delight; And so to bid good-night? ‘Twas pity Nature brought ye […]...
29. What Kind Of A Person “What kind of a person are you,” I heard them say to me. I’m a person with a complex plumbing of the soul, Sophisticated instruments of feeling and a system Of controlled memory at the end of the twentieth century, But with an old body from ancient times And with a God even older than […]...
30. Window I looked out the window at dawn and saw a young apple tree Translucent in brightness. And when I looked out at dawn once again, an apple tree laden with Fruit stood there. Many years had probably gone by but I remember nothing of what Happened in my sleep....
31. The Song of the Oak The Druids waved their golden knives And danced around the Oak When they had sacrificed a man; But though the learned search and scan No single modern person can Entirely see the joke. But though they cut the throats of men They cut not down the tree, And from the blood the saplings spring Of […]...
32. Dartside, 1849 I cannot tell what you say green leaves, I cannot tell what you say : But I know that there is a spirit in you, And a word in you this day. I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks, I cannot tell what you say : But I know that there is a spirit […]...
33. Addiction What have I became in this false fantasy? Thriving on something sweet, submerging into another world. Without it I tumble transforming into nothing. I’m locked in a stalemate not capable to stir. Look closely through my eyes, as deep as the end of sight. See! My ailment and do your very best to repair. Save […]...
34. Forbidden Fruit all the forbidden fruit I ever Dreamt of or was taught to Resist and fear ripens and Blossoms under the palms of my Hands as they uncover and explore You and in the most secret Corners of my heart as it discovers And adores you the forbidden fruit Of forgiveness the forbidden fruit Of finally […]...
35. Cosmopolitan Greetings To Struga Festival Golden Wreath Laureates & International Bards 1986 Stand up against governments, against God. Stay irresponsible. Say only what we know & imagine. Absolutes are coercion. Change is absolute. Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions. Observe what’s vivid. Notice what you notice. Catch yourself thinking. Vividness is self-selecting. If we don’t show anyone, we’re […]...
36. Creation Wherever the dead are there they are and Nothing more. But you and I can expect To see angels in the meadowgrass that look Like cows – And wherever we are in paradise In furnished room without bath and Six flights up Is all God! We read To one another, loving the sound of the […]...
37. On The Borders We’re driving across tableland Somewhere in the world; It is almost bare of trees. Upland near void of features Always moves me, but not to thought; It lets me rest from thinking. I feel no need to interpret it As if it were art. Too much Of poetry is criticism now. That hawk, clinging to […]...
38. Web Intricate and untraceable Weaving and interweaving, Dark strand with light: Designed, beyond All spiderly contrivance, To link, not to entrap: Elation, grief, joy, contrition, entwined; Shaking, changing, Forever Forming, Transforming: All praise, All praise to the Great web....
39. Leaves Compared With Flowers A tree’s leaves may be ever so good, So may its bar, so may its wood; But unless you put the right thing to its root It never will show much flower or fruit. But I may be one who does not care Ever to have tree bloom or bear. Leaves for smooth and bark […]...
40. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...