The Mask Of Evil

Related poetry:

1. Good and Evil XXII And one of the elders of the city said, “Speak to us of Good and Evil.” And he answered: Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in […]...
2. Sonnet XX: An Evil Spirit An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute’s rest; In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake, And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments […]...
3. Idea XX: An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possess’d, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute’s rest. In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake; And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments […]...
4. The Evil Seekers We are born with luck Which is to say with gold in our mouth. As new and smooth as a grape, As pure as a pond in Alaska, As good as the stem of a green bean We are born and that ought to be enough, We ought to be able to carry on from […]...
5. O Make Me A Mask O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of my face, Gag of dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies The bayonet tongue in this undefended prayerpiece, The present mouth, and the sweetly blown trumpet […]...
6. The Mask ‘Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes.’ ‘O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold.’ ‘I would but find what’s there to find, Love or deceit.’ ‘It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, […]...
7. Out from Behind this Mask 1 OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask, (All straighter, liker Masks rejected-this preferr’d,) This common curtain of the face, contain’d in me for me, in you for you, in each for each, (Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears-O heaven! The passionate, teeming plays this curtain hid!) This glaze of God’s serenest, purest sky, This film of […]...
8. Mask Fling your red scarf faster and faster, dancer. It is summer and the sun loves a million green leaves, masses of green. Your red scarf flashes across them calling and a-calling. The silk and flare of it is a great soprano leading a chorus Carried along in a rouse of voices reaching for the heart […]...
9. Aztec Mask I wanted a man’s face looking into the jaws and throat Of life With something proud on his face, so proud no smash Of the jaws, No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end With anything else than the old proud look: Even to the finish, dumped in the dust, Lost among […]...
10. We Wear the Mask We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while […]...
11. Against Evil Company Why should I join with those in Play, In whom I’ve no delight, Who curse and swear, but never pray, Who call ill Names, and fight. I hate to hear a wanton Song, Their Words offend my Ears: I should not dare defile my Tongue With Language such as theirs. Away from Fools I’ll turn […]...
12. The Legend of Evil I This is the sorrowful story Told when the twilight fails And the monkeys walk together Holding their neighbours’ tails: “Our fathers lived in the forest, Foolish people were they, They went down to the cornland To teach the farmers to play. “Our fathers frisked in the millet, Our fathers skipped in the wheat, Our […]...
13. The Evil Eye It comes oozing Out of flowers at night, It comes out of the rain If a snake looks skyward, It comes out of chairs and tables If you don’t point at them and say their names. It comes into your mouth while you sleep, Pressing in like a washcloth. Beware. Beware. If you meet a […]...
14. He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride; They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and their pride; I made it out of a mouthful of air, Their children’s children shall say they have lied....
15. Reflections of caernarvon i I shall die yearning A hand Reaching out to A face that isn’t there A face Seeking a hand A stone Leaving its mountain- Wall in a wind Anxious to be a bird A bird Crying to be a wall Ii North wales The goat pisses The hawk hangs The mountain leans forward out […]...
16. Thinking Of A Friend At Night In this evil year, autumn comes early… I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters, The wind on my hat…And you? And you, my friend? You are standing maybe and seeing the sickle moon Move in a small arc over the forests And bivouac fire, red in the black valley. You are […]...
17. You've seen Balloons set Haven't You? You’ve seen Balloons set Haven’t You? So stately they ascend It is as Swans discarded You, For Duties Diamond Their Liquid Feet go softly out Upon a Sea of Blonde They spurn the Air, as t’were too mean For Creatures so renowned Their Ribbons just beyond the eye They struggle some for Breath And yet […]...
18. I Sit and Look Out I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame; I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done; I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate; I see the wife misused by […]...
19. The Seeing Eye The small dogs look at the big dogs; They observe unwieldy dimensions And curious imperfections of odor. Here is the formal male group: The young men look upon their seniors, They consider the elderly mind And observe its inexplicable correlations. Said Tsin-Tsu: It is only in small dogs and the young That we find minute […]...
20. Museum Piece The good gray guardians of art Patrol the halls on spongy shoes, Impartially protective, though Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse. Here dozes one against the wall, Disposed upon a funeral chair. A Degas dancer pirouettes Upon the parting of his hair. See how she spins! The grace is there, But strain as well is plain to […]...
21. The Times Table More than halfway up the pass Was a spring with a broken drinking glass, And whether the farmer drank or not His mare was sure to observe the spot By cramping the wheel on a water-bar, Turning her forehead with a star, And straining her ribs for a monster sigh; To which the farmer would […]...
22. SPLEEN I’M like some king in whose corrupted veins Flows agиd blood; who rules a land of rains; Who, young in years, is old in all distress; Who flees good counsel to find weariness Among his dogs and playthings, who is stirred Neither by hunting-hound nor hunting-bird; Whose weary face emotion moves no more E’en when […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
25. Romulus and Remus Oh, little did the Wolf-Child care When first he planned his home, What City should arise and bear The weight and state of Rome. A shiftless, westward-wandering tramp, Checked by the Tiber flood, He reared a wall around his camp Of uninspired mud. But when his brother leaped the Wall And mocked its height and […]...
26. A Certain Kind of Holy Men Not every wino is a Holy Man. Oh, but some of them are. I love those who’ve learned To sit comfortably For long periods with their hams Pressed against their calves, Outdoors, With a wall for a back-rest, Contentedly saying nothing. These move about only when Necessary, On foot, and almost always In pairs. I […]...
27. De Profundis Oh why is heaven built so far, Oh why is earth set so remote? I cannot reach the nearest star That hangs afloat. I would not care to reach the moon, One round monotonous of change; Yet even she repeats her tune Beyond my range. I never watch the scatter’d fire Of stars, or sun’s […]...
28. A Baby Asleep after Pain As a drenched, drowned bee Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower, So clings to me My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears And laid against her cheek; Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm Swinging heavily to my movements as I walk. My sleeping baby hangs upon my life, […]...
29. Gacela of Unforseen Love No one understood the perfume Of the dark magnolia of your womb. Nobody knew that you tormented A hummingbird of love between your teeth. A thousand Persian little horses fell asleep In the plaza with moon of your forehead, While through four nights I embraced Your waist, enemy of the snow. Between plaster and jasmins, […]...
30. The Fascination Of What's Difficult The fascination of what’s difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart. There’s something ails our colt That must, as if it had not holy blood Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud, Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt As […]...
31. A SYMBOL (This fine poem is given by Goethe amongst a Small collection of what he calls Loge (Lodge), meaning thereby Masonic pieces.) THE mason’s trade Observe them well, Resembles life, And Watch them revealing With all its strife, How Solemn feeling Is like the stir made And Wonderment swell By man on earth’s face. The Hearts […]...
32. Trickle, Drops TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, Candid, from me falling-drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, From my face-from my forehead and lips, From my breast-from within where I was conceal’d-press forth, red drops-confession drops; Stain every page-stain every song I sing, […]...
33. Dark August So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky Of this black August. My sister, the sun, Broods in her yellow room and won’t come out. Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume Like a kettle, rivers overrun; still, She will not rise and turn off the rain. She is in her room, fondling […]...
34. 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...
35. If This Were Faith God, if this were enough, That I see things bare to the buff And up to the buttocks in mire; That I ask nor hope nor hire, Nut in the husk, Nor dawn beyond the dusk, Nor life beyond death: God, if this were faith! Having felt thy wind in my face Spit sorrow and […]...
36. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
37. Confessions What is he buzzing in my ears? “Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears?” Ah, reverend sir, not I! What I viewed there once, what I view again Where the physic bottles stand On the table’s edge,-is a suburb lane, With a wall to my bedside […]...
38. Bloom upon the Mountain stated Bloom upon the Mountain stated Blameless of a Name Efflorescence of a Sunset Reproduced the same Seed, had I, my Purple Sowing Should endow the Day Not a Topic of a Twilight Show itself away Who for tilling to the Mountain Come, and disappear Whose be Her Renown, or fading, Witness, is not here While […]...
39. The End After the blast of lightning from the east, The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne, After the drums of time have rolled and ceased And from the bronze west long retreat is blown, Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth All death will he annul, all tears assuage? Or fill these void veins […]...
40. I've dropped my Brain My Soul is numb I’ve dropped my Brain My Soul is numb The Veins that used to run Stop palsied ’tis Paralysis Done perfecter on stone Vitality is Carved and cool. My nerve in Marble lies A Breathing Woman Yesterday Endowed with Paradise. Not dumb I had a sort that moved A Sense that smote and stirred Instincts for […]...