Dear Reader

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1. To Any Reader As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear […]...
2. Little-oh dear See, what a wonderful garden is here, Planted and trimmed for my Little-Oh-Dear! Posies so gaudy and grass of such brown – Search ye the country and hunt ye the town And never ye’ll meet with a garden so queer As this one I’ve made for my Little-Oh-Dear! Marigolds white and buttercups blue, Lilies all […]...
3. To my dear Sister, Mrs. C. P. on her Nuptial We will not like those men our offerings pay Who crown the cup, then think they crown the day. We make no garlands, nor an altar build, Which help not Joy, but Ostentation yield. Where mirth is justly grounded these wild toyes Are but a troublesome, and empty noise. 2. But these shall be my […]...
4. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. The Three Hermits Three old hermits took the air By a cold and desolate sea, First was muttering a prayer, Second rummaged for a flea; On a windy stone, the third, Giddy with his hundredth year, Sang unnoticed like a bird: ‘Though the Door of Death is near And what waits behind the door, Three times in a […]...
7. A reader's de profundis in my reading of the moment i have learned The figure next to christ in da vinci’s last supper (a painting i have actually seen in a milan church Fragilely restored) is a woman – an honour earned By mary magdalene who (according to research) Turns out to be christ’s wife – hang on what […]...
8. Ourselves were wed one summer dear Ourselves were wed one summer dear Your Vision was in June And when Your little Lifetime failed, I wearied too of mine And overtaken in the Dark Where You had put me down By Some one carrying a Light I too received the Sign. ‘Tis true Our Futures different lay Your Cottage faced the sun […]...
9. Dear Heart, Why Will You Use Me So? Dear heart, why will you use me so? Dear eyes that gently me upbraid, Still are you beautiful – but O, How is your beauty raimented! Through the clear mirror of your eyes, Through the soft sigh of kiss to kiss, Desolate winds assail with cries The shadowy garden where love is. And soon shall […]...
10. Dear March Come in Dear March Come in How glad I am I hoped for you before Put down your Hat You must have walked How out of Breath you are Dear March, Come right up the stairs with me I have so much to tell I got your Letter, and the Birds The Maples never knew that you […]...
11. To the Reader As you read, a white bear leisurely Pees, dyeing the snow Saffron, And as you read, many gods Lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian Are watching the generations of leaves, And as you read The sea is turning its dark pages, Turning Its dark pages....
12. Selecting A Reader First, I would have her be beautiful, And walking carefully up on my poetry At the loneliest moment of an afternoon, Her hair still damp at the neck From washing it. She should be wearing A raincoat, an old one, dirty From not having money enough for the cleaners. She will take out her glasses, […]...
13. TO THE KIND READER No one talks more than a Poet; Fain he’d have the people know it. Praise or blame he ever loves; None in prose confess an error, Yet we do so, void of terror, In the Muses’ silent groves. What I err’d in, what corrected, What I suffer’d, what effected, To this wreath as flow’rs belong; […]...
14. To the Reader at Parting NOW, dearest comrade, lift me to your face, We must separate awhile-Here! take from my lips this kiss. Whoever you are, I give it especially to you; So long!-And I hope we shall meet again....
15. To the Reader of These Sonnets Into these Loves who but for Passion looks, At this first sight here let him lay them by And seek elsewhere, in turning other books, Which better may his labor satisfy. No far-fetch’d sigh shall ever wound my breast, Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring, Nor in Ah me’s my whining sonnets […]...
16. Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like […]...
17. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
18. Hysteria As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth Were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at Each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of […]...
19. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
20. A Child in the Garden When to the garden of untroubled thought I came of late, and saw the open door, And wished again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, […]...
21. Schizophrenic Each morning as I catch my bus, A-fearing I’ll be late, I think: there are in all of us Two folks quite separate; As one I greet the office staff With grim, official mien; The other’s when I belly-laugh, And Home Sweet Home’s the scene. I’ve half a hundred men to boss, And take my […]...
22. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
23. And Doth Not a Meeting Like This And doth not a meeting like this make amends For all the long years I’ve been wandering away To see thus around me my youth’s early friends, As smiling and kind as in that happy day? Though haply o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine, The snow fall of time may be stealing what […]...
24. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
25. Million Man March Poem The night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark, And the walls have been steep. Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach, I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach. Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound, You couldn’t even call out my name. […]...
26. Gods In The Gutter I dreamed I saw three demi-gods who in a cafe sat, And one was small and crapulous, and one was large and fat; And one was eaten up with vice and verminous at that. The first he spoke of secret sins, and gems and perfumes rare; And velvet cats and courtesans voluptuously fair: “Who is […]...
27. Welsh experience called out by the sun This easter saturday morning I’m sitting on a bank In pistyllgwyn (house of the sacred spring) Against a tall oak (close to a daffodil-clump) Overlooking the road Between brechfa and abergorlech On the west side of the valley Of the afon cothi Reading a poem by taliesin From the sixth […]...
28. The Pike In the brown water, Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine, Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds, A pike dozed. Lost among the shadows of stems He lay unnoticed. Suddenly he flicked his tail, And a green-and-copper brightness Ran under the water. Out from under the reeds Came the olive-green light, And orange […]...
29. A Historical Breakfast A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face, Tilting it to his mouth. It’s historical, he thinks. He scratches his head: another historical event. He really ought to rest, he’s making an awful lot of History this morning. Oh my, now he’s buttering toast, another piece of History is being made. He […]...
30. Night and Day When the golden day is done, Through the closing portal, Child and garden, Flower and sun, Vanish all things mortal. As the blinding shadows fall As the rays diminish, Under evening’s cloak they all Roll away and vanish. Garden darkened, daisy shut, Child in bed, they slumber Glow-worm in the hallway rut, Mice among the […]...
31. On why it is necessary to talk kindly to frogs i met a frog in my garden today Lurking under a stone – it said There used to be a pond here I know i said i had to dig it up Pity said the frog and looked at me As if i was the thickest mortal A garden without water it croaked Is worse […]...
32. The Fair Maid of Perth's House All ye good people, afar and near, To my request pray lend an ear; I advise you all without delay to go And see the Fair Maid’s House – it is a rare show. Some of the chairs there are very grand, They have been cut and carved by a skilful hand; And kings, perchance, […]...
33. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
34. The Further Bank I long to go over there to the further bank of the river. Where those boats are tied to the bamboo poles in a line; Where men cross over in their boats in the morning with Ploughs on their shoulders to till their far-away fields; Where the cowherds make their lowing cattle swim across to […]...
35. Is it true, dear Sue? Is it true, dear Sue? Are there two? I shouldn’t like to come For fear of joggling Him! If I could shut him up In a Coffee Cup, Or tie him to a pin Till I got in Or make him fast To “Toby’s” fist Hist! Whist! I’d come!...
36. The Dying need but little, Dear The Dying need but little, Dear, A Glass of Water’s all, A Flower’s unobtrusive Face To punctuate the Wall, A Fan, perhaps, a Friend’s Regret And Certainty that one No color in the Rainbow Perceive, when you are gone....
37. Dear Deborah They tell me that your heart Has been found in Iowa, Pumping along Interstate 35. Do you want it back? When the cold comes on This fast, it’s Iowa again- Where pollen disperses Evenly on the dented Fords, Where white houses sag By the town’s corn silos, Where people in the houses Sicken on corn […]...
38. 7. Ah, woe is me, my Mother dear AH, woe is me, my mother dear! A man of strife ye’ve born me: For sair contention I maun bear; They hate, revile, and scorn me. I ne’er could lend on bill or band, That five per cent. might blest me; And borrowing, on the tither hand, The deil a ane wad trust me. Yet […]...
39. Nay, Tell Me Not, Dear Nay, tell me not, dear, that the goblet drowns One charm of feeling, one fond regret; Believe me, a few of thy angry frowns Are all I’ve sunk in its bright wave yet. Ne’er hath a beam Been lost in the stream That ever was shed from thy form or soul; The spell of those […]...
40. To know just how He suffered would be dear To know just how He suffered would be dear To know if any Human eyes were near To whom He could entrust His wavering gaze Until it settle broad on Paradise To know if He was patient part content Was Dying as He thought or different Was it a pleasant Day to die And did […]...