Flames

Related poetry:

1. Not Heat Flames up and Consumes NOT heat flames up and consumes, Not sea-waves hurry in and out, Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of the ripe summer, bears lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds, Wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may; Not these-O none of these, more than the flames of me, consuming, burning for […]...
2. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
3. Bilbea BILBEA, I was in Babylon on Saturday night. I saw nothing of you anywhere. I was at the old place and the other girls were there, but no Bilbea. Have you gone to another house? or city? Why don’t you write? I was sorry. I walked home half-sick. Tell me how it goes. Send me […]...
4. Vomit The house grows sick in its dining room and begins to vomit. Father cries, the dining room is vomiting. No wonder, the way you eat, it’s enough to make anybody sick, Says his wife. What shall we do? What shall we do? he cries. Call the Vomit Doctor of course. Yes, but all he does […]...
5. Keats The young Endymion sleeps Endymion’s sleep; The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told! The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep; It is midsummer, but the air is cold; Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold A […]...
6. A Young Child And His Pregnant Mother At four years Nature is mountainous, Mysterious, and submarine. Even A city child knows this, hearing the subway’s Rumor underground. Between the grate, Dropping his penny, he learned out all loss, The irretrievable cent of fate, And now this newest of the mysteries, Confronts his honest and his studious eyes His mother much too fat […]...
7. The Little Ghost I knew her for a little ghost That in my garden walked; The wall is high-higher than most- And the green gate was locked. And yet I did not think of that Till after she was gone- I knew her by the broad white hat, All ruffled, she had on. By the dear ruffles round […]...
8. Later life Something this foggy day, a something which Is neither of this fog nor of today, Has set me dreaming of the winds that play Past certain cliffs, along one certain beach, And turn the topmost edge of waves to spray: Ah pleasant pebbly strand so far away, So out of reach while quite within my […]...
9. In Love For Long I’ve been in love for long With what I cannot tell And will contrive a song For the intangible That has no mould or shape, From which there’s no escape. It is not even a name, Yet is all constancy; Tried or untried, the same, It cannot part from me; A breath, yet as still […]...
10. The Crazed Moon Crazed through much child-bearing The moon is staggering in the sky; Moon-struck by the despairing Glances of her wandering eye We grope, and grope in vain, For children born of her pain. Children dazed or dead! When she in all her virginal pride First trod on the mountain’s head What stir ran through the countryside […]...
11. Aurora Prone The lemon sunlight poured out far between things Inhabits a coolness. Mosquitoes have subsided, Flies are for later heat. Every tree’s an auburn giant with a dazzled face And the back of its head to an infinite dusk road. Twilights broaden away from our feet too As rabbits bounce home up defiles in the grass. […]...
12. The distance that the dead have gone The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year. And then, that we have followed them, We more than half suspect, So intimate have we become With their dear retrospect....
13. Dan EARLY May, after cold rain the sun baffling cold wind. Irish setter pup finds a corner near the cellar door, all sun and no wind, Cuddling there he crosses forepaws and lays his skull Sideways on this pillow, dozing in a half-sleep, Browns of hazel nut, mahogany, rosewood, played off against each other on his […]...
14. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
15. Love in Twilight There is darkness behind the light and the pale light drips Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships And the firelight wavers and changes about the room, As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound; Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark […]...
16. Rose Leaves When they shall close my careless eyes And look their last upon my face, I fear that some will say: “her lies A man of deep disgrace; His thoughts were bare, his words were brittle, He dreamed so much, he did so little. When they shall seal y coffin lid And this worn mask I […]...
17. Hannah Armstrong I wrote him a letter asking him for old times’ sake To discharge my sick boy from the army; But maybe he couldn’t read it. Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter. But maybe that was lost in the mails. So I traveled all the way […]...
18. One Morning Looking for distinctive stones, I found the dead otter Rotting by the tideline, and carried all day the scent of this savage Valediction. That headlong high sound the oystercatcher makes Came echoing through the rocky cove Where a cormorant was feeding and submarining in the bay And a heron rose off a boulder where he’d […]...
19. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
20. Argument Days that cannot bring you near Or will not, Distance trying to appear Something more obstinate, Argue argue argue with me Endlessly Neither proving you less wanted nor less dear. Distance: Remember all that land Beneath the plane; That coastline Of dim beaches deep in sand Stretching indistinguishably All the way, All the way to […]...
21. Keen, Fitful Gusts are Whisp'ring Here and There Keen, fitful gusts are whisp’ring here and there Among the bushes half leafless, and dry; The stars look very cold about the sky, And I have many miles on foot to fare. Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air, Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily, Or of those silver lamps that burn […]...
22. The Lost Dances of Cranes Your fields are empty now. Only your ghosts dance While cranes of another kind Dance cities into being. All that remain of you are A fading crackle of your energy And some grainy video footage That people in the new cities Will watch to marvel At the wonders the world Once held....
23. I Wait For You I wait for you. The years in silence pass And as the image, one, I wait for you again. The distance is in flame and clear one as glass, I, silent, wait with sadness, love and pain. The distance is in flame, and you are coming fast, But I’m afraid that you will change your […]...
24. The New Mistress “Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be? You may be good for something, but you are not good for me. Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here. And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear. “I will go where I […]...
25. Winged Man The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits, The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates, The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar, Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar. There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise, The man […]...
26. Sonnet XI When among creatures fair of countenance Love comes enformed in such proud character, So far as other beauty yields to her, So far the breast with fiercer longing pants; I bless the spot, and hour, and circumstance, That wed desire to a thing so high, And say, Glad soul, rejoice, for thou and I Of […]...
27. Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts: If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
28. Sonnet XVII Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill’d with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
29. The Human Face I. Soon Of all the springtimes of the world This one is the ugliest Of all of my ways of being To be trusting is the best Grass pushes up snow Like the stone of a tomb But I sleep within the storm And awaken eyes bright Slowness, brief time ends Where all streets must […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. To One Shortly to Die 1 FROM all the rest I single out you, having a message for you: You are to die-Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate, I am exact and merciless, but I love you-There is no escape for you. Softly I lay my right hand upon you-you just feel it, I do not […]...
32. The Revenge – A Ballad of the Fleet At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away: ‘Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted’ Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ”Fore God I am no coward; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And […]...
33. Kingdom of Love In the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth Reflected the sunrise above, I set forth with a heart full of courage and mirth To seek for the Kingdom of Love. I asked of a Poet I met on the way Which cross-road would lead me aright. And he said: “Follow me, […]...
34. Alone In The Woods Alone in the woods I felt The bitter hostility of the sky and the trees Nature has taught her creatures to hate Man that fusses and fumes Unquiet man As the sap rises in the trees As the sap paints the trees a violent green So rises the wrath of Nature’s creatures At man So […]...
35. Pearl Fog Open the door now. Go roll up the collar of your coat To walk in the changing scarf of mist. Tell your sins here to the pearl fog And know for once a deepening night Strange as the half-meanings Alurk in a wise woman’s mousey eyes. Yes, tell your sins And know how careless a […]...
36. A Channel Passage The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew I must think hard of something, or be sick; And could think hard of only one thing YOU! You, you alone could hold my fancy ever! And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole. Now […]...
37. Curriculum Vitae As though it were reluctant to be day, …….Morning deploys a scale …….Of rarities in gray, And winter settles down in its chain-mail, Victorious over legions of gold and red. ……The smokey souls of stones, ……Blunt pencillings of lead, Pare down the world to glintless monotones Of graveyard weather, vapors of a fen …….We reckon […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
40. The Avenue Now that we’ve come to the end I’ve been trying to piece it together, Not that distance makes anything clearer. It began in the half-light While we walked through the dawn chorus After a party that lasted all night, With the blackbird, the wood-pigeon, The song-thrush taking a bludgeon To a snail, our taking each […]...