The Only Day In Existence

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1. Are You Drinking? washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook out again I write from the bed as I did last year. will see the doctor, Monday. “yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head- aches and my back hurts.” “are you drinking?” he will ask. “are you getting your Exercise, your vitamins?” I think that I am just ill […]...
2. The Trial by Existence Even the bravest that are slain Shall not dissemble their surprise On waking to find valor reign, Even as on earth, in paradise; And where they sought without the sword Wide fields of asphodel fore’er, To find that the utmost reward Of daring should be still to dare. The light of heaven falls whole and […]...
3. The Fury Of God's Goodbye One day He Tipped His top hat And walked Out of the room, Ending the argument. He stomped off Saying: I don’t give guarantees. I was left Quite alone Using up the darkness I rolled up My sweater, Up in a ball, And took it To bed with me, A kind of stand-in For God, […]...
4. White Ash THERE is a woman on Michigan Boulevard keeps a parrot and goldfish and two white mice. She used to keep a houseful of girls in kimonos and three pushbuttons on the front door. Now she is alone with a parrot and goldfish and two white mice… but these are some of her thoughts: The love […]...
5. Messy Room Whosever room this is should be ashamed! His underwear is hanging on the lamp. His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair, And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp. His workbook is wedged in the window, His sweater’s been thrown on the floor. His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV, And […]...
6. The Meaning Of Existence Everything except language Knows the meaning of existence. Trees, planets, rivers, time Know nothing else. They express it Moment by moment as the universe. Even this fool of a body Lives it in part, and would Have full dignity within it But for the ignorant freedom Of my talking mind....
7. On such a night, or such a night On such a night, or such a night, Would anybody care If such a little figure Slipped quiet from its chair So quiet Oh how quiet, That nobody might know But that the little figure Rocked softer to and fro On such a dawn, or such a dawn Would anybody sigh That such a little […]...
8. Home I came back late and tired last night Into my little room, To the long chair and the firelight And comfortable gloom. But as I entered softly in I saw a woman there, The line of neck and cheek and chin, The darkness of her hair, The form of one I did not know Sitting […]...
9. 'Tis One by One the Father counts ‘Tis One by One the Father counts And then a Tract between Set Cypherless to teach the Eye The Value of its Ten Until the peevish Student Acquire the Quick of Skill Then Numerals are dowered back Adorning all the Rule ‘Tis mostly Slate and Pencil And Darkness on the School Distracts the Children’s fingers […]...
10. The Round Light splashed this morning On the shell-pink anemones Swaying on their tall stems; Down blue-spiked veronica Light flowed in rivulets Over the humps of the honeybees; This morning I saw light kiss The silk of the roses In their second flowering, My late bloomers Flushed with their brandy. A curious gladness shook me. So I […]...
11. Rhyming Poem the goldfish sing all night with guitars, And the whores go down with the stars, The whores go down with the stars I’m sorry, sir, we close at 4:30, Besides yr mother’s neck is dirty, And the whores go down with the etc., The whrs. go dn. with the etc. I’m sorry jack you can’t […]...
12. Privacy Oh you who are shy of the popular eye, (Though most of us seek to survive it) Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die Because she could never be private. There are pebbles and reeds for aquarium needs Of eel and of pike who are bold fish; But who gives a thought to […]...
13. Poet's Household 1 The stout poet tiptoes On the lawn. Surprisingly limber In his thick sweater Like a middle-age burglar. Is the young robin injured? 2 She bends to feed the geese Revealing the neck’s white curve Below her curled hair. Her husband seems not to watch, But she shimmers in his poem. 3 A hush is […]...
14. Ninth Inning He woke up in New York City on Valentine’s Day, Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm, Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate Said her life wasn’t working he looked stricken she said You’re all bent out of shape, accusingly, and when he She […]...
15. Questions of Travel There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams Hurry too rapidly down to the sea, And the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops Makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, Turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, Aren’t waterfalls yet, In a […]...
16. The First Dream The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight And as I lean against the door of sleep I begin to think about the first person to dream, How quiet he must have seemed the next morning As the others stood around the fire Draped in the skins of animals Talking to each other only in […]...
17. Korean Mums beside me in this garden Are huge and daisy-like (why not? are not Oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?), Shrubby and thick-stalked, The leaves pointing up The stems from which The flowers burst in Sunbursts. I love This garden in all its moods, Even under its winter coat Of salt hay, or now, In October, more than […]...
18. Suicide In The Trenches I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds […]...
19. A Meeting She steps into the dark swamp Where the long wait ends. The secret slippery package Drops to the weeds. She leans her long neck and tongues it Between breaths slack with exhaustion And after a while it rises and becomes a creature Like her, but much smaller. So now there are two. And they walk […]...
20. Manufactured Gods THEY put up big wooden gods. Then they burned the big wooden gods And put up brass gods and Changing their minds suddenly Knocked down the brass gods and put up A doughface god with gold earrings. The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads, They didn’t know a little tin god Is as good as […]...
21. Clean Hands IT is something to face the sun and know you are free. To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean: It is something. To go one day of your life among all men with clean hands, Clean for […]...
22. Resignation I’d hate to be centipede (of legs I’ve only two), For if new trousers I should need (as oftentimes I do), The bill would come to such a lot ‘twould tax an Astorbilt, Or else I’d have to turn a Scot and caper in a kilt. I’m jolly glad I haven’t got a neck like […]...
23. Experience is the Angled Road Experience is the Angled Road Preferred against the Mind By Paradox the Mind itself Presuming it to lead Quite Opposite How Complicate The Discipline of Man Compelling Him to Choose Himself His Preappointed Pain...
24. On The Farm There was Dai Puw. He was no good. They put him in the fields to dock swedes, And took the knife from him, when he came home At late evening with a grin Like the slash of a knife on his face. There was Llew Puw, and he was no good. Every evening after the […]...
25. Lesson 1 At least I’ve learned this much: Life doesn’t have to be All poetry and roses. Life Can be bus rides, gritty sidewalks, Electric bills, dishwashing, Chapped lips, dull stubby pencils With the erasers chewed off, Cheap radios played too loud, The rank smell of stale coffee Yet still glow With the inner fire of an […]...
26. Absence My shadow I woke to a wind swirling the curtains light and dark And the birds twittering on the roofs, I lay cold In the early light in my room high over London. What fear was it that made the wind sound like a fire So that I got up and looked out half-asleep At […]...
27. 213. Song-Up in the Morning Early CAULD blaws the wind frae east to west, The drift is driving sairly; Sae loud and shill’s I hear the blast- I’m sure it’s winter fairly. Chorus.-Up in the morning’s no for me, Up in the morning early; When a’ the hills are covered wi’ snaw, I’m sure it’s winter fairly. The birds sit chittering […]...
28. The Rum Tum Tugger The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat: If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse. If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat, If you put him in a flat then he’d rather have a house. If you set him on a mouse then he only wants […]...
29. Silence Now it is time to say what you have to say. The room is quiet. The whirring fan has been unplugged, And the girl who was tapping A pencil on her desktop has been removed. So tell us what is on your mind. We want to hear the sound of your foliage, The unraveling of […]...
30. Mist In The Valley These hills, to hurt me more, That am hurt already enough,- Having left the sea behind, Having turned suddenly and left the shore That I had loved beyond all words, even a song’s words, to Convey, And built me a house on upland acres, Sweet with the pinxter, bright and rough With the rusty blackbird […]...
31. Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord, Then, I am ready to go! Just a look at the Horses Rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side So I shall never fall For we must ride to the Judgment And it’s partly, down Hill But never I mind the steeper And […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. Man Listening To Disc This is not bad Ambling along 44th Street With Sonny Rollins for company, His music flowing through the soft calipers Of these earphones, As if he were right beside me On this clear day in March, The pavement sparkling with sunlight, Pigeons fluttering off the curb, Nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs. In fact, […]...
34. Atavism 1 Sometimes in the open you look up Where birds go by, or just nothing, And wait. A dim feeling comes You were like this once, there was air, And quiet; it was by a lake, or Maybe a river you were alert As an otter and were suddenly born Like the evening star into […]...
35. My Rocking-Chair When I am old and worse for wear I want to buy a rocking-chair, And set it on a porch where shine The stars of morning-glory vine; With just beyond, a gleam of grass, A shady street where people pass; And some who come with time to spare, To yarn beside my rocking-chair. Then I […]...
36. Water If I were called in To construct a religion I should make use of water. Going to church Would entail a fording To dry, different clothes; My liturgy would employ Images of sousing, A furious devout drench, And I should raise in the east A glass of water Where any-angled light Would congregate endlessly....
37. Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog Most of the time he worked, a sort of sleep With a purpose, so far as I could tell. How he got from the dark of sleep To the dark of waking up I’ll never know; The lax sprawl sleep allowed him Began to set from the edges in, Like a custard, and then he […]...
38. Meditatio When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs I am compelled to conclude That man is the superior animal. When I consider the curious habits of man I confess, my friend, I am puzzled....
39. Light Is More Important Than The Lantern Light is more important than the lantern, The poem more important than the notebook, And the kiss more important than the lips. My letters to you Are greater and more important than both of us. The are the only documents Where people will discover Your beauty And my madness....
40. Gypsy I ASKED a gypsy pal To imitate an old image And speak old wisdom. She drew in her chin, Made her neck and head The top piece of a Nile obelisk And said: Snatch off the gag from thy mouth, child, And be free to keep silence. Tell no man anything for no man listens, […]...