Sudden Movements

Related poetry:

1. Lilies I have been thinking About living Like the lilies That blow in the fields. They rise and fall In the edge of the wind, And have no shelter From the tongues of the cattle, And have no closets or cupboards, And have no legs. Still I would like to be As wonderful As the old […]...
2. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 10: Sudden Death ‘Number four-the girl who died on the table- The girl with golden hair-‘ The purpling body lies on the polished marble. We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare. . . One, who held the ether-cone, remembers Her dark blue frightened eyes. He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast More hurriedly […]...
3. Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine Who doesn’t love Roses, and who Doesn’t love the lilies Of the black ponds Floating like flocks Of tiny swans, And of course, the flaming Trumpet vine Where the hummingbird comes Like a small green angel, to soak His dark tongue In happiness – And who doesn’t want To live with the brisk Motor of […]...
4. Sudden Things A storm was coming, that was why it was dark. The wind was blowing the fronds of the palm trees off. They were maples. I looked out the window across the big lawn. The house was huge, full of children and old people. The lion was loose. Either because of the wind, or by malevolent […]...
5. If it ever bloody rains I never said I would, I only said I could Do what you wished, the subtle difference Should have raised a cautious flag; Maybe I bragged out loud, made it sound As if it was intent, I never meant to make It seem that way. So today I wear your Brittle animosity – just out […]...
6. A happy lip breaks sudden A happy lip breaks sudden It doesn’t state you how It contemplated smiling Just consummated now But this one, wears its merriment So patient like a pain Fresh gilded to elude the eyes Unqualified, to scan...
7. The Sudden Light And The Trees My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog And wife beater. In bad dreams I killed him And once, in the consequential light of day, I called the Humane Society About Blue, his dog. They took her away And I readied myself, a baseball bat Inside my door. That night I hear his wife […]...
8. Sudden Fine Weather Reader! what soul that laoves a verse can see The spring return, nor glow like you and me? Hear the quick birds, and see the landscape fill, Nor long to utter his melodious will? This more than ever leaps into the veins, When spring has been delay’d by winds and rains, And coming with a […]...
9. Crimson Changes People DID I see a crucifix in your eyes And nails and Roman soldiers And a dusk Golgotha? Did I see Mary, the changed woman, Washing the feet of all men, Clean as new grass When the old grass burns? Did I see moths in your eyes, lost moths, With a flutter of wings that meant: […]...
10. Facts by our side are never sudden Facts by our side are never sudden Until they look around And then they scare us like a spectre Protruding from the Ground The height of our portentous Neighbor We never know Till summoned to his recognition By an Adieu Adieu for whence The sage cannot conjecture The bravest die As ignorant of their resumption […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Lines Written In The Fannie Farmer Cookbook You won’t become a gourmet* cook By studying our Fannie’s book Her thoughts on Food & Keeping House Are scarcely those of Lévi-Strauss. Nevertheless, you’ll find, Frank dear, The basic elements** are here. And if a problem should arise: The Soufflé fall before your eyes, Or strange things happen to the Rice You know I […]...
13. For Jane: With All The Love I Had, Which Was Not Enough I pick up the skirt, I pick up the sparkling beads In black, This thing that moved once Around flesh, And I call God a liar, I say anything that moved Like that Or knew My name Could never die In the common verity of dying, And I pick Up her lovely Dress, All her […]...
14. Teeth English Teeth, English Teeth! Shining in the sun A part of British heritage Aye, each and every one. English Teeth, Happy Teeth! Always having fun Clamping down on bits of fish And sausages half done. English Teeth! HEROES’ Teeth! Hear them click! and clack! Let’s sing a song of praise to them – Three Cheers […]...
15. The Fathers Our fathers all were poor, Poorer our fathers’ fathers; Beyond, we dare not look. We, the sons, keep store Of tarnished gold that gathers Around us from the night, Record it in this book That, when the line is drawn, Credit and creditor gone, Column and figure flown, Will open into light. Archaic fevers shake […]...
16. The Moss Of His Skin “Young girls in old Arabia were often buried alive next To their fathers, apparently as sacrifice to the goddesses Of the tribes…” Harold Feldman, “Children of the Desert” Psychoanalysis And Psychoanalytic Review, Fall 1958 It was only important To smile and hold still, To lie down beside him And to rest awhile, To be folded […]...
17. Two Dogs HaveI For years we’ve had a little dog, Last year we acquired a big dog; He wasn’t big when we got him, He was littler than the dog we had. We thought our little dog would love him, Would help him to become a trig dog, But the new little dog got bigger, And the old […]...
18. Homage To A Government Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home For lack of money, and it is all right. Places they guarded, or kept orderly, We want the money for ourselves at home Instead of working. And this is all right. It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen, But now it’s been decided […]...
19. The Geniuses Among Us They take us by surprise, these tall perennials That jut like hollyhocks above the canopy Of all the rest of us-bright testimonials To the scale of human possibility. They come to bloom for every generation, Blazing with extraordinary notions From the taproots of imagination- Dazzling us with incandescent visions. And soon, the things we never […]...
20. 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, […]...
21. Plea Secrets, you said, would hold us two apart; You’d have me know of you your least transgression, And so the intimate places of your heart, Kneeling, you bared to me, as in confession. Softly you told of loves that went before- Of clinging arms, of kisses gladly given; Luxuriously clean of heart once more, You […]...
22. Mrs. George Reece To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty. It may serve a turn in your life. My husband had nothing to do With the fall of the bank he was only cashier. The wreck was due to the president, Thomas Rhodes, And his vain, unscrupulous son. Yet my […]...
23. Pigeon THE FLUTTER of blue pigeon’s wings Under a river bridge Hunting a clean dry arch, A corner for a sleep- This flutters here in a woman’s hand. A singing sleep cry, A drunken poignant two lines of song, Somebody looking clean into yesterday And remembering, or looking clean into To-morrow, and reading,- This sings here […]...
24. 40,000 at the track today, Father’s Day, Each paid admission was Entitled to a wallet And each contained a Little surprise. Most of the men seemed Between 30 and 55, Going to fat, Many of them in walking Shorts, They had gone stale in Life, Flattened out…. In fact, damn it, they Aren’t even worth writing […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Animals Are Passing From Our Lives It’s wonderful how I jog On four honed-down ivory toes My massive buttocks slipping Like oiled parts with each light step. I’m to market. I can smell The sour, grooved block, I can smell The blade that opens the hole And the pudgy white fingers That shake out the intestines Like a hankie. In my […]...
27. Pirate Story Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing, Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea. Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring, And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea. Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat, Wary of the […]...
28. She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful She was very strange, and beautiful, as the violet mist upon the hills before night falls when the hoot owl calls and the cricket trills And the envapored moon hangs low and full. She was very strange, in a pleasant way, as the hummingbird flies madly still… so I drank my fill of her every […]...
29. Love The Wild Swan “I hate my verses, every line, every word. Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky. Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch One color, one glinting Flash, of the splendor of things. Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets […]...
30. The Unbeliever He sleeps on the top of a mast. – Bunyan He sleeps on the top of a mast With his eyes fast closed. The sails fall away below him Like the sheets of his bed, Leaving out in the air of the night the sleeper’s head. Asleep he was transported there, Asleep he curled In […]...
31. Turns I thought it made me look more ‘working class’ (as if a bit of chequered cloth could bridge that gap!) I did a turn in it before the glass. My mother said: It suits you, your dad’s cap. (She preferred me to wear suits and part my hair: You’re every bit as good as that […]...
32. The Lark And I have seen, At dawn, The lark Spin out of the long grass And into the pink air – Its wings, Which are neither wide Nor overstrong, Fluttering – The pectorals Ploughing and flashing For nothing but altitude – And the song Bursting All the while From the red throat. And then he descends, […]...
33. Myxomatosis Caught in the center of a soundless field While hot inexplicable hours go by What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed? You seem to ask. I make a sharp reply, Then clean my stick. I’m glad I can’t explain Just in what jaws you were to suppurate: You may have thought things would […]...
34. Anorexic Flesh is heretic. My body is a witch. I am burning it. Yes I am torching Ber curves and paps and wiles. They scorch in my self denials. How she meshed my head In the half-truths Of her fevers Till I renounced Milk and honey And the taste of lunch. I vomited Her hungers. Now […]...
35. See it Through When you’re up against a trouble, Meet it squarely, face to face; Lift your chin and set your shoulders, Plant your feet and take a brace. When it’s vain to try to dodge it, Do the best that you can do; You may fail, but you may conquer, See it through! Black may be the […]...
36. The Confessor, a Sanctified Tale When SUPERSTITION rul’d the land And Priestcraft shackled Reason, At GODSTOW dwelt a goodly band, Grey monks they were, and but to say They were not always giv’n to pray, Would have been construed Treason. Yet some did scoff, and some believ’d That sinners were themselves deceiv’d; And taking Monks for more than men They […]...
37. Dream Song 26: The glories of the world struck me The glories of the world struck me, made me aria, once. Гўв‚”What happen then, Mr Bones? If be you cares to say. Гўв‚”Henry. Henry became interested in women’s bodies, His loins were & were the scene of stupendous achievement. Stupor. Knees, dear. Pray. All the knobs & softnesses of, my God, The ducking & trouble […]...
38. Dream Song 76: Henry's Confession Nothin very bad happen to me lately. How you explain that? —I explain that, Mr Bones, Terms o’ your bafflin odd sobriety. Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones, What could happen bad to Mr Bones? €”If life is a handkerchief sandwich, In a modesty of death I join my father Who dared […]...
39. Monotony One monotonous day is followed By another monotonous, identical day. The same Things will happen, they will happen again The same moments find us and leave us. A month passes and ushers in another month. One easily guesses the coming events; They are the boring ones of yesterday. And the morrow ends up not resembling […]...
40. Sonnet VIII: There's Nothing Grieves Me There’s nothing grieves me, but that Age should haste, That in my days I may not see thee old, That where those two clear sparkling eyes are plac’d Only two loop-holes then I might behold; That lovely, arched, ivory, polish’d brow Defac’d with wrinkles that I might but see; Thy dainty hair, so curl’d and […]...