Unclean

Related poetry:

1. September 1913 What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone? For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Yet they […]...
2. Praise In Summer Obscurely yet most surely called to praise, As sometimes summer calls us all, I said The hills are heavens full of branching ways Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead; I said the trees are mines in air, I said See how the sparrow burrows in the sky! And then I wondered why this mad […]...
3. The Ballad of Richard Cory, Jr (With apologies to AR) Whenever he drives downtown Envy is what we have for him A princely look from sole to crown Dark glasses, a glossy limousine Always immaculately dressed up He resembles human when he talks Pulses flutter when he speaks up, “Selamat Pagi!,” and with glitters he walks. He is a filthy rich […]...
4. With No Experience In Such Matters To hold a damaged sparrow Under water until you feel it die Is to know a small something About the mind; how, for example, It blames the cat for the original crime, How it wants praise for its better side. And yet it’s as human As pulling the plug on your Dad Whose world has […]...
5. The Strangest Creature On Earth You’re like a scorpion, my brother, You live in cowardly darkness like a scorpion. You’re like a sparrow, my brother, Always in a sparrow’s flutter. You’re like a clam, my brother, Closed like a clam, content, And you’re frightening, my brother, like the mouth of an extinct volcano. Not one, not five Unfortunately, you number […]...
6. Because Of You Because of you, The world is a much nicer place. Because of you, I have faith in the human race. Because of you, I know what it means to love Unconditionally. Because of you, I know what it means to give Unselfishly. Because of you, I believe in magic and mystery And worlds unseen. Because […]...
7. A Bush Lawyer When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony’s lagoon The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain, The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain. But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these; The ripple of the rivulets, […]...
8. Dream Song 20: The Secret of the Wisdom When worst got things, how was you? Steady on? Wheedling, or shockt her & You have been bad to your friend, Whom not you writing to. You have not listened. A pelican of lies You loosed: where are you? Down weeks of evenings of longing By hours, NOW, a stoned bell, You did somebody: others […]...
9. Easter Week (In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett) (“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”) William Butler Yeats. “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.” Then, Yeats, what gave that Easter dawn A hue so radiantly brave? There was a rain of blood that day, Red rain in gay […]...
10. Psalm 136 Abridged God’s wonders of creation, providence, redemption, and salvation. Give to our God immortal praise; Mercy and truth are all his ways: Wonders of grace to God belong, Repeat his mercies in your song. Give to the Lord of lords renown, The King of kings with glory crown: His mercies ever shall endure, When lords and […]...
11. 215. Song-Hey, the Dusty Miller HEY, the dusty Miller, And his dusty coat, He will win a shilling, Or he spend a groat: Dusty was the coat, Dusty was the colour, Dusty was the kiss That I gat frae the Miller. Hey, the dusty Miller, And his dusty sack; Leeze me on the calling Fills the dusty peck: Fills the […]...
12. At the Window I have not always had this certainty, this pessimism which reassures the best among us. There was A time when my friends laughed at me. I was not the master of my words. A certain indifference, I Have not always known well what I wanted to say, but most often it was because I had […]...
13. Psalm 84 part 1 The pleasure of public worship. How pleasant, how divinely fair, O Lord of hosts, thy dwellings are! With long desire my spirit faints To meet th’ assemblies of thy saints. My flesh would rest in thine abode, My panting heart cries out for God; My God! my King! why should I be So far from […]...
14. GAUGUIN IN THE SOUTH SEAS They have my own fear of the dark, Tupapau – spirits of the dead they call it; Returning late with oil I found fear of it Had spread my vabine naked on the bed. Manao-Taipapau means ‘she thinks of the spectre’ Or ‘the spectre is thinking of her’, either way She is afraid; I marvel […]...
15. The Castle of Mains Ancient Castle of the Mains, With your romantic scenery and surrounding plains, Which seem most beautiful to the eye, And the little rivulet running by, Which the weary traveller can drink of when he feels dry. And the heaven’s breath smells sweetly there, And scented perfumes fill the air, Emanating from the green trees and […]...
16. Our biggest fish When in the halcyon days of old, I was a little tyke, I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and the like; And oh, the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I’d caught! And, oh, the indignation and the valor I’d […]...
17. Broken-face Gargoyles ALL I can give you is broken-face gargoyles. It is too early to sing and dance at funerals, Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker humming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-and-wing, now you see it and now you don’t. Fish to swim a […]...
18. Accepted You are no longer young, Nor are you very old. There are homes where those belong. You know you do not fit When you observe the cold Stares of those who sit In bath-chairs or the park (A stick, then, at their side) Or find yourself in the dark And see the lovers who, In […]...
19. The Undying She was so wonderful I wondered If wedding me she had not blundered; She was so pure, so high above me, I marvelled how she came to love me: Or did she? Well, in her own fashion – Affection, pity, never passion. I knew I was not worth her love; Yet oh, how wistfully I […]...
20. Rita And The Rifle Between Rita and my eyes There is a rifle And whoever knows Rita Kneels and plays To the divinity in those honey-colored eyes And I kissed Rita When she was young And I remember how she approached And how my arm covered the loveliest of braids And I remember Rita The way a sparrow remembers […]...
21. Nefarious War Last year we fought by the head-stream of the Sang-kan, This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho road. We have washed our armor in the waves of the Chiao-chi lake, We have pastured our horses on Tien-shan’s snowy slopes. The long, long war goes on ten thousand miles from home, Our three armies are […]...
22. THE ALIEN THOUDEA Bhaskar Roy Barman He knew for sure he was going to succumb To the eminence grise of an alien thoudea he dreaded; Alien to him was its import, though he felt Its mumming effect in the fibre of his being. The truth to tell, the unsavoured taste of the thoudea Masterminded his musings over its […]...
23. The Long Small Room THE long small room that showed willows in the west Narrowed up to the end the fireplace filled, Although not wide. I liked it. No one guessed What need or accident made them so build. Only the moon, the mouse, and the sparrow peeped In from the ivy round the casement thick. Of all they […]...
24. Victory comes late Victory comes late And is held low to freezing lips Too rapt with frost To take it How sweet it would have tasted Just a Drop Was God so economical? His Table’s spread too high for Us Unless We dine on tiptoe Crumbs fit such little mouths Cherries suit Robbins The Eagle’s Golden Breakfast strangles […]...
25. Winter: My Secret I tell my secret? No indeed, not I: Perhaps some day, who knows? But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows, And you’re too curious: fie! You want to hear it? well: Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell. Or, after all, perhaps there’s none: Suppose there is no secret after all, But […]...
26. Publication is the Auction Publication is the Auction Of the Mind of Man Poverty be justifying For so foul a thing Possibly but We would rather From Our Garret go White Unto the White Creator Than invest Our Snow Thought belong to Him who gave it Then to Him Who bear Its Corporeal illustration Sell The Royal Air In […]...
27. The Fish The first fish I ever caught Would not lie down Quiet in the pail But flailed and sucked At the burning Amazement of the air And died In the slow pouring off Of rainbows. Later I opened his body and separated The flesh from the bones And ate him. Now the sea Is in me: […]...
28. A Peck of Gold Dust always blowing about the town, Except when sea-fog laid it down, And I was one of the children told Some of the blowing dust was gold. All the dust the wind blew high Appeared like god in the sunset sky, But I was one of the children told Some of the dust was really […]...
29. Commination He that is filthy let him be filthy still. Rev. 22.11 Like John on Patmos, brooding on the Four Last Things, I meditate the ruin of friends Whose loss, Lord, brings this grand new curse to mind Now send me foes worth cursing, or send more – Since means should be proportionate to ends – […]...
30. Limbo Fishermen at Ballyshannon Netted an infant last night Along with the salmon. An illegitimate spawning, A small one thrown back To the waters. But I’m sure As she stood in the shallows Ducking him tenderly Till the frozen knobs of her wrists Were dead as the gravel, He was a minnow with hooks Tearing her […]...
31. Dogfish Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing Kept flickering in with the tide And looking around. Black as a fisherman’s boot, With a white belly. If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile Under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin, Which was rough As a thousand sharpened nails. […]...
32. Womanly Qualms When I go rowing on the lake, I long to be a man; I’ll give my Sunday frock to have A callous heart like Dan. I love the ripple of the waves When gliding o’er the deep, But when I see the cruel ours, I close my eyes and weep; For there are cat-fish in […]...
33. The Effect ‘The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me he had never seen so many dead before.’ -War Correspondent. ‘He’d never seen so many dead before.’ They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore And gasped and lugged his everlasting load Of bombs along what once had been a road. ‘How peaceful are […]...
34. Wild Strawberries Strawberries that in gardens grow Are plump and juicy fine, But sweeter far as wise men know Spring from the woodland vine. No need for bowl or silver spoon, Sugar or spice or cream, Has the wild berry plucked in June Beside the trickling stream. One such to melt at the tongue’s root, Confounding taste […]...
35. Fish Crier I KNOW a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with a Voice like a north wind blowing over corn stubble In January. He dangles herring before prospective customers evincing A joy identical with that of Pavlowa dancing. His face is that of a man terribly glad to be selling fish, Terribly glad that God […]...
36. Dream Song 63: Bats have no bankers and they do not drink Bats have no bankers and they do not drink And cannot be arrested and pay no tax And, in general, bats have it made. Henry for joining the human race is bats, Known to be so, by few them who think, Out of the cave. Instead of the cave! ah lovely-chilly, dark, Ur-moist his cousins […]...
37. A Wreath To The Fish Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth, Flat on my drainboard, dead asleep, Its suit of mail proof only against the stream? What is it to live in a stream, To dwell forever in a tunnel of cold, Never to leave your shining birthsuit, Never to spend your inheritance of thin coins? And who […]...
38. Psalm 84 v.1-4,10, paraphrased C. M. Delight in ordinances of worship; or, God present in his churches. My soul, how lovely is the place To which thy God resorts! ‘Tis heav’n to see his smiling face, Though in his earthly courts. There the great Monarch of the skies His saving power displays, And light breaks in upon […]...
39. Confession for all my country poses My cells belong to a town Grass is symbol-deep in me But brick dips deeper down Mountains knock me sideways A moor chills my bones A field of wheat exults me I’m awed by ancient stones But lines of dowdy shop-fronts Mean unpolished streets Sever the green man in me […]...
40. Heaven Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat’ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, […]...