And They Obey

Related poetry:

1. The Absence I speak to you across cities I speak to you across plains My mouth is upon your pillow Both faces of the walls come meeting My voice discovering you I speak to you of eternity O cities memories of cities Cities wrapped in our desires Cities come early cities come lately Cities strong and cities […]...
2. Freedoms Plow When a man starts out with nothing, When a man starts out with his hands Empty, but clean, When a man starts to build a world, He starts first with himself And the faith that is in his heart- The strength there, The will there to build. First in the heart is the dream- Then […]...
3. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
4. The Apartment House Severe against the pleasant arc of sky The great stone box is cruelly displayed. The street becomes more dreary from its shade, And vagrant breezes touch its walls and die. Here sullen convicts in their chains might lie, Or slaves toil dumbly at some dreary trade. How worse than folly is their labor made Who […]...
5. Reveille In the brutal nights we used to dream Dense violent dreams, Dreamed with soul and body: To return; to eat; to tell the story. Until the dawn command Sounded brief, low ‘Wstawac’ And the heart cracked in the breast. Now we have found our homes again, Our bellies are full, We’re through telling the story. […]...
6. As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace, (For the war, the struggle of blood finish’d, wherein, O terrific Ideal! Against vast odds, having gloriously won, Now thou stridest on-yet perhaps in time toward denser wars, Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers, Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all […]...
7. The Defective Record Cut the bank for the fill. Dump sand Pumped out of the river Into the old swale Killing whatever was There before-including Even the muskrats. Who did it? There’s the guy. Him in the blue shirt and Turquoise skullcap. Level it down For him to build a house On to build a House on to […]...
8. The Kitchen Chimney Builder, in building the little house, In every way you may please yourself; But please please me in the kitchen chimney: Don’t build me a chimney upon a shelf. However far you must go for bricks, Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound, But me enough for a full-length chimney, And build the chimney clear […]...
9. A Dream of Trees There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees, A quiet house, some green and modest acres A little way from every troubling town, A little way from factories, schools, laments. I would have time, I thought, and time to spare, With only streams and birds for company. To build out of my life […]...
10. Slough Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death! Come, bombs and blow to smithereens Those air – conditioned, bright canteens, Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans, Tinned minds, tinned breath. Mess up the mess they call a town- […]...
11. The Song of Seven Cities I was Lord of Cities very sumptuously builded. Seven roaring Cities paid me tribute from far. Ivory their outposts were the guardrooms of them gilded, And garrisoned with Amazons invincible in war. All the world went softly when it walked before my Cities Neither King nor Army vexed my peoples at their toil. Never horse […]...
12. Houses People who are afraid of themselves Multiply themselves into families And so divide themselves And so become less afraid. People who might have to go out Into clanging strangers’ laughter, Crowd under roofs, make compacts To no more than smile at each other. People who might meet their own faces Or surprise their own voices […]...
13. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
14. Melancholia the history of melancholia Includes all of us. Me, I writhe in dirty sheets While staring at blue walls And nothing. I have gotten so used to melancholia That I greet it like an old Friend. I will now do 15 minutes of grieving For the lost redhead, I tell the gods. I do it […]...
15. Inland People that build their houses inland, People that buy a plot of ground Shaped like a house, and build a house there, Far from the sea-board, far from the sound Of water sucking the hollow ledges, Tons of water striking the shore,- What do they long for, as I long for One salt smell of […]...
16. Autumn Day Four Translations Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow on the sundials And let loose the wind in the fields. Bid the last fruits to be full; Give them another two more southerly days, Press them to ripeness, and chase The last sweetness into the heavy wine. Whoever has no house […]...
17. The Neighbor Strange violin, why do you follow me? In how many foreign cities did you Speak of your lonely nights and those of mine. Are you being played by hundreds? Or by one? Do in all great cities men exist Who tormented and in deep despair Would have sought the river but for you? And why […]...
18. Flight Of Stairs Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers Before they close them. They curiously investigate […]...
19. LETTER TO MICHAEL HOROVITZ It is time after thirty years We had our Poetry Renaissance Rise, Children of Albion, rise! It is time after nightmares of sleep When we walked the streets of inner cities Our poems among the burnt-out houses And cars, whispering compassion To the addicts shaking and the homeless Waking and those who have come apart […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Roofs (For Amelia Josephine Burr) The road is wide and the stars are out And the breath of the night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet. But I’m glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my Face, And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors […]...
22. Houses (For Aline) When you shall die and to the sky Serenely, delicately go, Saint Peter, when he sees you there, Will clash his keys and say: “Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! And hurry, Michelangelo! She wants to play at building, And you’ve got to help her play!” Every architect will help erect A palace […]...
23. Dream Song 59: Henry's Meditation in the Kremlin Down on the cathedrals, as from the Giralda In a land no crueller, and over the walls To domes & river look From Great John’s belfry, Ivan-Veliky, Whose thirty-one are still To hail who storms no father’s throne. Bell, book & cradle rule, in silence. Hour by hour From time to time with holy oil […]...
24. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
25. Jimmy Dooley's Army There’s a dashin’ sort of boy Which they call his Party’s Joy, And his smile-that-won’t-come-off would quite disarm ye; And he played the leadin’ hand In the Helter-Skelter Band, Known as Jimmy Dooley’s Circulating Army. When the rank and file they found, They were marchin’ round and round, They one and all began to act […]...
26. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
27. For Australia Now, with the wars of the world begun, they’ll listen to you and me, Now while the frightened nations run to the arms of democracy, Now, when our blathering fools are scared, and the years have proved us right – All unprovided and unprepared, the Outpost of the White! “Get the people – no matter […]...
28. A Teamster's Farewell Sobs En Route to a Penitentiary GOOD-BY now to the streets and the clash of wheels and Locking hubs, The sun coming on the brass buckles and harness knobs. The muscles of the horses sliding under their heavy Haunches, Good-by now to the traffic policeman and his whistle, The smash of the iron hoof on […]...
29. Boy and Father THE BOY Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer. The leather law books of Alexander’s father fill a room like hay in a barn. Alexander has asked his father to let him build a house like bricklayers build, a house with walls and roofs made of big leather law books. The rain beats […]...
30. Ashurnatsirpal III THREE walls around the town of Tela when I came. They expected everything of those walls; Nobody in the town came out to kiss my feet. I knocked the walls down, killed three thousand soldiers, Took away cattle and sheep, took all the loot in sight, And burned special captives. Some of the soldiers-I cut […]...
31. Woman with a Past THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry. There was a woman spoke six short words And quit a life that was old to her For a life that was new. There was a woman […]...
32. Laws XIII Then a lawyer said, “But what of our Laws, master?” And he answered: You delight in laying down laws, Yet you delight more in breaking them. Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter. But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to […]...
33. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 09: Interlude The days, the nights, flow one by one above us, The hours go silently over our lifted faces, We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea. Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together. We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee. We sit at tables and sip our morning coffee, […]...
34. Pan with Us Pan came out of the woods one day, His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray, The gray of the moss of walls were they, And stood in the sun and looked his fill At wooded valley and wooded hill. He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand, On a height of naked […]...
35. Inscription 06 – For A Monument In The New For This is the place where William’s kingly power Did from their poor and peaceful homes expel, Unfriended, desolate, and shelterless, The habitants of all the fertile track Far as these wilds extend. He levell’d down Their little cottages, he bade their fields Lie barren, so that o’er the forest waste He might most royally pursue […]...
36. 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....
37. Before The Flood Why did he promise me That we would build ourselves An ark all by ourselves Out in back of the house On New York Avenue In Union City New Jersey To the singing of the streetcars After the story Of Noah whom nobody Believed about the waters That would rise over everything When I told […]...
38. Jesus, Thou Divine Companion Jesus, Thou divine Companion, By Thy lowly human birth Thou hast come to join the workers, Burden bearers of the earth. Thou, the Carpenter of Nazareth, Toiling for Thy daily food, By Thy patience and Thy courage, Thou hast taught us toil is good. They who tread the path of labor Follow where Thy feet […]...
39. Give Me Back My Rags Just come to my mind My thoughts will scratch out your face Just come into my sight My eyes will start snarling at you Just open your mouth My silence will smash your jaws Just remind me of you My remembering will paw up the ground under your feet That’s what it’s come to between […]...
40. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...