Aprons of Silence

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1. Silence I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea, And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the room. And I ask: For the depths, Of what use is language? A […]...
2. Silence There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave-under the deep, deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hush’d-no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy […]...
3. Silence My father used to say, “Superior people never make long visits, Have to be shown Longfellow’s grave Nor the glass flowers at Harvard. Self reliant like the cat That takes its prey to privacy, The mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth They sometimes enjoy solitude, And can be robbed of speech […]...
4. Silence Since I lost you I am silence-haunted, Sounds wave their little wings A moment, then in weariness settle On the flood that soundless swings. Whether the people in the street Like pattering ripples go by, Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs With a loud, hoarse sigh: Or the wind shakes a ravel of light […]...
5. The Silence Though the air is full of singing My head is loud With the labor of words. Though the season is rich With fruit, my tongue Hungers for the sweet of speech. Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it Mute, but must say “It is golden,” while the leaves Stir and fall with […]...
6. The Masked Face I found me in a great surging space, At either end a door, And I said: “What is this giddying place, With no firm-fixéd floor, That I knew not of before?” “It is Life,” said a mask-clad face. I asked: “But how do I come here, Who never wished to come; Can the light and […]...
7. Ode To Silence Aye, but she? Your other sister and my other soul Grave Silence, lovelier Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her? Clio, not you, Not you, Calliope, Nor all your wanton line, Not Beauty’s perfect self shall comfort me For Silence once departed, For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully, […]...
8. The Silence of Love I COULD praise you once with beautiful words ere you came And entered my life with love in a wind of flame. I could lure with a song from afar my bird to its nest, But with pinions drooping together silence is best. In the land of beautiful silence the winds are laid, And life […]...
9. House Of Silence The winter sun, golden and tired, Settles on the irregular army Of bottles. Outside the trucks Jostle toward the open road, Outside it’s Saturday afternoon, And young women in black pass by Arm in arm. This bar Is the house of silence, and we drink To silence without raising our voices In the old way. […]...
10. The Choir And Music Of Solitude And Silence Silence is a great blue bell Swinging and ringing, tinkling and singing, In measure’s pleasure, and in the supple symmetry of the soaring of the immense intense wings glinting against All the blue radiance above us and within us, hidden Save for the stars sparking, distant and unheard in their singing. And this is the […]...
11. Sonnet – Silence There are some qualities – some incorporate things, That have a double life, which thus is made A type of that twin entity which springs From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade. There is a two-fold Silence – sea and shore- Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places, Newly with grass o’ergrown; […]...
12. Silence When I was cub reporter I Would interview the Great, And sometimes they would make reply, And sometimes hesitate; But often they would sharply say, With bushy eyebrows bent: “Young man, your answer for to-day Is – No Comment.” Nigh sixty years have called the tune, And silver is my pate; No longer do I […]...
13. Great Streets of silence led away Great Streets of silence led away To Neighborhoods of Pause Here was no Notice no Dissent No Universe no laws By Clocks, ’twas Morning, and for Night The Bells at Distance called But Epoch had no basis here For Period exhaled....
14. After Long Silence Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead, Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade, The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night, That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant....
15. Silence of reading i like the silence of reading Flat on my stomach on the woollen floor My legs waving upwards like the fronds of ferns And in my mind Gigantic screaming monsters Or the mystery ship Scuttling crablike to the shore I am lost to the spell of words The enchantment of sea in the silent shell […]...
16. Golden Silence I told her I loved her and begged but a word, One dear little word, that would be For me by all odds the most sweet ever heard, But never a word said she! I raged at her then, and I said she was cold; I swore she was nothing to me; I prayed her […]...
17. The Terrible Abstractions The naked hunter’s fist, bunched round his spear, Was tight and wet inside with sweat of fear; He heard behind him what the hunted hear. The silence in the undergrowth crept near; Its mischief tickled in his nervous ear And he became the prey, the quivering deer. The naked hunter feared the threat he knew: […]...
18. As I Ponder'd in Silence 1 AS I ponder’d in silence, Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long, A Phantom arose before me, with distrustful aspect, Terrible in beauty, age, and power, The genius of poets of old lands, As to me directing like flame its eyes, With finger pointing to many immortal songs, And menacing voice, What singest thou? […]...
19. A Silence past parentage or gender Beyond sung vocables The slipped-between The so infinitesimal Fault line A limitless Interiority Beyond the woven Unicorn the maiden (man-carved worm-eaten) God at her hip Incipient The untransfigured Cottontail Bluebell and primrose Growing wild a strawberry Chagrin night terrors Past the earthlit Unearthly masquerade (we shall be changed) A silence opens […]...
20. Silence and Stealth of Days Silence, and stealth of days! ’tis now Since thou art gone, Twelve hundred hours, and not a brow But clouds hang on. As he that in some cave’s thick damp Lockt from the light, Fixeth a solitary lamp, To brave the night, And walking from his sun, when past That glim’ring ray Cuts through the […]...
21. Chamfort THERE’S Chamfort. He’s a sample. Locked himself in his library with a gun, Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye. And this Chamfort knew how to write And thousands read his books on how to live, But he himself didn’t know How to die by force of his own hand see? They […]...
22. Silence is in Our Festal Halls Silence is in our festal halls Sweet son of song! thy course is o’er; In vain on thee sad Erin calls, Her minstrel’s voice responds no more; All silent as the Eolian shell Sleeps at the close of some bright day, When the sweet breeze, that waked its swell At sunny morn, hath died away. […]...
23. To A Poet Breaking Silence Too wearily had we and song Been left to look and left to long, Yea, song and we to long and look, Since thine acquainted feet forsook The mountain where the Muses hymn For Sinai and the Seraphim. Now in both the mountains’ shine Dress thy countenance, twice divine! From Moses and the Muses draw […]...
24. Visits To St. Elizabeths This is the house of Bedlam. This is the man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is the time Of the tragic man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a wristwatch Telling the time Of the talkative man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a sailor Wearing […]...
25. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
26. Long-Legged Fly That civilisation may not sink, Its great battle lost, Quiet the dog, tether the pony To a distant post; Our master Caesar is in the tent Where the maps ate spread, His eyes fixed upon nothing, A hand under his head. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence. That the […]...
27. The Liars (March, 1919)A LIAR goes in fine clothes. A liar goes in rags. A liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes. A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies. And the stonecutters earn a living-with lies-on the tombs of liars. Aliar looks ’em in […]...
28. A Hero Three times I had the lust to kill, To clutch a throat so young and fair, And squeeze with all my might until No breath of being lingered there. Three times I drove the demon out, Though on my brow was evil sweat. . . . And yet I know beyond a doubt He’ll get […]...
29. Sten There is a knocking in the skull, An endless silent shout Of something beating on a wall, And crying, “Let me out! ” That solitary prisoner Will never hear reply. No comrade in eternity Can hear the frantic cry. No heart can share the terror That haunts his monstrous dark. The light that filters through […]...
30. Testimony ‘We were killing pigs when the Yanks arrived. A Tuesday morning, sunlight And gutter-blood Outside the slaughter house. >From the main road They would have heard the screaming, Then heard it stop and had a view of us In our gloves and aprons coming Down the hill. Two lines of them, guns on their Shoulders, […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. Turns And Movies: Dancing Adairs Behold me, in my chiffon, gauze, and tinsel, Flitting out of the shadow into the spotlight, And into the shadow again, without a whisper!- Firefly’s my name, I am evanescent. Firefly’s your name. You are evanescent. But I follow you as remorselessly as darkness, And shut you in and enclose you, at last, and always, […]...
33. The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence Moored to the same ring: The hour, the darkness and I, Our compasses hooded like falcons. Now the memory of you comes aching in With a wash of broken bits which never left port In which once we planned voyages, They come knocking like hearts asking: What departures on this tide? Breath of land, warm […]...
34. THE PLAY HOUSE We had a new house And split the decorating. You took the piled rolls of paper, While I stacked the cans of gloss, One to each corner-white-what else? And when we began our slow labour We did not even sigh except in some relief In being there at last. There were no spaces for our […]...
35. The Corridor It may have been the pride in me for aught I know, or just a patronizing whim; But call it freak of fancy, or what not, I cannot hide the hungry face of him. I keep a scant half-dozen words he said, And every now and then I lose his name; He may be living […]...
36. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
37. 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 […]...
38. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
39. Prophecy I shall die hidden in a hut In the middle of an alder wood, With the back door blind and bolted shut, And the front door locked for good. I shall lie folded like a saint, Lapped in a scented linen sheet, On a bedstead striped with bright-blue paint, Narrow and cold and neat. The […]...
40. Merlin O Merlin in your crystal cave Deep in the diamond of the day, Will there ever be a singer Whose music will smooth away The furrow drawn by Adam’s finger Across the memory and the wave? Or a runner who’ll outrun Man’s long shadow driving on, Break through the gate of memory And hang the […]...