Chicks

Related poetry:

1. 136 Syllables At Rocky Mountain Dharma Center Tail turned to red sunset on a juniper crown a lone magpie cawks. Mad at Oryoki in the shrine-room Thistles blossomed late afternoon. Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun walking the path to lunch. A dandelion seed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitos. At 4 A. M. the […]...
2. Gone Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town. Far off Everybody loved her. So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold On a dream she wants. Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went. Nobody knows why she packed her trunk. . a few old things And is gone, Gone with her little chin Thrust […]...
3. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Smoke Rose Gold THE DOME of the capitol looks to the Potomac river. Out of haze over the sunset, Out of a smoke rose gold: One star shines over the sunset. Night takes the dome and the river, the sun and the smoke rose gold, The haze changes from sunset to star. The pour of a thin silver […]...
6. The Houses ‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard; By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate, On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate. For my house and thy house no help shall we find Save […]...
7. Enigma Come riddle-me-ree, come riddle-me-ree, And tell me, what my name may be. I am nearly one hundred and thirty years old, And therefore no chicken, as you may suppose; Though a dwarf in my youth (as my nurses have told), I have, ev’ry year since, been outgrowing my clothes; Till, at last, such a corpulent […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. Gods Ms. Sexton went out looking for the gods. She began looking in the sky -expecting a large white angel with a blue crotch. No one. She looked next in all the learned books And the print spat back at her. No one She made a pilgrimage to the great poet And he belched in her […]...
10. Medallion Luini in porcelain! The grand piano Utters a profane Protest with her clear soprano. The sleek head emerges From the gold-yellow frock As Anadyomene in the opening Pages of Reinach. Honey-red, closing the face-oval, A basket-work of braids which seem as if they were Spun in King Minos’ hall From metal, or intractable amber; The […]...
11. New Eyes Each Year New eyes each year Find old books here, And new books, too, Old eyes renew; So youth and age Like ink and page In this house join, Minting new coin....
12. Limits Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset, There must be one (which, I am not sure) That I by now have walked for the last time Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws, Sets up a secret and unwavering scale For all the shadows, dreams, […]...
13. Night Stuff LISTEN a while, the moon is a lovely woman, a lonely woman, lost in a silver dress, lost in a circus rider’s silver dress. Listen a while, the lake by night is a lonely woman, a lovely woman, circled with birches and pines mixing their green and white among stars shattered in spray clear nights. […]...
14. Room 4: The Painter Chap He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he’d like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well! He’ll make no “document” of me. I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . . Pictures, just […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. Tar and Feathers Oh! the circus swooped down On the Narrabri town, For the Narrabri populace moneyed are; And the showman he smiled At the folk he beguiled To come all the distance from Gunnedah. But a juvenile smart, Who objected to “part”, Went in on the nod, and to do it he Crawled in through a crack […]...
17. The Dark House Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief In the chilly, star-bright air: Though the house was shuttered for slumber, He had left one wakeful there. Nothing moved in the garden. Never a bird would […]...
18. At a Window Give me hunger, O you gods that sit and give The world its orders. Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love, A voice to speak to me in the day […]...
19. Winter in the Country Sweet life! how lovely to be here And feel the soft sea-laden breeze Strike my flushed face, the spruce’s fair Free limbs to see, the lesser trees’ Bare hands to touch, the sparrow’s cheep To heed, and watch his nimble flight Above the short brown grass asleep. Love glorious in his friendly might, Music that […]...
20. Sand Scribblings THE WIND stops, the wind begins. The wind says stop, begin. A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor. The shovel changes, the floor changes. The sandpipers, maybe they know. Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell. Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses. The sandpipers cheep “Here” and get away. Five of them fly and […]...
21. In The Old Theatre, Fiesole I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin, Till came a child who showed an ancient coin That bore the image of a Constantine. She lightly passed; nor did she once opine How, better than all books, she had raised for me In swift perspective Europe’s history Through the […]...
22. My Hundred Books A thousand books my library Contains; And all are primed, it seems to me With brains. Mine are so few I scratch in thought My head; For just a hundred of the lot I’ve read. A hundred books, but of the best, I can With wisdom savour and digest And scan. Yet when afar from […]...
23. Aspiration When I was daft (as urchins are), And full if fairy lore, I aimed an arrow at a star And hit – the barnyard door. I’ve shot at heaps of stars since then, But always it’s the same – A barnyard door has mocked me when Uranus was my aim. So, I’ll shoot starward as […]...
24. Transcription Of Organ Music The flower in the glass peanut bottle formerly in the kitchen crooked to take a place in the light, The closet door opened, because I used it before, it kindly stayed open waiting for me, its owner. I began to feel my misery in pallet on floor, listening to music, my misery, that’s why I […]...
25. Song by the Window Before Bed Little Star, little Star, Come down quick. The Moon is a bogey-man; He’ll eat you certain if he can. Little Star, little Star, Come down quick! Little Star, little Star, Whisper “Yes.” The trees are just niggers all, They look so black, the are so tall. Little Star, little Star, Whisper “Yes” Little Star, little […]...
26. Hoodlums I AM a hoodlum, you are a hoodlum, we and all of us are a world of hoodlums-maybe so. I hate and kill better men than I am, so do you, so do all of us-maybe-maybe so. In the ends of my fingers the itch for another man’s neck, I want to see him hanging, […]...
27. Autumn And Winter Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon Between two dates of death, while men were fain Yet of the living light that all too soon Three months bade wane. Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain, Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune That death smote silent when he […]...
28. The Demon In Me The demon in me’s not dead, He’s living, and well. In the body as in a hold, In the self as in a cell. The world is but walls. The exit’s the axe. (“All the world’s a stage,” The actor prates.) And that hobbling buffoon Is no joker; In the body as in glory, In […]...
29. Picture-Books in Winter Summer fading, winter comes Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books. All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, […]...
30. Ignorance Oh happy he who cannot see With scientific eyes; Who does not know how flowers grow, And is not planet wise; Content to find with simple mind Joys as they are: To whom a rose is just a rose, A star a star. It is not good, I deem, to brood On things beyond our […]...
31. Armistice Day (1953) Don’t jeer because we celebrate Armistice Day, Though thirty years of sorry fate Have passed away. Though still we gaurd the Sacred Flame, And fly the Flag, That World War Two with grief and shame Revealed a rag. For France cannot defend to-day Her native land; And she is far to proud to pray For […]...
32. A Ritual To Read To Each Other If you don’t know the kind of person I am And I don’t know the kind of person you are A pattern that others made may prevail in the world And following the wrong god home we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, A shrug that lets […]...
33. My Future “Let’s make him a sailor,” said Father, “And he will adventure the sea.” “A soldier,” said Mother, “is rather What I would prefer him to be.” “A lawyer,” said Father, “would please me, For then he could draw up my will.” “A doctor,” said Mother, “would ease me; Maybe he could give me a pill.” […]...
34. Sacrifice I gave an eye to save from night A babe born blind; And now with eager semi-sight Vast joy I find To think a child can share with me Earth ecstasy! Delight of dawn with dewy gleam On damask rose; Crimson and gold as pennons stream Where sunset flows; And sight most nigh to paradise, […]...
35. The Sunset stopped on Cottages The Sunset stopped on Cottages Where Sunset hence must be For treason not of His, but Life’s, Gone Westerly, Today The Sunset stopped on Cottages Where Morning just begun What difference, after all, Thou mak’st Thou supercilious Sun?...
36. Letter S THE RIVER is gold under a sunset of Illinois. It is a molten gold someone pours and changes. A woman mixing a wedding cake of butter and eggs Knows what the sunset is pouring on the river here. The river twists in a letter S. A gold S now speaks to the Illinois sky....
37. The Deserted House Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide. Careless tenants they! All within is dark as night: In the windows is no light; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. Close the door; the shutters close; Or through the windows we shall see The […]...
38. Love Song Once in the world’s first prime, When nothing lived or stirred, Nothing but new-born Time, Nor was there even a bird – The Silence spoke to a Star, But do not dare repeat What it said to its love afar: It was too sweet, too sweet. But there, in the fair world’s youth, Ere sorrow […]...
39. Book Borrower I am a mild man, you’ll agree, But red my rage is, When folks who borrow books from me Turn down their pages. Or when a chap a book I lend, And find he’s loaned it Without permission to a friend – As if he owned it. But worst of all I hate those crooks […]...
40. Snow Late December: my father and I Are going to New York, to the circus. He holds me On his shoulders in the bitter wind: Scraps of white paper Blow over the railroad ties. My father liked To stand like this, to hold me So he couldn’t see me. I remember Staring straight ahead Into the […]...