Hits and Runs

Related poetry:

1. Dream Song 25: Henry, edged, decidedly, made up stories Henry, edged, decidedly, made up stories Lighting the past of Henry, of his glorious Present, and his hoaries, All the bight heals he tamped— —Euphoria, Mr Bones, euphoria. Fate clobber all. €”Hand me back my crawl, Condign Heaven. Tighten into a ball Elongate & valved Henry. Tuck him peace. Render him sightless, Or ruin at […]...
2. Siren Song This is the one song everyone Would like to learn: the song That is irresistible: The song that forces men To leap overboard in squadrons Even though they see the beached skulls The song nobody knows Because anyone who has heard it Is dead, and the others can’t remember. Shall I tell you the secret […]...
3. Urbs Coronata (Song for the City College of New York) O youngest of the giant brood Of cities far-renowned; In wealth and power thou hast passed Thy rivals at a bound; And now thou art a queen, New York; And how wilt thou be crowned? “Weave me no palace-wreath of pride,” The royal city said; “Nor forge […]...
4. White Shoulders YOUR white shoulders I remember And your shrug of laughter. Low laughter Shaken slow From your white shoulders. Where the moon slants and wavers....
5. Harry Carey Goodhue You never marveled, dullards of Spoon River, When Chase Henry voted against the saloons To revenge himself for being shut off. But none of you was keen enough To follow my steps, or trace me home As Chase’s spiritual brother. Do you remember when I fought The bank and the courthouse ring, For pocketing the […]...
6. ABOUT WHAT RUNS AWAY To think that Spinoza died polishing eyeglasses. That Blake got tired at a printer’s shop Waiting for that day’s conversation with the angels. That just to live Baudelaire humiliated before his mother. That Rimbaud was silenced by Rimbaud So that his candor talked to me about literature. As if something else were possible other than […]...
7. My River runs to thee My River runs to thee Blue Sea! Wilt welcome me? My River wait reply Oh Sea look graciously I’ll fetch thee Brooks From spotted nooks Say Sea Take Me!...
8. The Road That Runs Beside The River follows the river as it bends Along the valley floor, Going the way it must. Where water goes, so goes the road, If there’s room (not in a ravine, Gorge), the river On your right or left. Left is better: when you’re driving, It’s over your elbow across The road. You see the current, which […]...
9. The Sunrise runs for Both The Sunrise runs for Both The East Her Purple Troth Keeps with the Hill The Noon unwinds Her Blue Till One Breadth cover Two Remotest still Nor does the Night forget A Lamp for Each to set Wicks wide away The North Her blazing Sign Erects in Iodine Till Both can see The Midnight’s Dusky […]...
10. Sonnet 143: Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catch Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catch One of her feathered creatures broke away, Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch In pursuit of the thing she would have stay, Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent To follow that which flies […]...
11. Chords IN the morning, a Sunday morning, shadows of sea and adumbrants of rock in her eyes… horseback in leather boots and leather gauntlets by the sea. In the evening, a Sunday evening, a rope of pearls on her white shoulders… and a speaking, brooding black velvet, relapsing to the voiceless… battering Russian marches on a […]...
12. The Man Rock A man is a rock in a garden of chairs and waits For a longtime to be over. It is easier for a rock in a garden than a man Inside his mother. He decided to be a rock when He got outside. A rock asks only what is a rock. A rock waits to […]...
13. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
14. Prairie Waters by Night CHATTER of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water-sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains. And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir […]...
15. The Men That Fought at Minden The men that fought at Minden, they was rookies in their time So was them that fought at Waterloo! All the ‘ole command, yuss, from Minden to Maiwand, They was once dam’ sweeps like you! Then do not be discouraged, ‘Eaven is your ‘elper, We’ll learn you not to forget; An’ you mustn’t swear an’ […]...
16. When You Go Away When you go away the wind clicks around to the north The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls Showing the black walls The clock goes back to striking the same hour That has no place in the years And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes In one breath I […]...
17. Security Tomorrow will have an island. Before night I always find it. Then on to the next island. These places hidden in the day separate And come forward if you beckon. But you have to know they are there before they exist. Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island. So far, I haven’t […]...
18. Contrast The world has many seas, Mediterranean, Atlantic, but here is the shore of the one ocean. And here the heavy future hangs like a cloud; the enormous scene; the enormous games preparing Weigh on the water and strain the rock; the stage is here, the play is conceived; the players are not found. I saw […]...
19. A man saw a ball of gold in the sky A man saw a ball of gold in the sky; He climbed for it, And eventually he achieved it It was clay. Now this is the strange part: When the man went to the earth And looked again, Lo, there was the ball of gold. Now this is the strange part: It was a ball […]...
20. Water It was a Maine lobster town- Each morning boatloads of hands Pushed off for granite Quarries on the islands, And left dozens of bleak White frame houses stuck Like oyster shells On a hill of rock, And below us, the sea lapped The raw little match-stick Mazes of a weir, Where the fish for bait […]...
21. Pick Offs THE TELESCOPE picks off star dust On the clean steel sky and sends it to me. The telephone picks off my voice and Sends it cross country a thousand miles. The eyes in my head pick off pages of Napoleon memoirs… a rag handler, A head of dreams walks in a sheet of Mist… the […]...
22. Pleasure XXIV Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, “Speak to us of Pleasure.” And he answered, saying: Pleasure is a freedom song, But it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, But it is not their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, But […]...
23. Try To Remember Some Details Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing Of the one you love So that on the day of loss you’ll be able to say: last seen Wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat. Try to remember some details. For they have no face And their soul is hidden and their crying Is the same as […]...
24. Lines WHEN the lamp is shatter’d, The light in the dust lies dead; When the cloud is scatter’d, The rainbow’s glory is shed; When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remember’d not When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart’s […]...
25. Death Fugue Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown We drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night We drink it and drink it We dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes He writes when […]...
26. I’m A Fool To Love You Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman, Some type of supernatural creature. My mother would tell you, if she could, About her life with my father, A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman. She would tell you about the choices A young black woman faces. Is falling in love with some man A […]...
27. David Cleek I cannot think that Death will press his claim To snuff you out or put you off your game: You’ll still contrive to play your steady round, Though hurricanes may sweep the dismal ground, And darkness blur the sandy-skirted green Where silence gulfs the shot you strike so clean. Saint Andrew guard your ghost, old […]...
28. Paula NOTHING else in this song-only your face. Nothing else here-only your drinking, night-gray eyes. The pier runs into the lake straight as a rifle barrel. I stand on the pier and sing how I know you mornings. It is not your eyes, your face, I remember. It is not your dancing, race-horse feet. It is […]...
29. Throwbacks SOMEWHERE you and I remember we came. Stairways from the sea and our heads dripping. Ladders of dust and mud and our hair snarled. Rags of drenching mist and our hands clawing, climbing. You and I that snickered in the crotches and corners, in the gab of our first talking. Red dabs of dawn summer […]...
30. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
31. The Machine The little biplane that has the river-meadow for landing-field And carries passengers brief rides, Buzzed overhead on the tender blue above the orange of sundown. Below it five troubled night-herons Turned short over the shore from its course, four east, one northward. Beyond them Swam the new moon in amber. I don’t know why, but […]...
32. I Remember, I Remember I Remember, I Remember I remember, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon Nor brought too long a day; But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away. I remember, I remember The […]...
33. Autumn Fires In the other gardens And all up the vale, From the autumn bonfires See the smoke trail! Pleasant summer over And all the summer flowers, The red fire blazes, The grey smoke towers. Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all! Flowers in the summer, Fires in the fall!...
34. The Ball Poem What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over-there it is in the water! No use to say ‘O there are other balls’: An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, […]...
35. Remember Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann’d: Only remember me; you understand […]...
36. Past and Present I remember, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon Nor bought too long a day; But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away. I remember, I remember The roses, red and white, […]...
37. Hard Rock Returns To Prison From The Hospital For The Criminal Insane Hard Rock/ was/ “known not to take no shit From nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it: Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut Across his temple and plowed through a thick Canopy of kinky hair. The WORD/ was/ that Hard Rock wasn’t a […]...
38. Fire Dreams I REMEMBER here by the fire, In the flickering reds and saffrons, They came in a ramshackle tub, Pilgrims in tall hats, Pilgrims of iron jaws, Drifting by weeks on beaten seas, And the random chapters say They were glad and sang to God. And so Since the iron-jawed men sat down And said, “Thanks, […]...
39. At Corfu In seventeen hundred, a much hated sultan Visited us twice, finally Dying of headaches in the south harbor. Ever since, visitors have come to the island. They bring their dogs and children. The ferry boat with a red cross Freshly painted on it Lifts in uneven drafts of smoke and steam Devising the mustard horizon […]...
40. Portland views wherever there’s a tear in the fabric Around weymouth – portland appears From abbotsbury hill it’s just a long Thin line humped at one end Closer (from chesil beach) a head-on Massive lump of rock gnashed by the sea If you stand at sandsfoot castle There’s a military feel – an armed guard Of an […]...