Mammy Hums

Related poetry:

1. Mammy I often wonder how Life clicks because They don’t make women now Like Mammy was. When broods of two or three Content most men, How wonderful was she With children ten! Though sixty years have gone, As I look back, I see her rise at dawn, Our boots to black; Pull us from drowsy bed, […]...
2. Epitaph The first time I died, I walked my ways; I followed the file of limping days. I held me tall, with my head flung up, But I dared not look on the new moon’s cup. I dared not look on the sweet young rain, And between my ribs was a gleaming pain. The next time […]...
3. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
4. The Well At sixteen I believed the moonlight Could change me if it would. I moved my head On the pillow, even moved my bed As the moon slowly Crossed the open lattice. I wanted beauty, a dangerous Gleam of steel, my body thinner, My pale face paler. I moonbathed Diligently, as others sunbathe. But the moon’s […]...
5. Norse lullaby The sky is dark and the hills are white As the storm-king speeds from the north to-night, And this is the song the storm-king sings, As over the world his cloak he flings: “Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;” He rustles his wings and gruffly sings: “Sleep, little one, sleep.” On yonder mountain-side a vine Clings […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. Young Bullfrogs JIMMY WIMBLETON listened a first week in June. Ditches along prairie roads of Northern Illinois Filled the arch of night with young bullfrog songs. Infinite mathematical metronomic croaks rose and spoke, Rose and sang, rose in a choir of puzzles. They made his head ache with riddles of music. They rested his head with beaten […]...
8. The End It is time for me to go, mother; I am going. When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out Your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not Here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall […]...
9. Sleepyheads SLEEP is a maker of makers. Birds sleep. Feet cling to a perch. Look at the balance. Let the legs loosen, the backbone untwist, the head go heavy over, the whole works tumbles a done bird off the perch. Fox cubs sleep. The pointed head curls round into hind legs and tail. It is a […]...
10. Everything Lately the wind burns The last leaves and evening Comes too late to be Of use, lately I learned That the year has turned Its face to winter And nothing I say or do Can change anything. So I sleep late and waken Long after the sun has risen In an empty house and walk […]...
11. Late, Late, So Late Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light had we: for that we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light: so late! […]...
12. The best days of my life What is it about Bryan Adams and his song ‘Summer of 69’? Why do the lyrics linger? Was it 90° in the shade and the harbinger of the end Of the golden weather, or the impending closure Of a glorious decade? He should have called it ‘The best days of my life’, it would have […]...
13. Buckwheat 1THERE was a late autumn cricket, And two smoldering mountain sunsets Under the valley roads of her eyes. There was a late autumn cricket, A hangover of summer song, Scraping a tune Of the late night clocks of summer, In the late winter night fireglow, This in a circle of black velvet at her neck. […]...
14. Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit snow doesn’t land At your feet but keeps falling below You): single-cell-plant chains, shreds Of zooplankton’s mucus food traps, Fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts, Sand grains, pollen….And inside These jagged falling islands Live more microlives, […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. Nights Nothings Again WHO knows what I know When I have asked the night questions And the night has answered nothing Only the old answers? Who picked a crimson cryptogram, The tail light of a motor car turning a corner, Or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place, Or a man out of the ashes of […]...
17. Anorexic Flesh is heretic. My body is a witch. I am burning it. Yes I am torching Ber curves and paps and wiles. They scorch in my self denials. How she meshed my head In the half-truths Of her fevers Till I renounced Milk and honey And the taste of lunch. I vomited Her hungers. Now […]...
18. A Goodnight Go to sleep-though of course you will not – To tideless waves thundering slantwise against Strong embankments, rattle and swish of spray Dashed thirty feet high, caught by the lake wind, Scattered and strewn broadcast in over the steady Car rails! Sleep, sleep! Gulls’ cries in a wind-gust Broken by the wind; calculating wings set […]...
19. Pejar Creek Deep in the meadow grass Easy stand the cattle, Lightly lock the young bulls In a mimic battle, Pride gathers with each shock, Every break and rally – That’s where the Pejar runs, Runs like a slip of silver through the valley. Softly as a thrush sings In the morning hushes, Softly sing the waters […]...
20. Pigeon THE FLUTTER of blue pigeon’s wings Under a river bridge Hunting a clean dry arch, A corner for a sleep- This flutters here in a woman’s hand. A singing sleep cry, A drunken poignant two lines of song, Somebody looking clean into yesterday And remembering, or looking clean into To-morrow, and reading,- This sings here […]...
21. THE CHEAT OF CUPID; OR, THE UNGENTLE GUEST One silent night of late, When every creature rested, Came one unto my gate, And knocking, me molested. Who’s that, said I, beats there, And troubles thus the sleepy? Cast off; said he, all fear, And let not locks thus keep ye. For I a boy am, who By moonless nights have swerved; And all […]...
22. Abraham The rivulet-loving wanderer Abraham Through waterless wastes tracing his fields of pasture Led his Chaldean herds and fattening flocks With the meandering art of wavering water That seeks and finds, yet does not know its way. He came, rested and prospered, and went on, Scattering behind him little pastoral kingdoms, And over each one its […]...
23. Work Gangs BOX cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack. Maybe their chatter goes: I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line. I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered […]...
24. Its little Ether Hood Its little Ether Hood Doth sit upon its Head The millinery supple Of the sagacious God Till when it slip away A nothing at a time And Dandelion’s Drama Expires in a stem....
25. The singing in god's acre Out yonder in the moonlight, wherein God’s Acre lies, Go angels walking to and fro, singing their lullabies. Their radiant wings are folded, and their eyes are bended low, As they sing among the beds whereon the flowers delight to grow, “Sleep, oh, sleep! The Shepherd guardeth His sheep. Fast speedeth the night away, Soon […]...
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. 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...
28. Making Light Of It I call out a secret name, the name Of the angel who guards my sleep, And light grows in the east, a new light Like no other, as soft as the petals Of the blown rose in late summer. Yes, it is late summer in the West. Even the grasses climbing the Sierras Reach for […]...
29. A Cradle Song Sweet dreams form a shade, O’er my lovely infants head. Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, By happy silent moony beams Sweet sleep with soft down. Weave thy brows an infant crown. Sweet sleep Angel mild, Hover o’er my happy child. Sweet smiles in the night, Hover over my delight. Sweet smiles Mothers smiles, All the […]...
30. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
31. Philomela The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making, And, mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth, For Tereus’ force on her chaste will prevailing. O Philomela […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. Miniver Cheevy Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, Grew lean while he assailed the seasons; He wept that he was ever born, And he had reasons. Miniver loved the days of old When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; The vision of a warrior bold Would set him dancing. Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, […]...
34. A Ballad of Dreamland I hid my heart in a nest of roses, Out of the sun’s way, hidden apart; In a softer bed then the soft white snow’s is, Under the roses I hid my heart. Why would it sleep not? why should it start, When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred? What made sleep flutter his […]...
35. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
36. Lights Out I have come to the borders of sleep, The unfathomable deep Forest where all must lose Their way, however straight, Or winding, soon or late; They cannot choose. Many a road and track That, since the dawn’s first crack, Up to the forest brink, Deceived the travellers, Suddenly now blurs, And in they sink. Here […]...
37. The Cat's Song Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness. My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says The cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing Milk from his mother’s forgotten breasts. Let us walk in the woods, says the cat. I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents, To fade […]...
38. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
39. 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 […]...
40. Before Sunset Love’s twilight wanes in heaven above, On earth ere twilight reigns: Ere fear may feel the chill thereof, Love’s twilight wanes. Ere yet the insatiate heart complains ‘Too much, and scarce enough,’ The lip so late athirst refrains. Soft on the neck of either dove Love’s hands let slip the reins: And while we look […]...