Momus

Related poetry:

1. Momus, God Of Laughter Though with gods the world is cumbered, Gods unnamed, and gods unnumbered, Never god was known to be Who had not his devotee. So I dedicate to mine, Here in verse, my temple-shrine. ‘Tis not Ares, – mighty Mars, Who can give success in wars. ‘Tis not Morpheus, who doth keep Guard above us while […]...
2. Momus “Where’s the need of singing now?” Smooth your brow, Momus, and be reconciled. For king Kronos is a child Child and father, Or god rather, And all gods are wild. “Who reads Byron any more?” Shut the door Momus, for I feel a draught; Shut it quick, for some one laughed. What’s become of Browning? […]...
3. Choices They offer you many things, I a few. Moonlight on the play of fountains at night With water sparkling a drowsy monotone, Bare-shouldered, smiling women and talk And a cross-play of loves and adulteries And a fear of death and a remembering of regrets: All this they offer you. I come with: Salt and bread […]...
4. Bones Sling me under the sea. Pack me down in the salt and wet. No farmer’s plow shall touch my bones. No Hamlet hold my jaws and speak How jokes are gone and empty is my mouth. Long, green-eyed scavengers shall pick my eyes, Purple fish play hide-and-seek, And I shall be song of thunder, crash […]...
5. Lover's Gifts XVIII: Your Days Your days will be full of cares, if you must give me your heart. My house by the cross-roads has its doors open and my mind is Absent, – for I sing. I shall never be made to answer for it, if you must give me Your heart. If I pledge my word to you […]...
6. The Hypermarket history is a hurried Checklist of the goods Mankind wishes To unforget Poetry is a soft whisper Against the bads Mankind wishes To unregret (04/06/99 – 08/2001)...
7. Bronzes I THE bronze General Grant riding a bronze horse in Lincoln Park Shrivels in the sun by day when the motor cars whirr By in long processions going somewhere to keep appointment For dinner and matinees and buying and selling Though in the dusk and nightfall when high waves are piling On the slabs of […]...
8. At play Play that you are mother dear, And play that papa is your beau; Play that we sit in the corner here, Just as we used to, long ago. Playing so, we lovers two Are just as happy as we can be, And I’ll say “I love you” to you, And you say “I love you” […]...
9. Every Silent Plant in the Garden (To: S. W.) Every silent plant in the garden knows Two sorts of wishes make up the world: One is conceived in heaven, the other in hell The earth buttoned its lip, too humble to tell With regard to intent, millionaires are all Yet about prayers, most of us ignorant children Undiscerning of whatever come […]...
10. I Am The People, The Mob I AM the people the mob the crowd the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is Done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the World’s food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons Come from me and the Lincolns. They […]...
11. Merry Autumn It’s all a farce,-these tales they tell About the breezes sighing, And moans astir o’er field and dell, Because the year is dying. Such principles are most absurd,- I care not who first taught ’em; There’s nothing known to beast or bird To make a solemn autumn. In solemn times, when grief holds sway With […]...
12. Medallion THE BRASS medallion profile of your face I keep always. It is not jingling with loose change in my pockets. It is not stuck up in a show place on the office wall. I carry it in a special secret pocket in the day And it is under my pillow at night. The brass came […]...
13. Days Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, […]...
14. Streets Too Old I WALKED among the streets of an old city and the streets were lean as the throats of hard seafish soaked in salt and kept in barrels many years. How old, how old, how old, we are:-the walls went on saying, street walls leaning toward each other like old women of the people, like old […]...
15. Giving Myself Up I give up my eyes which are glass eggs. I give up my tongue. I give up my mouth which is the contstant dream of my tongue. I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice. I give up my heart which is a burning apple. I give up my lungs which […]...
16. Larghetto Grant me but a day, love, But a day, Ere I give my heart, My heart away, Ere I say the word I’ll ne’er unsay. Is it earnest with me? Is it play? Did the world in arms Cry to me, “Stay!” Not a moment then Would I delay. Yet, for very love, I say […]...
17. Sonnet 09 – Can it be right to give what I can give? Can it be right to give what I can give? To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years Re-sighing on my lips renunciative Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live For all thy adjurations? O my fears, That this can scarce be right! We […]...
18. I know that He exists I know that He exists. Somewhere in Silence He has hid his rare life From our gross eyes. ‘Tis an instant’s play. ‘Tis a fond Ambush Just to make Bliss Earn her own surprise! But should the play Prove piercing earnest Should the glee glaze In Death’s stiff stare Would not the fun Look too […]...
19. Again his voice is at the door Again his voice is at the door I feel the old Degree I hear him ask the servant For such an one as me I take a flower as I go My face to justify He never saw me in this life I might surprise his eye! I cross the Hall with mingled steps I […]...
20. NO ONE EVER COMES Eupatius thought: “Give him a thousand horses, A thousand bridles of eloquent gold. Wash his feet, feed him well, show him my dancers. If he knows a secret, don’t ask him about it. If he wants to tell a fable, let him speak. Lead him into my garden, pluck peaches for him. Keep near him […]...
21. The Actor Enthusiastic was the crowd That hailed him with delight; The wine was bright, the laughter loud And glorious the night. But when at dawn he drove away With echo of their cheer, To where his little daughter lay, Then he knew Fear. How strangely still the house! He crept On tip-toe to the bed; And […]...
22. Corn Hut Talk WRITE your wishes on the door and come in. Stand outside in the pools of the harvest moon. Bring in the handshake of the pumpkins. There’s a wish for every hazel nut? There’s a hope for every corn shock? There’s a kiss for every clumsy climbing shadow? Clover and the bumblebees once, High winds and […]...
23. Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves Three Voices [together]. Hurry to bless the hands that play, The mouths that speak, the notes and strings, O masters of the glittering town! O! lay the shrilly trumpet down, Though drunken with the flags that sway Over the ramparts and the towers, And with the waving of your wings. First Voice. Maybe they linger […]...
24. Life What is our life? A play of passion, Our mirth the music of division, Our mother’s wombs the tiring-houses be, Where we are dressed for this short comedy. Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is, That sits and marks still who doth act amiss. Our graves that hide us from the setting sun Are like drawn […]...
25. Monotone The monotone of the rain is beautiful, And the sudden rise and slow relapse Of the long multitudinous rain. The sun on the hills is beautiful, Or a captured sunset sea-flung, Bannered with fire and gold. A face I know is beautiful With fire and gold of sky and sea, And the peace of long […]...
26. What would I give to see his face? What would I give to see his face? I’d give I’d give my life of course But that is not enough! Stop just a minute let me think! I’d give my biggest Bobolink! That makes two Him and Life! You know who “June” is I’d give her Roses a day from Zanzibar And Lily tubes […]...
27. A Historical Breakfast A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face, Tilting it to his mouth. It’s historical, he thinks. He scratches his head: another historical event. He really ought to rest, he’s making an awful lot of History this morning. Oh my, now he’s buttering toast, another piece of History is being made. He […]...
28. Savoir Faire CAST a bronze of my head and legs and put them on the king’s street. Set the cast of me here alongside Carl XII, making two Carls for the Swedish people and the utlanders to look at between the palace and the Grand Hotel. The summer sun will shine on both the Carls, and November […]...
29. Mrs. Merritt Silent before the jury, Returning no word to the judge when he asked me If I had aught to say against the sentence, Only shaking my head. What could I say to people who thought That a woman of thirty-five was at fault When her lover of nineteen killed her husband? Even though she had […]...
30. Hymn 90 Youth and judgment. Eccl. 11:9. Lo! the young tribes of Adam rise, And through all nature rove Fulfil the wishes of their eyes, And taste the joys they love. They give a loose to wild desires; But let the sinners know The strict account that God requires Of all the works they do. The Judge […]...
31. Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat On the silent sea we have heard the sound That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet. Under the mile off moon we trembled listening To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound […]...
32. The Goblet of Life Filled is Life’s goblet to the brim; And though my eyes with tears are dim, I see its sparkling bubbles swim, And chant a melancholy hymn With solemn voice and slow. No purple flowers, no garlands green, Conceal the goblet’s shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick […]...
33. Anthony Considine OUT in the wastes of the West countrie, Out where the white stars shine, Grim and silent as such men be, Rideth a man with a history – Anthony Considine. For the ways of men they are manifold As their differing views in life; Some sell themselves for the lust of gold, And some for […]...
34. Ode To Salt This salt In the saltcellar I once saw in the salt mines. I know You won’t Believe me, But It sings, Salt sings, the skin Of the salt mines Sings With a mouth smothered By the earth. I shivered in those solitudes When I heard The voice of The salt In the desert. Near Antofagasta […]...
35. Voices of the Air But then there comes that moment rare When, for no cause that I can find, The little voices of the air Sound above all the sea and wind. The sea and wind do then obey And sighing, sighing double notes Of double basses, content to play A droning chord for the little throats The little […]...
36. Falltime GOLD of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon, Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue, Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts, Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence, Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long, Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers […]...
37. On the desert On the desert A silence from the moon’s deepest valley. Fire rays fall athwart the robes Of hooded men, squat and dumb. Before them, a woman Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles And distant thunder of drums, While mystic things, sinuous, dull with terrible colour, Sleepily fondle her body Or move at her will, […]...
38. Young Sea The sea is never still. It pounds on the shore Restless as a young heart, Hunting. The sea speaks And only the stormy hearts Know what it says: It is the face of a rough mother speaking. The sea is young. One storm cleans all the hoar And loosens the age of it. I hear […]...
39. Ready to Kill TEN minutes now I have been looking at this. I have gone by here before and wondered about it. This is a bronze memorial of a famous general Riding horseback with a flag and a sword and a revolver On him. I want to smash the whole thing into a pile of junk to be […]...
40. Roman Fountain Up from the bronze, I saw Water without a flaw Rush to its rest in air, Reach to its rest, and fall. Bronze of the blackest shade, An element man-made, Shaping upright the bare Clear gouts of water in air. O, as with arm and hammer, Still it is good to strive To beat out […]...