Murmurings in a field hospital

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. Axe Handles One afternoon the last week in April Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet One-half turn and it sticks in a stump. He recalls the hatchet-head Without a handle, in the shop And go gets it, and wants it for his own. A broken-off axe handle behind the door Is long enough for a hatchet, […]...
3. Upstairs I TOO have a garret of old playthings. I have tin soldiers with broken arms upstairs. I have a wagon and the wheels gone upstairs. I have guns and a drum, a jumping-jack and a magic lantern. And dust is on them and I never look at them upstairs. I too have a garret of […]...
4. Winter in Durnover Field Scene. A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and Frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, And wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a Dull grey. (Triolet) Rook. Throughout the field I find no grain; The cruel frost encrusts the cornland! Starling. Aye: patient pecking now […]...
5. Cold Iron Cold is for the mistress silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.” “Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall, “But Iron Cold Iron is master of them all.” So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege, Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege. “Nay!” said the […]...
6. The Desolate Field Vast and grey, the sky Is a simulacrum To all but him whose days Are vast and grey and- In the tall, dried grasses A goat stirs With nozzle searching the ground. My head is in the air But who am I. . . ? -and my heart stops amazed At the thought of love […]...
7. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
8. In Flanders Field In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In […]...
9. Hospital For Defectives By your unnumbered charities A miracle disclose, Lord of the Images, whose love The eyelids and the rose Takes for a language, and today Tell to me what is said By these men in a turnip field And their unleavened bread. For all things seem to figure out The stirrings of your heart, And two […]...
10. The Cottage Hospital At the end of a long-walled garden in a red provincial town, A brick path led to a mulberry – scanty grass at its feet. I lay under blackening branches where the mulberry leaves hung down Sheltering ruby fruit globes from a Sunday-tea-time heat. Apple and plum espaliers basked upon bricks of brown; The air […]...
11. The Shovel Man ON the street Slung on his shoulder is a handle half way across, Tied in a big knot on the scoop of cast iron Are the overalls faded from sun and rain in the ditches; Spatter of dry clay sticking yellow on his left sleeve And a flimsy shirt open at the throat, I know […]...
12. Hard Luck I left the course, and by my side There walked a ruined tout A hungry creature, evil-eyed, Who poured this story out. “You see,” he said, “there came a swell To Kensington today, And, if I picked the winners well, A crown at least he’s pay. “I picked three winners straight, I did; I filled […]...
13. Nature As a fond mother, when the day is o’er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which though […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night: When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day, One look I but gave, which your dear eyes return’d, with a look I shall never forget; One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reach’d up as you lay on the […]...
16. Don Quixote The knight of immortal youth At the age of fifty found his mind in his heart And on July morning went out to capture The right, the beautiful, the just. Facing him a world of silly and arrogant giants, He on his sad but brave Rocinante. I know what it means to be longing for […]...
17. The Rat As often as he let himself be seen We pitied him, or scorned him, or deplored The inscrutable profusion of the Lord Who shaped as one of us a thing so mean – Who made him human when he might have been A rat, and so been wholly in accord With any other creature we […]...
18. The Battle of Flodden Field ‘Twas on the 9th of September, a very beautiful day, That a numerous English army came in grand array, And pitched their tents on Flodden field so green In the year of our Lord fifteen hundred and thirteen. And on the ridge of Braxton hill the Scottish army lay, All beautifully arrayed, and eager for […]...
19. The Far Field I I dream of journeys repeatedly: Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula, The road lined with snow-laden second growth, A fine dry snow ticking the windshield, Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic, And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror, The […]...
20. Old Timers I AM an ancient reluctant conscript. On the soup wagons of Xerxes I was a cleaner of pans. On the march of Miltiades’ phalanx I had a haft and head; I had a bristling gleaming spear-handle. Red-headed Cæsar picked me for a teamster. He said, “Go to work, you Tuscan bastard, Rome calls for a […]...
21. In Sark Abreast and ahead of the sea is a crag’s front cloven asunder With strong sea-breach and with wasting of winds whence terror is Shed As a shadow of death from the wings of the darkness on waters that Thunder Abreast and ahead. At its edge is a sepulchre hollowed and hewn for a lone man’s […]...
22. WITHOUT THE WHEREWITHALL To Thushari Williams Dear Thushie, the six months you spent with us Will never be forgotten, the long days you laboured In the care home, your care-worn comings home To sit with Brenda Williams, poиte maudit sang pur, Labouring together to bring to light poems buried alive And turn them into a book, the living […]...
23. The City of Perth Beautiful Ancient City of Perth, One of the fairest on the earth, With your stately mansions and scenery most fine, Which seems very beautiful in the summer time; And the beautiful silvery Tay, Rolling smoothly on its way, And glittering like silver in the sunshine – And the Railway Bridge across it is really sublime. […]...
24. Along the field as we came by ALONG the field as we came by A year ago, my love and I, The aspen over stile and stone Was talking to itself alone. ‘Oh who are these that kiss and pass? A country lover and his lass; Two lovers looking to be wed; And time shall put them both to bed, But she […]...
25. In The Poppy Field Mad Patsy said, he said to me, That every morning he could see An angel walking on the sky; Across the sunny skies of morn He threw great handfuls far and nigh Of poppy seed among the corn; And then, he said, the angels run To see the poppies in the sun. A poppy is […]...
26. Field Thistle Herb and spine, The flat-fisted dream Of stars and dew Formed when he walked With his telescope Through grasses spotted By the spit bug. A raucous noise, The dawn of great beauty And he with his tripod Matting the grasses as he walked. I never saw him dead On a bed of white down. Never […]...
27. On the Field of Kulicovo The river stretched. It flows, idly grieves, And washes both banks. In steppe, above light clay of cliffs Rinks mourn in ranks. O Russia! Dear wife! With clearness and pain We see the lengthy way! It sent an arrow of ancient Tartar reign – In breast it lay. The way through steppes and an incessant […]...
28. The Field Daisy I’m a pretty little thing, Always coming with the spring; In the meadows green I’m found, Peeping just above the ground, And my stalk is cover’d flat With a white and yellow hat. Little Mary, when you pass Lightly o’er the tender grass, Skip about, but do not tread On my bright but lowly head, […]...
29. The Poplar Field The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade: The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves, Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives. Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew, And […]...
30. Forget Not the Field Forget not the field where they perish’d, The truest, the last of the brave, All gone and the bright hope we cherish’d Gone with them, and quench’d in their grave! Oh! could we from death but recover Those hearts as they bounded before, In the face of high heaven to fight over That combat for […]...
31. The Field of Glory War shook the land where Levi dwelt, And fired the dismal wrath he felt, That such a doom was ever wrought As his, to toil while others fought; To toil, to dream and still to dream, With one day barren as another; To consummate, as it would seem The dry despair of his old mother. […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. Fame If I should die, to-day, To-morrow, maybe, the world would see Would waken from sleep, and say, “Why here was talent! why here was worth! Why here was a luminous light o’ the earth. A soul as free As the winds of the sea: To whom was given A dower of heaven. And fame, and […]...
34. Rite of Spring So winter closed its fist And got it stuck in the pump. The plunger froze up a lump In its throat, ice founding itself Upon iron. The handle Paralysed at an angle. Then the twisting of wheat straw Into ropes, lapping them tight Round stem and snout, then a light That sent the pump up […]...
35. On Living I Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel, for example I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation. Living is no laughing matter: you must take it seriously, so much so and to such a degree that, for […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. Hidden dangers Which things excited you the most when you were young, Can you recall the pleasures they would bring? Indulge Yourself, dispose your mind of daily care and take The plunge – but beware, there’s hidden dangers here. Have you ever sucked your thumb? And if you did would You admit you did? Did you ever […]...
38. A Field of Stubble, lying sere A Field of Stubble, lying sere Beneath the second Sun Its Toils to Brindled People thrust Its Triumphs to the Bin Accosted by a timid Bird Irresolute of Alms Is often seen but seldom felt, On our New England Farms...
39. Candles The days of our future stand in front of us Like a row of little lit candles Golden, warm, and lively little candles. The days past remain behind us, A mournful line of extinguished candles; The ones nearest are still smoking, Cold candles, melted, and bent. I do not want to look at them; their […]...
40. 1. Faith “I’ve been having these Awful dreams, each a little different, Though the core’s the same- We’re walking in a field, Wally and Arden and I, a stretch of grass With a highway running beside it, Or a path in the woods that opens Onto a road. Everything’s fine, Then the dog sprints ahead of us, […]...