From The Shore
A LONE gray bird, Dim-dipping, far-flying, Alone in the shadows and grandeurs and tumults Of night and the sea And the stars and storms. Out over the darkness it wavers and hovers, Out into
Killers
I AM singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move: Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for
Leather Leggings
THEY have taken the ball of earth and made it a little thing. They were held to the land and horses; they were held to the little seas. They have changed and shaped and
Vaudeville Dancer
ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville. The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to The Livery Stable Blues. It is long
Who am I?
My head knocks against the stars. My feet are on the hilltops. My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of Universal life. Down in the sounding foam of primal things I Reach my
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
A Teamster's Farewell
Sobs En Route to a Penitentiary GOOD-BY now to the streets and the clash of wheels and Locking hubs, The sun coming on the brass buckles and harness knobs. The muscles of the horses
Crimson Changes People
DID I see a crucifix in your eyes And nails and Roman soldiers And a dusk Golgotha? Did I see Mary, the changed woman, Washing the feet of all men, Clean as new grass
Flash Crimson
I SHALL cry God to give me a broken foot. I shall ask for a scar and a slashed nose. I shall take the last and the worst. I shall be eaten by gray
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
On The Breakwater
On the breakwater in the summer dark, a man and a girl are sitting, She across his knee and they are looking face into face Talking to each other without words, singing rythms in
Under the Harvest Moon
Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers. Under the summer roses When
Languages
THERE are no handles upon a language Whereby men take hold of it And mark it with signs for its remembrance. It is a river, this language, Once in a thousand years Breaking a
Momus
Momus is the name men give your face, The brag of its tone, like a long low steamboat whistle Finding a way mid mist on a shoreland, Where gray rocks let the salt water
Waiting
TODAY I will let the old boat stand Where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in To the pulse of a far, deep-steady sway. And I will rest and dream and sit on