Pencils

Related poetry:

1. Ballad of the Moon The moon came into the forge In her bustle of flowering nard. The little boy stares at her, stares. The boy is staring hard. In the shaken air The moon moves her amrs, And shows lubricious and pure, Her breasts of hard tin. “Moon, moon, moon, run! If the gypsies come, They will use your […]...
2. How Yesterday Looked THE HIGH horses of the sea broke their white riders On the walls that held and counted the hours The wind lasted. Two landbirds looked on and the north and the east Looked on and the wind poured cups of foam And the evening began. The old men in the shanties looked on and lit […]...
3. Halsted Street Car COME you, cartoonists, Hang on a strap with me here At seven o’clock in the morning On a Halsted street car. Take your pencils And draw these faces. Try with your pencils for these crooked faces, That pig-sticker in one corner his mouth That overall factory girl her loose cheeks. Find for your pencils A […]...
4. Interior IN the cool of the night time The clocks pick off the points And the mainsprings loosen. They will need winding. One of these days… they will need winding. Rabelais in red boards, Walt Whitman in green, Hugo in ten-cent paper covers, Here they stand on shelves In the cool of the night time And […]...
5. Timber Wings THERE was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley’s timber. Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on the walnuts and the hazel. There was a wild pigeon. There was a summer came year by year to Hinkley’s timber. Rainy months and sunny and pigeons calling and one pigeon best of all who came. […]...
6. Cadenza THE KNEES of this proud woman Are bone. The elbows of this proud woman Are bone. The summer-white stars and the winter-white stars Never stop circling around this proud woman. The bones of this proud woman Answer the vibrations of the stars. In summer The stars speak deep thoughts In the winter The stars repeat […]...
7. Potomac Town in February THE BRIDGE says: Come across, try me; see how good I am. The big rock in the river says: Look at me; learn how to stand up. The white water says: I go on; around, under, over, I go on. A kneeling, scraggly pine says: I am here yet; they nearly got me last year. […]...
8. Fog Portrait RINGS of iron gray smoke; a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Funnels of an ocean liner negotiating a fog night; pouring a taffy mass down the wind; layers of soot on the top deck; a taffrail… and a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Cliffs challenge humped; sudden arcs form on a gull’s wing in the […]...
9. Losers IF I should pass the tomb of Jonah I would stop there and sit for awhile; Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark And came out alive after all. If I pass the burial spot of Nero I shall say to the wind, “Well, well!”- I who have fiddled in a world […]...
10. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
11. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
12. Long Guns THEN came, Oscar, the time of the guns. And there was no land for a man, no land for a country, Unless guns sprang up And spoke their language. The how of running the world was all in guns. The law of a God keeping sea and land apart, The law of a child sucking […]...
13. Lord, what a Beloved is mine! Lord, what a Beloved is mine! I have a sweet quarry; I possess In my breast a hundred meadows from his reed. When in anger the messenger comes and repairs towards me, He says, “Whither are you fleeing? I have business with you.” Last night I asked the new moon concerning my Moon. The Moon […]...
14. Jazz Fantasia DRUM on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen. Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper. Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops, moan soft like […]...
15. The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon There is an inn, a merry old inn Beneath an old grey hill, And there they brew a beer so brown That the Man in the Moon himself came down One night to drink his fill. The ostler has a tipsy cat That plays a five-stringed fiddle; And up and down he saws his bow […]...
16. The Shampoo The still explosions on the rocks, The lichens, grow By spreading, gray, concentric shocks. They have arranged To meet the rings around the moon, although Within our memories they have not changed. And since the heavens will attend As long on us, You’ve been, dear friend, Precipitate and pragmatical; And look what happens. For Time […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. Spring Thunder Listen, The wind is still, And far away in the night See! The uplands fill With a running light. Open the doors. It is warm; And where the sky was clear Look! The head of a storm That marches here! Come under the trembling hedge Fast, although you fumble… There! Did you hear the edge […]...
19. Picture-Books in Winter Summer fading, winter comes Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books. All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, […]...
20. Day Dream One day people will touch and talk perhaps Easily, And loving be natural as breathing and warm as Sunlight, And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted, Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers, Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea, And work will be simple and swift As a seagull […]...
21. Colonus' Praise (From Oedipus at Colonus) Chorus. Come praise Colonus’ horses, and come praise The wine-dark of the wood’s intricacies, The nightingale that deafens daylight there, If daylight ever visit where, Unvisited by tempest or by sun, Immortal ladies tread the ground Dizzy with harmonious sound, Semele’s lad a gay companion. And yonder in the gymnasts’ garden […]...
22. Birds Calling in the Ravine I’m idle, as osmanthus flowers fall, This quiet night in spring, the hill is empty. The moon comes out and startles the birds on the hill, They don’t stop calling in the spring ravine....
23. The Story of Mongrel Grey This is the story the stockman told On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright; The moon rose up like a globe of gold And flooded the plain with her mellow light. We watched the cattle till dawn of day And he told me the story of Mongrel Grey. He was a knock-about station hack, […]...
24. Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs RUM tiddy um, tiddy um, tiddy um tum tum. My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves. I feel like tickling you under the chin-honey-and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road? When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you-honey-put new potatoes and gravy on the table, […]...
25. To See Him Again Never, never again? Not on nights filled with quivering stars, Or during dawn’s maiden brightness Or afternoons of sacrifice? Or at the edge of a pale path That encircles the farmlands, Or upon the rim of a trembling fountain, Whitened by a shimmering moon? Or beneath the forest’s Luxuriant, raveled tresses Where, calling his name, […]...
26. Sand Scribblings THE WIND stops, the wind begins. The wind says stop, begin. A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor. The shovel changes, the floor changes. The sandpipers, maybe they know. Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell. Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses. The sandpipers cheep “Here” and get away. Five of them fly and […]...
27. Still Here I been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between ’em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’ But I don’t care! I’m still here!...
28. The Play I am the only actor. It is difficult for one woman To act out a whole play. The play is my life, My solo act. My running after the hands And never catching up. (The hands are out of sight – That is, offstage.) All I am doing onstage is running, Running to keep up, […]...
29. North Atlantic WHEN the sea is everywhere From horizon to horizon.. when the salt and blue fill a circle of horizons.. I swear again how I know The sea is older than anything else And the sea younger than anything else. My first father was a landsman. My tenth father was a sea-lover, a gipsy sea-boy, a […]...
30. The Drunkards in the Street The Drunkards in the street are calling one another, Heeding not the night-wind, great of heart and gay, – Publicans and wantons – Calling, laughing, calling, While the Spirit bloweth Space and Time away. Why should I feel the sobbing, the secrecy, the glory, This comforter, this fitful wind divine? I the cautious Pharisee, the […]...
31. Turns And Movies: Violet Moore And Bert Moore He thinks her little feet should pass Where dandelions star thickly grass; Her hands should lift in sunlit air Sea-wind should tangle up her hair. Green leaves, he says, have never heard A sweeter ragtime mockingbird, Nor has the moon-man ever seen, Or man in the spotlight, leering green, Such a beguiling, smiling queen. Her […]...
32. Night Piece, to Julia Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, The shooting stars attend thee, And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like sparks of fire befriend thee. No will-o’th’-wisp mislight thee; No snake or slow-worm bite thee; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there’s none to affright thee. Let not the dark […]...
33. The Night Piece, to Julia Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, The shooting stars attend thee; And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. No Will-o’-th’-Wisp mis-light thee, Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there’s none to affright thee. Let not the […]...
34. What shall I do it whimpers so What shall I do it whimpers so This little Hound within the Heart All day and night with bark and start And yet, it will not go Would you untie it, were you me Would it stop whining if to Thee I sent it even now? It should not tease you By your chair or, […]...
35. Woman with a Past THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry. There was a woman spoke six short words And quit a life that was old to her For a life that was new. There was a woman […]...
36. Winter Milk THE MILK drops on your chin, Helga, Must not interfere with the cranberry red of your cheeks Nor the sky winter blue of your eyes. Let your mammy keep hands off the chin. This is a high holy spatter of white on the reds and blues. Before the bottle was taken away, Before you so […]...
37. 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 […]...
38. The Floor The floor is something we must fight against. Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human Stance, it is that place that men fall to. I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse; The pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face. But should I go dizzy I crash down into the […]...
39. Lover's Gifts XVI: She Dwelt Here by the Pool She dwelt here by the pool with its landing-stairs in ruins. Many An evening she had watched the moon made dizzy by the shaking of Bamboo leaves, and on many a rainy day the smell of the wet earth Had come to her over the young shoots of rice. Her pet name is known here […]...
40. Reveille In the brutal nights we used to dream Dense violent dreams, Dreamed with soul and body: To return; to eat; to tell the story. Until the dawn command Sounded brief, low ‘Wstawac’ And the heart cracked in the breast. Now we have found our homes again, Our bellies are full, We’re through telling the story. […]...