Sand Scribblings

Related poetry:

1. Chicks THE CHICK in the egg picks at the shell, cracks open one oval world, and enters another oval world. “Cheep… cheep… cheep” is the salutation of the newcomer, the emigrant, the casual at the gates of the new world. “Cheep… cheep” … from oval to oval, sunset to sunset, star to star. It is at […]...
2. To George Sand: A Recognition TRUE genius, but true woman! dost deny The woman’s nature with a manly scorn And break away the gauds and armlets worn By weaker women in captivity? Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry Is sobbed in by a woman’s voice forlorn, Thy woman’s hair, my sister, all unshorn Floats back dishevelled strength in agony Disproving […]...
3. 136 Syllables At Rocky Mountain Dharma Center Tail turned to red sunset on a juniper crown a lone magpie cawks. Mad at Oryoki in the shrine-room Thistles blossomed late afternoon. Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun walking the path to lunch. A dandelion seed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitos. At 4 A. M. the […]...
4. To George Sand: A Desire THOU large-brained woman and large-hearted man, Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance And answers roar for roar, as spirits can: I would some mild miraculous thunder ran Above the applauded circus, in appliance Of thine own nobler nature’s strength and science, Drawing two pinions, white as wings […]...
5. Sand Dabs, Five What men build, in the name of security, is built of straw. * Does the grain of sand know it is a grain of sand? * My dog Ben a mouth like a tabernacle. * You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, Serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but […]...
6. A Grain Of Sand If starry space no limit knows And sun succeeds to sun, There is no reason to suppose Our earth the only one. ‘Mid countless constellations cast A million worlds may be, With each a God to bless or blast And steer to destiny. Just think! A million gods or so To guide each vital stream, […]...
7. Sand Dunes Sea waves are green and wet, But up from where they die, Rise others vaster yet, And those are brown and dry. They are the sea made land To come at the fisher town, And bury in solid sand The men she could not drown. She may know cove and cape, But she does not […]...
8. Portrait By A Neighbour Before she has her floor swept Or her dishes done, Any day you’ll find her A-sunning in the sun! It’s long after midnight Her key’s in the lock, And you never see her chimney smoke Til past ten o’clock! She digs in her garden With a shovel and a spoon, She weeds her lazy lettuce […]...
9. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 03: One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand, With wave upon slowly shattering wave, Turned to the city of towers as evening fell; And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it; And saw how the towers darkened against the sky; And across the distance heard the toll of a bell. Along the […]...
10. Wind on the Hill No one can tell me, Nobody knows, Where the wind comes from, Where the wind goes. It’s flying from somewhere As fast as it can, I couldn’t keep up with it, Not if I ran. But if I stopped holding The string of my kite, It would blow with the wind For a day and […]...
11. The Princess: A Medley: O Swallow O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North. O Swallow, Swallow, if […]...
12. The Sands of Dee 1 “O Mary, go and call the cattle home, 2 And call the cattle home, 3 And call the cattle home 4 Across the sands of Dee”; 5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam, 6 And all alone went she. 7 The western tide crept up along the sand, 8 And o’er […]...
13. Grass PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is […]...
14. Six Significant Landscapes I An old man sits In the shadow of a pine tree In China. He sees larkspur, Blue and white, At the edge of the shadow, Move in the wind. His beard moves in the wind. The pine tree moves in the wind. Thus water flows Over weeds. II The night is of the colour […]...
15. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
16. Georgine Sand Miner A step-mother drove me from home, embittering me. A squaw-man, a flaneur and dilettante took my virtue. For years I was his mistress no one knew. I learned from him the parasite cunning With which I moved with the bluffs, like a flea on a dog. All the time I was nothing but “very private” […]...
17. So I Said I Am Ezra So I said I am Ezra And the wind whipped my throat Gaming for the sounds of my voice I listened to the wind Go over my head and up into the night Turning to the sea I said I am Ezra But there were no echoes from the waves The words were swallowed up […]...
18. Invitation To Miss Marianne Moore From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning, please come flying. In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals, please come flying, To the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums Descending out of the mackerel sky Over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water, please come flying. Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing. The […]...
19. A Hole In The Floor for Rene Magritte The carpenter’s made a hole In the parlor floor, and I’m standing Staring down into it now At four o’clock in the evening, As Schliemann stood when his shovel Knocked on the crowns of Troy. A clean-cut sawdust sparkles On the grey, shaggy laths, And here is a cluster of shavings >From […]...
20. Song of the Little White Girl Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter? Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter? Because it is just a white baby you see, And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree? Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellow With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow. Wouldn’t you like to […]...
21. Mid My Gold-Brown Curls ‘Mid my gold-brown curls There twined a silver hair: I plucked it idly out And scarcely knew ’twas there. Coiled in my velvet sleeve it lay And like a serpent hissed: “Me thou canst pluck & fling away, One hair is lightly missed; But how on that near day When all the wintry army muster […]...
22. Talking (and Singing) of the Nordic Man I Behold, my child, the Nordic man, And be as like him, as you can; His legs are long, his mind is slow, His hair is lank and made of tow. II And here we have the Alpine Race: Oh! What a broad and foolish face! His skin is of a dirty yellow. He is […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. Shagbark Hickory IN the moonlight under a shag-bark hickory tree Watching the yellow shadows melt in hoof-pools, Listening to the yes and the no of a woman’s hands, I kept my guess why the night was glad. The night was lit with a woman’s eyes. The night was crossed with a woman’s hands, The night kept humming […]...
25. Still hear the waves It was a brave day under an endlessly clear sky That extended forever from our valley To the unfathomably distant sea. It was a day to remember amongst days of Classical splendour and wonderment, From an unoccupied beach and the virgin Sand crisp and crumbling under flying feet, To the tumbling vastness of twinkling ocean […]...
26. By the Pool of the Third Rosses I heard the sighing of the reed In the grey pool in the green land, The sea-wind in the long reeds sighing Between the green hill and the sand. I heard the sighing of the reeds Day after day, night after night; I heard the whirring wild ducks flying, I saw the sea-gull’s wheeling flight. […]...
27. The Monument Now can you see the monument? It is of wood Built somewhat like a box. No. Built Like several boxes in descending sizes One above the other. Each is turned half-way round so that Its corners point toward the sides Of the one below and the angles alternate. Then on the topmost cube is set […]...
28. Potions The old woman made mint Candy for the children Who’d bolt through her front door, Silhouettes of the great blue Heron. She sold ten-dollar potions From a half-lit kitchen. Chinese boxes Furnished with fliers & sinkers. Sassafras & lizard tongues. They’d walk out Of the woods or drive in from cities, Clutching lovesick dollar bills […]...
29. Pull A String, A Puppet Moves each man must realize That it can all disappear very Quickly: The cat, the woman, the job, The front tire, The bed, the walls, the Room; all our necessities Including love, Rest on foundations of sand – And any given cause, No matter how unrelated: The death of a boy in Hong Kong Or a […]...
30. The Eavesdropper In a still room at hush of dawn, My Love and I lay side by side And heard the roaming forest wind Stir in the paling autumn-tide. I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad Because the round day was so fair; While memories of reluctant night Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair. Outside, […]...
31. Those Were The Days The sun came up before breakfast, Perfectly round and yellow, and we Dressed in the soft light and shook out Our long blond curls and waited For Maid to brush them flat and place The part just where it belonged. We came down the carpeted stairs One step at a time, in single file, Gleaming […]...
32. Cups of Coffee THE HAGGARD woman with a hacking cough and a deathless love whispers of white Flowers… in your poem you pour like a cup of coffee, Gabriel. The slim girl whose voice was lost in the waves of flesh piled on her bones… and The woman who sold to many men and saw her breasts shrivel… […]...
33. In The Kalahari Desert The sun rose like a tarnished Looking-glass to catch the sun And flash His hot message At the missionaries below Isabella and the Rev. Roger Price, And the Helmores with a broken axle Left, two days behind, at Fever Ponds. The wilderness was full of home: A glinting beetle on its back Struggled like an […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. Nine Things It’s night And a numbered beauty Lapses at the wind, Chortles with the Branches of a tree, giggles, Plays shadow dance With a dead kite, Cajoles affection From falling leaves, And knows four Other things. One is the color Of your hair....
36. Iron GUNS, Long, steel guns, Pointed from the war ships In the name of the war god. Straight, shining, polished guns, Clambered over with jackies in white blouses, Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth, Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses, Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties. Shovels, Broad, iron shovels, Scooping […]...
37. Domination Of Black At night, by the fire, The colors of the bushes And of the fallen leaves, Repeating themselves, Turned in the room, Like the leaves themselves Turning in the wind. Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks Came striding. And I remembered the cry of the peacocks. The colors of their tails Were like the […]...
38. The Maple The Maple Is a system of posture for wood. A way of not falling down For twigs that happens To benefit birds. I don’t know. I’m staring at a tree, At yellow leaves Threshed by wind and want you Reading this to be staring At the same tree. I could Cut it down and laminate […]...
39. Owl Against Robin Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest. “From the north, from the east, from the south and the west, Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover, Over and over and over and over, Five o’clock, ten o’clock, twelve, or seven, Nothing but […]...
40. The Voice Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were When you had changed from the one who was all to me, But as at first, when our day was fair. Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, Standing as […]...