Shirt

Related poetry:

1. The Red Shirt “…his poems that no one reads anymore become dust, wind, nothing, Like the insolent colored shirt he bought to die in.” -Vargas Llosa If I gave 5 birds Each 4 eyes I would be blind Unto the 3rd Generation, if I Gave no one a word For a day And let the day Grow into […]...
2. The Song of the Shirt With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the “Song of the Shirt.” “Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work […]...
3. Shirt The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams, The nearly invisible stitches along the collar Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break Or talking money or politics while one fitted This armpiece with its overseam to the band Of cuff I button at my wrist. The […]...
4. The Silent Ones I’m just an ordinary chap Who comes home to his tea, And mostly I don’t care a rap What people think of me; I do my job and take my pay, And love of peace expound; But as I go my patient way, Don’t push me round. Though I respect authority And order never flout, […]...
5. In the shadow of a broken house In the shadow of a broken house, Down a deserted street, Propt walls, cold hearths, and phantom stairs, And the silence of dead feet – Locked wildly in one another’s arms I saw two lovers meet. And over that hearthless house aghast Rose from the mind’s abyss Lost stars and ruined, peering moons, Worlds overshadowing […]...
6. Autumn Song Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow, The sunset hangs on a cloud; A golden storm of glittering sheaves, Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves, The wild wind blows in a cloud. Hark to a voice that is calling To my heart in the voice of the wind: My heart is weary […]...
7. The Ballad of the Carpet Bag Ho! Darkies, don’t you hear dose voters cryin’ Pack dat carpet bag! You must get to de Poll, you must get there flyin’; Pack dat carpet bag! You must travel by de road, you must travel by de train, And the things what you’ve done you will have to explain, And the things what you’ve […]...
8. Wraiths They know not the green leaves; In whose earth-haunting dream Dimly the forest heaves, And voiceless goes the stream. Strangely they seek a place In love’s night-memoried hall; Peering from face to face, Until some heart shall call And keep them, for a breath, Half-mortal… (Hark to the rain!)… They are dead… (O hear how […]...
9. To A Stuffed Shirt On the tide you ride head high, Like a whale ‘mid little fishes; I should envy you as I Help my wife to wash the dishes. Yet frock-coat and stove-pipe hat Cannot hide your folds of fat. You are reckoned a success, And the public praise you win; There’s your picture in the Press, Pouchy […]...
10. Light Hearted Author The birches are mad with green points The wood’s edge is burning with their green, Burning, seething-No, no, no. The birches are opening their leaves one By one. Their delicate leaves unfold cold And separate, one by one. Slender tassels Hang swaying from the delicate branch tips – Oh, I cannot say it. There is […]...
11. I Have Dreamed of You so Much I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real. Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make Your dear voice come alive again? I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my Chest as […]...
12. Cells I’ve a head like a concertina: I’ve a tongue like a button-stick: I’ve a mouth like an old potato, and I’m more than a little sick, But I’ve had my fun o’ the Corp’ral’s Guard: I’ve made the cinders fly, And I’m here in the Clink for a thundering drink and blacking the Corporal’s eye. […]...
13. Ars Poetica A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit, Dumb As old medallions to the thumb, Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds. * A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs, Leaving, as […]...
14. Distrustful of the Gentian Distrustful of the Gentian And just to turn away, The fluttering of her fringes Child my perfidy Weary for my I will singing go I shall not feel the sleet then I shall not fear the snow. Flees so the phantom meadow Before the breathless Bee So bubble brooks in deserts On Ears that dying […]...
15. Paris, October 1936 From all of this I am the only one who leaves. From this bench I go away, from my pants, From my great situation, from my actions, From my number split side to side, From all of this I am the only one who leaves. From the Champs Elysées or as the strange Alley of […]...
16. Filthy Savior Look at this storm, the idiot, Pouring its heart out here, of all places, An industrial suburb on a Sunday, Soaking nothing but cinder-block And parking lots, wasting its breath on smokeless Smoke-stacks, not even a trash can To send rumbling through the streets. And that lightning bolt, forking itself To death, to hit nothing […]...
17. The Abduction Some things I do not profess To understand, perhaps Not wanting to, including Whatever it was they did With you or you with them That timeless summer day When you stumbled out of the wood, Distracted, with your white blouse torn And a bloodstain on your skirt. “Do you believe?” you asked. Between us, through […]...
18. For You THE PEACE of great doors be for you. Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs. Wait for the great hinges. The peace of great churches be for you, Where the players of loft pipe organs Practice old lovely fragments, alone. The peace of great books be for you, Stains of pressed clover leaves on […]...
19. May Morning Deep into spring, winter is hanging on. Bitter and skillful in his Hopelessness, he stays alive in every shady place, starving along the Mediterranean: angry to see the glittering sea-pale boulder alive With lizards green as Judas leaves. Winter is hanging on. He still Believes. He tries to catch a lizard by the shoulder. One […]...
20. To Live We both have our hands to give Take mine I shall lead you afar I have lived several times my face hasw changed With every threshold I have crossed and every hand clasped Familial springtime was reborn Keeping for itself and for me its perishable snow Death and the betrothed The future with five fingers […]...
21. 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 silence to each other. A funnel of white ranges the blue dusk from an out- going boat, Playing its searchlight, puzzled, […]...
22. Hate ONE man killed another. The saying between them had been “I’d give you the shirt off my back.” The killer wept over the dead. The dead if he looks back knows the killer was sorry. It was a shot in one second of hate out of ten years of love. Why is the sun a […]...
23. Aztec Mask I wanted a man’s face looking into the jaws and throat Of life With something proud on his face, so proud no smash Of the jaws, No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end With anything else than the old proud look: Even to the finish, dumped in the dust, Lost among […]...
24. The Walkers (He speaks.) Walking, walking, oh, the joy of walking! Swinging down the tawny lanes with head held high; Striding up the green hills, through the heather stalking, Swishing through the woodlands where the brown leaves lie; Marveling at all things windmills gaily turning, Apples for the cider-press, ruby-hued and gold; Tails of rabbits twinkling, scarlet […]...
25. November There is wind where the rose was, Cold rain where sweet grass was, And clouds like sheep Stream o’er the steep Grey skies where the lark was. Nought warm where your hand was, Nought gold where your hair was, But phantom, forlorn, Beneath the thorn, Your ghost where your face was. Cold wind where your […]...
26. The Wind Sings Welcome in Early Spring (For Paula)THE GRIP of the ice is gone now. The silvers chase purple. The purples tag silver. They let out their runners Here where summer says to the lilies: “Wish and be wistful, Circle this wind-hunted, wind-sung water.” Come along always, come along now. You for me, kiss me, pull me by the ear. Push […]...
27. REQUIESCAM (May I lie in peace) Let there be grass and trees to blow And fold me in their shadow Branches to shake and leaves Turn brown, fall and lie fallow. Let there be moorlands swept by wind And raked by rain, purple splashes of heather In autumn and sturdy boulders our forefathers Carved their names […]...
28. Neutral Tones WE stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod, They had fallen from an ash, and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles solved years ago; And some words played […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. The Child Dying Unfriendly friendly universe, I pack your stars into my purse, And bid you so farewell. That I can leave you, quite go out, Go out, go out beyond all doubt, My father says, is the miracle. You are so great, and I so small: I am nothing, you are all: Being nothing, I can take […]...
31. Lisette and Eileen “When he was here alive, Eileen, There was a word you might have said; So never mind what I have been, Or anything,-for you are dead. “And after this when I am there Where he is, you’ll be dying still. Your eyes are dead, and your black hair,- The rest of you be what it […]...
32. Her Losses make our Gains ashamed Her Losses make our Gains ashamed She bore Life’s empty Pack As gallantly as if the East Were swinging at her Back. Life’s empty Pack is heaviest, As every Porter knows In vain to punish Honey It only sweeter grows....
33. Snow In the gloom of whiteness, In the great silence of snow, A child was sighing And bitterly saying: “Oh, They have killed a white bird up there on her nest, The down is fluttering from her breast!” And still it fell through that dusky brightness On the child crying for the bird of the snow....
34. Two Poems from the War Oh, not the loss of the accomplished thing! Not dumb farewells, nor long relinquishment Of beauty had, and golden summer spent, And savage glory of the fluttering Torn banners of the rain, and frosty ring Of moon-white winters, and the imminent Long-lunging seas, and glowing students bent To race on some smooth beach the gull’s […]...
35. The Law of the Jungle (From The Jungle Book) Now this is the Law of the Jungle as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back For the strength of […]...
36. Telephoning In Mexican Sunlight Talking with my beloved in New York I stood at the outdoor public telephone In Mexican sunlight, in my purple shirt. Someone had called it a man/woman Shirt. The phrase irked me. But then I remembered that Rainer Maria Rilke, who until he was seven wore Dresses and had long yellow hair, Wrote that the […]...
37. Fantasy OVER all the dream-built margin, flushed with grey and hoary light, Glint the bubble planets tossing in the dead black sea of night. Immemorial face, how many faces look from out thy skies, Now with ghostly eyes of wonder rimmed around with rainbow dyes: Now the secrets of the future trail along the silent spheres: […]...
38. 'Fall, leaves, fall&#039 Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree. I shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow; I shall sing when night’s decay Ushers in a drearier day....
39. The Hyaenas After the burial-parties leave And the baffled kites have fled; The wise hyaenas come out at eve To take account of our dead. How he died and why he died Troubles them not a whit. They snout the bushes and stones aside And dig till they come to it. They are only resolute they shall […]...
40. The power to be true to You The power to be true to You, Until upon my face The Judgment push his Picture Presumptuous of Your Place Of This Could Man deprive Me Himself the Heaven excel Whose invitation Yours reduced Until it showed too small...