Soiled Dove

Related poetry:

1. Curse of a Rich Polish Peasant on His Sister Who Ran Away With a Wild Man FELIKSOWA has gone again from our house and this time for good, I hope. She and her husband took with them the cow father gave them, and they sold it. She went like a swine, because she called neither on me, her brother, nor on her father, before leaving for those forests. That is where […]...
2. The Captive Dove Poor restless dove, I pity thee; And when I hear thy plaintive moan, I mourn for thy captivity, And in thy woes forget mine own. To see thee stand prepared to fly, And flap those useless wings of thine, And gaze into the distant sky, Would melt a harder heart than mine. In vain ­ […]...
3. White Hands FOR the second time in a year this lady with the white hands is brought to the west room second floor of a famous sanatorium. Her husband is a cornice manufacturer in an Iowa town and the lady has often read papers on Victorian poets before the local literary club. Yesterday she washed her hands […]...
4. Homage To A Government Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home For lack of money, and it is all right. Places they guarded, or kept orderly, We want the money for ourselves at home Instead of working. And this is all right. It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen, But now it’s been decided […]...
5. THE EAGLE AND DOVE IN search of prey once raised his pinions An eaglet; A huntsman’s arrow came, and reft His right wing of all motive power. Headlong he fell into a myrtle grove, For three long days on anguish fed, In torment writhed Throughout three long, three weary nights; And then was cured, Thanks to all-healing Nature’s Soft, […]...
6. Where It Was At Back Then Husband, Last night I dreamt They cut off your hands and feet. Husband, You whispered to me, Now we are both incomplete. Husband, I held all four In my arms like sons and daughters. Husband, I bent slowly down And washed them in magical waters. Husband, I placed each one Where it belonged on you. […]...
7. To A Husband This is to the crown and blessing of my life, The much loved husband of a happy wife; To him whose constant passion found the art To win a stubborn and ungrateful heart, And to the world by tenderest proof discovers They err, who say that husbands can’t be lovers. With such return of passion, […]...
8. The Dove If haply thou, O Desdemona Morn, Shouldst call along the curving sphere, “Remain, Dear Night, sweet Moor; nay, leave me not in scorn!” With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain; Shouldst thou, O Spring! a-cower in coverts dark, ‘Gainst proud supplanting Summer sing thy plea, And move the mighty woods through mailed bark Till […]...
9. At Bay Wife Reach out your arms, and hold me close and fast. Tell me there are no memories of your past That mar this love of ours, so great, so vast. Husband Some truths are cheapened when too oft averred. Does not the deed speak louder than the word? (dear God, that old dream woke again […]...
10. Meditation on a Bone A piece of bone, found at Trondhjem in 1901, with the following runic inscription (about A. D. 1050) cut on it: I loved her as a maiden; I will not trouble Erlend’s detestable wife; better she should be a widow. Words scored upon a bone, Scratched in despair or rage Nine hundred years have gone; […]...
11. Carlovingian Dreams COUNT these reminiscences like money. The Greeks had their picnics under another name. The Romans wore glad rags and told their neighbors, “What of it?” The Carlovingians hauling logs on carts, they too Stuck their noses in the air and stuck their thumbs to their noses And tasted life as a symphonic dream of fresh […]...
12. Parable Of The Dove A dove lived in a village. When it opened its mouth Sweetness came out, sound Like a silver light around The cherry bough. But The dove wasn’t satisfied. It saw the villagers Gathered to listen under The blossoming tree. It didn’t think: I Am higher that they are. It wanted to wealk among them, To […]...
13. Dove Sta Amore Dove sta amore Where lies love Dove sta amore Here lies love The ring dove love In lyrical delight Hear love’s hillsong Love’s true willsong Love’s low plainsong Too sweet painsong In passages of night Dove sta amore Here lies love The ring dove love Dove sta amore Here lies love...
14. A Holiday The Wife The house is like a garden, The children are the flowers, The gardener should come methinks And walk among his bowers, Oh! lock the door on worry And shut your cares away, Not time of year, but love and cheer, Will make a holiday. The Husband Impossible! You women do not know The […]...
15. The Dove of Dacca 1892 The freed dove flew to the Rajah’s tower Fled from the slaughter of Moslem kings And the thorns have covered the city of Guar. Dove dove oh, homing dove! Little white traitor, with woe on thy wings! The Rajah of Dacca rode under the wall; He set in his bosom a dove of flight […]...
16. Dove in the Arch Cursed! Be the father of the bride Of the blacksmith who forged the iron for the axe With which the woodsman hacked down the oak From which the bed was carved In which was conceived the great-grandfather Of the man who was driving the carriage In which your mother met your father....
17. My Dove, My Beautiful One My dove, my beautiful one, Arise, arise! The night-dew lies Upon my lips and eyes. The odorous winds are weaving A music of sighs: Arise, arise, My dove, my beautiful one! I wait by the cedar tree, My sister, my love, White breast of the dove, My breast shall be your bed. The pale dew […]...
18. Once more, my now bewildered Dove Once more, my now bewildered Dove Bestirs her puzzled wings Once more her mistress, on the deep Her troubled question flings Thrice to the floating casement The Patriarch’s bird returned, Courage! My brave Columbia! There may yet be land...
19. If I Could Mourn Like A Mourning Dove It is what recurs that we believe, Your face not at one moment looking Sideways up at me anguished or Elate, but the old words welling up by Gravity rearranged: Two weeks before you died in Pain worn out, after my usual casual sign-off With All my love, your simple Solemn My love to you, […]...
20. Eurolove I cannot And I will not No, I cannot love you less Like the flower to the butterfly The corsage to the dress She turns my love to dust My destination empty My beliefs scattered: Diaspora! Who set this course – and why? Now my wings beat – Without purpose Yet they speed…...
21. 77. Epitaph on John Dove, Innkeeper HERE lies Johnie Pigeon; What was his religion? Whae’er desires to ken, To some other warl’ Maun follow the carl, For here Johnie Pigeon had nane! Strong ale was ablution, Small beer persecution, A dram was memento mori; But a full-flowing bowl Was the saving his soul, And port was celestial glory....
22. All I may, if small All I may, if small, Do it not display Larger for the Totalness ‘Tis Economy To bestow a World And withhold a Star Utmost, is Munificence Less, tho’ larger, poor....
23. Women Washing Their Hair THEY have painted and sung The women washing their hair, And the plaits and strands in the sun, And the golden combs And the combs of elephant tusks And the combs of buffalo horn and hoof. The sun has been good to women, Drying their heads of hair As they stooped and shook their shoulders […]...
24. A Week Later A week later, I said to a friend: I don’t Think I could ever write about it. Maybe in a year I could write something. There is something in me maybe someday To be written; now it is folded, and folded, And folded, like a note in school. And in my dream Someone was playing […]...
25. Jane My daughter Jane makes dresses For beautiful Princesses; But though she’s plain is Jane, Of needlework she’s vain, And makes such pretty things For relatives of Kings. She reads the picture papers Where Royalties cut capers, And often says to me: ‘How wealthy they must be, That nearly every day A new robe they can […]...
26. My House I have a house I’ve lived in long: I can’t recall my going in. ‘Twere better bartered for a song Ere ruin, rot and rust begin. When it was fresh and fine and fair, I used it with neglect, I fear; But now I husband it with care And cherish it form year to year. […]...
27. Year's End for Audre Lorde and Sonny Wainwright Twice in my quickly disappearing forties Someone called while someone I loved and I were Making love to tell me another woman had died of cancer. Seven years apart, and two different lovers: Underneath the numbers, how lives are braided, How those women’s death and lives, lived and died, […]...
28. Title divine is mine! Title divine is mine! The Wife without the Sign! Acute Degree conferred on me Empress of Calvary! Royal all but the Crown! Betrothed without the swoon God sends us Women When you hold Garnet to Garnet Gold to Gold Born Bridalled Shrouded In a Day Tri Victory “My Husband” women say Stroking the Melody Is […]...
29. Water I was born in a drouth year. That summer My mother waited in the house, enclosed In the sun and the dry ceaseless wind, For the men to come back in the evenings, Bringing water from a distant spring. Veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank. And all my life I have dreaded the return […]...
30. Hymn 128 The apostles’ commission. Mark 16:15ff; Matt. 28:18ff. “O preach my gospel,” saith the Lord, “Bid the whole earth my grace receive; He shall be saved that trusts my word, He shall be damned that won’t believe. “I’ll make your great commission known, And ye shall prove my gospel true, By all the works that I […]...
31. Be Angry At San Pedro I say to my woman, “Jeffers was A great poet. think of a title Like Be Angry At The Sun. don’t you Realize how great that is? “you like that negative stuff.” she Says “positively,” I agree, finishing my Drink and pouring another. “in one of Jeffers’ poems, not the sun poem, This woman fucks […]...
32. Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision. The channel of the dust who once achieves Invalidates the balm of that religion That doubts as fervently as it believes....
33. Salvage GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year Between Brussels and Paris. And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on The great arches and naves and little whimsical Corners of the Churches of Northern France Brr-rr! I’m glad you’re a dead man, William Morris, I’m glad You’re down in the damp […]...
34. By my Window have I for Scenery By my Window have I for Scenery Just a Sea with a Stem If the Bird and the Farmer deem it a “Pine” The Opinion will serve for them It has no Port, nor a “Line” but the Jays That split their route to the Sky Or a Squirrel, whose giddy Peninsula May be easier […]...
35. Money Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: ‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully? I am all you never had of goods and sex, You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’ So I look at others, what they do with theirs: They certainly don’t keep it upstairs. By now they’ve a second […]...
36. The Dead A good man is seized by the police And spirited away. Months later Someone brags that he shot him once Through the back of the head With a Walther 7.65, and his life Ended just there. Those who loved Him go on searching the cafés In the Barrio Chino or the bars Near the harbor. […]...
37. A Calendar of Sonnets: February Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white; And reigns the winter’s pregnant silence still; No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill, And willow stems grow daily red and bright. These are days when ancients held a rite Of expiation for the old year’s ill, And prayer to purify the new year’s will: […]...
38. Henry Phipps I was the Sunday school superintendent, The dummy president of the wagon works And the canning factory, Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique; My son the cashier of the bank, Wedded to Rhodes’ daughter, My week day spent in making money, My Sundays at church and in prayer. In everything a cog in […]...
39. Money When I had money, money, O! I knew no joy till I went poor; For many a false man as a friend Came knocking all day at my door. Then felt I like a child that holds A trumpet that he must not blow Because a man is dead; I dared Not speak to let […]...
40. Friday Night At The Royal Station Hotel Light spreads darkly downwards from the high Clusters of lights over empty chairs That face each other, coloured differently. Through open doors, the dining-room declares A larger loneliness of knives and glass And silence laid like carpet. A porter reads An unsold evening paper. Hours pass, And all the salesmen have gone back to Leeds, […]...