The Harbor

Related poetry:

1. The Awakening River The gulls are mad-in-love with the river, And the river unveils her face and smiles. In her sleep-brooding eyes they mirror their shining wings. She lies on silver pillows: the sun leans over her. He warms and warms her, he kisses and kisses her. There are sparks in her hair and she stirs in laughter. […]...
2. The Gulls I Soft is the sky in the mist-kirtled east, Light is abroad on the sea, All of the heaven with silver is fleeced, Holding the sunrise in fee. Lo! with a flash and uplifting of wings Down where the long ripples break, Cometh a bevy of glad-hearted things, ‘Tis morn, for the gulls are awake. […]...
3. To Beachey, 1912 RIDING against the east, A veering, steady shadow Purrs the motor-call Of the man-bird Ready with the death-laughter In his throat And in his heart always The love of the big blue beyond. Only a man, A far fleck of shadow on the east Sitting at ease With his hands on a wheel And around […]...
4. Vulture I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling high up in heaven, And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit narrowing, I understood then That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the […]...
5. The Noon Hour SHE sits in the dust at the walls And makes cigars, Bending at the bench With fingers wage-anxious, Changing her sweat for the day’s pay. Now the noon hour has come, And she leans with her bare arms On the window-sill over the river, Leans and feels at her throat Cool-moving things out of the […]...
6. Harbor Dawn There’s a hush and stillness calm and deep, For the waves have wooed all the winds to sleep In the shadow of headlands bold and steep; But some gracious spirit has taken the cup Of the crystal sky and filled it up With rosy wine, and in it afar Has dissolved the pearl of the […]...
7. Sky Harbor The flock of pigeons rises over the roof, And just beyond them, the shimmering asphalt fields Gather their dull colored airliners. It is the very early night, A young brunette sits before the long Darkening glass of the airport’s west wall. She smells coffee burning And something else her old mother’s Bureau filled with mothballs. […]...
8. William Street The red globe of light, the liquor green, The pulsing arrows and the running fire Spilt on the stones, go deeper than a stream; You find this ugly, I find it lovely Ghosts’ trousers, like the dangle of hung men, In pawn-shop windows, bumping knee by knee, But none inside to suffer or condemn; You […]...
9. 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 the gloom it swings and batters, Out into the wind and the rain and the vast, Out into the pit of […]...
10. The Answer Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams. To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence, and their tyrants come, many times before. When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose the least ugly faction; these evils are essential. To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and […]...
11. Sea Fever I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn […]...
12. It Blows A Snowing Gale IT blows a snowing gale in the winter of the year; The boats are on the sea and the crews are on the pier. The needle of the vane, it is veering to and fro, A flash of sun is on the veering of the vane. Autumn leaves and rain, The passion of the gale....
13. Kicks The fishermen on Lake Michigan, sometimes, For kicks, they spit two hunks of bait on hooks At either end of a single length of line And toss that up among the scavenging gulls, Who go for it so fast that often two of them Make the connection before it hits the water. Hooked and hung […]...
14. The Dance In Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess, The dancers go round, they go round and Around, the squeal and the blare and the Tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles Tipping their bellies, (round as the thick- Sided glasses whose wash they impound) Their hips and their bellies off balance To turn them. Kicking and rolling […]...
15. Sunrise Along Shore Athwart the harbor lingers yet The ashen gleam of breaking day, And where the guardian cliffs are set The noiseless shadows steal away; But all the winnowed eastern sky Is flushed with many a tender hue, And spears of light are smiting through The ranks where huddled sea-mists fly. Across the ocean, wan and gray, […]...
16. In Harbor A young man, twenty eight years old, on a vessel from Tenos, Emes arrived at this Syrian harbor With the intention of learning the perfume trade. But during the voyage he was taken ill. And as soon As he disembarked, he died. His burial, the poorest, Took place here. A few hours before he died, […]...
17. Sumach and Birds IF you never came with a pigeon rainbow purple Shining in the six o’clock September dusk: If the red sumach on the autumn roads Never danced on the flame of your eyelashes: If the red-haws never burst in a million Crimson fingertwists of your heartcrying: If all this beauty of yours never crushed me Then […]...
18. Harbor Moonrise There is never a wind to sing o’er the sea On its dimpled bosom that holdeth in fee Wealth of silver and magicry; And the harbor is like to an ebon cup With mother-o’-pearl to the lips lined up, And brimmed with the wine of entranced delight, Purple and rare, from the flagon of night. […]...
19. Eyrie Between the mountain and the sea I’ve made a happy landing; And here a peace has come to me That passeth understanding; A shining faith and purity Beyond demanding. With palm below and pine above, Where wings of gulls are gleaming; By orange tree and olive grove, From walls of airy seeming, My roses beg […]...
20. Euthansia A sea-gull with a broken wing, I found upon the kelp-strewn shore. It sprawled and gasped; I sighed: “Poor thing! I fear your flying days are o’er; Sad victim of a savage gun, So ends your soaring in the sun.” I only wanted to be kind; Its icy legs I gently caught, Thinking its fracture […]...
21. Oh, Think Not I Am Faithful III OH, THINK not I am faithful to a vow! Faithless am I save to love’s self alone. Were you not lovely I would leave you now: After the feet of beauty fly my own. Were you not still my hunger’s rarest food, And water ever to my wildest thirst, I would desert you­think not […]...
22. Suicide Note “You speak to me of narcissism but I reply that it is A matter of my life” – Artaud “At this time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers To my daughters and their daughters” – Anonymous Better, Despite the worms talking to The mare’s hoof in the field; Better, Despite the season of young […]...
23. Across The Red Sky Across the red sky two birds flying, Flying with drooping wings. Silent and solitary their ominous flight. All day the triumphant sun with yellow banners Warred and warred with the earth, and when she yielded Stabbed her heart, gathered her blood in a chalice, Spilling it over the evening sky. When the dark plumaged birds […]...
24. The Ballet Of The Fifth Year Where the sea gulls sleep or indeed where they fly Is a place of different traffic. Although I Consider the fishing bay (where I see them dip and curve And purely glide) a place that weakens the nerve Of will, and closes my eyes, as they should not be (They should burn like the street-light […]...
25. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
26. Mascots I WILL keep you and bring hands to hold you against a great hunger. I will run a spear in you for a great gladness to die with. I will stab you between the ribs of the left side with a great love worth remembering....
27. Subway DOWN between the walls of shadow Where the iron laws insist, The hunger voices mock. The worn wayfaring men With the hunched and humble shoulders, Throw their laughter into toil....
28. 1991-II The ewes crowd to the mangers; Their bellies widen, sag; Their udders tighten. Soon The little voices cry In morning cold. Soon now The garden must be worked, Laid off in rows, the seed Of life to come brought down Into the dark to rest, Abide awhile alone, And rise. Soon, soon again The cropland […]...
29. The Iron Bridge I am standing on a disused iron bridge That was erected in 1902, According to the iron plaque bolted into a beam, The year my mother turned one. Imagine a mother in her infancy, And she was a Canadian infant at that, One of the great infants of the province of Ontario. But here I […]...
30. Subway Wind Far down, down through the city’s great, gaunt gut, The gray train rushing bears the weary wind; In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut, Leaving the sick and heavy air behind. And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door To give their summer jackets to the breeze; Their laugh is swallowed in the […]...
31. Portrait of a Motor Car IT’S a lean car… a long-legged dog of a car… a gray-ghost eagle car. The feet of it eat the dirt of a road… the wings of it eat the hills. Danny the driver dreams of it when he sees women in red skirts and red sox in his sleep. It is in Danny’s life […]...
32. Gannets I am watching the white gannets Blaze down into the water With the power of blunt spears And a stunning accuracy Even though the sea is riled and boiling And gray with fog And the fish Are nowhere to be seen, They fall, they explode into the water Like white gloves, Then they vanish, Then […]...
33. The Albatross Often, to amuse themselves, the crew of the ship Would fell an albatross, the largest of sea birds, Indolent companions of their trip As they slide across the deep sea’s bitters. Scarcely had they dropped to the plank Than these blue kings, maladroit and ashamed Let their great white wings sink Like an oar dragging […]...
34. Margaret Many birds and the beating of wings Make a flinging reckless hum In the early morning at the rocks Above the blue pool Where the gray shadows swim lazy. In your blue eyes, O reckless child, I saw today many little wild wishes, Eager as the great morning....
35. The Orange Bears The Orange bears with soft friendly eyes Who played with me when I was ten, Christ, before I’d left home they’d had Their paws smashed in the rolls, their backs Seared by hot slag, their soft trusting Bellies kicked in, their tongues ripped Out, and I went down through the woods To the smelly crick […]...
36. The Rovers Over the fields we go, through the sweets of the purple clover, That letters a message for us as for every vagrant rover; Before us the dells are abloom, and a leaping brook calls after, Feeling its kinship with us in lore of dreams and laughter. Out of the valleys of moonlight elfin voices are […]...
37. In Response To A Rumor That The Oldest Whorehouse In Wheeling, West Virginia, Has Been Condemned I will grieve alone, As I strolled alone, years ago, down along The Ohio shore. I hid in the hobo jungle weeds Upstream from the sewer main, Pondering, gazing. I saw, down river, At Twenty-third and Water Streets By the vinegar works, The doors open in early evening. Swinging their purses, the women Poured down […]...
38. Whales Weep Not! They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains The hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent. All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge On and on, and dive beneath the icebergs. The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers There they blow, there […]...
39. A Good Boy I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day, I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play. And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood, And I am very happy, for I know that I’ve been good. My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with […]...
40. Under a Hat Rim WHILE the hum and the hurry Of passing footfalls Beat in my ear like the restless surf Of a wind-blown sea, A soul came to me Out of the look on a face. Eyes like a lake Where a storm-wind roams Caught me from under The rim of a hat. I thought of a midsea […]...