The Has-Been

Related poetry:

1. The Palm And The Pine From the German of Heine. In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone, Upon a wintry height; It sleeps: around it snows have thrown A covering of white. It dreams forever of a Palm That, far i’ the Morning-land, Stands silent in a most sad calm Midst of the burning sand....
2. Emmett Till * I hear a whistling Through the water. Little Emmett Won’t be still. He keeps floating Round the darkness, Edging through The silent chill. Tell me, please, That bedtime story Of the fairy River Boy Who swims forever, Deep in treasures, Necklaced in A coral toy. * In 1955, Till, a fourteen-year-old from Chicago, for Allegedly […]...
3. The happy household It’s when the birds go piping and the daylight slowly breaks, That, clamoring for his dinner, our precious baby wakes; Then it’s sleep no more for baby, and it’s sleep no more for me, For, when he wants his dinner, why it’s dinner it must be! And of that lacteal fluid he partakes with great […]...
4. Smoke Smoke, it is all smoke In the throat of eternity. . . . For centuries, the air was full of witches Whistling up chimneys On their spiky brooms Cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe, As they flew over rooftops Blessing & cursing their Kind. We banished & burned them Making them smoke in the […]...
5. A science so the Savants say A science so the Savants say, “Comparative Anatomy” By which a single bone Is made a secret to unfold Of some rare tenant of the mold, Else perished in the stone So to the eye prospective led, This meekest flower of the mead Upon a winter’s day, Stands representative in gold Of Rose and Lily, […]...
6. Medallion THE BRASS medallion profile of your face I keep always. It is not jingling with loose change in my pockets. It is not stuck up in a show place on the office wall. I carry it in a special secret pocket in the day And it is under my pillow at night. The brass came […]...
7. The Gardener XXIV: Do Not Keep to Yourself Do not keep to yourself the secret of Your heart, my friend! Say it to me, only to me, in secret. You who smile so gently, softly Whisper, my heart will hear it, not my Ears. The night is deep, the house is Silent, the birds’ nests are shrouded With sleep. Speak to me through […]...
8. Winter: My Secret I tell my secret? No indeed, not I: Perhaps some day, who knows? But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows, And you’re too curious: fie! You want to hear it? well: Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell. Or, after all, perhaps there’s none: Suppose there is no secret after all, But […]...
9. Mrs. Sibley The secret of the stars, gravitation. The secret of the earth, layers of rock. The secret of the soil, to receive seed. The secret of the seed, the germ. The secret of man, the sower. The secret of woman, the soil. My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find....
10. A Study (A Soul) She stands as pale as Parian statues stand; Like Cleopatra when she turned at bay, And felt her strength above the Roman sway, And felt the aspic writhing in her hand. Her face is steadfast toward the shadowy land, For dim beyond it looms the light of day; Her feet are steadfast; all the arduous […]...
11. A Well-Worn Story In April, in April, My one love came along, And I ran the slope of my high hill To follow a thread of song. His eyes were hard as porphyry With looking on cruel lands; His voice went slipping over me Like terrible silver hands. Together we trod the secret lane And walked the muttering […]...
12. The Gardener XVIII: When Two Sisters When the two sisters go to fetch Water, they come to this spot and They smile. They must be aware of somebody Who stands behind the trees when- Ever they go to fetch water. The two sisters whisper to each Other when they pass this spot. They must have guessed the secret Of that somebody […]...
13. With Due Respect To Thor The dog has shrunk between the brake and clutch. His shaking shakes a two-ton truck. From a God So furious, he cannot hide his hide. Outside, In the world at large, black hours are being Pearled and shafted. A tree stands out Spectacularly branched; the mind’s eye Grows alert. This thing can hurt. It had […]...
14. Far Within Us #7 Toothed eyes fly Over still waters Around us purple lips Flutter from branches Screams hit the blue And fall onto pillows Our homes hide Behind narrow backs Hands clutch at Flimsy clouds Our veins roll turbid Bed and tables Of shattered bones Noon has fallen into our hands And turned all gloomy An open grave […]...
15. Where We Differ To think my thoughts are hers, Not one of hers is mine; She laughs while I must sigh; She sighs while I must whine. She eats while I must fast; She reads while I am blind; She sleeps while I must wake; Free I no freedom find. To think the world for me Contains but […]...
16. To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbours’ eyes? Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing […]...
17. Like Time's insidious wrinkle Like Time’s insidious wrinkle On a beloved Face We clutch the Grace the tighter Though we resent the crease The Frost himself so comely Dishevels every prime Asserting from his Prism That none can punish him...
18. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
19. Man And The Echo Man. In a cleft that’s christened Alt Under broken stone I halt At the bottom of a pit That broad noon has never lit, And shout a secret to the stone. All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after […]...
20. You, Andrew Marvell And here face down beneath the sun And here upon earth’s noonward height To feel the always coming on The always rising of the night To feel creep up the curving east The earthy chill of dusk and slow Upon those under lands the vast And ever climbing shadow grow And strange at Ecbatan the […]...
21. I'll clutch and clutch I’ll clutch and clutch Next One Might be the golden touch Could take it Diamonds Wait I’m diving just a little late But stars go slow for night I’ll string you in fine Necklace Tiaras make of some Wear you on Hem Loop up a Countess with you Make a Diadem and mend my old […]...
22. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
23. Safe in their Alabaster Chambers Safe in their Alabaster Chambers Untouched my Morning And untouched by Noon Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection Rafter of satin, And Roof of stone. Light laughs the breeze In her Castle above them Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear, Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence Ah, what sagacity perished here!...
24. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
25. The Lily Night after night Darkness Enters the face Of the lily Which, lightly, Closes its five walls Around itself, And its purse Of honey, And its fragrance, And is content To stand there In the garden, Not quite sleeping, And, maybe, Saying in lily language Some small words We can’t hear Even when there is no […]...
26. Convalescence From out the dragging vastness of the sea, Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands, He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands One moment, white and dripping, silently, Cut like a cameo in lazuli, Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands Prone in the jeering water, and his hands Clutch for support where no […]...
27. I gained it so I gained it so By Climbing slow By Catching at the Twigs that grow Between the Bliss and me It hung so high As well the Sky Attempt by Strategy I said I gained it This was all Look, how I clutch it Lest it fall And I a Pauper go Unfitted by an instant’s […]...
28. Wind He shouts in the sails of the ships at sea, He steals the down from the honeybee, He makes the forest trees rustle and sing, He twirls my kite till it breaks its string. Laughing, dancing, sunny wind, Whistling, howling, rainy wind, North, South, East and West, Each is the wind I like the best. […]...
29. For All We Have And Are For all we have and are, For all our children’s fate, Stand up and take the war. The Hun is at the gate! Our world has passed away In wantonness o’erthrown. There is nothing left to-day But steel and fire and stone! Tough all we knew depart, The old Commandments stand: “In courage keep your […]...
30. This World is not Conclusion This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond Invisible, as Music But positive, as Sound It beckons, and it baffles Philosophy don’t know And through a Riddle, at the last Sagacity, must go To guess it, puzzles scholars To gain it, Men have borne Contempt of Generations And Crucifixion, shown Faith slips and laughs, […]...
31. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
32. The Hangman's Great Hands And all that is this day. . . The boy with cap slung over what had been a face. .. Somehow the cop will sleep tonight, will make love to his Wife… Anger won’t help. I was born angry. Angry that my father was Being burnt alive in the mills; Angry that none of us […]...
33. For An Unknown Lady Lady, if you’d slumber sound, Keep your eyes upon the ground. If you’d toss and turn at night, Slip your glances left and right. Would the mornings find you gay, Never give your heart away. Would they find you pale and sad, Fling it to a whistling lad. Ah, but when his pleadings burn, Will […]...
34. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
35. One Almost Might Wouldn’t you say, Wouldn’t you say: one day, With a little more time or a little more patience, one might Disentangle for separate, deliberate, slow delight One of the moment’s hundred strands, unfray Beginnings from endings, this from that, survey Say a square inch of the ground one stands on, touch Part of oneself or […]...
36. Silvered In The Dying Light Silvered in the dying light she lies A silent sleeping twinkle coloured Eve Who heaves and breathes a sinuous sigh Beneath her oiled and shimmering skin. Upon my sandy feet she laps a gentle tongue That licks the grains of sand and smoothes My footprints to a varnished depth unbroken. Through her sane indifference I […]...
37. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
38. A face devoid of love or grace A face devoid of love or grace, A hateful, hard, successful face, A face with which a stone Would feel as thoroughly at ease As were they old acquaintances First time together thrown....
39. Mortal Limit I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming. It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags. There west were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height Hangs now […]...
40. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...