They Buy With an Eye to Looks

Related poetry:

1. To The Not Impossible Him How shall I know, unless I go To Cairo and Cathay, Whether or not this blessed spot Is blest in every way? Now it may be, the flower for me Is this beneath my nose: How shall I tell, unless I smell The Carthaginian rose? The fabric of my faithful love No power shall dim […]...
2. Parting We embrace. Rich cloth under my fingers While yours touch poor fabric. A quick embrace You were invited for dinner While the minions of law are after me. We talk about the weather and our Lasting friendship. Anything else Would be too bitter....
3. Under A Telephone Pole I AM a copper wire slung in the air, Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow. Night and day I keep singing humming and thrumming: It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the Tears, the work and want, Death and laughter of men and […]...
4. I Want To Die In My Own Bed All night the army came up from Gilgal To get to the killing field, and that’s all. In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead. I want to die in My own bed. Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny, I’m always the few and they are the many. I must answer. […]...
5. A Baby In The House I knew that a baby was hid in that house, Though I saw no cradle and heard no cry; But the husband was tip-toeing ’round like a mouse, And the good wife was humming a soft lullaby; And there was a look on the face of the mother, That I knew could mean only one […]...
6. The Father Of Toads A man had just delivered a toad from his wife’s armpit. He Held it by its legs and spanked it. Do you love it? said his wife. It’s our child, isn’t it? Does that mean you can’t love it? she said. It’s hard enough to love a toad, but when it turns out to be […]...
7. Fight RED drips from my chin where I have been eating. Not all the blood, nowhere near all, is wiped off my mouth. Clots of red mess my hair And the tiger, the buffalo, know how. I was a killer. Yes, I am a killer. I come from killing. I go to more. I drive red […]...
8. Killers I AM singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move: Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for shining teeth, Sharp eyes, hard legs, And a running of young warm blood in their wrists. And a red juice runs […]...
9. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
10. My Rival If she met him or he met her, I knew that something must occur; For they were just like flint and steel To strike the spark of woe and weal; Or like two splinters broken fine, In perfect fitness to combine; And so I ept them well apart, For she was precious to my heart. […]...
11. Enemy Conscript What are we fighting for, We fellows who go to war? Fighting for Freedom’s sake! (You give me the belly-ache.) Freedom to starve or slave! Freedom! aye, in the grave. Fighting for “hearth and home,” Who haven’t an inch of loam? Hearth? Why even a byre Can only be ours for hire. Dying for future […]...
12. On Violet's Wafers, Sent Me When I Was Ill Fine-tissued as her finger-tips, and white As all her thoughts; in shape like shields of prize, As if before young Violet’s dreaming eyes Still blazed the two great Theban bucklers bright That swayed the random of that furious fight Where Palamon and Arcite made assize For Emily; fresh, crisp as her replies, That, not with […]...
13. Prayers After World War WANDERING oversea dreamer, Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother, Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood, Child of the hair let down, and tears, Child of the cross in the south And the star in the north, Keeper of Egypt and Russia and France, Keeper of England and Poland and Spain, Make us […]...
14. Joliet ON the one hand the steel works. On the other hand the penitentiary. Sante Fé trains and Alton trains Between smokestacks on the west And gray walls on the east. And Lockport down the river. Part of the valley is God’s. And part is man’s. The river course laid out A thousand years ago. The […]...
15. Aztec You came from the Aztecs With a copper on your fore-arms Tawnier than a sunset Saying good-by to an even river. And I said, you remember, Those fore-arms of yours Were finer than bronzes And you were glad. It was tears And a path west and a home-going when I asked Why there were scars […]...
16. Youth And Beauty I bought a dishmop – Having no daughter – For they had twisted Fine ribbons of shining copper About white twine And made a tousled head Of it, fastened it Upon a turned ash stick Slender at the neck Straight, tall – When tied upright On the brass wallbracket To be a light for me […]...
17. Yes, the Dead Speak to Us YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the […]...
18. Leather Leggings THEY have taken the ball of earth and made it a little thing. They were held to the land and horses; they were held to the little seas. They have changed and shaped and welded; they have broken the old tools and made new ones; they are ranging the white scarves of cloudland; they are […]...
19. The Mayor of Gary I ASKED the Mayor of Gary about the 12-hour day and the 7-day week. And the Mayor of Gary answered more workmen steal time on the job in Gary than any other place in the United States. “Go into the plants and you will see men sitting around doing nothing-machinery does everything,” said the Mayor […]...
20. Miscast I I have whetted my brain until it is like a Damascus Blade, So keen that it nicks off the floating fringes of passers-by, So sharp that the air would turn its edge Were it to be twisted in flight. Licking passions have bitten their arabesques into it, And the mark of them lies, in and […]...
21. 251. Impromptu Lines to Captain Riddell YOUR News and Review, sir. I’ve read through and through, sir, With little admiring or blaming; The Papers are barren Of home-news or foreign, No murders or rapes worth the naming. Our friends, the Reviewers, Those chippers and hewers, Are judges of mortar and stone, sir; But of meet or unmeet, In a fabric complete, […]...
22. A Ballad of Footmen Now what in the name of the sun and the stars Is the meaning of this most unholy of wars? Do men find life so full of humour and joy That for want of excitement they smash up the toy? Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses All bent upon killing, because their “of […]...
23. For A Poet I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, And laid them away in a box of gold; Where long will cling the lips of the moth, I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth; I hide no hate; I am not even wroth Who found the earth’s breath so keen and cold; I […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. Flying Inside Your Own Body Your lungs fill & spread themselves, Wings of pink blood, and your bones Empty themselves and become hollow. When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon And your heart is light too & huge, Beating with pure joy, pure helium. The sun’s white winds blow through you, There’s nothing above you, You see the […]...
26. Lion In An Iron Cage Look at the lion in the iron cage, Look deep into his eyes: like two naked steel daggers they sparkle with anger. But he never loses his dignity although his anger comes and goes goes and comes. You couldn’t find a place for a collar Round his thick, furry mane. Although the scars of a […]...
27. The Voice of Robert Desnos So like a flower and a current of air The flow of water fleeting shadows The smile glimpsed at midnight this excellent evening So like every joy and every sadness It is the midnight past lifting its naked body above belfries and poplars I call to me those lost in the fields Old skeletons young […]...
28. To The Nile Son of the old Moon-mountains African! Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile! We call thee fruitful, and that very while A desert fills our seeing’s inward span: Nurse of swart nations since the world began, Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil, Rest for a […]...
29. Regarding Art Sometimes, I, too, tell the ah’s Of my heart one by one Like the blood-red beads Of a ruby rosary strung on strands of golden hair! But my Poetry’s muse Takes to the air On wings made of steel Like the I-beams of my suspension bridges! I don’t pretend the nightingale’s lament To the rose […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. All Souls' Night Epilogue to “A Vision’ MIDNIGHT has come, and the great Christ Church Bell And may a lesser bell sound through the room; And it is All Souls’ Night, And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come; For it is a ghost’s right, His element is so fine Being […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. The Pike In the brown water, Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine, Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds, A pike dozed. Lost among the shadows of stems He lay unnoticed. Suddenly he flicked his tail, And a green-and-copper brightness Ran under the water. Out from under the reeds Came the olive-green light, And orange […]...
34. In a Back Alley REMEMBRANCE for a great man is this. The newsies are pitching pennies. And on the copper disk is the man’s face. Dead lover of boys, what do you ask for now?...
35. The Hideous Chair This hideous, Upholstered in gift-wrap fabric, chromed In places, design possibility For the future canned ham. Its genius Wonderful, circa I993. I’ve assumed a great many things: The perversity of choices, affairs I did or did not have. But let the record show That I was happy. O let the hideous chair Stand! For the […]...
36. Sunrise You can Die for it- An idea, Or the world. People Have done so, Brilliantly, Letting Their small bodies be bound To the stake, Creating An unforgettable Fury of light. But This morning, Climbing the familiar hills In the familiar Fabric of dawn, I thought Of China, And India And Europe, and I thought How […]...
37. Egypt, Tobago There is a shattered palm On this fierce shore, Its plumes the rusting helm- Et of a dead warrior. Numb Antony, in the torpor Stretching her inert Sex near him like a sleeping cat, Knows his heart is the real desert. Over the dunes Of her heaving, To his heart’s drumming Fades the mirage of […]...
38. A list of some observation A list of some observation. In a corner, it’s warm. A glance leaves an imprint on anything it’s dwelt on. Water is glass’s most public form. Man is more frightening than its skeleton. A nowhere winter evening with wine. A black Porch resists an osier’s stiff assaults. Fixed on an elbow, the body bulks Like […]...
39. Bricklayer Love I THOUGHT of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store. I don’t care like I used to; I lay bricks straighter than I used to and I sing slower handling the trowel afternoons....
40. In The Deep Museum My God, my God, what queer corner am I in? Didn’t I die, blood running down the post, Lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin Of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost? Surely my body is done? Surely I died? And yet, I know, I’m here. What place is this? Cold […]...