The Intruder

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. Clean Hands IT is something to face the sun and know you are free. To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean: It is something. To go one day of your life among all men with clean hands, Clean for […]...
3. Temporary Poem Of My Time Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west, Latin writing, from west to east. Languages are like cats: You must not stroke their hair the wrong way. The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert, The trees bend in the wind, And stones fly from all four winds, Into […]...
4. Spelling My daughter plays on the floor With plastic letters, Red, blue & hard yellow, Learning how to spell, Spelling, How to make spells. * I wonder how many women Denied themselves daughters, Closed themselves in rooms, Drew the curtains So they could mainline words. * A child is not a poem, A poem is not […]...
5. Tattoo The light is like a spider. It crawls over the water. It crawls over the edges of the snow. It crawls under your eyelids And spreads its webs there Its two webs. The webs of your eyes Are fastened To the flesh and bones of you As to rafters or grass. There are filaments of […]...
6. Children’s Song We live in our own world, A world that is too small For you to stoop and enter Even on hands and knees, The adult subterfuge. And though you probe and pry With analytic eye, And eavesdrop all our talk With an amused look, You cannot find the centre Where we dance, where we play, […]...
7. General William Booth Enters into Heaven [To be sung to the tune of The Blood of the Lamb with indicated instrument] I [Bass drum beaten loudly.] Booth led boldly with his big bass drum (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) The Saints smiled gravely and they said: “He’s come.” (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) […]...
8. Exiles Her brown falcon perches above the sink As steaming water forks over my hands. Below the wrists they shrivel and turn pink. I am in exile in my own land. Her half-grown cats scuffle across the floor Trailing a slime of blood from where they fed. I lock the door. They claw under the door. […]...
9. Decline naked along the side of the house, 8 a. m., spreading sesame seed oil Over my body, Jesus, have I come To this? I once battled in dark alleys for a Laugh. Now I’m not laughing. I splash myself with oil and wonder, How many years do you want? How many days? My blood is […]...
10. Sweet Torture My melancholy was gold dust in your hands; On your long hands I scattered my life; My sweetnesses remained clutched in your hands; Now I am a vial of perfume, emptied How much sweet torture quietly suffered, When, my soul wrested with shadowy sadness, She who knows the tricks, I passed the days Kissing the […]...
11. Wild Dark Love Song Her man, A wild dark love song Borne deep within her gypsy soul He’s gone to live in jagged mountains Where salmon jump and sing In tarns High above The cloud lines Beyond the silver moon In the shadow of the Cader Idris In misty mountains Where meadowlarks are known to wing And wild geese […]...
12. Crimson Rambler NOW that a crimson rambler begins to crawl over the house of our two lives- Now that a red curve winds across the shingles- Now that hands washed in early sunrises climb and spill scarlet on a white lattice weave- Now that a loop of blood is written on our roof and reaching around a […]...
13. Spring Pastoral Liza, go steep your long white hands In the cool waters of that spring Which bubbles up through shiny sands The colour of a wild-dove’s wing. Dabble your hands, and steep them well Until those nails are pearly white Now rosier than a laurel bell; Then come to me at candlelight. Lay your cold hands […]...
14. MISCHIEVOUS JOY AS a butterfly renew’d, When in life I breath’d my last, To the spots my flight I wing, Scenes of heav’nly rapture past, Over meadows, to the spring, Round the hill, and through the wood. Soon a tender pair I spy, And I look down from my seat On the beauteous maiden’s head When embodied […]...
15. The Chord Courageous lair “might prevail” Waking up to her your “yellow coal” Steals a its way Harm’s imbrogliatic murmur To concatenate Has been “said” A mortal habitation or cut in air That air leaks through Here too *** Tricked again out of Hope’s chord The oscillatory hum in the head, or Amygdala Continual reaction in the […]...
16. Dead Cow Farm An ancient saga tells us how In the beginning the First Cow (For nothing living yet had birth But Elemental Cow on earth) Began to lick cold stones and mud: Under her warm tongue flesh and blood Blossomed, a miracle to believe: And so was Adam born, and Eve. Here now is chaos once again, […]...
17. Alma Mater He knocked, and I beheld him at the door A vision for the gods to verify. “What battered ancient is this,” thought I, “And when, if ever, did we meet before?” But ask him as I might, I got no more For answer than a moaning and a cry: Too late to parley, but in […]...
18. Ossawatomie I DON’T know how he came, Shambling, dark, and strong. He stood in the city and told men: My people are fools, my people are young and strong, my people must learn, my people are terrible workers and fighters. Always he kept on asking: Where did that blood come from? They said: You for the […]...
19. The Hippopotamus Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, ut mandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum, ut Jesum Christum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros autem, ut concilium Dei et Conjunctionem Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de quibus suadeo vos sic Habeo. S. Ignatii Ad Trallianos. And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in […]...
20. Nyctivoe (extract) Translated by Shorsha Sullivan (book includes DVD with audio performance directed by Piers Burton-Page, slide show of sculptures by Fritz Unegg, and video by Gudrun Bielz). Shoestring Press, March, 2005. Nyctivoe, pages 1-5 . Night had already fallen when I passed to the other side of the station and went out on to the road. […]...
21. Darling Daughter of Babylon Too soon you wearied of our tears. And then you danced with spangled feet, Leading Belshazzar’s chattering court A-tinkling through the shadowy street. With mead they came, with chants of shame. DESIRE’S red flag before them flew. And Istar’s music moved your mouth And Baal’s deep shames rewoke in you. Now you could drive the […]...
22. Not Fear Not fear. Maybe, out there somewhere, The possibility of fear; the wall That might tumble down, because it’s for sure That behind it is the sea. Not fear. Fear has a countenance; It’s external, concrete, Like a rifle, a shot bolt, A suffering child, Like the darkness that’s hidden In every human mouth. Not fear. […]...
23. Gacela of the Dark Death I want to sleep the dream of the apples, To withdraw from the tumult of cemetries. I want to sleep the dream of that child Who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas. I don’t want to hear again that the dead do not lose their blood, That the putrid mouth goes on […]...
24. THE FLASK THERE are some powerful odours that can pass Out of the stoppard flagon; even glass To them is porous. Oft when some old box Brought from the East is opened and the locks And hinges creak and cry; or in a press In some deserted house, where the sharp stress Of odours old and dusty […]...
25. Cruelty and Love What large, dark hands are those at the window Lifted, grasping in the yellow light Which makes its way through the curtain web At my heart to-night? Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest, In the west I see a redness come Over the evening’s burning breast For now the pain is numb. […]...
26. Death Wants More Death death wants more death, and its webs are full: I remember my father’s garage, how child-like I would brush the corpses of flies From the windows they thought were escape- Their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies Shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass Only to spin and flit In that second larger than hell or […]...
27. The Wedding Ring Dance I dance in circles holding The moth of the marriage, Thin, sticky, fluttering Its skirts, its webs. The moth oozing a tear, Or is it a drop of urine? The moth, grinning like a pear, Or is it teeth Clamping the iron maiden shut? The moth, Who is my mother, Who is my father, Who […]...
28. Ape You haven’t finished your ape, said mother to father, Who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers. I’ve had enough monkey, cried father. You didn’t eat the hands, and I went to all the Trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother. I’ll just nibble on its forehead, and then I’ve had […]...
29. SECOND POEM Morning again, nothing has to be done, maybe buy a piano or make fudge. At least clean the room up for sure like my farther I’ve done flick the ashes & butts over the bed side on the floor. But frist of all wipe my glasses and drink the water to clean the smelly mouth. […]...
30. Of Three Or Four In The Room Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at the window. Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns, The fires on the hills. And people who left whole Are brought home in the evening, like small change. Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at […]...
31. The Song Of Wandering Aengus I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout. […]...
32. So Let Us Love Most glorious Lord of life! that on this day Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, And having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win: This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; And grant that we, for whom Thou diddest die, Being, with thy dear blood, clean washed from […]...
33. This Morning Enter without knocking, hard-working ant. I’m just sitting here mulling over What to do this dark, overcast day? It was a night of the radio turned down low, Fitful sleep, vague, troubling dreams. I woke up lovesick and confused. I thought I heard Estella in the garden singing And some bird answering her, But it […]...
34. After Arguing Against The Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent Whispering to each handhold, “I’ll be back,” I go up the cliff in the dark. One place I loosen a rock and listen a long time Till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush Of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your […]...
35. On The Murder Of Lieutenant Jose Del Castillo By The Falangist Bravo Martinez, July 12, 1936 When the Lieutenant of the Guardia de Asalto Heard the automatic go off, he turned And took the second shot just above The sternum, the third tore away The right shoulder of his uniform, The fourth perforated his cheek. As he Slid out of his comrade’s hold Toward the gray cement of the Ramblas He […]...
36. Riddle Where far in forest I am laid, In a place ringed around by stones, Look for no melancholy shade, And have no thoughts of buried bones; For I am bodiless and bright, And fill this glade with sudden glow; The leaves are washed in under-light; Shade lies upon the boughs like snow....
37. Fall of the Evening Star Speak softly; sun going down Out of sight. Come near me now. Dear dying fall of wings as birds Complain against the gathering dark… Exaggerate the green blood in grass; The music of leaves scraping space; Multiply the stillness by one sound; By one syllable of your name… And all that is little is soon […]...
38. Let Love Go On LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone. Time runs with an ax and a hammer, time slides down the hallways with a pass-key and a master-key, and time gets by, time wins. Let the […]...
39. Clothes Put on a clean shirt Before you die, some Russian said. Nothing with drool, please, No egg spots, no blood, No sweat, no sperm. You want me clean, God, So I’ll try to comply. The hat I was married in, Will it do? White, broad, fake flowers in a tiny array. It’s old-fashioned, as stylish […]...
40. A Bee his burnished Carriage A Bee his burnished Carriage Drove boldly to a Rose Combinedly alighting Himself his Carriage was The Rose received his visit With frank tranquillity Withholding not a Crescent To his Cupidity Their Moment consummated Remained for him to flee Remained for her of rapture But the humility....