A Following

Related poetry:

1. Revolt In The Ranks I have just spent one-hour-and-a-half Handicapping tomorrow’s Card. When am I going to get at the poems? Well, they’ll just have to wait They’ll have to warm their feet in the Anteroom Where they’ll sit gossiping about Me. “this Chinaski, doesn’t he realize that Without us he would have long ago Gone mad, been dead?” […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. Overheard Through The Walls Of The Invisible City . . . telling those who swarm around him his desire Is that an appendage from each of them Fill, invade each of his orifices,- Repeating, chanting, Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Until, as if in darkness he craved the sun, at last he reached Consummation. -Until telling those who […]...
4. The New Poetry Handbook 1 If a man understands a poem, he shall have troubles. 2 If a man lives with a poem, he shall die lonely. 3 If a man lives with two poems, he shall be unfaithful to one. 4 If a man conceives of a poem, he shall have one less child. 5 If a man […]...
5. An Almost Made Up Poem I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny Blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny They are small, and the fountain is in France Where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. You used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper […]...
6. Der mann im keller How cool and fair this cellar where My throne a dusky cask is; To do no thing but just to sing And drown the time my task is. The cooper he’s Resolved to please, And, answering to my winking, He fills me up Cup after cup For drinking, drinking, drinking. Begrudge me not This cosy […]...
7. The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye To His Poetry Students Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me Snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting You were beautiful; goodbye, Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain Brown envelopes for the return of your very Clinical Sonnet; goodbye, manufacturer Of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues Give the fullest treatment in literature yet To the sagging-breast motif; goodbye, you […]...
8. Our Friendship (January 14) We have a name for it In the South: Asshole buddies. It means we’ve known Each other so long It doesn’t matter That he’s an asshole In my opinion Or I’m an asshole In his opinion Or whatever And I want you to know I’m not from the South And you’re not my buddy And […]...
9. Death Fugue Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown We drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night We drink it and drink it We dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes He writes when […]...
10. Thunder There will be thunder then. Remember me. Say ‘ She asked for storms.’ The entire World will turn the colour of crimson stone, And your heart, as then, will turn to fire. That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy, When for the last time I say goodbye, Soaring to the heavens that I longed to […]...
11. White Night There will be thunder then. Remember me. Say ‘ She asked for storms.’ The entire World will turn the colour of crimson stone, And your heart, as then, will turn to fire. That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy, When for the last time I say goodbye, Soaring to the heavens that I longed to […]...
12. Cows In Art Class good weather Is like Good women- It doesn’t always happen And when it does It doesn’t Always last. Man is More stable: If he’s bad There’s more chance He’ll stay that way, Or if he’s good He might hang On, But a woman Is changed By Children Age Diet Conversation Sex The moon The absence […]...
13. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
14. Ben Duggan Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began, And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man; Jack Denver’s wife bowed down her head her daughter’s grief was wild, And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child. But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped fast and […]...
15. Aner Clute Over and over they used to ask me, While buying the wine or the beer, In Peoria first, and later in Chicago, Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived, How I happened to lead the life, And what was the start of it. Well, I told them a silk dress, And a promise of marriage […]...
16. THE SINGING SCHOOL The Poetry School, The Poetry Book Society, The Poetry Business: So much poetry about you’d think I’d want to shout, “Hurray, hurray, Every day’s Poetry Day!” but I don’t and you don’t either- You know its flim-flam on the ether, grants for Jack-the-lads Of both sexes, poets who’ve never been seen in a little magazine […]...
17. Big Hair Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie Tear, wanting to look like a moll In a Chandler novel. Dinner, consisting of three parts gin And one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair. There are, she said, poems that can be written Only when the poet is clad in black underwear. […]...
18. A Boy Named Sue Well, my daddy left home when I was three, And he didn’t leave much to Ma and me, Just this old guitar and a bottle of booze. Now I don’t blame him because he run and hid, But the meanest thing that he ever did was Before he left he went and named me Sue. […]...
19. Alone And Drinking Under The Moon Amongst the flowers I Am alone with my pot of wine Drinking by myself; then lifting My cup I asked the moon To drink with me, its reflection And mine in the wine cup, just The three of us; then I sigh For the moon cannot drink, And my shadow goes emptily along With me […]...
20. The Song of the Garden-Toad Down, down beneath the daisy beds, O hear the cries of pain! And moaning on the cinder-path They’re blind amid the rain. Can murmurs of the worms arise To higher hearts than mine? I wonder if that gardener hears Who made the mold all fine And packed each gentle seedling down So carefully in line? […]...
21. Makers And Creatures It is a curious experience And one you”re bound to know, though probably In other realms than that of literature, Though I speak of poems now, assuming That you are interested, otherwise, Of course, you wouldn”t be reading this. It is strange to come across a poem In an old magazine, perhaps, and fail At […]...
22. Ai There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five. There’s a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice Just won the National Book Award. The name “Ai” is pronounced “I” So that whenever I talk about the poet Ai Such as I’m teaching Ai’s poems again this semester It sounds like I’m teaching […]...
23. Jeduthan Hawley There would be a knock at the door And I would arise at midnight and go to the shop, Where belated travelers would hear me hammering Sepulchral boards and tacking satin. And often I wondered who would go with me To the distant land, our names the theme For talk, in the same week, for […]...
24. "Shouting" for a Camel It was over at Coolgardie that a mining speculator, Who was going down the township just to make a bit o’ chink, Went off to hire a camel from a camel propagator, And the Afghan said he’d lend it if he’d stand the beast a drink. Yes, the only price he asked him was to […]...
25. A rhine-land drinking song If our own life is the life of a flower (And that’s what some sages are thinking), We should moisten the bud with a health-giving flood And ’twill bloom all the sweeter Yes, life’s the completer For drinking, And drinking, And drinking. If it be that our life is a journey (As many wise folk […]...
26. Have A Nice Day ‘Help, help, ‘ said a man. ‘I’m drowning.’ ‘Hang on, ‘ said a man from the shore. ‘Help, help, ‘ said the man. ‘I’m not clowning.’ ‘Yes, I know, I heard you before. Be patient dear man who is drowning, You, see I’ve got a disease. I’m waiting for a Doctor J. Browning. So do […]...
27. Jaws SEVEN nations stood with their hands on the jaws of death. It was the first week in August, Nineteen Hundred Fourteen. I was listening, you were listening, the whole world was Listening, And all of us heard a Voice murmuring: “I am the way and the light, He that believeth on me Shall not perish […]...
28. The Farewell They say the ice will hold So there I go, Forced to believe them by my act of trusting people, Stepping out on it, And naturally it gaps open And I, forced to carry on coolly By my act of being imperturbable, Slide erectly into the water wearing my captain’s helmet, Waving to the shore […]...
29. O, We Are The Outcasts ah, christ, what a CREW: More Poetry, always more P O E T R Y. If it doesn’t come, coax it out with a Laxative. get your name in LIGHTS, Get it up there in 8 1/2 x 11 mimeo. Keep it coming like a miracle. Ah christ, writers are the most sickening Of all […]...
30. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
31. To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses’ day, their morning star! If works, not th’ author’s, their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your book? But these, desir’d by you, the maker’s ends Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends. Yet satires, since […]...
32. Of Love & Sex said once a friend of mine That love was just a bucket of bullshit; then I Thought about his parents Wrote once a neighbour poet That sex was a thing overrated; so I Asked for her other poems...
33. What Do You Do About Dry Periods In Your Writing? When the writing is going well, I am a prince in a desert palace, Fountains flowing in the garden. I lean an elbow on a velvet pillow And drink from a silver goblet, Poems like a banquet Spread before me on rugs With rosettes the damask of blood. But exiled From the palace, I wander […]...
34. On Leaving Mrs. Brown's Lodgings So goodbye, Mrs. Brown, I am going out of town, Over dale, over down, Where bugs bite not, Where lodgers fight not, Where below your chairmen drink not, Where beside your gutters stink not; But all is fresh and clean and gay, And merry lambkins sport and play, And they toss with rakes uncommonly short […]...
35. The Tide of Sorrow ON the twilight-burnished hills I lie and long and gaze Where below the grey-lipped sands drink in the flowing tides, Drink, and fade and disappear: interpreting their ways A seer in my heart abides. Once the diamond dancing day-waves laved thy thirsty lips: Now they drink the dusky night-tide running cold and fleet, Drink, and […]...
36. Careers I knew three sisters, all were sweet; Wishful to wed was I, And wondered which would mostly meet The matrimonial tie. I asked the first what fate would she Wish joy of life to bring to her. She answered: ‘I would like to be A concert singer.’ I asked the second, for my mind Was […]...
37. E. C. Culbertson Is it true, Spoon River, That in the hall-way of the New Court House There is a tablet of bronze Containing the embossed faces Of Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhodes? And is it true that my successful labors In the County Board, without which Not one stone would have been placed on another, And the […]...
38. In Harbour I. Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by; To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us Goodnight and goodbye. A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh; But were we not fools and blind, by […]...
39. A Poetry Reading At West Point I read to the entire plebe class, In two batches. Twice the hall filled With bodies dressed alike, each toting A copy of my book. What would my Shrink say, if I had one, about Such a dream, if it were a dream? Question and answer time. “Sir,” a cadet yelled from the balcony, And […]...
40. Song Of The Jade Cup A jade cup was broken because old age came Too soon to give fulfilment to hopes; after drinking Three cups of wine I wiped my sword and Started to dance under an autumn moon first Singing in a high voice then unable to halt Tears coming; I remember the day when first I was summoned […]...