Confession

Related poetry:

1. The Peasant's Confession Good Father!… ‘Twas an eve in middle June, And war was waged anew By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn Men’s bones all Europe through. Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed The Sambre at Charleroi, To move on Brussels, where the English host Dallied in Parc and Bois. The yestertide we’d […]...
2. Don't fear death Don’t fear death in earthly travels. Don’t fear enemies or friends. Just listen to the words of prayers, To pass the facets of the dreads. Your death will come to you, and never You shall be, else, a slave of life, Just waiting for a dawn’s favor, From nights of poverty and strife. She’ll build […]...
3. So Now? the words have come and gone, I sit ill. The phone rings, the cats sleep. Linda vacuums. I am waiting to live, Waiting to die. I wish I could ring in some bravery. It’s a lousy fix But the tree outside doesn’t know: I watch it moving with the wind In the late afternoon sun. […]...
4. Dream Song 76: Henry's Confession Nothin very bad happen to me lately. How you explain that? —I explain that, Mr Bones, Terms o’ your bafflin odd sobriety. Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones, What could happen bad to Mr Bones? €”If life is a handkerchief sandwich, In a modesty of death I join my father Who dared […]...
5. Growing Old In some summers there is so much fruit, The peasants decide not to reap any more. Not having reaped you, oh my days, My nights, have I let the slow flames Of your lovely produce fall into ashes? My nights, my days, you have borne so much! All your branches have retained the gesture Of […]...
6. The Death and Last Confession of Wandering Peter When Peter Wanderwide was young He wandered everywhere he would: All that he approved was sung, And most of what he saw was good. When Peter Wanderwide was thrown By Death himself beyond Auxerre, He chanted in heroic tone To priests and people gathered there: “If all that I have loved and seen Be with […]...
7. Her Letter “I’m taking pen in hand this night, and hard it is for me; My poor old fingers tremble so, my hand is stiff and slow, And even with my glasses on I’m troubled sore to see. . . . You’d little know your mother, boy; you’d little, little know. You mind how brisk and bright […]...
8. Insomniac There are some nights when Sleep plays coy, Aloof and disdainful. And all the wiles That I employ to win Its service to my side Are useless as wounded pride, And much more painful....
9. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
10. Confession To say I’m without fear It wouldn’t be true. I’m afraid of sickness, humiliation. Like anyone, I have my dreams. But I’ve learned to hide them, To protect myself From fulfillment: all happiness Attracts the Fates’ anger. They are sisters, savages In the end they have No emotion but envy....
11. Confession for all my country poses My cells belong to a town Grass is symbol-deep in me But brick dips deeper down Mountains knock me sideways A moor chills my bones A field of wheat exults me I’m awed by ancient stones But lines of dowdy shop-fronts Mean unpolished streets Sever the green man in me […]...
12. A First Confession I admit the briar Entangled in my hair Did not injure me; My blenching and trembling, Nothing but dissembling, Nothing but coquetry. I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man’s attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones. Brightness that I pull back […]...
13. A Last Confession What lively lad most pleasured me Of all that with me lay? I answer that I gave my soul And loved in misery, But had great pleasure with a lad That I loved bodily. Flinging from his arms I laughed To think his passion such He fancied that I gave a soul Did but our […]...
14. A Confession To: I At the risk of being customary I wish to make a confession Not that it may be true They do not love that do not show it But because it’s true That to deny it is to argue with reality...
15. The Beasts' Confession To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents When beasts could speak (the learned say, They still can do so ev’ry day), It seems, they had religion then, As much as now we find in men. It happen’d, when a plague broke out (Which therefore made them more devout), The king […]...
16. GENERAL CONFESSION In this noble ring to-day Let my warning shame ye! Listen to my solemn voice, Seldom does it name ye. Many a thing have ye intended, Many a thing have badly ended, And now I must blame ye. At some moment in our lives We must all repent us! So confess, with pious trust, All […]...
17. Night on The Prairies NIGHT on the prairies; The supper is over-the fire on the ground burns low; The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets: I walk by myself-I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before. Now I absorb immortality and peace, I admire death, and test propositions. How plenteous! How […]...
18. A Confession To A Friend In Trouble Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near; I even smile old smiles with listlessness Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern: That I will not show zeal again to […]...
19. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
20. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
21. THE WARNING WHEN sounds the trumpet at the Judgment Day, And when forever all things earthly die, We must a full and true account supply Of ev’ry useless word we dropp’d in play. But what effect will all the words convey Wherein with eager zeal and lovingly, That I might win thy favour, labour’d I, If on […]...
22. Dream Song 54: 'NO VISITORS' I thumb the roller to ‘NO VISITORS’ I thumb the roller to And leans against the door. Comfortable in my horseblanket I prop on the costly bed & dream of my wife, My first wife, And my second wife & my son. Insulting, they put guardrails up, As if it were a crib! I growl at the head nurse; we […]...
23. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
24. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
25. Talisman it is written The act of writing is Holy words are Sacred and your breath Brings out the God in them I write these words Quickly repeat them Softly to myself This talisman for you Fold this prayer Around your neck fortify Your back with these Whispers May you walk ever Loved and in love […]...
26. Summer in the South The Oriole sings in the greening grove As if he were half-way waiting, The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green, Timid, and hesitating. The rain comes down in a torrent sweep And the nights smell warm and pinety, The garden thrives, but the tender shoots Are yellow-green and tiny. Then a flash of sun […]...
27. Discovery When you are slightly drunk Things are so close, so friendly. The road asks to be walked upon, The road rewards you for walking With firm upward contact answering your downward contact Like the pressure of a hand in yours. You think – this studious balancing Of right leg while left leg advances, of left […]...
28. Quick And Bitter The end was quick and bitter. Slow and sweet was the time between us, Slow and sweet were the nights When my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love Of your body which came Between them. And when I entered into you It seemed then that great happiness Could be […]...
29. Fragment At last I entered a long dark gallery, Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side Were the bodies of men from far and wide Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead. “The sense of waiting here strikes strong; Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me; What are you waiting for so long? What is to happen?” […]...
30. The Song of the Borderguard The man with his lion under the shed of wars Sheds his belief as if he shed tears. The sound of words waits – A barbarian host at the borderline of sense. The enamord guards desert their posts Harkening to the lion-smell of a poem That rings in their ears. -Dreams, a certain guard said […]...
31. 40,000 at the track today, Father’s Day, Each paid admission was Entitled to a wallet And each contained a Little surprise. Most of the men seemed Between 30 and 55, Going to fat, Many of them in walking Shorts, They had gone stale in Life, Flattened out…. In fact, damn it, they Aren’t even worth writing […]...
32. Infelice Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess, He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand, He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming, Leaving my alone with a private meaning, He loves me so much, my heart is singing. Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening They said: […]...
33. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
34. Waiting For The Miracle (co-written by Sharon Robinson) Baby, I’ve been waiting, I’ve been waiting night and day. I didn’t see the time, I waited half my life away. There were lots of invitations And I know you sent me some, But I was waiting For the miracle, for the miracle to come. I know you really loved me. […]...
35. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
36. Letter To My Wife 11-11-1933 Bursa Prison My one and only! Your last letter says: “My head is throbbing, my heart is stunned!” You say: “If they hang you, if I lose you, I’ll die!” You’ll live, my dear My memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind. Of course you’ll live, red-haired lady of my heart: In […]...
37. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
38. 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 […]...
39. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
40. On Faith How do people stay true to each other? When I think of my parents all those years In the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever Longing for anything else – or: no, they must Have longed; there must have been flickerings, Stray desires, nights she turned from him, Sleepless, and wept, nights he rose […]...