Curtain

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. Last Curtain I know that the day will come When my sight of this earth shall be lost, And life will take its leave in silence, Drawing the last curtain over my eyes. Yet stars will watch at night, And morning rise as before, And hours heave like sea waves casting up pleasures and pains. When I […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. The House Of Dust: Introduction THE HOUSE OF DUST A Symphony BY CONRAD AIKEN To Jessie NOTE . . . Parts of this poem have been printed in “The North American Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review”. . . . I am Indebted to Lafcadio Hearn for the episode called “The Screen Maiden” In Part II. This text […]...
5. 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. […]...
6. The Royal Review All hail to the Empress of India, Great Britain’s Queen Long may she live in health, happy and serene That came from London, far away, To review the Scottish Volunteers in grand array: Most magnificent to be seen, Near by Salisbury Crags and its pastures green, Which will long be remembered by our gracious Queen […]...
7. Brownie In a corner of the bedroom is a great big curtain, Someone lives behind it, but I don’t know who; I think it is a Brownie, but I’m not quite certain. (Nanny isn’t certain, too.) I looked behind the curtain, but he went so quickly – Brownies never wait to say, “How do you do?” […]...
8. All or Nothing All or Nothing The final race. the final decision All disgrace or fortune all Either I fall or I stand tall; All or Nothing No compromises this time No catholic design Either I win or I lose; And I, don’t get to choose. All or Nothing The final fight All hells lose in this frenzied […]...
9. Love is Enough Love is enough. Let us not ask for gold. Wealth breeds false aims, and pride and selfishness; In those serene, Arcadian days of old Men gave no thought to princely homes and dress. The gods who dwelt on fair Olympia’s height Lived only for dear love and love’s delight. Love is enough. Love is enough. […]...
10. SELF-DECEIT My neighbour’s curtain, well I see, Is moving to and fin. No doubt she’s list’ning eagerly, If I’m at home or no. And if the jealous grudge I bore And openly confess’d, Is nourish’d by me as before, Within my inmost breast. Alas! no fancies such as these E’er cross’d the dear child’s thoughts. I […]...
11. The Shining Light My former hopes are fled, My terror now begins; I feel, alas! that I am dead In trespasses and sins. Ah, whither shall I fly? I hear the thunder roar; The Law proclaims Destruction nigh, And Vengeance at the door. When I review my ways, I dread impending doom: But sure a friendly whisper says, […]...
12. What Can We Do? at their best, there is gentleness in Humanity. Some understanding and, at times, acts of Courage But all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn’t Have too much. It is like a large animal deep in sleep and Almost nothing can awaken it. When activated it’s best at brutality, Selfishness, unjust judgments, […]...
13. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 04: Nightmare ‘Draw three cards, and I will tell your future. . . Draw three cards, and lay them down, Rest your palms upon them, stare at the crystal, And think of time. . . My father was a clown, My mother was a gypsy out of Egypt; And she was gotten with child in a strange […]...
14. Love In A Life I Room after room, I hunt the house through We inhabit together. Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her, Next time, herself!-not the trouble behind her Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume! As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,- Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather. II Yet the […]...
15. Samuel Palmer prepares to etch " The Lonely Tower &quot I must return To that valley of vision, Gather again to me Flocks, crescent moon and star; God – let the last lights burn At this down-dusking of heaven’s intermission, Grant a rebirth to things I used to see Seeming so close – yet known to be so far. Long since I knocked At the […]...
16. Good Bye 1/ Remember the old drunk at your church Who elbowed me on the ribs And muttered something I undestood not? You said he meant he wanted to talk to God I returned his with mine and said “Me too…” 2/ You slipped away through the exit, Slowed down your gait and threw a faint smile. […]...
17. A god in wrath A god in wrath Was beating a man; He cuffed him loudly With thunderous blows That rang and rolled over the earth. All people came running. The man screamed and struggled, And bit madly at the feet of the god. The people cried, “Ah, what a wicked man!” And “Ah, what a redoubtable god!”...
18. Siren Song This is the one song everyone Would like to learn: the song That is irresistible: The song that forces men To leap overboard in squadrons Even though they see the beached skulls The song nobody knows Because anyone who has heard it Is dead, and the others can’t remember. Shall I tell you the secret […]...
19. At Night The wind is singing through the trees to-night, A deep-voiced song of rushing cadences And crashing intervals. No summer breeze Is this, though hot July is at its height, Gone is her gentler music; with delight She listens to this booming like the seas, These elemental, loud necessities Which call to her to answer their […]...
20. All that I do All that I do Is in review To his enamored mind I know his eye Where e’er I ply Is pushing close behind Not any Port Nor any flight But he doth there preside What omnipresence lies in wait For her to be a Bride...
21. Ad Nepotem O NEPOS, twice my neigh(b)our (since at home We’re door by door, by Flora’s temple dome; And in the country, still conjoined by fate, Behold our villas standing gate by gate), Thou hast a daughter, dearer far than life – Thy image and the image of thy wife. Thy image and thy wife’s, and be […]...
22. Mark Twain and Joan of Arc When Yankee soldiers reach the barricade Then Joan of Arc gives each the accolade. For she is there in armor clad, today, All the young poets of the wide world say. Which of our freemen did she greet the first, Seeing him come against the fires accurst? Mark Twain, our Chief, with neither smile nor […]...
23. The Valley's Singing Day The sound of the closing outside door was all. You made no sound in the grass with your footfall, As far as you went from the door, which was not far; But had awakened under the morning star The first song-bird that awakened all the rest. He could have slept but a moment more at […]...
24. The Art Of Drowning I wonder how it all got started, this business About seeing your life flash before your eyes While you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence, Could startle time into such compression, crushing Decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds. After falling off a steamship or being swept away In a […]...
25. The Locker All the dull hollow clamor has died And what was contained, Removed, Reproved Adulation or sentiment, Left with the pungent darkness As remembered as the sudden light. Originally published by The Raintown Review...
26. The last of Summer is Delight The last of Summer is Delight Deterred by Retrospect. ‘Tis Ecstasy’s revealed Review Enchantment’s Syndicate. To meet it nameless as it is Without celestial Mail Audacious as without a Knock To walk within the Veil....
27. Night-piece what’s that i’m awake A bang like a door or a foot Knocking a chair who’s there Tense i lie in my bed my face Stretching out on the black air My ears strain……a creak this time Like a cat on the stair – but we have no cat If the door-handle turned and a…. […]...
28. Out from Behind this Mask 1 OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask, (All straighter, liker Masks rejected-this preferr’d,) This common curtain of the face, contain’d in me for me, in you for you, in each for each, (Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears-O heaven! The passionate, teeming plays this curtain hid!) This glaze of God’s serenest, purest sky, This film of […]...
29. It is not Always May No hay pajaros en los nidos de antano. Spanish Proverb The sun is bright, the air is clear, The darting swallows soar and sing. And from the stately elms I hear The bluebird prophesying Spring. So blue you winding river flows, It seems an outlet from the sky, Where waiting till the west-wind blows, The […]...
30. An Opera House Within the gold square of the proscenium arch, A curtain of orange velvet hangs in stiff folds, Its tassels jarring slightly when someone crosses the stage behind. Gold carving edges the balconies, Rims the boxes, Runs up and down fluted pillars. Little knife-stabs of gold Shine out whenever a box door is opened. Gold clusters […]...
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. Memorial Day “Dulce et decorum est” The bugle echoes shrill and sweet, But not of war it sings to-day. The road is rhythmic with the feet Of men-at-arms who come to pray. The roses blossom white and red On tombs where weary soldiers lie; Flags wave above the honored dead And martial music cleaves the sky. Above […]...
33. Failure He wrote a play; by day and night He strove with passion and delight; Yet knew, long ere the curtain drop, His drama was a sorry flop. In Parliament he sought a seat; Election Day brought dire defeat; Yet he had wooed with word and pen Prodigiously his fellow men. And then he wrote a […]...
34. Prospect NSW (For Anita Cobby) The hushed dark hugs the streets. Somewhere a cat snaps the silence. Dogs begin to bark, like a pack moving in for the kill. Women shrink in their homes. Shadows slip through the night and stars dim their lights as cars flash past. When they disappear, silence, heavy as hate, descends. Hours stretch like elastic […]...
35. Always For The First Time Always for the first time Hardly do I know you by sight You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window A wholly imaginary house It is there that from one second to the next In the inviolate darkness I anticipate once more the fascinating rift occurring […]...
36. Conqueror Though I defy the howling horde As bloody-browed I smite, Back to the wall with shattered sword When darkly dooms the night; Though hoarse they cheer as I go down Before their bitter odds, ‘Tis I who win the victor’s crown, The guerdon of the gods. For all who fall in fearless fight Alight a […]...
37. HOPE Do you believe, in what you see Do you believe in reality Do you believe in the sun that’s bright Do you believe in the stars in the night Do you believe in the birds that fly Do you believe in clouds and the sky Do you believe in wind that flows Do you believe […]...
38. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
39. Arlo Will Did you ever see an alligator Come up to the air from the mud, Staring blindly under the full glare of noon? Have you seen the stabled horses at night Tremble and start back at the sight of a lantern? Have you ever walked in darkness When an unknown door was open before you And […]...
40. At Wilfred Owen's Grave A week before the Armistice, you died. They did not keep your heart like Livingstone’s, Then plant your bones near Shakespeare’s. So you lie Between two privates, sacrificed like Christ To politics, your poetry unknown Except for that brief flurry’s: thirteen months With Gaukroger beside you in the trench, Dismembered, as you babbled, as the […]...