It's Ours

Related poetry:

1. Historion No man hath dared to write this thing as yet, And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great At times pass athrough us, And we are melted into them, and are not Save reflexions of their souls. Thus am I Dante for a space and am One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and […]...
2. Ballade Of A Great Weariness There’s little to have but the things I had, There’s little to bear but the things I bore. There’s nothing to carry and naught to add, And glory to Heaven, I paid the score. There’s little to do but I did before, There’s little to learn but the things I know; And this is the […]...
3. Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside. O, blame me not if I no more can write! Look in your glass, and there appears a face That overgoes my blunt […]...
4. The Only Day In Existence The early sun is so pale and shadowy, I could be looking up at a ghost In the shape of a window, A tall, rectangular spirit Looking down at me in bed, About to demand that I avenge The murder of my father. But the morning light is only the first line In the play […]...
5. Style Flaubert wanted to write a novel About nothing. It was to have no subject And be sustained upon the style alone, Like the Holy Ghost cruising above The abyss, or like the little animals In Disney cartoons who stand upon a branch That breaks, but do not fall Till they look down. He never wrote […]...
6. Villanelle of Change Since Persia fell at Marathon, The yellow years have gathered fast: Long centuries have come and gone. And yet (they say) the place will don A phantom fury of the past, Since Persia fell at Marathon; And as of old, when Helicon Trembled and swayed with rapture vast (Long centuries have come and gone), This […]...
7. On Going Back To The Street After Viewing An Art Show they talk down through The centuries to us, And this we need more and more, The statues and paintings In midnight age As we go along Holding dead hands. And we would say Rather than delude the knowing: A damn good show, But hardly enough for a horse to eat, And out on the sunshine […]...
8. I took one Draught of Life I took one Draught of Life I’ll tell you what I paid Precisely an existence The market price, they said. They weighed me, Dust by Dust They balanced Film with Film, Then handed me my Being’s worth A single Dram of Heaven!...
9. My Comrade Out from my window westward I turn full oft my face; But the mountains rebuke the vision That would encompass space; They lift their lofty foreheads To the kiss of the clouds above, And ask, “With all our glory, Can we not win your love?” I answer, “No, oh mountains! I see that you are […]...
10. Five Flights Up Still dark. The unknown bird sits on his usual branch. The little dog next door barks in his sleep Inquiringly, just once. Perhaps in his sleep, too, the bird inquires Once or twice, quavering. Questions if that is what they are Answered directly, simply, By day itself. Enormous morning, ponderous, meticulous; Gray light streaking each […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. The Bather Where the path to the lake twists out of sight, A puff of dust, the kind bare feet make running, Is what I saw in the dying light, Night swooping down everywhere else. A low branch heavy with leaves Swaying momentarily where the shade Lay thickest, some late bather Disrobing right there for a quick […]...
14. A Radio With Guts it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street I used to get drunk And throw the radio through the window While it was playing, and, of course, It would break the glass in the window And the radio would sit there on the roof Still playing And I’d tell my woman, “Ah, what a […]...
15. 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....
16. 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 […]...
17. There is a Zone whose even Years There is a Zone whose even Years No Solstice interrupt Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon Whose perfect Seasons wait Whose Summer set in Summer, till The Centuries of June And Centuries of August cease And Consciousness is Noon....
18. The First Dream The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight And as I lean against the door of sleep I begin to think about the first person to dream, How quiet he must have seemed the next morning As the others stood around the fire Draped in the skins of animals Talking to each other only in […]...
19. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
20. Over The Alley Here in my office I sit and write Hour on hour, and day on day, With no one to speak to from morn till night, Though I have a neighbour just over the way. Across the alley that yawns between A maiden sits sewing the whole day long; A face more lovely is seldom seen […]...
21. What Birds Plunge Through Is Not The Intimate Space What birds plunge through is not the intimate space, In which you see all Forms intensified. (In the Open, denied, you would lose yourself, Would disappear into that vastness.) Space reaches from us and translates Things: To become the very essence of a tree, Throw inner space around it, from that space That lives in […]...
22. Morning News Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread And fried potatoes, tips green on the branches, Repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war. A cinder-block wall shared by two houses Is new rubble. On one side was a kitchen Sink and a cupboard, on the other was A bed, a bookshelf, three framed photographs. […]...
23. The Sewing-Girl The humble garret where I dwell Is in that Quarter called the Latin; It isn’t spacious truth to tell, There’s hardly room to swing a cat in. But what of that! It’s there I fight For food and fame, my Muse inviting, And all the day and half the night You’ll find me writing, writing, […]...
24. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
25. To Lou Andreas-Salome I held myself too open, I forgot That outside not just things exist and animals Fully at ease in themselves, whose eyes Reach from their lives’ roundedness no differently Than portraits do from frames; forgot that I With all I did incessantly crammed Looks into myself; looks, opinion, curiosity. Who knows: perhaps eyes form in […]...
26. This Window is This window is confidence, Documenting proceedings, Capturing moments, Cleansing views Challenging sentiment. This window is nourishment Filling the eyes With strong drink, And acidly piercing Over-elaborate structures. This window is furniture Re-hung like a picture, Recording new outlooks When the old pleases No more. This window is doorway To feelings, Good feelings and bad, All […]...
27. Some Advice To Those Who Will Serve Time In Prison If instead of being hanged by the neck you’re thrown inside for not giving up hope In the world, your country, your people, if you do ten or fifteen years apart from the time you have left, You won’t say, “Better I had swung from the end of a rope like a flag” You’ll put […]...
28. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
29. Under Cover of Night To slip into your shadow under cover of night. To follow your footsteps, your shadow at the window. That shadow at the window is you and no one else; It’s you. Do not open that window behind whose curtains you’re moving. Shut your eyes. I’d like to shut them with my lips. But the window […]...
30. Hostel Beach, Oneroa The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach, If the tide was out you’d reach a tiny bay beyond The cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete For blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood; A risky place to contemplate the games we planned, We […]...
31. Room 4: The Painter Chap He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he’d like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well! He’ll make no “document” of me. I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . . Pictures, just […]...
32. Long Plighted Is it worth while, dear, now, To call for bells, and sally forth arrayed For marriage-rites discussed, decried, delayed So many years? Is it worth while, dear, now, To stir desire for old fond purposings, By feints that Time still serves for dallyings, Though quittance nears? Is it worth while, dear, when The day being […]...
33. Destiny They deliver the edicts of God Without delay And are exempt from apprehension From detention And with their God-given Petasus, Caduceus, and Talaria Ferry like bolts of lightning Unhindered between the tribunals Of Space & Time The Messenger-Spirit In human flesh Is assigned a dependable, Self-reliant, versatile, Thoroughly poet existence Upon its sojourn in life […]...
34. To A Squirrel At Kyle-Na-No Come play with me; Why should you run Through the shaking tree As though I’d a gun To strike you dead? When all I would do Is to scratch your head And let you go....
35. Atavism 1 Sometimes in the open you look up Where birds go by, or just nothing, And wait. A dim feeling comes You were like this once, there was air, And quiet; it was by a lake, or Maybe a river you were alert As an otter and were suddenly born Like the evening star into […]...
36. The Life Beyond He wakes, who never thought to wake again, Who held the end was Death. He opens eyes Slowly, to one long livid oozing plain Closed down by the strange eyeless heavens. He lies; And waits; and once in timeless sick surmise Through the dead air heaves up an unknown hand, Like a dry branch. No […]...
37. Old Age Gets Up Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again Ponders Ideas that collapse At the first touch of attention The light at the window, so square and so same So full-strong as ever, the window frame A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on Supporting the […]...
38. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
39. A Poet at Twenty Images leap with him from branch to branch. His eyes Brighten, his head cocks, he pauses under a green bough, Alert. And when I see him I want to hide him somewhere. The other wood is past the hill. But he will enter it, and find the particular maple. He will walk through the door […]...
40. Meaning When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset. The true meaning, ready to be decoded. What never added up will add Up, What was incomprehensible will be comprehended. – And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is […]...