Layover

Related poetry:

1. Train Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train. Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train’s whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. The Old Gumbie Cat I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots; Her coat is of the tabby kind, with tiger stripes and leopard spots. All day she sits upon the stair or on the steps or on the mat; She sits and sits and sits and sits and that’s what makes a Gumbie Cat! But […]...
4. The Song Of The Jellicles Jellicle Cats come out tonight, Jellicle Cats come one come all: The Jellicle Moon is shining bright Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball. Jellicle Cats are black and white, Jellicle Cats are rather small; Jellicle Cats are merry and bright, And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul. Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces, Jellicle Cats have […]...
5. Community Garden I watch the man bend over his patch, A fat gunny sack at his feet. He combs the earth with his fingers, picks up pebbles around Tiny heads of sorrel. Clouds bruise in, clog the sky, the first fat drops pock-mark the dust. The man wipes his hands on his chest, opens the sack, pulls […]...
6. Love & Fame & Death it sits outside my window now Like and old woman going to market; It sits and watches me, It sweats nevously Through wire and fog and dog-bark Until suddenly I slam the screen with a newspaper Like slapping at a fly And you could hear the scream Over this plain city, And then it left. […]...
7. Bottle 'O&#039 I ain’t the kind of bloke as takes to any steady job; I drives me bottle cart around the town; A bloke what keeps ‘is eyes about can always make a bob I couldn’t bear to graft for every brown. There’s lots of handy things about in everybody’s yard, There’s cocks and hens a-runnin’ to […]...
8. Ninth Inning He woke up in New York City on Valentine’s Day, Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm, Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate Said her life wasn’t working he looked stricken she said You’re all bent out of shape, accusingly, and when he She […]...
9. Old Engine Driver For five and twenty years I’ve run A famous train; But now my spell of speed is done, No more I’ll strain My sight along the treadless tracks, The gleamy rails: My hand upon the throttle slacks, My vision fails. No more I’ll urge my steed of steel Through hostile nights; No more the mastery […]...
10. What does it take? Is the current rate of global warming A serious and cogent warning? Do we need to think about the fact That higher tides will drown Pacific island states Within a year or two, or do we listen to The loosely spewed claptrap backed By pseudo-scientists (who say with fervent ease That it’s all happened before, […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Postcards I’m thinking about you. What else can I say? The palm trees on the reverse Are a delusion; so is the pink sand. What we have are the usual Fractured coke bottles and the smell Of backed-up drains, too sweet, Like a mango on the verge Of rot, which we have also. The air clear […]...
13. Two Items STRONG rocks hold up the riksdag bridge… always strong river waters shoving their shoulders against them… In the riksdag to-night three hundred men are talking to each other about more potatoes and bread for the Swedish people to eat this winter. In a boat among calm waters next to the running waters a fisherman sits […]...
14. The Man In The Bowler Hat I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man: The man who sat on your right in the morning train: The man who looked through like a windowpane: The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting Morning pipe smoke. I am the man too busy with a living to live, Too […]...
15. The Owl When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits. When merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells […]...
16. Early Nightingale When first we hear the shy-come nightingales, They seem to mutter o’er their songs in fear, And, climb we e’er so soft the spinney rails, All stops as if no bird was anywhere. The kindled bushes with the young leaves thin Let curious eyes to search a long way in, Until impatience cannot see or […]...
17. A Poem About George Doty In The Death House Lured by the wall, and drawn To stare below the roof, Where pigeons nest aloof From prowling cats and men, I count the sash and bar Secured to granite stone, And note the daylight gone, Supper and silence near. Close to the wall inside, Immured, empty of love, A man I have wondered of Lies […]...
18. FRIST POEM A rainbow comes pouring into my window, I am electrified. Songs burst from my breast, all my crying stops, mistory fills the air. I look for my shues under my bed. A fat colored woman becomes my mother. I have no false teeth yet. Suddenly ten children sit on my lap. I grow a beard […]...
19. Something Left Undone Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun. By the bedside, on the stair, At the threshhold, near the gates, With its menace or its prayer, Like a medicant it waits; Waits, and will not go away; Waits, and will not be gainsaid; By […]...
20. 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…. […]...
21. The Vine THE wine of Love is music, And the feast of Love is song: And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long: Sits long and arises drunken, But not with the feast and the wine; He reeleth with his own heart, That great, rich Vine....
22. 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 […]...
23. Because My Faltering Feet Because my faltering feet may fail to dare The first descendant of the steps of Hell Give me the Word in time that triumphs there. I too must pass into the misty hollow Where all our living laughter stops: and hark! The tiny stuffless voices of the dark Have called me, called me, till I […]...
24. Dr. Siegfried Iseman I said when they handed me my diploma, I said to myself I will be good And wise and brave and helpful to others; I said I will carry the Christian creed Into the practice of medicine! Somehow the world and the other doctors Know what’s in your heart as soon as you make This […]...
25. Sexism The happiest moment in a woman’s life Is when she hears the turn of her lover’s key In the lock, and pretends to be asleep When he enters the room, trying to be Quiet but clumsy, bumping into things, And she can smell the liquor on his breath But forgives him because she has him […]...
26. On the Road Roar of the rushing train fearfully rocking, Impatient people jammed in line for food, The rasping noise of cars together knocking, And worried waiters, some in ugly mood, Crowding into the choking pantry hole To call out dishes for each angry glutton Exasperated grown beyond control, From waiting for his soup or fish or mutton. […]...
27. A Process In The Weather Of The Heart A process in the weather of the heart Turns damp to dry; the golden shot Storms in the freezing tomb. A weather in the quarter of the veins Turns night to day; blood in their suns Lights up the living worm. A process in the eye forwarns The bones of blindness; and the womb Drives […]...
28. The Cat in the Kitchen (For Donald Hall) Have you heard about the boy who walked by The black water? I won’t say much more. Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered. Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand Reaches out and pulls him in. There was no Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, […]...
29. 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. […]...
30. The Wait It is life in slow motion, It’s the heart in reverse, It’s a hope-and-a-half: Too much and too little at once. It’s a train that suddenly Stops with no station around, And we can hear the cricket, And, leaning out the carriage Door, we vainly contemplate A wind we feel that stirs The blooming meadows, […]...
31. I Met A Genius I met a genius on the train Today About 6 years old, He sat beside me And as the train Ran down along the coast We came to the ocean And then he looked at me And said, It’s not pretty. It was the first time I’d Realized That....
32. Mayakovsky In New York: A Found Poem New York: You take a train that rips through versts. It feels as if the trains were running over your ears. For many hours the train flies along the banks Of the Hudson about two feet from the water. At the stops, Passengers run out, buy up bunches of celery, And run back in, chewing […]...
33. The Man In The Dead Machine High on a slope in New Guinea The Grumman Hellcat Lodges among bright vines As thick as arms. In 1943, The clenched hand of a pilot Glided it here Where no one has ever been. In the cockpit, the helmeted Skeleton sits Upright, held By dry sinews at neck And shoulder, and webbing That straps […]...
34. Dilton Marsh Halt Was it worth keeping the Halt open, We thought as we looked at the sky Red through the spread of the cedar-tree, With the evening train gone by? Yes, we said, for in summer the anglers use it, Two and sometimes three Will bring their catches of rods and poles and perches To Westbury, home […]...
35. Ulster fancy shooting a man dead for an old label But think If there weren’t any old labels Nobody would ever be shot dead And all those poor people Whose livelihood depends on making guns Would have to be left to starve Make up your mind Who would you sooner see living men with bullets in […]...
36. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
37. Grass The living room is overgrown with grass. It has Come up around the furniture. It stretches through The dining room, past the swinging door into the Kitchen. It extends for miles and miles into the Walls. . . There’s treasure in grass, things dropped or put There; a stick of rust that was once a […]...
38. O Living Always-Always Dying O LIVING always-always dying! O the burials of me, past and present! O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever! O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not-I am content;) O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at, where I cast […]...
39. Verse-Making Was Least of My Virtues Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair Wealth that never yet was but might be all that verse-making were If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare. So I said, “To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse” And made verse. Love-making, how simple […]...
40. The Other Under my bowels, yellow with smoke, It waits. Under my eyes, those milk bunnies, It waits. It is waiting. It is waiting. Mr. Doppelganger. My brother. My spouse. Mr. Doppelganger. My enemy. My lover. When truth comes spilling out like peas It hangs up the phone. When the child is soothed and resting on the […]...