These Things

Related poetry:

1. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
2. O Sun of Real Peace O SUN of real peace! O hastening light! O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height-and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend! O so amazing and broad-up there resplendent, darting and burning! O vision prophetic, stagger’d with […]...
3. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
4. The Unpardonable Sin This is the sin against the Holy Ghost: – To speak of bloody power as right divine, And call on God to guard each vile chief’s house, And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine:- To go forth killing in White Mercy’s name, Making the trenches stink with spattered brains, Tearing the nerves […]...
5. Among the Multitude AMONG the men and women, the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else-not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am; Some are baffled-But that one is not-that one knows me. Ah, lover and perfect equal! I meant that you should discover me so, by […]...
6. Elegy In A Country Churchyard The men that worked for England They have their graves at home: And bees and birds of England About the cross can roam. But they that fought for England, Following a falling star, Alas, alas for England They have their graves afar. And they that rule in England, In stately conclave met, Alas, alas for […]...
7. Bahnhofstrasse The eyes that mock me sign the way Whereto I pass at eve of day. Grey way whose violet signals are The trysting and the twining star. Ah star of evil! star of pain! Highhearted youth comes not again Nor old heart’s wisdom yet to know The signs that mock me as I go....
8. Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone, For love is but a skein unwound Between the dark and dawn. A lonely ghost the ghost is That to God shall come; I – love’s skein upon the ground, My body […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. This self-congratulatory nonsense as the Famous gather to applaud their seeming Greatness You Wonder where The real ones are What Giant cave Hides them As The deathly talentless Bow to Accolades As The fools are Fooled Again You Wonder where The real ones are If there are Real ones. This self-congratulatory nonsense Has lasted Decades And […]...
11. Convalescence From out the dragging vastness of the sea, Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands, He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands One moment, white and dripping, silently, Cut like a cameo in lazuli, Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands Prone in the jeering water, and his hands Clutch for support where no […]...
12. To J. W Set not thy foot on graves; Hear what wine and roses say; The mountain chase, the summer waves, The crowded town, thy feet may well delay. Set not thy foot on graves; Nor seek to unwind the shroud Which charitable time And nature have allowed To wrap the errors of a sage sublime. Set not […]...
13. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
14. Ida Chicken After I had attended lectures At our Chautauqua, and studied French For twenty years, committing the grammar Almost by heart, I thought I’d take a trip to Paris To give my culture a final polish. So I went to Peoria for a passport (Thomas Rhodes was on the train that morning.) And there the clerk […]...
15. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
16. The Real Work It may be that when we no longer know what to do We have come our real work, And that when we no longer know which way to go We have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings....
17. What Then? His chosen comrades thought at school He must grow a famous man; He thought the same and lived by rule, All his twenties crammed with toil; ‘What then?’ sang Plato’s ghost. ‘What then?’ Everything he wrote was read, After certain years he won Sufficient money for his need, Friends that have been friends indeed; ‘What […]...
18. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
19. Three Oranges first time my father overheard me listening to This bit of music he asked me, “what is it?” “it’s called Love For Three Oranges,” I informed him. “boy,” he said, “that’s getting it Cheap.” He meant sex. Listening to it I always imagined three oranges Sitting there, You know how orange they can Get, So […]...
20. Carry On It’s easy to fight when everything’s right, And you’re mad with the thrill and the glory; It’s easy to cheer when victory’s near, And wallow in fields that are gory. It’s a different song when everything’s wrong, When you’re feeling infernally mortal; When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none, Buck up, little […]...
21. First Memory Long ago, I was wounded. I lived To revenge myself Against my father, not For what he was For what I was: from the beginning of time, In childhood, I thought That pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved....
22. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
23. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
24. Of Such Simplicity You and me, The proof is there to see, Our lives are held within the spell of great simplicity, We’re free of all the shadows dwelling in the hall, Seen in awe like pretty pictures hanging on the wall; Was it meant to be, intentionally, Of such simplicity? The pace of Life Is not predictably […]...
25. The World Love built a stately house, where Fortune came, And spinning fancies, she was heard to say That her fine cobwebs did support the frame, Whereas they were supported by the same; But Wisdom quickly swept them all away. The Pleasure came, who, liking not the fashion, Began to make balconies, terraces, Till she had weakened […]...
26. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
27. Reveille Wake: the silver dusk returning Up the beach of darkness brims, And the ship of sunrise burning Strands upon the eastern rims. Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters, Trampled to the floor it spanned, And the tent of night in tatters Straws the sky-pavilioned land. Up, lad, up, ’tis late for lying: Hear the drums of […]...
28. A Day Like Any Other Such insignificance: a glance At your record on the doctor’s desk Or a letter not meant for you. How could you have known? It’s not true That your life passes before you In rapid motion, but your watch Suddenly ticks like an amplified heart, The hands freezing against a white That is a judgment. Otherwise […]...
29. All All And All The Dry Worlds Lever I All all and all the dry worlds lever, Stage of the ice, the solid ocean, All from the oil, the pound of lava. City of spring, the governed flower, Turns in the earth that turns the ashen Towns around on a wheel of fire. How now my flesh, my naked fellow, Dug of the […]...
30. I meant to find Her when I came I meant to find Her when I came Death had the same design But the Success was His it seems And the Surrender Mine I meant to tell Her how I longed For just this single time But Death had told Her so the first And she had past, with Him To wander now is […]...
31. Psalm 89 part 4 v.19ff C. M. Christ’s mediatorial kingdom; or, His Divine and human nature Hear what the Lord in vision said, And made his mercy known: “Sinners, behold your help is laid On my Almighty Son. “Behold the Man my wisdom chose Among your mortal race: His head my holy oil o’erflows, The Spirit of my grace. […]...
32. Are You the New person, drawn toward Me? ARE you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning-I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction? Do […]...
33. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
34. Anthem The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don’t dwell on what Has passed away Or what is yet to be. Ah the wars they will Be fought again The holy dove She will be caught again Bought and sold And bought again The dove is never free. […]...
35. Innocence The height of wisdom seems to me That of a child; So let my ageing vision be Serene and mild. The depth of folly, I aver, Is to fish deep In that dark pool of science where Truth-demons sleep. Let me not be a bearded sage Seeing too clear; In issues of the atom age […]...
36. Plaster “I KNEW a real man once,” says Agatha in the splendor of a shagbark hickory tree. Did a man touch his lips to Agatha? Did a man hold her in his arms? Did a man only look at her and pass by? Agatha, far past forty in a splendor of remembrance, says, “I knew a […]...
37. The Unappeasable Host The Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold, And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes, For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies, With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold: I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast, And hear the narrow graves calling […]...
38. Real Estate News ARMOUR AVENUE was the name of this street and door signs on empty houses read “The Silver Dollar,” “Swede Annie” and the Christian names of madams such as “Myrtle” and “Jenny.” Scrap iron, rags and bottles fill the front rooms hither and yon and signs in Yiddish say Abe Kaplan & Co. are running junk […]...
39. The Buried Train Tell me about the train that people say got buried By the avalanche was it snow? It was In Colorado, and no one saw it happen. There was smoke from the engine curling up Lightly through fir tops, and the engine sounds. There were all those people reading some From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward […]...
40. Graves I dreamed one man stood against a thousand, One man damned as a wrongheaded fool. One year and another he walked the streets, And a thousand shrugs and hoots Met him in the shoulders and mouths he passed. He died alone. And only the undertaker came to his funeral. Flowers grow over his grave anod […]...