Silent Letters

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1. The Letters I wonder if You keep the letters still, Spidery and blotted Now, like old days Just withered away. I remember sunlight bursts That inspired Those winged words, The spirit of spaces Flying paper aeroplanes of love. I picture us then- A perfect summer’s night Calligraphy of stars Burning Indian fire And I wonder if You […]...
2. Silent, Silent Night Silent, silent night, Quench the holy light Of thy torches bright; For possessed of Day Thousand spirits stray That sweet joys betray. Why should joys be sweet Used with deceit, Nor with sorrows meet? But an honest joy Does itself destroy For a harlot coy....
3. Give me the Splendid, Silent Sun 1 GIVE me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling; Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard; Give me a field where the unmow’d grass grows; Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d grape; Give me fresh corn and wheat-give me serene-moving animals, teaching content; Give me nights […]...
4. The Letters Still on the tower stood the vane, A black yew gloomed the stagnant air, I peered athwart the chancel pane And saw the altar cold and bare. A clog of lead was round my feet, A band of pain across my brow; “Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet Before you hear my marriage vow.” […]...
5. All the letters I can write All the letters I can write Are not fair as this Syllables of Velvet Sentences of Plush, Depths of Ruby, undrained, Hid, Lip, for Thee Play it were a Humming Bird And just sipped me...
6. Letters I was thinking of letters, We all have a lot in our life A few good – a few sad But mostly run of the mill- I suppose that’s my fault For writing to run of the mill people. I’ve never had a letter I really wanted It might come one day But then, it […]...
7. Some Foreign Letters I knew you forever and you were always old, Soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold Me for sitting up late, reading your letters, As if these foreign postmarks were meant for me. You posted them first in London, wearing furs And a new dress in the winter of eighteen-ninety. I read […]...
8. Mail Call The letters always just evade the hand One skates like a stone into a beam, falls like a bird. Surely the past from which the letters rise Is waiting in the future, past the graves? The soldiers are all haunted by their lives. Their claims upon their kind are paid in paper That established a […]...
9. Every Silent Plant in the Garden (To: S. W.) Every silent plant in the garden knows Two sorts of wishes make up the world: One is conceived in heaven, the other in hell The earth buttoned its lip, too humble to tell With regard to intent, millionaires are all Yet about prayers, most of us ignorant children Undiscerning of whatever come […]...
10. Amoretti LXXIV: Most Happy Letters Most happy letters, fram’d by skilful trade, With which that happy name was first design’d: The which three times thrice happy hath me made, With gifts of body, fortune, and of mind. The first my being to me gave by kind, From mother’s womb deriv’d by due descent, The second is my sovereign Queen most […]...
11. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
12. Sonnet 28 – My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said,-he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch […]...
13. The Silent Shearer Weary and listless, sad and slow, Without any conversation, Was a man that worked on The Overflow, The butt of the shed and the station. The shearers christened him Noisy Ned, With an alias “Silent Waters”, But never a needless word he said In the hut or the shearers’ quarters. Which caused annoyance to Big […]...
14. Continual Conversation With A Silent Man The old brown hen and the old blue sky, Between the two we live and die The broken cartwheel on the hill. As if, in the presence of the sea, We dried our nets and mended sail And talked of never-ending things, Of the never-ending storm of will, One will and many wills, and the […]...
15. My Mistress Commanding Me to Return Her Letters SO grieves th’ adventurous merchant, when he throws All the long toil’d-for treasure his ship stows Into the angry main, to save from wrack Himself and men, as I grieve to give back These letters : yet so powerful is your sway As if you bid me die, I must obey. Go then, blest papers, […]...
16. LETTERS TO FRIENDS I Eddie Linden Dear Eddie we’ve not met Except upon the written page And at your age the wonder Is that you write at all When so many have gone under Or been split asunder by narcissistic humours Blunder following blunder Barker and Graham, godfathering my verse Bearing me cloud-handed to Haworth moor From my […]...
17. Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
18. In Praise Of Writing Letters Blest be the Man! his Memory at least, Who found the Art, thus to unfold his Breast, And taught succeeding Times an easy way Their secret Thoughts by Letters to convey; To baffle Absence, and secure Delight, Which, till that Time, was limited to Sight. The parting Farewel spoke, the last Adieu, The less’ning Distance […]...
19. Silent Steps Have you not heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes. Every moment and every age, Every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes. Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind, But all their notes have always proclaimed, ‘He comes, comes, ever comes.’ In the fragrant days […]...
20. Shall the Harp Then Be Silent Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes? Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave Where the first where the last of her Patriots lies? No faint though the death-song may fall from his lips, Though his Harp, like […]...
21. Song from The Silent Woman Still to be neat, still to be dressed, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; […]...
22. The Silent Melody “BRING me my broken harp,” he said; “We both are wrecks, but as ye will, Though all its ringing tones have fled, Their echoes linger round it still; It had some golden strings, I know, But that was long how long! ago. “I cannot see its tarnished gold, I cannot hear its vanished tone, Scarce […]...
23. The Silent Ones I’m just an ordinary chap Who comes home to his tea, And mostly I don’t care a rap What people think of me; I do my job and take my pay, And love of peace expound; But as I go my patient way, Don’t push me round. Though I respect authority And order never flout, […]...
24. Letters From A Man In Solitary 1 I carved your name on my watchband With my fingernail. Where I am, you know, I don’t have a pearl-handled jackknife (they won’t give me anything sharp) or a plane tree with its head in the clouds. Trees may grow in the yard, But I’m not allowed to see the sky overhead… How many […]...
25. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (Sonnet 30) When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, And weep afresh […]...
26. Sonnets XXX: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste: Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow, For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, And weep afresh […]...
27. Sonnet XXX: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear times’ waste; Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow, For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, And weep afresh […]...
28. Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste. Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, And weep afresh […]...
29. Passer-By, These Are Words Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading I want you to listen: to this frail Voice like that of letters eaten by grass. Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names. It flits between two sprays of leaves, Carrying the sound of branches that are real […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
32. My Father's Love Letters On Fridays he’d open a can of Jax After coming home from the mill, & ask me to write a letter to my mother Who sent postcards of desert flowers Taller than men. He would beg, Promising to never beat her Again. Somehow I was happy She had gone, & sometimes wanted To slip in […]...
33. Letters To Dead Imagists EMILY DICKINSON: You gave us the bumble bee who has a soul, The everlasting traveler among the hollyhocks, And how God plays around a back yard garden. STEVIE CRANE: War is kind and we never knew the kindness of war till You came; Nor the black riders and clashes of spear and shield out Of […]...
34. The Most here comes the fishhead singing Here comes the baked potato in drag Here comes nothing to do all day long Here comes another night of no sleep Here comes the phone wringing the wrong tone Here comes a termite with a banjo Here comes a flagpole with blank eyes Here comes a a cat and […]...
35. Silent Poem backroad leafmold stonewall chipmunk Underbrush grapevine woodchuck shadblow Woodsmoke cowbarn honeysuckle woodpile Sawhorse bucksaw outhouse wellsweep Backdoor flagstone bulkhead buttermilk Candlestick ragrug firedog brownbread Hilltop outcrop cowbell buttercup Whetstone thunderstorm pitchfork steeplebush Gristmill millstone cornmeal waterwheel Watercress buckwheat firefly jewelweed Gravestone groundpine windbreak bedrock Weathercock snowfall starlight cockcrow...
36. The Silent Lover i PASSIONS are liken’d best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; So, when affection yields discourse, it seems The bottom is but shallow whence they come. They that are rich in words, in words discover That they are poor in that which makes a lover....
37. The Silent Lover ii WRONG not, sweet empress of my heart, The merit of true passion, With thinking that he feels no smart, That sues for no compassion. Silence in love bewrays more woe Than words, though ne’er so witty: A beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity. Then wrong not, dearest to my heart, My […]...
38. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
39. Silent Noon Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, – The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms ‘Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. […]...
40. Silent Mark another day is here and my hands are still covered With a mantle of stoic ink Words scribbled on a hesitant paper Wishing to be read now not later. I want you to see this point-like light from an abyss Growing tongues tasting the wind Feel like the knife scraping soft butter And see that […]...