The Wife of the Mind

Related poetry:

1. Mortality The first-class brains of a senior civil servant Shiver and shatter and fall As the steering column of his comfortable Humber Batters in the bony wall. All those delicate re-adjustments “On the one hand, if we proceed With the ad hoc policy hitherto adapted To individual need… On the other hand, too rigid an arrangement […]...
2. To My Wife – With A Copy Of My Poems I can write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say. For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair. And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It […]...
3. Epistle to Neruda Superb, Like a seasoned lion, Neruda buys bread in the shop. He asks for it to be wrapped in paper And solemly puts it under his arm: “Let someone at least think That at some time I bought a book…” Waving his hand in farewell, Like a Roman rather dreamily royal, In the air scented […]...
4. Poem for My Wife This morning when we woke up The meat cages still locked us up* We took a bath so they’d look nice Had our breakfast of eggs and rice Wore the the stuff that Pinurbo** From his father once borrowed Braved the traffic never cool Sending our daughter to school Day by day we replay the […]...
5. 511. Song-O aye my wife she dang me Chorus-O aye my wife she dang me, An’ aft my wife she bang’d me, If ye gie a woman a’ her will, Gude faith! she’ll soon o’er-gang ye. ON peace an’ rest my mind was bent, And, fool I was! I married; But never honest man’s intent Sane cursedly miscarried. O aye my wife, &c. […]...
6. A Shade upon the mind there passes A Shade upon the mind there passes As when on Noon A Cloud the mighty Sun encloses Remembering That some there be too numb to notice Oh God Why give if Thou must take away The Loved?...
7. Roscoe Purkapile She loved me. Oh! how she loved me! I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me. But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out, Or she might divorce me. But few die, none resign. Then I ran away and was […]...
8. The Woman and the Wife I THE EXPLANATION “You thought we knew,” she said, “but we were wrong. This we can say, the rest we do not say; Nor do I let you throw yourself away Because you love me. Let us both be strong, And we shall find in sorrow, before long, Only the price Love ruled that we […]...
9. Mother Mind I never made a poem, dear friend I never sat me down, and said, This cunning brain and patient hand Shall fashion something to be read. Men often came to me, and prayed I should indite a fitting verse For fast, or festival, or in Some stately pageant to rehearse. (As if, than Balaam more […]...
10. Last Night I Drove A Car Last night I drove a car not knowing how to drive not owning a car I drove and knocked down people I loved …went 120 through one town. I stopped at Hedgeville and slept in the back seat …excited about my new life....
11. The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter After Li Po While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played at the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. […]...
12. Who is Kator Anyhow? Why, oh why was Kater lifted From the darkness, where he drifted All unknown, and raised to honour, Side by side with Dick O’connor, In the Council, free from row? Who is Kater, anyhow? Did he lend our armies rally, Like the recent Billy Dalley? Did he lend a Premier money, Like (No libels here, […]...
13. Sex With A Famous Poet I had sex with a famous poet last night And when I rolled over and found myself beside him I shuddered Because I was married to someone else, Because I wasn’t supposed to have been drinking, Because I was in fancy hotel room I didn’t recognize. I would have told you Right off this was […]...
14. Letter To My Wife 11-11-1933 Bursa Prison My one and only! Your last letter says: “My head is throbbing, my heart is stunned!” You say: “If they hang you, if I lose you, I’ll die!” You’ll live, my dear My memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind. Of course you’ll live, red-haired lady of my heart: In […]...
15. For My Lover, Returning To His Wife She is all there. She was melted carefully down for you And cast up from your childhood, Cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies. She has always been there, my darling. She is, in fact, exquisite. Fireworks in the dull middle of February And as real as a cast-iron pot. Let’s face it, I […]...
16. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
17. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
18. Gone Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town. Far off Everybody loved her. So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold On a dream she wants. Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went. Nobody knows why she packed her trunk. . a few old things And is gone, Gone with her little chin Thrust […]...
19. Paul's Wife To drive Paul out of any lumber camp All that was needed was to say to him, “How is the wife, Paul?” and he’d disappear. Some said it was because be bad no wife, And hated to be twitted on the subject; Others because he’d come within a day Or so of having one, and […]...
20. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
21. The Man Rock A man is a rock in a garden of chairs and waits For a longtime to be over. It is easier for a rock in a garden than a man Inside his mother. He decided to be a rock when He got outside. A rock asks only what is a rock. A rock waits to […]...
22. THE DEATH OF ART “Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.” -critic Harold Bloom, who first called slam poetry “the death of art.” I am not a poet. I want to be rich and buy things for my family. Besides, I am sort of popular and can honestly say I’ve had a great […]...
23. Her Initals UPON a poet’s page I wrote Of old two letters of her name; Part seemed she of the effulgent thought Whence that high singer’s rapture came. When now I turn the leaf the same Immortal light illumes the lay But from the letters of her name The radiance has died away....
24. A Villanelle O singer of Persephone! In the dim meadows desolate Dost thou remember Sicily? Still through the ivy flits the bee Where Amaryllis lies in state; O Singer of Persephone! Simaetha calls on Hecate And hears the wild dogs at the gate; Dost thou remember Sicily? Still by the light and laughing sea Poor Polypheme bemoans […]...
25. Poet's Household 1 The stout poet tiptoes On the lawn. Surprisingly limber In his thick sweater Like a middle-age burglar. Is the young robin injured? 2 She bends to feed the geese Revealing the neck’s white curve Below her curled hair. Her husband seems not to watch, But she shimmers in his poem. 3 A hush is […]...
26. The Married Man The bachelor ‘e fights for one As joyful as can be; But the married man don’t call it fun, Because ‘e fights for three For ‘Im an’ ‘Er an’ It (An’ Two an’ One make Three) ‘E wants to finish ‘is little bit, An’ e’ wants to go ‘ome to is tea! The bachelor pokes […]...
27. His Wife, The Painter There are sketches on the walls of men and women and ducks, And outside a large green bus swerves through traffic like Insanity sprung from a waving line; Turgenev, Turgenev, Says the radio, and Jane Austin, Jane Austin, too. “I am going to do her portrait on the 28th, while you are At work.” He […]...
28. Any Wife To Any Husband I My love, this is the bitterest, that thou Who art all truth and who dost love me now As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say – Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still A whole long life through, had but love its will, Would death that leads me from […]...
29. PLEA FOR A HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS LEEDS I want a true history of my city FUCK THE DE LACY FAMILY AND DOUBLE FUCK JOHN OF GAUNT ESPECIALLY And all his descendants With their particular vilenesses – I met one in the sixties Who had all the coldness of Himmler So svelte and adored by the cognoscenti. I want a history responsive To […]...
30. The Wife's Will SIT still­a word­a breath may break (As light airs stir a sleeping lake,) The glassy calm that soothes my woes, The sweet, the deep, the full repose. O leave me not! for ever be Thus, more than life itself to me! Yes, close beside thee, let me kneel­ Give me thy hand that I may […]...
31. DEATH-LAMENT OF THE NOBLE WIFE OF ASAN AGA [From the Morlack.) WHAT is yonder white thing in the forest? Is it snow, or can it swans perchance be? Were it snow, ere this it had been melted, Were it swans, they all away had hastend. Snow, in truth, it is not, swans it is not, ‘Tis the shining tents of Asan Aga. He […]...
32. The Poet Words flow onto paper like rain, forming giant rivers Of unseen lands. The very force guides us along a journey That holds of great adventure. We are the explorers of the literary world. We must find the courage to write what Others are unable to, with the greatest Of passion. A poet dreams. and then […]...
33. Earthfast Architects plant their imagination, weld their poems on rock, Clamp them to the skidding rim of the world and anchor them down to its core; Leave more than the painter’s or poet’s snail-bright trail on a friable leaf; Can build their chrysalis round them – stand in their sculpture’s belly. They see through stone, they […]...
34. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
35. Mind The slow overture of rain, Each drop breaking Without breaking into The next, describes The unrelenting, syncopated Mind. Not unlike The hummingbirds Imagining their wings To be their heart, and swallows Believing the horizon To be a line they lift And drop. What is it They cast for? The poplars, Advancing or retreating, Lose their […]...
36. Be Angry At San Pedro I say to my woman, “Jeffers was A great poet. think of a title Like Be Angry At The Sun. don’t you Realize how great that is? “you like that negative stuff.” she Says “positively,” I agree, finishing my Drink and pouring another. “in one of Jeffers’ poems, not the sun poem, This woman fucks […]...
37. The Wife of Bath's Tale THE PROLOGUE. 1 Experience, though none authority* *authoritative texts Were in this world, is right enough for me To speak of woe that is in marriage: For, lordings, since I twelve year was of age, (Thanked be God that *is etern on live),* *lives eternally* Husbands at the church door have I had five,2 For […]...
38. In Mind There’s in my mind a woman Of innocence, unadorned but Fair-featured and smelling of Apples or grass. She wears A utopian smock or shift, her hair Is light brown and smooth, and she Is kind and very clean without Ostentation- But she has No imagination And there’s a Turbulent moon-ridden girl Or old woman, or […]...
39. The Evening Of The Mind Now comes the evening of the mind. Here are the fireflies twitching in the blood; Here is the shadow moving down the page Where you sit reading by the garden wall. Now the dwarf peach trees, nailed to their trellises, Shudder and droop. Your know their voices now, Faintly the martyred peaches crying out Your […]...
40. I'll have to change my mind I’ll have to change my mind on war, I need to take a break From structured thought; there’s more to peace – it dictates A longer oar to keep the calm than takes to make a little war. Our history as a people is a theatre of strife and where We celebrate the life of […]...