After Us

Related poetry:

1. ABOUT WHAT RUNS AWAY To think that Spinoza died polishing eyeglasses. That Blake got tired at a printer’s shop Waiting for that day’s conversation with the angels. That just to live Baudelaire humiliated before his mother. That Rimbaud was silenced by Rimbaud So that his candor talked to me about literature. As if something else were possible other than […]...
2. The Night Game Some of us believe We would have conceived romantic Love out of our own passions With no precedents, Without songs and poetry Or have invented poetry and music As a comb of cells for the honey. Shaped by ignorance, A succession of new worlds, Congruities improvised by Immigrants or children. I once thought most people […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. She Weeps over Rahoon Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling, Where my dark lover lies. Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling, At grey moonrise. Love, hear thou How soft, how sad his voice is ever calling, Ever unanswered, and the dark rain falling, Then as now. Dark too our hearts, O love, shall lie and […]...
5. 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...
6. A Conceited Mistake Once upon a time there was a mistake So silly so small That no one would even have noticed it It couldn’t bear To see itself to hear of itself It invented all manner of things Just to prove That it didn’t really exist It invented space To put its proofs in And time to […]...
7. To a Dead Poet I knew not if to laugh or weep; They sat and talked of you “‘Twas here he sat; ’twas this he said! ‘Twas that he used to do. “Here is the book wherein he read, The room wherein he dwelt; And he” (they said) “was such a man, Such things he thought and felt.” I […]...
8. Oh Who Is That Young Sinner Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they’re taking him to prison for the color of his hair. ‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head […]...
9. A Song Of Winter Weather It isn’t the foe that we fear; It isn’t the bullets that whine; It isn’t the business career Of a shell, or the bust of a mine; It isn’t the snipers who seek To nip our young hopes in the bud: No, it isn’t the guns, And it isn’t the Huns It’s the MUD, MUD, […]...
10. The Sea There are certain things – a spider, a ghost, The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three – That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most Is a thing they call the SEA. Pour some salt water over the floor – Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be: Suppose it extended a […]...
11. A Sea Dirge There are certain things as, a spider, a ghost, The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most Is a thing they call the Sea. Pour some salt water over the floor Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be: Suppose it extended a mile or […]...
12. Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit snow doesn’t land At your feet but keeps falling below You): single-cell-plant chains, shreds Of zooplankton’s mucus food traps, Fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts, Sand grains, pollen….And inside These jagged falling islands Live more microlives, […]...
13. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
14. Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
15. An excerpt from "Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus&quot iiGloria Praise the wet snow Falling early. Praise the shadow My neighor’s chimney casts on the tile roof Even this gray October day that should, they say, Have been golden. Praise The invisible sun burning beyond The white cold sky, giving us Light and the chimney’s shadow. Praise God or the gods, the unknown, That […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Women Washing Their Hair THEY have painted and sung The women washing their hair, And the plaits and strands in the sun, And the golden combs And the combs of elephant tusks And the combs of buffalo horn and hoof. The sun has been good to women, Drying their heads of hair As they stooped and shook their shoulders […]...
18. The First Night Of Fall And Falling Rain The common rain had come again Slanting and colorless, pale and anonymous, Fainting falling in the first evening Of the first perception of the actual fall, The long and late light had slowly gathered up A sooty wood of clouded sky, dim and distant more and more Until, at dusk, the very sense of selfhood […]...
19. What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is if you’re Old enough to read this you know what Work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, Shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain […]...
20. Autumn: A Dirge The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the Year On the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, Months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. The Color of the Grave is Green The Color of the Grave is Green The Outer Grave I mean You would not know it from the Field Except it own a Stone To help the fond to find it Too infinite asleep To stop and tell them where it is But just a Daisy deep The Color of the Grave is white […]...
23. The Rain All night the sound had Come back again, And again falls This quite, persistent rain. What am I to myself That must be remembered, Insisted upon So often? Is it That never the ease, Even the hardness, Of rain falling Will have for me Something other than this, Something not so insistent Am I to […]...
24. Is White a Color? White, pristine, unblemished They say it is not a color I love white mists, clouds Lingering on blue mountains. White, no shades No off white, cream Pure as snow on shimmering peaks Is my favorite sight. Nurses, priests, politicians Are bound, chained to white White nebulous clouds Evoke deep nostalgic thoughts. They swaddled my father […]...
25. Hymn To Life The hair falling on your forehead suddenly lifted. Suddenly something stirred on the ground. The trees are whispering in the dark. Your bare arms will be cold. Far off where we can’t see, the moon must be rising. It hasn’t reached us yet, slipping through the leaves to light up your shoulder. But I know […]...
26. Nine Things It’s night And a numbered beauty Lapses at the wind, Chortles with the Branches of a tree, giggles, Plays shadow dance With a dead kite, Cajoles affection From falling leaves, And knows four Other things. One is the color Of your hair....
27. Magellanic Penguin Neither clown nor child nor black Nor white but verticle And a questioning innocence Dressed in night and snow: The mother smiles at the sailor, The fisherman at the astronaunt, But the child child does not smile When he looks at the bird child, And from the disorderly ocean The immaculate passenger Emerges in snowy […]...
28. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
29. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
30. Night I love the silent hour of night, For blissful dreams may then arise, Revealing to my charmed sight What may not bless my waking eyes! And then a voice may meet my ear That death has silenced long ago; And hope and rapture may appear Instead of solitude and woe. Cold in the grave for […]...
31. She Tells Her Love She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And put out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow....
32. Denied The winds came out of the west one day, And hurried the clouds before them; And drove the shadows and mists away, And over the mountains bore them. And I wept, ‘Oh, wind, blow into my mind, Blow into my soul and heart, And scatter the clouds that hang lile shrouds, And make the shadows […]...
33. Fog A vagueness comes over everything, As though proving color and contour Alike dispensable: the lighthouse Extinct, the islands’ spruce-tips Drunk up like milk in the Universal emulsion; houses Reverting into the lost And forgotten; granite Subsumed, a rumor In a mumble of ocean. Tactile Definition, however, has not been Totally banished: hanging Tassel by tassel, […]...
34. Covering Two Years This nothingness that feeds upon itself: Pencils that turn to water in the hand, Parts of a sentence, hanging in the air, Thoughts breaking in the mind like glass, Blank sheets of paper that reflect the world Whitened the world that I was silenced by. There were two years of that. Slowly, Whatever splits, dissevers, […]...
35. Ode To Salt This salt In the saltcellar I once saw in the salt mines. I know You won’t Believe me, But It sings, Salt sings, the skin Of the salt mines Sings With a mouth smothered By the earth. I shivered in those solitudes When I heard The voice of The salt In the desert. Near Antofagasta […]...
36. The Color of a Queen, is this The Color of a Queen, is this The Color of a Sun At setting this and Amber Beryl and this, at Noon And when at night Auroran widths Fling suddenly on men ‘Tis this and Witchcraft nature keeps A Rank for Iodine...
37. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
38. Bath-Song Sing hey! For the bath at close of day That washes the weary mud away A loon is he that will not sing O! Water Hot is a noble thing! O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain, And the brook that leaps from hill to plain; But better then rain or rippling streams Is […]...
39. On Angels All was taken away from you: white dresses, Wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, Messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, A heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, You stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems. Shorts is your stay here: Now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear, […]...
40. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...