That Bright Chimeric Beast

Related poetry:

1. The Black Unicorn The black unicorn is greedy. The black unicorn is impatient. ‘The black unicorn was mistaken For a shadow or symbol And taken Through a cold country Where mist painted mockeries Of my fury. It is not on her lap where the horn rests But deep in her moonpit Growing. The black unicorn is restless The […]...
2. Demon And Beast For certain minutes at the least That crafty demon and that loud beast That plague me day and night Ran out of my sight; Though I had long perned in the gyre, Between my hatred and desire. I saw my freedom won And all laugh in the sun. The glittering eyes in a death’s head […]...
3. Sometimes The Sky's Too Bright Sometimes the sky’s too bright, Or has too many clouds or birds, And far away’s too sharp a sun To nourish thinking of him. Why is my hand too blunt To cut in front of me My horrid images for me, Of over-fruitful smiles, The weightless touching of the lip I wish to know I […]...
4. To the bright east she flies To the bright east she flies, Brothers of Paradise Remit her home, Without a change of wings, Or Love’s convenient things, Enticed to come. Fashioning what she is, Fathoming what she was, We deem we dream And that dissolves the days Through which existence strays Homeless at home....
5. Modern Love IX: He Felt the Wild Beast He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles So masterfully rude, that he would grieve To see the helpless delicate thing receive His guardianship through certain dark defiles. Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too? But still he spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’ He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; […]...
6. Beast, Book, Body I was sick of being a woman, Sick of the pain, The irrelevant detail of sex, My own concavity Uselessly hungering And emptier whenever it was filled, And filled finally By its own emptiness, Seeking the garden of solitude Instead of men. The white bed In the green garden I looked forward To sleeping alone […]...
7. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls: Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city, And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea, Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark […]...
8. Make Bright The Arrows Make bright the arrows Gather the shields: Conquest narrows The peaceful fields. Stock well the quiver With arrows bright: The bowman feared Need never fight. Make bright the arrows, O peaceful and wise! Gather the shields Against surprise....
9. Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and […]...
10. An Exhortation Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets’ food is love and fame: If in this wide world of care Poets could but find the same With as little toil as they, Would they ever change their hue As the light chameleons do, Suiting it to every ray Twenty times a day? Poets are on this […]...
11. Sonnet XXVII: Oh! Ye Bright Stars Oh! ye bright Stars! that on the Ebon fields Of Heav’n’s empire, trembling seems to stand; ‘Till rosy morn unlocks her portal bland, Where the proud Sun his fiery banner wields! To flames, less fierce than mine, your lustre yields, And pow’rs more strong my countless tears command; Love strikes the feeling heart with ruthless […]...
12. The Age My age, my beast, is there anyone Who can peer into your eyes And with his own blood fuse Two centuries’ worth of vertebrae? The creating blood gushes From the throat of earthly things, And the parasite just trembles On the threshold of new days. While the creature still has life, The spine must be […]...
13. October's Bright Blue Weather O suns and skies and clouds of June, And flowers of June together, Ye cannot rival for one hour October’s bright blue weather; When loud the bumblebee makes haste, Belated, thriftless vagrant, And goldenrod is dying fast, And lanes with grapes are fragrant; When gentians roll their fingers tight To save them for the morning, […]...
14. The Last Unicorn The last unicorn was never free To chose another ending, The plaintive melody entrained With sweet orchestral strains Describing it was sundered in A soured rendition of Our heaven’s harsh dominion. We were never set to let her free From facile bonds, we fondly loved Mythology too much to let her go And kept her […]...
15. Glory is that bright tragic thing Glory is that bright tragic thing That for an instant Means Dominion Warms some poor name That never felt the Sun, Gently replacing In oblivion...
16. Have You Seen But A Bright Lily Grow Have you seen but a bright lily grow Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall of snow Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of beaver, Or swan’s down ever? Or have smelt o’ the bud o’ the brier, Or the nard in the fire? Or […]...
17. Bright Cap and Streamers Bright cap and streamers, He sings in the hollow: Come follow, come follow, All you that love. Leave dreams to the dreamers That will not after, That song and laughter Do nothing move. With ribbons streaming He sings the bolder; In troop at his shoulder The wild bees hum. And the time of dreaming Dreams […]...
18. Reuben Bright Because he was a butcher and thereby Did earn an honest living (and did right), I would not have you think that Reuben Bright Was any more a brute than you or I; For when they told him that his wife must die, He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright, And cried […]...
19. Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright Sleep! sleep! beauty bright, Dreaming o’er the joys of night; Sleep! sleep! in thy sleep Little sorrows sit and weep. Sweet Babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles. As thy softest limbs I feel, Smiles as of the morning steal O’er thy cheek, and […]...
20. The Nurse Such innocent companionship Is hers, whether she wake or sleep, ‘Tis scarcely strange her face should wear The young child’s grave and innocent air. All the night long she hath by her The quiet breathing, the soft stir, Nor knows how in that tender place The children’s angels veil the face. She wakes at dawn […]...
21. Oh! Had We Some Bright Little Isle of Our Own Oh! had we some bright little isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone, Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers, And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers; Where the sun loves to pause With so fond a delay, That the night only […]...
22. Avenging and Bright Avenging and bright fall the swift sword of Erin On him who the brave sons of Usna betray’d! For every fond eye he hath waken’d a tear in A drop from his heart-wounds shall weep o’er her blade. By the red cloud that hung over Conor’s dark dwelling, When Ulad’s three champions lay sleeping in […]...
23. Sonnet IV: Bright Star of Beauty Bright star of beauty, on whose eyelids sit A thousand nymph-like and enamour’d Graces, The Goddesses of Memory and Wit, Which there in order take their several places; In whose dear bosom sweet delicious Love Lays down his quiver, which he once did bear, Since he that blessed Paradise did prove, And leaves his mother’s […]...
24. Avising The Bright Beams Avising the bright beams of these fair eyes Where he is that mine oft moisteth and washeth, The wearied mind straight from the heart departeth For to rest in his worldly paradise And find the sweet bitter under this guise. What webs he hath wrought well he perceiveth Whereby with himself on love he plaineth […]...
25. Beast and Man in India Written for John Lockwood Kipling’s They killed a Child to please the Gods In Earth’s young penitence, And I have bled in that Babe’s stead Because of innocence. I bear the sins of sinful men That have no sin of my own, They drive me forth to Heaven’s wrath Unpastured and alone. I am the […]...
26. It Was an English Ladye Bright It was an English ladye bright, (The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,) And she would marry a Scottish knight, For Love will still be lord of all. Blithely they saw the rising sun When he shone fair on Carlisle wall; But they were sad ere day was done, Though Love was still the lord […]...
27. Holy Sonnet XVIII: Show me, dear Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and clear Show me, dear Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and clear. What! is it She, which on the other shore Goes richly painted? or which, robbed and tore, Laments and mourns in Germany and here? Sleeps she a thousand, then peeps up one year? Is she self-truth and errs? now new, now outwore? Doth she, and […]...
28. Dream Song 3: A Stimulant for an Old Beast Acacia, burnt myrrh, velvet, pricky stings. €”I’m not so young but not so very old, Said screwed-up lovely 23. A final sense of being right out in the cold, Unkissed. (—My psychiatrist can lick your psychiatrist.) Women get under things. All these old criminals sooner or later Have had it. I’ve been reading old journals. […]...
29. Resignation I’d hate to be centipede (of legs I’ve only two), For if new trousers I should need (as oftentimes I do), The bill would come to such a lot ‘twould tax an Astorbilt, Or else I’d have to turn a Scot and caper in a kilt. I’m jolly glad I haven’t got a neck like […]...
30. Rest ON me to rest, my bird, my bird: The swaying branches of my heart Are blown by every wind toward The home whereto their wings depart. Build not your nest, my bird, on me; I know no peace but ever sway: O lovely bird, be free, be free, On the wild music of the day. […]...
31. Broken-face Gargoyles ALL I can give you is broken-face gargoyles. It is too early to sing and dance at funerals, Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker humming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-and-wing, now you see it and now you don’t. Fish to swim a […]...
32. A Last Confession What lively lad most pleasured me Of all that with me lay? I answer that I gave my soul And loved in misery, But had great pleasure with a lad That I loved bodily. Flinging from his arms I laughed To think his passion such He fancied that I gave a soul Did but our […]...
33. Shack Dye The white men played all sorts of jokes on me. They took big fish off my hook And put little ones on, while I was away Getting a stringer, and made me believe I hadn’t seen aright the fish I had caught. When Burr Robbins circus came to town They got the ring master to […]...
34. The River In my first sleep I came to the river And looked down Through the clear water – Only in dream Water so pure, Laced and undulant Lines of flow On its rocky bed Water of life Streaming for ever. A house was there Beside the river And I, arrived, An expected guest About to explore […]...
35. Tom The Lunatic Sang old Tom the lunatic That sleeps under the canopy: ‘What change has put my thoughts astray And eyes that had s-o keen a sight? What has turned to smoking wick Nature’s pure unchanging light? ‘Huddon and Duddon and Daniel O’Leary. Holy Joe, the beggar-man, Wenching, drinking, still remain Or sing a penance on the […]...
36. I reckon when I count it all I reckon when I count it all First Poets Then the Sun Then Summer Then the Heaven of God And then the List is done But, looking back the First so seems To Comprehend the Whole The Others look a needless Show So I write Poets All Their Summer lasts a Solid Year They can […]...
37. What do animals dream? Do they dream of past lives and unlived dreams Unspeakably human or unimaginably bestial? Do they struggle to catch in their slumber What is too slippery for the fingers of day? Are there subtle nocturnal intimations To illuminate their undreaming hours? Are they haunted by specters of regret Do they visit their dead in drowsy […]...
38. Psalm 8 part 2 v. 3ff, paraphrased. L. M. Adam and Christ, lords of the old and new creation. Lord, what was man, when made at first, Adam the offspring of the dust, That thou shouldst set him and his race But just below an angel’s place? That thou shouldst raise his nature so, And make him lord of […]...
39. Babylon The child alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his. Truth and Reason show but dim, And all’s poetry with him. Rhyme and music flow in plenty For the lad of one-and-twenty, But Spring for him is no more now Than daisies to a munching cow; Just a cheery pleasant season, Daisy buds to […]...
40. Poet As Fisherman I fish for words To say what I fish for, Half-catch sometimes. I have caught little pan fish flashing sunlight (yellow perch, crappies, blue-gills), Lighthearted reeled them in, Filed them on stringers on the shore. A nice mess, we called them, And ate with our fingers, laughing. Once, dreaming of fish in far-off waters, I […]...