Home's Kid (For Glenn)

Related poetry:

1. Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, mock on; ’tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again. And every sand becomes a gem Reflected in the beams divine; Blown back they blind the mocking eye, But still in Israel’s paths they shine. The Atoms […]...
2. For Joseph Your ears will never hear sounds that to me are ordinary as air. From the hour that you were born the tight white shell of silence closed around you. You edged away from friendship. Silence clung and stung like sand, smothering words before they could break free. Sand has a brittle sound as it stutters […]...
3. The Wilderness I came too late to the hills: they were swept bare Winters before I was born of song and story, Of spell or speech with power of oracle or invocation, The great ash long dead by a roofless house, its branches rotten, The voice of the crows an inarticulate cry, And from the wells and […]...
4. What the Miner in the Desert Said The moon’s a brass-hooped water-keg, A wondrous water-feast. If I could climb the ridge and drink And give drink to my beast; If I could drain that keg, the flies Would not be biting so, My burning feet be spry again, My mule no longer slow. And I could rise and dig for ore, And […]...
5. Mockingbirds This morning Two mockingbirds In the green field Were spinning and tossing The white ribbons Of their songs Into the air. I had nothing Better to do Than listen. I mean this Seriously. In Greece, A long time ago, An old couple Opened their door To two strangers Who were, It soon appeared, Not men […]...
6. Valley Song YOUR eyes and the valley are memories. Your eyes fire and the valley a bowl. It was here a moonrise crept over the timberline. It was here we turned the coffee cups upside down. And your eyes and the moon swept the valley. I will see you again to-morrow. I will see you again in […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Mollymook All week, in this rented house, sea spray and whispers of wind weave through the eucalypts, like a Sondheim melody. Through the pewter leaves the sea glimpsed from the wooden deck is, at times, teal silk. Other days it is grey. Longing stirs like waves about to break on the shore and sometimes they lift […]...
9. Reconciliation Some may have blamed you that you took away The verses that could move them on the day When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind With lightning, you went from me, and I could find Nothing to make a song about but kings, Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things That were […]...
10. CELEBRITY [A satire on his own Sorrows of Werther.] ON bridges small and bridges great Stands Nepomucks in ev’ry state, Of bronze, wood, painted, or of stone, Some small as dolls, some giants grown; Each passer must worship before Nepomuck, Who to die on a bridge chanced to have the ill luck, When once a man […]...
11. Still hear the waves It was a brave day under an endlessly clear sky That extended forever from our valley To the unfathomably distant sea. It was a day to remember amongst days of Classical splendour and wonderment, From an unoccupied beach and the virgin Sand crisp and crumbling under flying feet, To the tumbling vastness of twinkling ocean […]...
12. The Terrific Cyclone of 1893 ‘Twas in the year of 1893, and on the 17th and 18th of November, Which the people of Dundee and elsewhere will long remember, The terrific cyclone that blew down trees, And wrecked many vessels on the high seas. All along the coast the Storm Fiend did loudly roar, Whereby many ships were wrecked along […]...
13. THE CHOSEN CLIFF HERE in silence the lover fondly mused on his loved one; Gladly he spake to me thus: “Be thou my witness, thou stone! Yet thou must not be vainglorious, thou hast many companions; Unto each rock on the plain, where I, the happy one, dwell, Unto each tree of the wood that I cling to, […]...
14. Edith Conant We stand about this place we, the memories; And shade our eyes because we dread to read: “June 17th, 1884, aged 21 years and 3 days.” And all things are changed. And we we, the memories, stand here for ourselves alone, For no eye marks us, or would know why we are here. Your husband […]...
15. As Once The Winged Energy Of Delight As once the winged energy of delight Carried you over childhood’s dark abysses, Now beyond your own life build the great Arch of unimagined bridges. Wonders happen if we can succeed In passing through the harshest danger; But only in a bright and purely granted Achievement can we realize the wonder. To work with Things […]...
16. A Calendar of Sonnets: December The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes Of water ‘neath the summer sunshine gleamed: Far fairer than when placidly it streamed, The brook its frozen architecture makes, And under bridges white its swift way takes. Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed Might linger on the road; or one who deemed His […]...
17. Wash of Cold River Wash of cold river In a glacial land, Ionian water, Chill, snow-ribbed sand, Drift of rare flowers, Clear, with delicate shell – Like leaf enclosing Frozen lily-leaf, Camellia texture, Colder than a rose; Wind-flower That keeps the breath Of the north-wind These and none other; Intimate thoughts and kind Reach out to share The treasure […]...
18. The Fires Men make them fires on the hearth Each under his roof-tree, And the Four Winds that rule the earth They blow the smoke to me. Across the high hills and the sea And all the changeful skies, The Four Winds blow the smoke to me Till the tears are in my eyes. Until the tears […]...
19. Towards Break Of Day Was it the double of my dream The woman that by me lay Dreamed, or did we halve a dream Under the first cold gleam of day? I thought: “There is a waterfall Upon Ben Bulben side That all my childhood counted dear; Were I to travel far and wide I could not find a […]...
20. Morning Poem #48 cold bed Gray day Memories Of “birds of prey” Talk for the sake Of words shaping Mouth moving Thoughts changing Energy moving Outside of self Talk for the sake Of a warm bed A sanny day And memories Of birds at play...
21. Sonnets 05: Once More Into My Arid Days Like Dew Once more into my arid days like dew, Like wind from an oasis, or the sound Of cold sweet water bubbling underground, A treacherous messenger, the thought of you Comes to destroy me; once more I renew Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found Long since to be but just one other mound Of […]...
22. Concert Party (EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) They are gathering round…. Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound – The jangle and throb of a piano… tum-ti-tum… Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. O sing us the […]...
23. Sonnet 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, And Will to boot, and Will in overplus; More than enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? Shall will in others seem right […]...
24. A Spell before Winter After the red leaf and the gold have gone, Brought down by the wind, then by hammering rain Bruised and discolored, when October’s flame Goes blue to guttering in the cusp, this land Sinks deeper into silence, darker into shade. There is a knowledge in the look of things, The old hills hunch before the […]...
25. A Planted Life diversified A Planted Life diversified With Gold and Silver Pain To prove the presence of the Ore In Particles ’tis when A Value struggle it exist A Power will proclaim Although Annihilation pile Whole Chaoses on Him...
26. Cinema Screen Light’s patterns freeze: Frost on our faces. Light’s pollen sifts Through the lids of our eyes… Light sinks and rusts In water; is broken By glass… rests On deserted dust. Light lies like torn Paper in corners: A rock-pool’s pledge Of the sea’s return. Light, wrenched at the edges By wind, looks down At itself […]...
27. The Tropics in New York Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root, Cocoa in pods and alligator pears, And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit, Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs, Set in the window, bringing memories Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills, And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies In benediction over nun-like hills. My eyes grew dim, […]...
28. Exiled Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people, Sick of the city, wanting the sea; Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness Of the strong wind and shattered spray; Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound Of the big surf that […]...
29. Pretty Halcyon Days How pleasant to sit on the beach, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun, With ocean galore within reach, And nothing at all to be done! No letters to answer, No bills to be burned, No work to be shirked, No cash to be earned, It is pleasant to sit on the beach […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
32. Rain Has Fallen All the Day Rain has fallen all the day. O come among the laden trees: The leaves lie thick upon the way Of memories. Staying a little by the way Of memories shall we depart. Come, my beloved, where I may Speak to your heart....
33. Self-Portrait, 1969 He’s still young ; thirty, but looks younger Or does he?… In the eyes and cheeks, tonight, Turning in the mirror, he saw his mother, Puffy; angry; bewildered… Many nights, Now, when he stares there, he gets angry: Something unfulfilled there, something dead To what he once thought he surely could be Now, just the […]...
34. Boy at the Window Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a God-forsaken stare As outcast Adam […]...
35. Our Eyes Our eyes are limpid drops of water. In each drop exists a tiny sign of our genius Which has given life to cold iron. Our eyes are limpid drops of water Merged absolutely in the Ocean That you could hardly recognize the drop in a block of ice in a boiling pan. The masterpiece of […]...
36. Man Child All day he lay upon the sand When summer sun was bright, And let the grains sift through his hand With infantile delight; Just like a child, so soft and fair, Though he was twenty-five – An innocent, my mother – care Had kept so long alive. Oh it is hard to bear a cross […]...
37. A Sea-Side Walk We walked beside the sea, After a day which perished silently Of its own glory – like the Princess weird Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared, Uttered with burning breath, ‘Ho! victory!’ And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale; So runs the Arab tale. The sky above us showed An universal and unmoving […]...
38. Broken Dreams There is grey in your hair. Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath When you are passing; But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing Because it was your prayer Recovered him upon the bed of death. For your sole sake – that all heart’s ache have known, And given to others all heart’s […]...
39. The Gardener XVIII: When Two Sisters When the two sisters go to fetch Water, they come to this spot and They smile. They must be aware of somebody Who stands behind the trees when- Ever they go to fetch water. The two sisters whisper to each Other when they pass this spot. They must have guessed the secret Of that somebody […]...
40. Resolutions Resolutions I have made, Kept, I have none, Why do I have to make, Resolutions anymore? I pause through endless time, For this year to pass, And the lights of celebration to die, On this New Year day. Remember those magical days, When the promise of togetherness, Held us together, tentatively, Alas! No more! Years […]...