Conundrums

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. The Identification So you think its Stephen? Then I’d best make sure Be on the safe side as it were. Ah, theres been a mistake. The hair You see, its black, now Stephens fair… Whats that? The explosion? Of course, burnt black. Silly of me. I should have known. Then lets get on. The face, is that […]...
3. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
4. Being Me! Wild are my ways, wilder than you think You will find me standing a little left of frame You will find me a little away from the meeting place I am that and much more, insignificant me. Yes I am the one with the faraway look Of sailors of vast dreamy oceans I look at […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
7. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
8. Ode To Pornography If you could write down the words Moving through a man’s mind as He masturbates you’d have a quick Bonus bonk read, I used to think. But words were never adequate Or the point in the bar where the girl Is a boy the boy is a girl the two girls Exchange underpants the one […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. Albert and His Savings One day, little Albert Ramsbottom To see ‘ow much money ‘e’d got Stuck a knife in ‘is money-box slot ‘ole And fiddled and fished out the lot. It amounted to fifteen and fourpence Which ‘e found by a few simple sums Were ninety two tuppenny ices Or twice that in penn’orths of gums. The sound […]...
11. Talisman it is written The act of writing is Holy words are Sacred and your breath Brings out the God in them I write these words Quickly repeat them Softly to myself This talisman for you Fold this prayer Around your neck fortify Your back with these Whispers May you walk ever Loved and in love […]...
12. Wimborne minster though there’s not much faith left And very little snow This scene of wimborne minster Still makes its christmas show The building’s warm proportions Its sense of move-me-not Catches this winter pagan On a most forgiving spot Christmas itself unwinds Back to that moment when Mind first let a light in And darkness cried amen […]...
13. The Corner Man I dreamt a dream at the midnight deep, When fancies come and go To vex a man in his soothing sleep With thoughts of awful woe I dreamed that I was the corner man Of a nigger minstrel show. I cracked my jokes, and the building rang With laughter loud and long; I hushed the […]...
14. Time to play It is a pristine page, clean on the blue screen Where I compose, I don’t expect it to stay that way As words glow from blunt, abused fingers, as insistent Sounds in my head translate into sentence structures, As lips articulate the rhythms and the sounds of the Jumbled lexis as swiftly as I can […]...
15. Love Letter Written In A Burning Building I am in a crate, the crate that was ours, Full of white shirts and salad greens, The icebox knocking at our delectable knocks, And I wore movies in my eyes, And you wore eggs in your tunnel, And we played sheets, sheets, sheets All day, even in the bathtub like lunatics. But today I […]...
16. Peace on Earth He took a frayed hat from his head, And “Peace on Earth” was what he said. “A morsel out of what you’re worth, And there we have it: Peace on Earth. Not much, although a little more Than what there was on earth before I’m as you see, I’m Ichabod,- But never mind the ways […]...
17. Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy Love’s Lunacy Why do I speak of joy, or write of love, When my heart is the very den of horror, And in my soul the pains of Hell I prove, With all his torments and infernal terror? What should I say? What yet remains to do? My brain is dry with weeping all too […]...
18. Why Do Birds Sing? Let poets piece prismatic words, Give me the jewelled joy of birds! What ecstasy moves them to sing? Is it the lyric glee of Spring, The dewy rapture of the rose? Is it the worship born in those Who are of Nature’s self a part, The adoration of the heart? Is it the mating mood […]...
19. Poem 92 VPon a day as loue lay sweetly slumbring, All in his mothers lap: A gentle Bee with his loud trumpet murm’ring, About him flew by hap. Whereof when he was wakened with the noyse, And saw the beast so small: Whats this (quoth he) that giues so great a voyce, That wakens men withall. In […]...
20. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
21. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
22. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
23. Your Dad Did What? Where they have been, if they have been away, Or what they’ve done at home, if they have not – You make them write about the holiday. One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what? That’s not a sentence. Never mind the bell. We stay behind until the work is done. You count […]...
24. The Simple Line The secrets of the mind convene splendidly, Though the mind is meek. To be aware inwardly Of brain and beauty Is dark too recognizable. Thought looking out on thought Makes one an eye: Which it shall be, both decide. One is with the mind alone, The other is with other thoughts gone To be seen […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. MY PERFECT ROSE At ten she came to me, three years ago, There was ‘something between us’ even then; Watching her write like Eliot every day, Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat, Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet; Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’. […]...
27. The Ocean's Song We walked amongst the ruins famed in story Of Rozel-Tower, And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory And heave in power. O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder, Whilst waves marked time. “Appear, O Truth!” thou sang’st with tone of thunder, “And shine sublime! “The world’s enslaved and hunted down by beagles, […]...
28. 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...
29. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
30. Words Be careful of words, Even the miraculous ones. For the miraculous we do our best, Sometimes they swarm like insects And leave not a sting but a kiss. They can be as good as fingers. They can be as trusty as the rock You stick your bottom on. But they can be both daisies and […]...
31. Against Lying O ’tis a lovely thing for youth To early walk in wisdom’s way; To fear a lie, to speak the truth, That we may trust to all they say! But liars we can never trust, Even when they say what is true. And he who does one fault at first And lies to hide it, […]...
32. The Sad Shepherd There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend, And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming, Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming And humming Sands, where windy surges wend: And he called loudly to the stars to bend From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they Among themselves laugh on and […]...
33. 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....
34. Swing Shift Blues What is better than leaving a bar In the middle of the afternoon Besides staying in it or not Having gone into it in the first place Because you had a decent woman to be with? The air smells particularly fresh After the stale beer and piss smells. You can stare up at the whole […]...
35. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
38. Picture-Books in Winter Summer fading, winter comes Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books. All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, […]...
39. Inspiration How often have I started out With no thought in my noodle, And wandered here and there about, Where fancy bade me toddle; Till feeling faunlike in my glee I’ve voiced some gay distiches, Returning joyfully to tea, A poem in my britches. A-squatting on a thymy slope With vast of sky about me, I’ve […]...
40. Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry “Amen” To every hymn that able spirit affords In polished form […]...