Piano

Related poetry:

1. The Piano (Notebook Version) Somewhere beneath that piano’s superb sleek black Must hide my mother’s piano, little and brown with the back That stood close to the wall, and the front’s faded silk, both torn And the keys with little hollows, that my mother’s fingers had worn. Softly, in the shadows, a woman is singing to me Quietly, through […]...
2. The Opening of the Piano IN the little southern parlor of tbe house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night! Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came! What […]...
3. Early In The Morning I Hear On Your Piano EARLY in the morning I hear on your piano You (at least, I guess it’s you) proceed to learn to play. Mostly little minds should take and tackle their piano While the birds are singing in the morning of the day....
4. The Player Piano I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House Run by a lady my age. She was gay. When I told her that I came from Pasadena She laughed and said, “I lived in Pasadena When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus.” I felt that I had met someone from home. No, not Pasadena, […]...
5. Faure's Second Piano Quartet On a day like this the rain comes Down in fat and random drops among The ailanthus leaves -“the tree Of Heaven” – the leaves that on moon- Lit nights shimmer black and blade- Shaped at this third-floor window. And there are bunches of small green Knobs, buds, crowded together. The Rapid music fills in […]...
6. Sunday Afternoons I sit at home At my desk alone As I used to do On many sunday afternoons When you came back to me, Your arms ached for me, And your arms would close me in Though they smelled of other women. I think of you On Sunday afternoons. Your sweet head would bow, Like a […]...
7. The Investment Over back where they speak of life as staying (‘You couldn’t call it living, for it ain’t’), There was an old, old house renewed with paint, And in it a piano loudly playing. Out in the plowed ground in the cold a digger, Among unearthed potatoes standing still, Was counting winter dinners, one a hill, […]...
8. Hotel Insomnia I liked my little hole, Its window facing a brick wall. Next door there was a piano. A few evenings a month A crippled old man came to play “My Blue Heaven.” Mostly, though, it was quiet. Each room with its spider in heavy overcoat Catching his fly with a web Of cigarette smoke and […]...
9. In Praise of Songs that Die AFTER HAVING READ A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD CURRENT POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS Ah, they are passing, passing by, Wonderful songs, but born to die! Cries from the infinite human seas, Waves thrice-winged with harmonies. Here I stand on a pier in the foam Seeing the songs to the beach go home, Dying […]...
10. The Judge Say of him what you please, but I know my child’s failings. I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my Little child. How should you know how dear he can be when you try to weigh His merits against his faults? When I must punish him he becomes all […]...
11. Pattern Leave me to my lonely pillow. Go, and take your silly posies Who has vowed to wear the willow Looks a fool, tricked out in roses. Who are you, my lad, to ease me? Leave your pretty words unspoken. Tinkling echoes little please me, Now my heart is freshly broken. Over young are you to […]...
12. Krinken Krinken was a little child, It was summer when he smiled. Oft the hoary sea and grim Stretched its white arms out to him, Calling, “Sun-child, come to me; Let me warm my heart with thee!” But the child heard not the sea, Calling, yearning evermore For the summer on the shore. Krinken on the […]...
13. To My Brother Miguel In Memoriam Brother, today I sit on the brick bench of the house, Where you make a bottomless emptiness. I remember we used to play at this hour, and mama Caressed us: “But, sons…” Now I go hide As before, from all evening Lectures, and I trust you not to give me away. Through the parlor, the […]...
14. Chords IN the morning, a Sunday morning, shadows of sea and adumbrants of rock in her eyes… horseback in leather boots and leather gauntlets by the sea. In the evening, a Sunday evening, a rope of pearls on her white shoulders… and a speaking, brooding black velvet, relapsing to the voiceless… battering Russian marches on a […]...
15. The Auction Sale Her little head just topped the window-sill; She even mounted on a stool, maybe; She pressed against the pane, as children will, And watched us playing, oh so wistfully! And then I missed her for a month or more, And idly thought: “She’s gone away, no doubt,” Until a hearse drew up beside the door. […]...
16. Piano Practice The summer hums. The afternoon fatigues; She breathed her crisp white dress distractedly And put into it that sharply etched etude Her impatience for a reality That could come: tomorrow, this evening, That perhaps was there, was just kept hidden; And at the window, tall and having everything, She suddenly could feel the pampered park. […]...
17. The Piano-Organ My student-lamp is lighted, The books and papers are spread; A sound comes floating upwards, Chasing the thoughts from my head. I open the garret window, Let the music in and the moon; See the woman grin for coppers, While the man grinds out the tune. Grind me a dirge or a requiem, Or a […]...
18. Psalm 136 Abridged God’s wonders of creation, providence, redemption, and salvation. Give to our God immortal praise; Mercy and truth are all his ways: Wonders of grace to God belong, Repeat his mercies in your song. Give to the Lord of lords renown, The King of kings with glory crown: His mercies ever shall endure, When lords and […]...
19. The Recruit Leave your home behind, lad, And reach your friends your hand, And go, and luck go with you While Ludlow tower shall stand. Oh, come you home of Sunday When Ludlow streets are still And Ludlow bells are calling To farm and lane and mill, Or come you home of Monday When Ludlow market hums […]...
20. The Venal Muse O muse of my heart, lover of palaces, Will you bring, when January lets loose its sleet And its black evenings without solace, An ember to warm my violet feet? What will revive your bruised shoulders, The nocturnal rays that pierce the shutters? When you cannot feel your palace, just your empty billfold, How will […]...
21. Footsteps On an ebony bed decorated With coral eagles, sound asleep lies Nero unconscious, quiet, and blissful; Thriving in the vigor of flesh, And in the splendid power of youth. But in the alabaster hall that encloses The ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi How restive are his Lares. The little household gods tremble, And try to […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. The Unheeded Pageant Ah, who was it coloured that little frock, my child, and covered Your sweet limbs with that little red tunic? You have come out in the morning to play in the courtyard, Tottering and tumbling as you run. But who was it coloured that little frock, my child? What is it makes you laugh, my […]...
24. Home Is So Sad Home is so sad. It stays as it was left, Shaped in the comfort of the last to go As if to win them back. Instead, bereft Of anyone to please, it withers so, Having no heart to put aside the theft. And turn again to what it started as, A joyous shot at how […]...
25. Blood Feud Once, when my husband was a child, there came To his father’s table, one who called him kin, In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin. His look was grave and kind; he bore the name Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile. Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke; “I’ve been in the […]...
26. The Weary Blues Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway. . . He did a lazy sway. . . To the tune o’ those Weary […]...
27. Nature Study (for Rona, Jeremy, Sam & Grace) All the lizards are asleep Perched pagodas with tiny triangular tiles, Each milky lid a steamed-up window. Inside, the heart repeats itself like a sleepy gong, Summoning nothing to nothing. In winter time, the zoo reverts to metaphor, God’s poetry of boredom: The cobra knits her Fair-Isle skin, Rattlers […]...
28. Not A Child ‘Not a child: I call myself a boy,’ Says my king, with accent stern yet mild, Now nine years have brought him change of joy; ‘Not a child.’ How could reason be so far beguiled, Err so far from sense’s safe employ, Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild? Seeing his face bent […]...
29. The grave my little cottage is The grave my little cottage is, Where “Keeping house” for thee I make my parlor orderly And lay the marble tea. For two divided, briefly, A cycle, it may be, Till everlasting life unite In strong society....
30. The waters chased him as he fled The waters chased him as he fled, Not daring look behind A billow whispered in his Ear, “Come home with me, my friend My parlor is of shriven glass, My pantry has a fish For every palate in the Year” To this revolting bliss The object floating at his side Made no distinct reply....
31. The Wind that Shakes the Barley There’s music in my heart all day, I hear it late and early, It comes from fields are far away, The wind that shakes the barley. Above the uplands drenched with dew The sky hangs soft and pearly, An emerald world is listening to The wind that shakes the barley. Above the bluest mountain crest […]...
32. Some Things The World Gave 1 Times in the morning early When it rained and the long gray Buildings came forward from darkness Offering their windows for light. 2 Evenings out there on the plains When sunset donated farms That yearned so far to the west that the world Centered there and bowed down. 3 A teacher at a country […]...
33. Hymn 134 Religion vain without love. 1 Cor. 13:1-3. Had I the tongues of Greeks and Jews, And nobler speech, that angels use, If love be absent, I am found, Like tinkling brass, an empty sound. Were I inspired to preach and tell All that is done in heav’n and hell; Or could my faith the world […]...
34. Psalm 101 The magistrate’s Psalm. Mercy and judgment are my song; And since they both to thee belong, My gracious God, my righteous King, To thee my songs and vows I bring. If I am raised to bear the sword, I’ll take my counsels from thy word; Thy justice and thy heav’nly grace Shall be the pattern […]...
35. Sonnet 04 – Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems! where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear To let thy music drop here […]...
36. A Child in the Garden When to the garden of untroubled thought I came of late, and saw the open door, And wished again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, […]...
37. A Calendar of Sonnets: January O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire The streams than under ice. June could not hire Her roses to forego the strength they learn In sleeping on thy breast. No […]...
38. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
39. Poems Done on a Late Night Car I. CHICKENS I am The Great White Way of the city: When you ask what is my desire, I answer: “Girls fresh as country wild flowers, With young faces tired of the cows and barns, Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries, Slender supple girls with shapely legs, Lure in the […]...
40. I never felt at Home Below I never felt at Home Below And in the Handsome Skies I shall not feel at Home I know I don’t like Paradise Because it’s Sunday all the time And Recess never comes And Eden’ll be so lonesome Bright Wednesday Afternoons If God could make a visit Or ever took a Nap So not to […]...