January 2

Related poetry:

1. January 24 I was about to be mugged by a man With a chain so angry he growled At the Lincoln Center subway station When out of nowhere appeared a tall Chubby-faced Hasidic Jew with peyot And a black hat a black coat white shirt With prayer-shawl fringes showing We walked together out of the station And […]...
2. January 3 The shrink says, “Everything depends On how many stuffed animals you had As a boy,” and my mother tells me my Father was left-handed and so is my son And they’re both named Joe whose favorite Stuffed animal was a bear called Sweetheart While I, the sole constant in this dream, Am carrying a little […]...
3. The Day Is A Poem (September 19, 1939) This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we hear his voice. A man of genius: that is, of amazing Ability, courage, devotion, cored on a sick child’s soul, Heard clearly through the dog wrath, a sick child Wailing in Danzig; invoking destruction and wailing at it. Here, the day was extremely hot; about noon A south […]...
4. The Thorn (For the Rev. Charles L. O’Donnell, C. S. C.) The garden of God is a radiant place, And every flower has a holy face: Our Lady like a lily bends above the cloudy sod, But Saint Michael is the thorn on the rosebush of God. David is the song upon God’s lips, And Our Lady […]...
5. January 1 Some people confuse inspiration with lightning Not me I know it comes from the lungs and air You breathe it in you breathe it out it circulates It’s the breath of my being the wind across the face Of the waters yes but it’s also something that comes At my command like a turkey club […]...
6. January 31 Nothing extends a phone Call more effectively than Saying you’re on your way out But she wants to tell you The five things she requires In a man one is intelligence He must have a brain Also he must be good a term She likes because it embraces both The opposite of evil and “good […]...
7. January 31 (The sky is crumbling…) The sky is crumbling into millions of paper dots The wind blows in my face So I duck into my favorite barber shop And listen to Vivaldi and look in the mirror Reflecting the shopfront windows, Broadway And 104th, and watch the dots blown by the wind Blow into the faces of the walkers outside […]...
8. Our Friendship (January 14) We have a name for it In the South: Asshole buddies. It means we’ve known Each other so long It doesn’t matter That he’s an asshole In my opinion Or I’m an asshole In his opinion Or whatever And I want you to know I’m not from the South And you’re not my buddy And […]...
9. Colin Instructed Young Colin was as stout a boy As ever gave a maiden joy; But long in vain he told his tale To black-eyed Biddy of the Dale. Ah why, the whining shepherd cried, Am I alone your smiles denied? I only tell in vain my tale To black-eyed Biddy of the Dale. True Colin, said […]...
10. The Closet Here I am with my mother, hanging under the molt Of years, in a garden of umbrellas and rubber boots, Together always in the vague perfume of her coat. See how the fedoras along the shelf are the several Skulls of my father, in this catacomb of my family....
11. Michael “There’s something in your face, Michael, I’ve seen it all the day; There’s something quare that wasn’t there when first ye wint away. . . .” “It’s just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right, That puts the stiffinin’ in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . .” “There’s […]...
12. Ode Written On The First Of January Come melancholy Moralizer come! Gather with me the dark and wintry wreath; With me engarland now The SEPULCHRE OF TIME! Come Moralizer to the funeral song! I pour the dirge of the Departed Days, For well the funeral song Befits this solemn hour. But hark! even now the merry bells ring round With clamorous joy […]...
13. June Dreams, In January “So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills, In languid palpitation, half a-swoon With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills; “Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale And then as red as any virgin’s lips. […]...
14. KINDERGARTEN PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER AT MARDI GRAS She looks rather pathetic, really, Leaning against the black air, The three mangled fingers of her left hand Clutching a yellow purse, Her right arm raised over her head As if to shield herself From the silver shower of stars Raining down upon her. Her mouth is a crack Growing beneath her nose. Two dimples […]...
15. Adelaide Crapsey AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July, I read your heart in a book. And your mouth of blue pansy-I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered. And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held […]...
16. In January Only one cell in the frozen hive of night Is lit, or so it seems to us: This Vietnamese café, with its oily light, Its odors whose colorful shapes are like flowers. Laughter and talking, the tick of chopsticks. Beyond the glass, the wintry city Creaks like an ancient wooden bridge. A great wind rushes […]...
17. January, 1795 Pavement slipp’ry, people sneezing, Lords in ermine, beggars freezing ; Titled gluttons dainties carving, Genius in a garret starving. Lofty mansions, warm and spacious ; Courtiers clinging and voracious ; Misers scarce the wretched heeding ; Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding. Wives who laugh at passive spouses ; Theatres, and meeting-houses ; Balls, where simp’ring misses […]...
18. Reuben Pantier Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted, Your love was not all in vain. I owe whatever I was in life To your hope that would not give me up, To your love that saw me still as good. Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story. I pass the effect of my […]...
19. January 1939 Because the pleasure-bird whistles after the hot wires, Shall the blind horse sing sweeter? Convenient bird and beast lie lodged to suffer The supper and knives of a mood. In the sniffed and poured snow on the tip of the tongue of the year That clouts the spittle like bubbles with broken rooms, An enamoured […]...
20. The Changeling A man had a son who was an anvil. And then sometimes He was an automobile tire. I do wish you would sit still, said the father. Sometimes his son was a rock. I realize that you have quite lost boundary, where no Excess seems excessive, nor to where poverty roots hunger to Need. But […]...
21. Orchard Trees, January It’s not the case, though some might wish it so Who from a window watch the blizzard blow White riot through their branches vague and stark, That they keep snug beneath their pelted bark. They take affliction in until it jells To crystal ice between their frozen cells, And each of them is inwardly a […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. Segregation I stood beside the silken rope, Five dollars in my hand, And waited in my patient hope To sit anear the Band, And hear the famous Louie play The best hot trumpet of today. And then a waiter loafing near Says in a nasty tone: “Old coon, we don’t want darkies here, Beat it before […]...
24. Ape You haven’t finished your ape, said mother to father, Who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers. I’ve had enough monkey, cried father. You didn’t eat the hands, and I went to all the Trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother. I’ll just nibble on its forehead, and then I’ve had […]...
25. Song on the End of the World On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A Fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it it should always be. On the day the world ends Women walk through fields under their umbrellas A […]...
26. The Death and Last Confession of Wandering Peter When Peter Wanderwide was young He wandered everywhere he would: All that he approved was sung, And most of what he saw was good. When Peter Wanderwide was thrown By Death himself beyond Auxerre, He chanted in heroic tone To priests and people gathered there: “If all that I have loved and seen Be with […]...
27. Memory Of My Father Every old man I see Reminds me of my father When he had fallen in love with death One time when sheaves were gathered. That man I saw in Gardner Street Stumbled on the kerb was one, He stared at me half-eyed, I might have been his son. And I remember the musician Faltering over […]...
28. God Give to Men God give the yellow man An easy breeze at blossom time. Grant his eager, slanting eyes to cover Every land and dream Of afterwhile. Give blue-eyed men their swivel chairs To whirl in tall buildings. Allow them many ships at sea, And on land, soldiers And policemen. For black man, God, No need to bother […]...
29. Bus Stop Lights are burning In quiet rooms Where lives go on Resembling ours. The quiet lives That follow us – These lives we lead But do not own – Stand in the rain So quietly When we are gone, So quietly. . . And the last bus Comes letting dark Umbrellas out – Black flowers, black […]...
30. Clouds Above The Sea My father and mother, two tiny figures, Side by side, facing the clouds that move In from the Atlantic. August, ’33. The whole weight of the rain to come, the weight Of all that has fallen on their houses Gathers for a last onslaught, and yet they Hold, side by side, in the eye of […]...
31. To A Sad Daughter All night long the hockey pictures Gaze down at you Sleeping in your tracksuit. Belligerent goalies are your ideal. Threats of being traded Cuts and wounds all this pleases you. O my god! you say at breakfast Reading the sports page over the Alpen As another player breaks his ankle Or assaults the coach. When […]...
32. This night is irredeemable This night is irredeemable. Where you are, it is still bright. At the gates of Jerusalem, A black sun is alight. The yellow sun is hurting, Sleep, baby, sleep. The Jews in the Temple’s burning Buried my mother deep. Without rabbi, without blessing, Over her ashes, there, The Jews in the Temple’s burning Chanted the […]...
33. Saturday's Child Some are teethed on a silver spoon, With the stars strung for a rattle; I cut my teeth as the black racoon For implements of battle. Some are swaddled in silk and down, And heralded by a star; They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown On a night that was black as tar. For […]...
34. The Hawk ‘Call down the hawk from the air; Let him be hooded or caged Till the yellow eye has grown mild, For larder and spit are bare, The old cook enraged, The scullion gone wild.’ ‘I will not be clapped in a hood, Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist, Now I have learnt to be […]...
35. The Tale of Custard the Dragon Belinda lived in a little white house, With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse, And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon, And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon. Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink, And the little gray mouse, she called hum Blink, And the […]...
36. View Of The Capitol From The Library Of Congress Moving from left to left, the light Is heavy on the Dome, and coarse. One small lunette turns it aside And blankly stares off to the side Like a big white old wall-eyed horse. On the east steps the Air Force Band In uniforms of Air Force blue Is playing hard and loud, but queer […]...
37. The Harlem Dancer Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway; Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes Blown by black players upon a picnic day. She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, The light gauze hanging loose about her form; To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm Grown lovelier […]...
38. The Fury Of Sunrises Darkness As black as your eyelid, Poketricks of stars, The yellow mouth, The smell of a stranger, Dawn coming up, Dark blue, No stars, The smell of a love, Warmer now As authenic as soap, Wave after wave Of lightness And the birds in their chains Going mad with throat noises, The birds in their […]...
39. Hallelujah: A Sestina A wind’s word, the Hebrew Hallelujah. I wonder they never gave it to a boy (Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair. It means Praise God, as well it should since praise Is what God’s for. Why didn’t they call my father Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer? Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer, Product of Nova […]...
40. God Gave To Me A Child In Part GOD gave to me a child in part, Yet wholly gave the father’s heart: Child of my soul, O whither now, Unborn, unmothered, goest thou? You came, you went, and no man wist; Hapless, my child, no breast you kist; On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb, Nor knew the kindly feel of home. […]...