With Tenure

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1. March 1 I could stare for hours At her, the woman stepping Out of her bath, breasts Bare, towel around her waist, Before I knew she was you In that one-bedroom in The Village sunny and cold That Friday we woke up Slowly & our breakfast table Arranged itself into A still life with irises In a […]...
2. 461. Song-Charlie, he's my Darling ‘TWAS on a Monday morning, Right early in the year, That Charlie came to our town, The young Chevalier. Chorus.-An’ Charlie, he’s my darling, My darling, my darling, Charlie, he’s my darling, The young Chevalier. As he was walking up the street, The city for to view, O there he spied a bonie lass The […]...
3. POET-IN-RESIDENCE You are my dream Of the East You are my life In the West Fused in one You begin my day And end each day With a silent smile When I die I will Have only my love To leave you. You said I had written No poems for you And you had written Only […]...
4. 191. Song-Theniel Menzies' Bonie Mary IN comin by the brig o’ Dye, At Darlet we a blink did tarry; As day was dawnin in the sky, We drank a health to bonie Mary. Chorus.-Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary, Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary, Charlie Grigor tint his plaidie, Kissin’ Theniel’s bonie Mary. Her een sae bright, her brow sae white, Her haffet […]...
5. The Smile on the Face of a Kouros This boy, of course, was dead, whatever that Might mean. And nobly dead. I think we should feel He was nobly dead. He fell in battle, perhaps, And this carved stone remembers him Not as he may have looked, but as if to define The naked virtue the stone describes as his. One foot is […]...
6. Epilogue WELL, when all is said and done Best within my narrow way, May some angel of the sun Muse memorial o’er my clay: “Here was beauty all betrayed From the freedom of her state; From her human uses stayed On an idle rhyme to wait. “Ah, what deep despair might move If the beauty lit […]...
7. The Made to Order Smile When a woman looks up at you with a twist about her eyes, And her brows are half uplifted in a nicely feigned surprise As you breathe some pretty sentence, though she hates you all the while, She is very apt to stun you with a made to order smile. It’s a sublte combination of […]...
8. I Sing The Body Electric People sit numbly at the counter Waiting for breakfast or service. Today it’s Hartford, Connecticut More than twenty-five years after The last death of Wallace Stevens. I have come in out of the cold And wind of a Sunday morning Of early March, and I seem to be Crying, but I’m only freezing And unpeeled. […]...
9. 486. Song-Inconstancy in love LET not Woman e’er complain Of inconstancy in love; Let not Woman e’er complain Fickle Man is apt to rove: Look abroad thro’ Nature’s range, Nature’s mighty Law is change, Ladies, would it not seem strange Man should then a monster prove! Mark the winds, and mark the skies, Ocean’s ebb, and ocean’s flow, Sun […]...
10. The Summary History of Sir William Wallace Sir William Wallace of Ellerslie, I’m told he went to the High School in Dundee, For to learn to read and write, And after that he learned to fight, While at the High School in Dundee, The Provost’s son with him disagree, Because Wallace did wear a dirk, He despised him like an ignorant stirk, […]...
11. Meditation on a Bone A piece of bone, found at Trondhjem in 1901, with the following runic inscription (about A. D. 1050) cut on it: I loved her as a maiden; I will not trouble Erlend’s detestable wife; better she should be a widow. Words scored upon a bone, Scratched in despair or rage Nine hundred years have gone; […]...
12. Now let no charitable hope Now let no charitable hope Confuse my mind with images Of eagle and of antelope: I am by nature none of these. I was, being human, born alone; I am, being woman, hard beset; I live by squeezing from a stone What little nourishment I get. In masks outrageous and austere The years go by […]...
13. Uncertain lease develops lustre Uncertain lease develops lustre On Time Uncertain Grasp, appreciation Of Sum The shorter Fate is oftener the chiefest Because Inheritors upon a tenure Prize...
14. The Primrose Upon this Primrose hill, Where, if Heav’n would distil A shower of rain, each several drop might go To his own primrose, and grow manna so; And where their form and their infinity Make a terrestrial Galaxy, As the small stars do in the sky: I walk to find a true Love; and I see […]...
15. Artist He gave a picture exhibition, Hiring a little empty shop. Above its window: FREE ADMISSION Cajoled the passers-by to stop; Just to admire – no need to purchase, Although his price might have been low: But no proud artist ever urges Potential buyers at his show. Of course he badly needed money, But more he […]...
16. Classical Indian Explanation: Music past the hippies Past Ravi Shankar Eons before When the first Asian snake Came alive Stiffened with sound Through some empty shell Some hollow wood Some emptiness The snake Was not so much charmed As listening intently To the accidental flute To that which he knew Must be female Its empty insides Calling him With […]...
17. We May Roam Through This World We may roam through this world, like a child at a feast, Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest; And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east, We may order our wings and be off to the west: But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile, Are […]...
18. Big Hair Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie Tear, wanting to look like a moll In a Chandler novel. Dinner, consisting of three parts gin And one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair. There are, she said, poems that can be written Only when the poet is clad in black underwear. […]...
19. Eternity for C. G. Macdonald, 1956-2006 Charlie, sunrise is a three-legged mongrel dog, Going deaf, already blind in one eye, Answering to the unlikely name, ‘Lucky.’ The sky, at gray-blue dawn, is a football field painted By smiling artists. Each artist has 3 arms, 3 hands, 3 legs. One leg drags behind, leaving a trail, leaving […]...
20. 464. The Highland Widow's Lament OH I am come to the low Countrie, Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie! Without a penny in my purse, To buy a meal to me. It was na sae in the Highland hills, Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie! Nae woman in the Country wide, Sae happy was as me. For then I had a score o’kye, Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie! […]...
21. Dream Song 68: I heard, could be, a Hey there from the wing I heard, could be, a Hey there from the wing, And I went on: Miss Bessie soundin good That one, that night of all, I feelin fari myself, taxes & things Seem to be back in line, like everybody should And nobody in the snow on call So, as I say, the house is given […]...
22. Sonnet 20: A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, […]...
23. Sonnet XX A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all ‘hues’ in his controlling, […]...
24. Cassius Hueffer They have chiseled on my stone the words: ‘His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.’ Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric. My epitaph should have been: ‘Life was not gentle to […]...
25. Sonnet XIX: On Cupid's Bow On Cupid’s bow how are my heartstrings bent, That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same? When most I glory, then I feel most shame: I willing run, yet while I run, repent. My best wits still their own disgrace invent: My very ink turns straight to Stella’s name; And yet my words, as […]...
26. Phenomenal Woman Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m […]...
27. Lot's Wife And the just man trailed God’s shining agent, Over a black mountain, in his giant track, While a restless voice kept harrying his woman: “It’s not too late, you can still look back At the red towers of your native Sodom, The square where once you sang, the spinning-shed, At the empty windows set in […]...
28. Coole Park, 1929 I meditate upon a swallow’s flight, Upon a aged woman and her house, A sycamore and lime-tree lost in night Although that western cloud is luminous, Great works constructed there in nature’s spite For scholars and for poets after us, Thoughts long knitted into a single thought, A dance-like glory that those walls begot. There […]...
29. The Dirge of Wallace When Scotland’s great Regent, our warrior most dear, The debt of his nature did pay, T’ was Edward, the cruel, had reason to fear, And cause to be struck with dismay. At the window of Edward the raven did croak, Though Scotland a widow became; Each tie of true honor to Wallace he broke – […]...
30. To George Sand: A Recognition TRUE genius, but true woman! dost deny The woman’s nature with a manly scorn And break away the gauds and armlets worn By weaker women in captivity? Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry Is sobbed in by a woman’s voice forlorn, Thy woman’s hair, my sister, all unshorn Floats back dishevelled strength in agony Disproving […]...
31. Francis II, King of Naples Written after reading Trevelyan’s “Garibaldi And the making of Italy” Poor foolish monarch, vacillating, vain, Decaying victim of a race of kings, Swift Destiny shook out her purple wings And caught him in their shadow; not again Could furtive plotting smear another stain Across his tarnished honour. Smoulderings Of sacrificial fires burst their rings And […]...
32. Sonnet 09 Fair is the rising morn when o’er the sky The orient sun expands his roseate ray, And lovely to the Bard’s enthusiast eye Fades the meek radiance of departing day; But fairer is the smile of one we love, Than all the scenes in Nature’s ample sway. And sweeter than the music of the grove, […]...
33. Sestina for Jim Cummins In Iowa, Jim dreamed that Della Street was Anne Sexton’s Twin. Dave drew a comic strip called the “Adventures of Whitman,” About a bearded beer-guzzler in Superman uniform. Donna dressed like Wallace Stevens In a seersucker summer suit. To town came Ted Berrigan, Saying, “My idea of a bad poet is Marvin […]...
34. To the maiden To the maiden The sea was blue meadow, Alive with little froth-people Singing. To the sailor, wrecked, The sea was dead grey walls Superlative in vacancy, Upon which nevertheless at fateful time Was written The grim hatred of nature....
35. Twice I took my heart in my hand (O my love, O my love), I said: Let me fall or stand, Let me live or die, But this once hear me speak – (O my love, O my love)- Yet a woman’s words are weak; You should speak, not I. You took my heart in your […]...
36. Archimedes To Archimedes once a scholar came, “Teach me,” he said, “the art that won thy fame; The godlike art which gives such boons to toil, And showers such fruit upon thy native soil; The godlike art that girt the town when all Rome’s vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!” “Thou call’st art godlike it […]...
37. Smiles Smile a little, smile a little, As you go along, Not alone when life is pleasant, But when things go wrong. Care delights to see you frowning, Loves to hear you sigh; Turn a smiling face upon her – Quick the dame will fly. Smile a little, smile a little, All along the road; Every […]...
38. Responsibilities – Introduction Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain Somewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end, Old Dublin merchant “free of the ten and four” Or trading out of Galway into Spain; Old country scholar, Robert Emmet’s friend, A hundred-year-old memory to the poor; Merchant and scholar who have left me blood That has not passed through […]...
39. The Firebombers We are America. We are the coffin fillers. We are the grocers of death. We pack them in crates like cauliflowers. The bomb opens like a shoebox. And the child? The child is certainly not yawning. And the woman? The woman is bathing her heart. It has been torn out of her And as a […]...
40. Anaphora In memory of Marjorie Carr Stevens Each day with so much ceremony Begins, with birds, with bells, With whistles from a factory; Such white-gold skies our eyes First open on, such brilliant walls That for a moment we wonder “Where is the music coming from, the energy? The day was meant for what ineffable creature […]...