From the Roof

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1. Philip Le Barr Philip Le Barr, Was knock down by a car, On the road to Mandalay. He was knocked down again By a dust cart in Spain And again in Zanzibar. So, He travled at night In the pale moon light Away from the traffic growl But terrible luck He was hit by a duck Driven by […]...
2. Red-Tiled Roof Poets may praise a wattle thatch Doubtfully waterproof; Let me uplift my lowly latch Beneath a rose-tiled roof. Let it be gay and rich in hue, Soft bleached by burning days, Where skies ineffably are blue, And seas a golden glaze. But set me in the surly North Beneath a roof of slate, And as […]...
3. Wedding-Ring My wedding-ring lies in a basket As if at the bottom of a well. Nothing will come to fish it back up And onto my finger again. It lies Among keys to abandoned houses, Nails waiting to be needed and hammered Into some wall, Telephone numbers with no names attached, Idle paperclips. It can’t be […]...
4. A New Broom I bought a new broom today And swept the cobwebs down, A thick accumulation of dregs, A mass of tangles and smut. I whisked a conglomeration of dust That forever stuck-inaccessible. Lifted the rug under which was hidden Years of grime that Made traversing treacherous with things that trip you up. I rolled that rug […]...
5. Variations on ‘The short night Below are eleven Buson haiku Beginning with the phrase ‘The short night ‘ The short night On the hairy caterpillar Beads of dew. The short night Patrolmen Washing in the river. The short night Bubbles of crab froth Among the river reeds. The short night A broom thrown away On the beach. The short night […]...
6. The Wishing-Caps Life’s all getting and giving, I’ve only myself to give. What shall I do for a living? I’ve only one life to live. End it? I’ll not find another. Spend it? But how shall I best? Sure the wise plan is to live like a man And Luck may look after the rest! Largesse! Largesse, […]...
7. Parting at a Wine-shop in Nan-king A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop, And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it. With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off; And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting, Oh, go and ask this river running to the […]...
8. Come Out with Me There’s sun on the river and sun on the hill. . . You can hear the sea if you stand quite still! There’s eight new puppies at Roundabout Farm- And I saw an old sailor with only one arm! But everyone says, “Run along!” (Run along, run along!) All of them say, “Run along! I’m […]...
9. Lament Where are those dazzling hills touched by the sun, Those crags in childhood that I used to climb? Hidden, hidden under mist is yonder mountain, Hidden is the heart. A day of cloud, a lifetime falls between, Gone are the heather moors and the pure stream, Gone are the rocky places and the green, Hidden, […]...
10. THE HUDSON O! Und dann wieder dies Bei-sich-selbst-Sein! Diese Stummheiten! Dies Getriebenwerden! ………………………………………………………………………. O! And then to be with – our – very – selves! This muteness! This going adrift! Gottfried Benn When we take her too seriously, Poetry begins to make fun of us: Where is the paper, in what other sky This insect flies because […]...
11. After Arguing Against The Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent Whispering to each handhold, “I’ll be back,” I go up the cliff in the dark. One place I loosen a rock and listen a long time Till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush Of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your […]...
12. Willow Poem It is a willow when summer is over, A willow by the river From which no leaf has fallen nor Bitten by the sun Turned orange or crimson. The leaves cling and grow paler, Swing and grow paler Over the swirling waters of the river As if loth to let go, They are so cool, […]...
13. Wordsworth Wordsworth, thy music like a river rolls Among the mountains, and thy song is fed By living springs far up the watershed; No whirling flood nor parching drought controls The crystal current: even on the shoals It murmurs clear and sweet; and when its bed Darkens below mysterious cliffs of dread, Thy voice of peace […]...
14. Death XXVII Then Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.” And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed […]...
15. Wanting The Moon Not the moon. A flower On the other side of the water. The water sweeps past in flood, Dragging a whole tree by the hair, A barn, a bridge. The flower Sings on the far bank. Not a flower, a bird calling Hidden among the darkest trees, music Over the water, making a silence Out […]...
16. Matt's Manifesto The Renaissance men are aging now, Having survived Industrialization’s Original Sin And the Information Age flood; The need for specialization Drives wrinkles of obsolescence Through their shriveling faces That have seen too much popular culture, Folk wisdom, colloquialisms, and fads born of boredom To have much patience left For the exaltation of yet another Generation […]...
17. Rip It can’t be the passing of time that casts That white shadow across the waters Just offshore. I shiver a little, with the evening. I turn down the steep path to find What’s left of the river gold. I whistle a dog lazily, and lazily A bird whistles me. Close by a big river, I […]...
18. Ask Me Some time when the river is ice ask me Mistakes I have made. Ask me whether What I have done is my life. Others Have come in their slow way into My thought, and some have tried to help Or to hurt: ask me what difference Their strongest love or hate has made. I will […]...
19. The Swan This laboring through what is still undone, As though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way, Is like the akward walking of the swan. And dying-to let go, no longer feel The solid ground we stand on every day- Is like anxious letting himself fall Into waters, which receive him gently And which, as though […]...
20. Thy Name My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I will declare thy name unto my brethren…. Psalm 102 OK. Let’s not call what ditched us God: Ghu, the root in Sanskrit, means not God, But only the calling thereupon. Let’s call God Fun. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word Was Fun. […]...
21. THE PUPIL IN MAGIC I AM now, what joy to hear it! Of the old magician rid; And henceforth shall ev’ry spirit Do whate’er by me is bid; I have watch’d with rigour All he used to do, And will now with vigour Work my wonders too. Wander, wander Onward lightly, So that rightly Flow the torrent, And with […]...
22. Night-piece what’s that i’m awake A bang like a door or a foot Knocking a chair who’s there Tense i lie in my bed my face Stretching out on the black air My ears strain……a creak this time Like a cat on the stair – but we have no cat If the door-handle turned and a…. […]...
23. Talking To Little Birdies Not a peep out of you now After the bedlam early this morning. Are you begging pardon of me Hidden up there among the leaves, Or are your brains momentarily overtaxed? You savvy a few things I don’t: The overlooked sunflower seed worth a holler; The traffic of cats in the yard; Strangers leaving the […]...
24. Tis Time, I Think, By Wenlock Town ‘Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town The golden broom should blow; The hawthorn sprinkled up and down Should charge the land with snow. Spring will not wait the loiterer’s time Who keeps so long away; So others wear the broom and climb The hedgerows heaped with may. Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, Gold […]...
25. Mr. Mine Notice how he has numbered the blue veins In my breast. Moreover there are ten freckles. Now he goes left. Now he goes right. He is buiding a city, a city of flesh. He’s an industrialist. He has starved in cellars And, ladies and gentlemen, he’s been broken by iron, By the blood, by the […]...
26. The Road That Runs Beside The River follows the river as it bends Along the valley floor, Going the way it must. Where water goes, so goes the road, If there’s room (not in a ravine, Gorge), the river On your right or left. Left is better: when you’re driving, It’s over your elbow across The road. You see the current, which […]...
27. Looking, Walking, Being “The World is not something to Look at, it is something to be in.” Mark Rudman I look and look. Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, Sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever looking takes one. The eyes Dig and burrow into the world. They touch Fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor. World and the […]...
28. Romance I WILL make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me, Of green days in forests and blue days at sea. I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and […]...
29. Fool Faith Said I: “See yon vast heaven shine, What earthly sight diviner? Before such radiant Design Why doubt Designer?” Said he: “Design is just a thought In human cerebration, And meaningless if Man is not Part of creation. “But grant Design, we may imply The job took toil aplenty; Then why one sole designer, why Not […]...
30. "In White": Frost's Early Version Of Design A dented spider like a snow drop white On a white Heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of lifeless satin cloth – Saw ever curious eye so strange a sight? – Portent in little, assorted death and blight Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth? – The beady spider, the flower like […]...
31. As The Poems Go as the poems go into the thousands you Realize that you’ve created very Little. It comes down to the rain, the sunlight, The traffic, the nights and the days of the Years, the faces. Leaving this will be easier than living It, typing one more line now as A man plays a piano through the […]...
32. Passageways Who set, between those rocks like cinder, To show the honey of dream, That golden broom, Those blue rosemaries? Who painted the purple mountains And the saffron, sunset sky? The hermitage, the beehives, The cleft of the river The endless rolling water deep in rocks, The pale-green of new fields, All of it, even the […]...
33. Eve – Song I span and Eve span A thread to bind the heart of man; But the heart of man was a wandering thing That came and went with little to bring: Nothing he minded what we made, As here he loitered, and there he stayed. I span and Eve span A thread to bind the heart […]...
34. Off to the Fishing Ground There’s a piping wind from a sunrise shore Blowing over a silver sea, There’s a joyous voice in the lapsing tide That calls enticingly; The mist of dawn has taken flight To the dim horizon’s bound, And with wide sails set and eager hearts We’re off to the fishing ground. Ho, comrades mine, how that […]...
35. Juggler A ball will bounce; but less and less. It’s not A light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience. Falling is what it loves, and the earth falls So in our hearts from brilliance, Settles and is forgot. It takes a sky-blue juggler with five red balls To shake our gravity up. Whee, in the air The […]...
36. Nothing But Death There are cemeteries that are lonely, Graves full of bones that do not make a sound, The heart moving through a tunnel, In it darkness, darkness, darkness, Like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, As though we were drowning inside our hearts, As though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. […]...
37. Ezra Bartlett A chaplain in the army, A chaplain in the prisons, An exhorter in Spoon River, Drunk with divinity, Spoon River Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame, And myself to scorn and wretchedness. But why will you never see that love of women, And even love of wine, Are the stimulants by which the soul, […]...
38. My Home This is the place that I love the best, A little brown house, like a ground-bird’s nest, Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees, Summer retreat of the birds and bees. The tenderest light that ever was seen Sifts through the vine-made window screen Sifts and quivers, and flits and falls On home-made carpets and […]...
39. Barbury Camp We burrowed night and day with tools of lead, Heaped the bank up and cast it in a ring And hurled the earth above. And Caesar said, “Why, it is excellent. I like the thing.” We, who are dead, Made it, and wrought, and Caesar liked the thing. And here we strove, and here we […]...
40. Winter in the Country Sweet life! how lovely to be here And feel the soft sea-laden breeze Strike my flushed face, the spruce’s fair Free limbs to see, the lesser trees’ Bare hands to touch, the sparrow’s cheep To heed, and watch his nimble flight Above the short brown grass asleep. Love glorious in his friendly might, Music that […]...