Home ⇒ 📌Denise Levertov ⇒ In Mind
In Mind
There’s in my mind a woman
Of innocence, unadorned but
Fair-featured and smelling of
Apples or grass. She wears
A utopian smock or shift, her hair
Is light brown and smooth, and she
Is kind and very clean without
Ostentation-
But she has
No imagination
And there’s a
Turbulent moon-ridden girl
Or old woman, or both,
Dressed in opals and rags, feathers
And torn taffeta,
Who knows strange songs
But she is not kind.
(2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Her Kind I have gone out, a possessed witch, Haunting the black air, braver at night; Dreaming evil, I have done my hitch Over the plain houses, light by light: Lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in […]...
- Everything That Acts Is Actual From the tawny light From the rainy nights From the imagination finding Itself and more than itself Alone and more than alone At the bottom of the well where the moon lives, Can you pull me Into December? a lowland Of space, perception of space Towering of shadows of clouds blown upon Clouds over new […]...
- Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
- Think Not, Not For A Moment Let Your Mind Think not, not for a moment let your mind, Wearied with thinking, doze upon the thought That the work’s done and the long day behind, And beauty, since ’tis paid for, can be bought. If in the moonlight from the silent bough Suddenly with precision speak your name The nightingale, be not assured that now […]...
- Her Praise She is foremost of those that I would hear praised. I have gone about the house, gone up and down As a man does who has published a new book, Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown, And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook Until her praise should […]...
- The Ruined Maid “O ‘Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty? O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she. “You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks; And now you’ve gay […]...
- The Civil War I am torn in two But I will conquer myself. I will dig up the pride. I will take scissors And cut out the beggar. I will take a crowbar And pry out the broken Pieces of God in me. Just like a jigsaw puzzle, I will put Him together again With the patience of […]...
- Give Me Back My Rags #1 Give me back my rags My rags of pure dreaming Of silk smiling of striped foreboding Of my cloth of lace My rags of spotted hope Of burnished desire of chequered glances Of skin from my face Give me back my rags Give me when I ask you nicely...
- Modern Love XXXVIII: Give to Imagination Give to imagination some pure light In human form to fix it, or you shame The devils with that hideous human game: Imagination urging appetite! Thus fallen have earth’s greatest Gogmagogs, Who dazzle us, whom we can not revere: Imagination is the charioteer That, in default of better, drives the hogs. So, therefore, my dear […]...
- The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
- Beginning The moon drops one or two feathers into the fiels. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now. There they are, the moon’s young, trying Their wings. Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone Wholly, into the air. I […]...
- New England Mind My mind matches this understand land. Outdoors the pencilled tree, the wind-carved drift, Indoors the constant fire, the careful thrift Are facts that I accept and understand. I have brought in red berries and green boughs- Berries of black alder, boughs of pine. They and the sunlight on them, both are mine. I need no […]...
- Aunt Leaf Needing one, I invented her – The great-great-aunt dark as hickory Called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud Or The-Beauty-of-the-Night. Dear aunt, I’d call into the leaves, And she’d rise up, like an old log in a pool, And whisper in a language only the two of us knew The word that meant follow, And we’d travel Cheerful […]...
- There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
- The Woman in the Ordinary The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl Is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched. Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself Under ripples of conversation and debate. The woman in the block of ivory soap Has massive thighs that neigh, Great breasts that blare and strong arms that trumpet. The woman of the golden […]...
- Beyond the Moon [Written to the Most Beautiful Woman in the World] M< sweetheart is the truth beyond the moon, And never have I been in love with Woman, Always aspiring to be set in tune With one who is invisible, inhuman. O laughing girl, cold TRUTH has stepped between, Spoiling the fevers of your virgin face: Making […]...
- I'm "wife" I've finished that I’m “wife” I’ve finished that That other state I’m Czar I’m “Woman” now It’s safer so How odd the Girl’s life looks Behind this soft Eclipse I think that Earth feels so To folks in Heaven now This being comfort then That other kind was pain But why compare? I’m “Wife”! Stop there!...
- To Henrietta Lyn We’re going to miss you little girl, you leave an aching space Way out of all proportion to your size. Tomorrow we must face the day Without your lavish greeting – without your urgent bark to wake us up And say, “Let me out of here, the sun is up, I want to play.” We’re […]...
- West London Crouch’d on the pavement close by Belgrave Square A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, Pass’d opposite; she touch’d her girl, who hied Across, and begg’d […]...
- Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
- Iva's Pantoum We pace each other for a long time. I packed my anger with the beef jerky. You are the baby on the mountain. I am In a cold stream where I led you. I packed my anger with the beef jerky. You are the woman sticking her tongue out In a cold stream where I […]...
- Aaron Holiness on the head, Light and perfection on the breast, Harmonious bells below, raising the dead To led them unto life and rest. Thus are true Aarons dressed. Profaneness in my head, Defects and darkness in my breast, A noise of passions ringing me for dead Unto a place where is no rest. Poor priest […]...
- Nursing You On the first night Of the full moon, The primeval sack of ocean Broke, & I gave birth to you Little woman, Little carrot top, Little turned-up nose, Pushing you out of myself As my mother Pushed Me out of herself, As her mother did, & her mother’s mother before her, All of us born […]...
- Village Mystery The woman in the pointed hood And cloak blue-gray like a pigeon’s wing, Whose orchard climbs to the balsam-wood, Has done a cruel thing. To her back door-step came a ghost, A girl who had been ten years dead, She stood by the granite hitching-post And begged for a piece of bread. Now why should […]...
- General Review Of The Sex Situation Woman wants monogamy; Man delights in novelty. Love is woman’s moon and sun; Man has other forms of fun. Woman lives but in her lord; Count to ten, and man is bored. With this the gist and sum of it, What earthly good can come of it?...
- Mind The slow overture of rain, Each drop breaking Without breaking into The next, describes The unrelenting, syncopated Mind. Not unlike The hummingbirds Imagining their wings To be their heart, and swallows Believing the horizon To be a line they lift And drop. What is it They cast for? The poplars, Advancing or retreating, Lose their […]...
- The Truth of Woman Woman’s faith, and woman’s trust – Write the characters in the dust; Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon’s pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, And more permanent, I ween, Than the thing those letters mean. I have strain’d the spider’s thread ‘Gainst the promise of […]...
- The sex-peace the first thing about a man my son Is that he’s not a woman – and don’t Let any woman tell you what a man is Or any kind of man with his own agenda Of what a man is – quite simply A man is what a man is (crimes and all) Knowing that […]...
- 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 […]...
- The Mind's Liberty The mind, with its own eyes and ears, May for these others have no care; No matter where this body is, The mind is free to go elsewhere. My mind can be a sailor, when This body’s still confined to land; And turn these mortals into trees, That walk in Fleet Street or the Strand. […]...
- Sonnet LI: Calling to Mind Calling to mind, since first my love begun, Th’uncertain times oft varying in their course, How things still unexpectedly have run, As it please the Fates, by their resistless force. Lastly mine eyes amazedly have seen Essex’ great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain; The quiet end of that long-living Queen; This King’s fair entrance; […]...
- His Mind like Fabrics of the East His Mind like Fabrics of the East Displayed to the despair Of everyone but here and there An humble Purchaser For though his price was not of Gold More arduous there is That one should comprehend the worth Was all the price there was...
- We should not mind so small a flower We should not mind so small a flower Except it quiet bring Our little garden that we lost Back to the Lawn again. So spicy her Carnations nod So drunken, reel her Bees So silver steal a hundred flutes From out a hundred trees That whoso sees this little flower By faith may clear behold […]...
- Heaven is so far of the Mind Heaven is so far of the Mind That were the Mind dissolved The Site of it by Architect Could not again be proved ‘Tis vast as our Capacity As fair as our idea To Him of adequate desire No further ’tis, than Here...
- I felt a Cleaving in my Mind I felt a Cleaving in my Mind As if my Brain had split I tried to match it Seam by Seam But could not make it fit. The thought behind, I strove to join Unto the thought before But Sequence ravelled out of Sound Like Balls upon a Floor....
- I could bring You Jewels had I a mind to I could bring You Jewels had I a mind to But You have enough of those I could bring You Odors from St. Domingo Colors from Vera Cruz Berries of the Bahamas have I But this little Blaze Flickering to itself in the Meadow Suits Me more than those Never a Fellow matched this Topaz […]...
- His mind of man, a secret makes His mind of man, a secret makes I meet him with a start He carries a circumference In which I have no part Or even if I deem I do He otherwise may know Impregnable to inquest However neighborly...
- A Shade upon the mind there passes A Shade upon the mind there passes As when on Noon A Cloud the mighty Sun encloses Remembering That some there be too numb to notice Oh God Why give if Thou must take away The Loved?...
- Mind Games I am a waterfall in the desert. A rain from a cloudless sky. A well known but unborn child. An insistence experience That you never had. I play mind games with your brain. When you strike the keys and remember the sea I come as indefinable memory. When you look at your watch And the […]...
- Mother Mind I never made a poem, dear friend I never sat me down, and said, This cunning brain and patient hand Shall fashion something to be read. Men often came to me, and prayed I should indite a fitting verse For fast, or festival, or in Some stately pageant to rehearse. (As if, than Balaam more […]...
« Hymn 70