The Rainwalkers

Related poetry:

1. We to Sigh Instead of Sing “Rain and Rain! and rain and rain!” Yesterday we muttered Grimly as the grim refrain That the thunders uttered: All the heavens under cloud All the sunshine sleeping; All the grasses limply bowed With their weight of weeping. Sigh and sigh! and sigh and sigh! Never end of sighing; Rain and rain for our reply […]...
2. Nightpiece Gaunt in gloom, The pale stars their torches, Enshrouded, wave. Ghostfires from heaven’s far verges faint illume, Arches on soaring arches, Night’s sindark nave. Seraphim, The lost hosts awaken To service till In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim, Raised when she has and shaken Her thurible. And long and loud, To night’s nave upsoaring, […]...
3. I'd Mourn the Hopes I’d mourn the hopes that leave me, If thy smiles had left me too; I’d weep when friends deceive me, If thou wert, like them, untrue. But while I’ve thee before me, With heart so warm and eyes so bright, No clouds can linger o’er me, That smile turns them all to light. ‘Tis not […]...
4. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
5. Battalion-Relief ‘FALL in! Now get a move on.’ (Curse the rain.) We splash away along the straggling village, Out to the flat rich country, green with June… And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, Blazing with splendour-patches. (Harvest soon, Up in the Line.) ‘Perhaps the War’ll be done ‘By Christmas-Day. Keep smiling then, old son.’ […]...
6. Broadway Under Grand Central’s tattered vault maybe half a dozen electric stars still lit One saxophone blew, and a sheer black scrim Billowed over some minor constellation Under repair. Then, on Broadway, red wings In a storefront tableau, lustrous, the live macaws Preening, beaks opening and closing Like those animated knives that unfold all night In […]...
7. Mayakovsky In New York: A Found Poem New York: You take a train that rips through versts. It feels as if the trains were running over your ears. For many hours the train flies along the banks Of the Hudson about two feet from the water. At the stops, Passengers run out, buy up bunches of celery, And run back in, chewing […]...
8. Night In Iowa Nimbus clouds erasing stars above Lamoni. Jaundiced lights. Silos. Loose dogs. Cows Whose stench infuses the handful of homes, Whose sad voices storm the plains with longing....
9. Service of all the Dead Between the avenues of cypresses, All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, The priests in gold and black, the villagers. And all along the path to the cemetery The round, dark heads of men crowd silently And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully Watch at the banner of death, and […]...
10. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
11. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
12. Canine Conversation If dogs could speak, O Mademoiselle, What funny stories they could tell! For instance, take your little “peke,” How awkward if the dear could speak! How sad for you and all of us, Who round you flutter, flirt and fuss; Folks think you modest, mild and meek. . . But would they – if Fi-Fi […]...
13. The Seeing Eye The small dogs look at the big dogs; They observe unwieldy dimensions And curious imperfections of odor. Here is the formal male group: The young men look upon their seniors, They consider the elderly mind And observe its inexplicable correlations. Said Tsin-Tsu: It is only in small dogs and the young That we find minute […]...
14. Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
15. Now Hollow Fires Burn Out to Black Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack, And leave your friends and go. Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread, Look not to left nor right: In all the endless road you tread There’s nothing but the night....
16. A High-Toned Old Christian Woman Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus, The conscience is converted into palms, Like windy citherns hankering for hymns. We agree in principle. That’s clear. But take The opposing law and make a peristyle, And from the peristyle […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
19. The Red Dance There was a girl Who danced in the city that night, That April 22nd, All along the Charles River. It was as if one hundred men were watching Or do I mean the one hundred eyes of God? The yellow patches in the sycamores Glowed like miniature flashlights. The shadows, the skin of them Were […]...
20. Name His name has been ghosted over the fence, Leaving an alias, burn, prison clothes. I’m half the man, he says, not my sentence, Waiting on time that other people chose. From their windows men sing out numbers, names, Hands to the grille light for the come-back call, But words get lost, change allegiance, and blame’s […]...
21. Bone-fable one morning the bone was there Set in the centre of waste ground Against the early morning sun The frost along its concave rim Sparkled – raised a hundredfold The price a passing dog Would place on it but the dogs Who came (barking amongst themselves About the food shining at them Across the rubbled […]...
22. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
23. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
24. The Little Dog's Day All in the town were still asleep, When the sun came up with a shout and a leap. In the lonely streets unseen by man, A little dog danced. And the day began. All his life he’d been good, as far as he could, And the poor little beast had done all that he should. […]...
25. Change Change Said the sun to the moon, You cannot stay. Change Says the moon to the waters, All is flowing. Change Says the fields to the grass, Seed-time and harvest, Chaff and grain. You must change said, Said the worm to the bud, Though not to a rose, Petals fade That wings may rise Borne […]...
26. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
27. LoveSpell: Against Endings All the endings in my life Rise up against me Like that sea of troubles Shakespeare mixed With metaphors; Like Vikings in their boats Singing Wagner, Like witches Burning at The stake I submit To my fate. I know beginnings, Their sweetnesses, And endings, Their bitternesses But I do not know Continuance I do not […]...
28. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
29. UPON JULIA'S RIBBON As shews the air when with a rain-bow graced, So smiles that ribbon ’bout my Julia’s waist; Or like Nay, ’tis that Zonulet of love, Wherein all pleasures of the world are wove....
30. In Three Days I. So, I shall see her in three days And just one night, but nights are short, Then two long hours, and that is morn. See how I come, unchanged, unworn! Feel, where my life broke off from thine, How fresh the splinters keep and fine, – Only a touch and we combine! II. Too […]...
31. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
32. Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]...
33. TO SAPHO Sapho, I will chuse to go Where the northern winds do blow Endless ice, and endless snow; Rather than I once would see But a winter’s face in thee, To benumb my hopes and me....
34. Stone Villages The stone-built villages of England. A cathedral bottled in a pub window. Cows dispersed across fields. Monuments to kings. A man in a moth-eaten suit Sees a train off, heading, like everything here, for the sea, Smiles at his daughter, leaving for the East. A whistle blows. And the endless sky over the tiles Grows […]...
35. The Lake The yard half a yard, Half a lake blue as a corpse. The lake will tell things you long to hear: Get away from here. Three o’clock. Dry leaves rat-tat like maracas. Whisky-colored grass Breaks at every step and trees Are slowly realizing they are nude. How long will you stay? For the lake asks […]...
36. Trixie Dogs have a sense beyond our ken – At least my little Trixie had: Tail-wagging when I laughed, and when I sighed, eyes luminously sad. And if I planned to go away, She’d know, oh, days and days before: Aye, dogs I think are sometimes fey, They seem to sense our fate in store. Now […]...
37. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
38. The Great Figure Among the rain And lights I saw the figure 5 In gold On a red Firetruck Moving Tense Unheeded To gong clangs Siren howls And wheels rumbling Through the dark city....
39. An Autumn Rain-Scene There trudges one to a merry-making With sturdy swing, On whom the rain comes down. To fetch the saving medicament Is another bent, On whom the rain comes down. One slowly drives his herd to the stall Ere ill befall, On whom the rain comes down. This bears his missives of life and death With […]...
40. The Beach Squat, unshaven, full of gas, Joseph Samuels, former clerk In four large cities, out of work, Waits in the darkened underpass. In sanctuary, out of reach, He stares at the fading light outside: The rain beginning: hears the tide That drums along the empty beach. When drops first fell at six o’clock, The bathers left. […]...