Triple Feature

Related poetry:

1. This Dust, and its Feature This Dust, and its Feature Accredited Today Will in a second Future Cease to identify This Mind, and its measure A too minute Area For its enlarged inspection’s Comparison appear This World, and its species A too concluded show For its absorbed Attention’s Remotest scrutiny...
2. Triple Time This empty street, this sky to blandness scoured, This air, a little indistinct with autumn Like a reflection, constitute the present A time traditionally soured, A time unrecommended by event. But equally they make up something else: This is the furthest future childhood saw Between long houses, under travelling skies, Heard in contending bells An […]...
3. The Triple Fool I am two fools, I know – For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry; But where’s that wiseman that would not be I, If she would not deny? Then, as th’ earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains Through rhymes […]...
4. The Surface It has a hole in it. Not only where I concentrate. The river still ribboning, twisting up, into its re- Arrangements, chill enlightenments, tight-knotted quickenings And loosenings whispered messages dissolving the messengers The river still glinting-up into its handfuls, heapings. glassy Forgettings under the river of My attention And the river of my attention laying […]...
5. Netley 47 army hospital Rheumatic fever Bed-tied many weeks Too embarrassed to ask for bedpan The rigmarole of screens and knowing attention – for my pains Severe constipation And bleeding piles Am led away to be injected Crouching Waist-down undressed Upon a marble table Being shaved the wrong end (easy talk between doctor and nurse) The needle […]...
6. The Bullfinches Bother Bulleys, let us sing From the dawn till evening! – For we know not that we go not When the day’s pale pinions fold Unto those who sang of old. When I flew to Blackmoor Vale, Whence the green-gowned faeries hail, Roosting near them I could hear them Speak of queenly Nature’s ways, Means, […]...
7. Gloire de Dijon When she rises in the morning I linger to watch her; She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window And the sunbeams catch her Glistening white on the shoulders, While down her sides the mellow Golden shadow glows as She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts Sway like full-blown yellow Gloire de Dijon roses. […]...
8. The Heart and Service The heart and service to you proffer’d With right good will full honestly, Refuse it not, since it is offer’d, But take it to you gentlely. And though it be a small present, Yet good, consider graciously The thought, the mind, and the intent Of him that loves you faithfully. It were a thing of […]...
9. Intimates Don’t you care for my love? she said bitterly. I handed her the mirror, and said: Please address these questions to the proper person! Please make all requests to head-quarters! In all matters of emotional importance Please approach the supreme authority direct! – So I handed her the mirror. And she would have broken it […]...
10. Milton I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold How the voluminous billows roll and run, Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled, And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold All its loose-flowing garments into one, Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun Pale reach of sands, and […]...
11. Summer In The Country One shows me how to lie down in a field of clover. Another how to slip my hand under her Sunday skirt. Another how to kiss with a mouth full of blackberries. Another how to catch fireflies in jar after dark. Here is a stable with a single black mare And the proof of God’s […]...
12. Patience A wind comes from the north Blowing little flocks of birds Like spray across the town, And a train, roaring forth, Rushes stampeding down With cries and flying curds Of steam, out of the darkening north. Whither I turn and set Like a needle steadfastly, Waiting ever to get The news that she is free; […]...
13. Epitaphs Her Mother’s Epitaph Here lies A worthy matron of unspotted life, A loving mother and obedient wife, A friendly neighbor, pitiful to poor, Whom oft she fed, and clothed with her store; To servants wisely aweful, but yet kind, And as they did, so they reward did find: A true instructor of her family, The […]...
14. Old-fashioned Requited Love I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedias And slid my fingers among topics and titles Looking for you. And the answer comes slow. There seems to be no answer. I shall ask the next banana peddler the who and the why of it. Or-the iceman with his iron tongs gripping a clear cube in summer sunlight-maybe he […]...
15. My Lady in Her White Silk Shawl My lady in her white silk shawl Is like a lily dim, Within the twilight of the room Enthroned and kind and prim. My lady! Pale gold is her hair. Until she smiles her face Is pale with far Hellenic moods, With thoughts that find no place In our harsh village of the West Wherein […]...
16. Old Age Gets Up Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again Ponders Ideas that collapse At the first touch of attention The light at the window, so square and so same So full-strong as ever, the window frame A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on Supporting the […]...
17. Sunbeam I pray to the sunbeam from the window – It is pale, thin, straight. Since morning I have been silent, And my heart – is split. The copper on my washstand Has turned green, But the sunbeam plays on it So charmingly. How innocent it is, and simple, In the evening calm, But to me […]...
18. The Grown-Up All this stood upon her and was the world And stood upon her with all its fear and grace As trees stand, growing straight up, imageless Yet wholly image, like the Ark of God, And solemn, as if imposed upon a race. As she endured it all: bore up under The swift-as-flight, the fleeting, the […]...
19. Ditty (E. L. G.) BENEATH a knap where flown Nestlings play, Within walls of weathered stone, Far away From the files of formal houses, By the bough the firstling browses, Lives a Sweet: no merchants meet, No man barters, no man sells Where she dwells. Upon that fabric fair “Here is she!” Seems written everywhere Unto […]...
20. A Dog's Mistake He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide, He was just a wand’ring mongrel from the weary world outside; He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair, With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear. He was very poor and humble and content with what […]...
21. A March Snow Let the old snow be covered with the new: The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden. Let it be hidden wholly from our view By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden. When Winter dies, low at the sweet Spring’s feet Let him be mantled in a clean, white sheet. Let the old […]...
22. Illusions Noiseless wrinkles On our forehead The frontiers of history, Shed oblique glances At Homer’s verses. Illusions Full of guilt Redeem Wounded whispers That became echoes In lighted caves Of the fools and the innocent....
23. A Wife In London December 1899 I She sits in the tawny vapour That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, Behind whose webby fold-on-fold Like a waning taper The street-lamp glimmers cold. A messenger’s knock cracks smartly, Flashed news in her hand Of meaning it dazes to understand Though shaped so shortly: He he has fallen in the far South […]...
24. The Floor The floor is something we must fight against. Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human Stance, it is that place that men fall to. I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse; The pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face. But should I go dizzy I crash down into the […]...
25. A Dog Has Died My dog has died. I buried him in the garden Next to a rusted old machine. Some day I’ll join him right there, But now he’s gone with his shaggy coat, His bad manners and his cold nose, And I, the materialist, who never believed In any promised heaven in the sky For any human […]...
26. The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean The one who has flung herself out of the grass, The one who is eating sugar out of my hand, Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down Who is […]...
27. For The Year Of The Insane a prayer O Mary, fragile mother, Hear me, hear me now Although I do not know your words. The black rosary with its silver Christ Lies unblessed in my hand For I am the unbeliever. Each bead is round and hard between my fingers, A small black angel. O Mary, permit me this grace, This […]...
28. The Third Epigram. (On an ATHEIST) POsthumus boasts he does not Thunder fear, And for this cause would Innocent appear; That in his Soul no Terrour he does feel, At threatn’d Vultures, or Ixion’s Wheel, Which fright the Guilty: But when Fabius told What Acts ‘gainst Murder lately were enrol’d, ‘Gainst Incest, Rapine, straight upon the Tale His Colour chang’d, and […]...
29. The Farm Woman's Winter I If seasons all were summers, And leaves would never fall, And hopping casement-comers Were foodless not at all, And fragile folk might be here That white winds bid depart; Then one I used to see here Would warm my wasted heart! II One frail, who, bravely tilling Long hours in gripping gusts, Was mastered […]...
30. ASYLUM SEEKERS When Blunkett starts to talk like Enoch Powell I think of Harold Wilson’s statue in Huddersfield Station Caught striding forward, gripping his pipe in his pocket, Hair blowing in the wind. Could we but turn that bronze To flesh I would have asked him to meet the two Asylum-seekers I met in Huddersfield’s main street […]...
31. Maude Clare Out of the church she followed them With a lofty step and mien: His bride was like a village maid, Maude Clare was like a queen. “Son Thomas, ” his lady mother said, With smiles, almost with tears: “May Nell and you but live as true As we have done for years; “Your father thirty […]...
32. Village in Late Summer LIPS half-willing in a doorway. Lips half-singing at a window. Eyes half-dreaming in the walls. Feet half-dancing in a kitchen. Even the clocks half-yawn the hours And the farmers make half-answers....
33. The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods If this importunate heart trouble your peace With words lighter than air, Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease; Crumple the rose in your hair; And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say, ‘O Hearts of wind-blown flame! O Winds, older than changing of night and day, That murmuring and longing came […]...
34. John Ballard In the lust of my strength I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me: I might as well have cursed the stars. In my last sickness I was in agony, but I was resolute And I cursed God for my suffering; Still He paid no attention to me; He left me alone, as […]...
35. One of the Shepherds We were out on the hills that night To watch our sheep; Drowsily by the fire we lay Where the waning flame did flicker and leap, And some were weary and half asleep, And some talked low of their flocks and the fright Of a lion that day. But I had drawn from the others […]...
36. Mating Saliva A girl in a green mini- Skirt, not very pretty, walks Down the street. A businessman stops, turns To stare at her ass That looks like a moldy Refrigerator. There are now 200,000,000 people In America....
37. Ask Me No More Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answer’d thee? Ask me no more. Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow […]...
38. Ghosts Some ghosts are women, Neither abstract nor pale, Their breasts as limp as killed fish. Not witches, but ghosts Who come, moving their useless arms Like forsaken servants. Not all ghosts are women, I have seen others; Fat, white-bellied men, Wearing their genitals like old rags. Not devils, but ghosts. This one thumps barefoot, lurching […]...
39. Sonnet XXX: Those Priests To the Vestals Those priests which first the Vestal fire begun, Which might be borrow’d from no earthly flame, Devis’d a vessel to receive the Sun, Being steadfastly opposed to the same; Where, with sweet wood, laid curiously by art, On which the Sun might by reflection beat, Receiving strength from every secret part, The […]...
40. Mourning Alas my brother! the cry of the mourners of old That cried on each other, All crying aloud on the dead as the death-note rolled, Alas my brother! As flashes of dawn that mists from an east wind smother With fold upon fold, The past years gleam that linked us one with another. Time sunders […]...