Sudden Things

Related poetry:

1. Elephant Dormitory An elephant went to bed and pulled a crazy quilt up under Its tusks. But just as the great gray head began filling with the gray Wrinkles of sleep it was awakened by the thud of its tail Falling out of bed. Would you get my tail? said the elephant to another Elephant also tucked […]...
2. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 10: Sudden Death ‘Number four-the girl who died on the table- The girl with golden hair-‘ The purpling body lies on the polished marble. We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare. . . One, who held the ether-cone, remembers Her dark blue frightened eyes. He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast More hurriedly […]...
3. The Lion For Real “Soyez muette pour moi, Idole contemplative…” I came home and found a lion in my living room Rushed out on the fire escape screaming Lion! Lion! Two stenographers pulled their brunnette hair and banged the window shut I hurried home to Patterson and stayed two days Called up old Reichian analyst Who’d kicked me out […]...
4. Once By The Pacific The shattered water made a misty din. Great waves looked over others coming in, And thought of doing something to the shore That water never did to land before. The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. You could not tell, and yet it looked […]...
5. The Sudden Light And The Trees My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog And wife beater. In bad dreams I killed him And once, in the consequential light of day, I called the Humane Society About Blue, his dog. They took her away And I readied myself, a baseball bat Inside my door. That night I hear his wife […]...
6. Song of Karen, the Dancing Child (O little white feet of mine) Out in the storm and the rain you fly; (Red, red shoes the colour of wine) Can the children hear my cry? (O little white feet of mine) Never a child in the whole great town; (Red, red shoes the colour of wine) Lights out and the blinds pulled […]...
7. A Strange Wild Song He thought he saw an Elephant That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. “At length I realize,” he said, “The bitterness of life!” He thought he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sister’s Husband’s Niece. “Unless you […]...
8. The house where I was born (08) I open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where I was born, Exactly as it was and nothing more. The same small dining room whose window Gives onto a peach tree that never grows. A man and a woman are seated At this window, facing one another, They are talking, for once. And the child […]...
9. Wind This house has been far out at sea all night, The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills, Winds stampeding the fields under the window Floundering black astride and blinding wet Till day rose; then under an orange sky The hills had new places, and wind wielded Blade-light, luminous black and emerald, Flexing like the […]...
10. The End Of March For John Malcolm Brinnin and Bill Read: Duxbury It was cold and windy, scarcely the day To take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, Indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken, Seabirds in ones or twos. The rackety, icy, offshore wind Numbed our faces on one side; […]...
11. The Chanpa Flower Supposing I became a chanpa flower, just for fun, and grew on a Branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and Danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother? You would call, “Baby, where are you?” and I should laugh to Myself and keep quite quiet. I […]...
12. The Mad Gardener's Song He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. ‘At length I realise,’ he said, The bitterness of Life!’ He thought he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sister’s Husband’s Niece. ‘Unless you […]...
13. The Storm I Ran to the forest for shelter, Breathless, half sobbing; I put my arms round a tree, Pillowed my head against the rough bark. “Protect me,” I said. “I am a lost child.” But the tree showered silver drops on my face and hair. A wind sprang up from the ends of the earth; It […]...
14. At the Zoo There are lions and roaring tigers, And enormous camels and things, There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons, And a great big bear with wings. There’s a sort of a tiny potamus, And a tiny nosserus too – But I gave buns to the elephant When I went down to the Zoo! There are badgers and bidgers and bodgers, […]...
15. The Lion The Lion, the Lion, he dwells in the Waste, He has a big head and a very small waist; But his shoulders are stark, and his jaws they are grim, And a good little child will not play with him....
16. How Yesterday Looked THE HIGH horses of the sea broke their white riders On the walls that held and counted the hours The wind lasted. Two landbirds looked on and the north and the east Looked on and the wind poured cups of foam And the evening began. The old men in the shanties looked on and lit […]...
17. Little Aggie When Joe Dove took his elephants out on the road He made each one hold fast with his trunk To the tail of the elephant walking in front To stop them from doing a bunk. There were fifteen in all, so ’twere rather a job To get them linked up in a row, But once […]...
18. The Lure Of Little Voices There’s a cry from out the loneliness oh, listen, Honey, listen! Do you hear it, do you fear it, you’re a-holding of me so? You’re a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go? All a-begging me to leave you. Day and […]...
19. Sudden Movements My father’s head has become a mystery to him. We finally have something in common. When he moves his head his eyes Get big as roses filled With the commotion of spring. Not long ago he was a man Who had tomato soup for lunch And dusted with the earnestness Of a gun fight. Now […]...
20. Love and a Question A stranger came to the door at eve, And he spoke the bridegroom fair. He bore a green-white stick in his hand, And, for all burden, care. He asked with the eyes more than the lips For a shelter for the night, And he turned and looked at the road afar Without a window light. […]...
21. The Window All night long, by a distant bell, The passing hours were notched On the dark, while her breathing rose and fell, And the spark of life I watched In her face was glowing or fading, who could tell? And the open window of the room, With a flare of yellow light, Was peering out into […]...
22. Sudden Fine Weather Reader! what soul that laoves a verse can see The spring return, nor glow like you and me? Hear the quick birds, and see the landscape fill, Nor long to utter his melodious will? This more than ever leaps into the veins, When spring has been delay’d by winds and rains, And coming with a […]...
23. Stay Now the journey is ending, The wind is losing heart. Into your hands it’s falling, A rickety house of cards. The cards are backed with pictures Displaying all the world. You’ve stacked up all the images And shuffled them with words. And how profound the playing That once again begins! Stay, the card you’re drawing […]...
24. Sestina September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother Sits in the kitchen with the child Beside the Little Marvel Stove, Reading the jokes from the almanac, Laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears And the rain that beats on the roof of the house […]...
25. The Spirit Of The Unborn Babe The Spirit of the Unborn Babe peered through the window-pane, Peered through the window-pane that glowed like beacon in the night; For, oh, the sky was desolate and wild with wind and rain; And how the little room was crammed with coziness and light! Except the flirting of the fire there was no sound at […]...
26. Facts by our side are never sudden Facts by our side are never sudden Until they look around And then they scare us like a spectre Protruding from the Ground The height of our portentous Neighbor We never know Till summoned to his recognition By an Adieu Adieu for whence The sage cannot conjecture The bravest die As ignorant of their resumption […]...
27. A happy lip breaks sudden A happy lip breaks sudden It doesn’t state you how It contemplated smiling Just consummated now But this one, wears its merriment So patient like a pain Fresh gilded to elude the eyes Unqualified, to scan...
28. Making The Lion For All It's Got A Ballad I came home and found a lion in my room… [First draft of “The Lion for Real” CP 174-175] A lion met America In the road They stared at each other Two figures on the crossroads in the desert. America screamed The lion roared They leaped at each other America desperate to win Fighting with […]...
29. The Sleeper As Ann came in one summer’s day, She felt that she must creep, So silent was the clear cool house, It seemed a house of sleep. And sure, when she pushed open the door, Rapt in the stillness there, Her mother sat, with stooping head, Asleep upon a chair; Fast fast asleep; her two hands […]...
30. The Gardener XIX: You Walked You walked by the riverside path With the full pitcher upon your hip. Why did you swiftly turn your face And peep at me through your fluttering Veil? That gleaming look from the dark Came upon me like a breeze that sends A shiver through the rippling water And sweeps away to the shadowy Shore. […]...
31. Sense Of Something Coming I am like a flag in the center of open space. I sense ahead the wind which is coming, and must live It through. While the things of the world still do not move: The doors still close softly, and the chimneys are full Of silence, The windows do not rattle yet, and the dust […]...
32. The New House NOW first, as I shut the door, I was alone In the new house; and the wind Began to moan. Old at once was the house, And I was old; My ears were teased with the dread Of what was foretold, Nights of storm, days of mist, without end; Sad days when the sun Shone […]...
33. The Man with the Wooden Leg There was a man lived quite near us; He had a wooden leg and a goldfinch in a green cage. His name was Farkey Anderson, And he’d been in a war to get his leg. We were very sad about him, Because he had such a beautiful smile And was such a big man to […]...
34. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 06: Adele And Davis She turned her head on the pillow, and cried once more. And drawing a shaken breath, and closing her eyes, To shut out, if she could, this dingy room, The wigs and costumes scattered around the floor,- Yellows and greens in the dark,-she walked again Those nightmare streets which she had walked so often. . […]...
35. Under Cover of Night To slip into your shadow under cover of night. To follow your footsteps, your shadow at the window. That shadow at the window is you and no one else; It’s you. Do not open that window behind whose curtains you’re moving. Shut your eyes. I’d like to shut them with my lips. But the window […]...
36. Jumbo Jet I saw a little elephant standing in my garden, I said ‘You don’t belong in here’, he said ‘I beg you pardon?’, I said ‘This place is England, what are you doing here?’, He said ‘Ah, then I must be lost’ and then ‘Oh dear, oh dear’. ‘I should be back in Africa, on Saranghetti’s […]...
37. Albert and the Lion There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool, That’s noted for fresh air and fun, And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom Went there with young Albert, their son. A grand little lad was young Albert, All dressed in his best; quite a swell With a stick with an ‘orse’s ‘ead ‘andle, The finest that Woolworth’s could sell. […]...
38. To Any Reader As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear […]...
39. Like Rain it sounded till it curved Like Rain it sounded till it curved And then I new ’twas Wind It walked as wet as any Wave But swept as dry as sand When it had pushed itself away To some remotest Plain A coming as of Hosts was heard It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools It warbled in the […]...
40. You Who Never Arrived You who never arrived In my arms, Beloved, who were lost From the start, I don’t even know what songs Would please you. I have given up trying To recognize you in the surging wave of the next Moment. All the immense Images in me the far-off, deeply-felt landscape, Cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected […]...