The Man In The Dead Machine

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1. The Egg and the Machine He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. From far away there came an answering tick And then another tick. He knew the code: His hate had roused an engine up the road. He wished when he had had the track alone He had attacked it with a club or stone And bent some rail […]...
2. Opposites The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child Walked out into the street And splashed in all the pubbles till She had such shocking feet The Patent-Leather-Slipper-Child Stayed quietly in the house And sat upon the fender stool As still as any mouse. The Half-Soled-Boots-With-Toecaps-Child Her hands were black as ink; She would come running through the house And begging for […]...
3. Gacela of the Dead Child Each afternoon in Granada, Each afternoon, a child dies. Each afternoon the water sits down And chats with its companions. The dead wear mossy wings. The cloudy wind and the clear wind Are two pheasants in flight through the towers, And the day is a wounded boy. Not a flicker of lark was left in […]...
4. Name of Horses All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding And steerhide over the ash hames, to haul Sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer, For the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range. In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields, Dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs […]...
5. The Machine The little biplane that has the river-meadow for landing-field And carries passengers brief rides, Buzzed overhead on the tender blue above the orange of sundown. Below it five troubled night-herons Turned short over the shore from its course, four east, one northward. Beyond them Swam the new moon in amber. I don’t know why, but […]...
6. No Labor-Saving Machine NO labor-saving machine, Nor discovery have I made; Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a hospital or library, Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America, Nor literary success, nor intellect-nor book for the book-shelf; Only a few carols, vibrating through the air, I leave, For […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Hiawathas' photographing ( Part I ) FROM his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together. In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing; But he opened out the hinges, Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges, Till it looked all squares and oblongs, Like a complicated figure In the […]...
9. To the Mother of a Dead Marine Your boy once touched me, yes. I knew you knew When your wet, reddened gaze drilled into me, Groped through my clothes for signs, some residue Of him-some lusciousness of mine that he Had craved, that might have driven his desire For things perilous, poisonous, out-of-bounds. Could I have been the beast he rode to […]...
10. Dead Man's Dump The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched; Their shut mouths made […]...
11. Song in a Minor Key There’s a place I know where the birds swing low, And wayward vines go roaming, Where the lilacs nod, and a marble god Is pale, in scented gloaming. And at sunset there comes a lady fair Whose eyes are deep with yearning. By an old, old gate does the lady wait Her own true love’s […]...
12. On a Dead Child Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! Though cold and stark and bare, The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;-alas! no longer To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be Thy father’s pride:-ah, […]...
13. Quarantine In the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people A man set out from the workhouse with his wife. He was walking-they were both walking-north. She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up. He lifted her and put her on his back. He walked like […]...
14. Leather Leggings THEY have taken the ball of earth and made it a little thing. They were held to the land and horses; they were held to the little seas. They have changed and shaped and welded; they have broken the old tools and made new ones; they are ranging the white scarves of cloudland; they are […]...
15. When You See Millions Of The Mouthless Dead When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind […]...
16. Epilogue UNDER THE BLESSING OF YOUR PSYCHE WINGS Though I have found you llke a snow-drop pale, On sunny days have found you weak and still, Though I have often held your girlish head Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill:- Under the blessing of your Psyche-wings I hide to-night like one small broken bird, […]...
17. A Prayer to All the Dead among Mine Own People Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven? Are these your hands upon my wounded soul? Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me, Fly by my path till you have made me whole!...
18. The Blind And The Dead She lay like a saint on her copper couch; Like an angel asleep she lay, In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch Past the Dead and sneak away. Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze, Who begged in the streets for bread. Each day he had come for a year of days, […]...
19. A Dead Friend I. Gone, O gentle heart and true, Friend of hopes foregone, Hopes and hopeful days with you Gone? Days of old that shone Saw what none shall see anew, When we gazed thereon. Soul as clear as sunlit dew, Why so soon pass on, Forth from all we loved and knew Gone? II. Friend of […]...
20. Troth with the Dead The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky; The other half of the broken coin of troth Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie. They buried her half in the grave when they laid her away; I had […]...
21. Out Of The Arm Of One Love out of the arm of one love And into the arms of another I have been saved from dying on the cross By a lady who smokes pot Writes songs and stories And is much kinder than the last, Much much kinder, And the sex is just as good or better. It isn’t pleasant to […]...
22. Dead Boy The little cousin is dead, by foul subtraction, A green bough from Virginia’s aged tree, And none of the county kin like the transaction, Nor some of the world of outer dark, like me. A boy not beautiful, nor good, nor clever, A black cloud full of storms too hot for keeping, A sword beneath […]...
23. The Dead Man Walking They hail me as one living, But don’t they know That I have died of late years, Untombed although? I am but a shape that stands here, A pulseless mould, A pale past picture, screening Ashes gone cold. Not at a minute’s warning, Not in a loud hour, For me ceased Time’s enchantments In hall […]...
24. The Whip The doubt you fought so long The cynic net you cast, The tyranny, the wrong, The ruin, they are past; And here you are at last, Your blood no longer vexed. The coffin has you fast, The clod will have you next. But fear you not the clod, Nor ever doubt the grave: The roses […]...
25. Child Margaret THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 […]...
26. Youth And Beauty I bought a dishmop – Having no daughter – For they had twisted Fine ribbons of shining copper About white twine And made a tousled head Of it, fastened it Upon a turned ash stick Slender at the neck Straight, tall – When tied upright On the brass wallbracket To be a light for me […]...
27. Roy Butler If the learned Supreme Court of Illinois Got at the secret of every case As well as it does a case of rape It would be the greatest court in the world. A jury, of neighbors mostly, with “Butch” Weldy As foreman, found me guilty in ten minutes And two ballots on a case like […]...
28. To His Dead Body When roaring gloom surged inward and you cried, Groping for friendly hands, and clutched, and died, Like racing smoke, swift from your lolling head Phantoms of thought and memory thinned and fled. Yet, though my dreams that throng the darkened stair Can bring me no report of how you fare, Safe quit of wars, I […]...
29. Penniwit, the Artist I lost my patronage in Spoon River From trying to put my mind in the camera To catch the soul of the person. The very best picture I ever took Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law. He sat upright and had me pause Till he got his cross-eye straight. Then when he was ready […]...
30. The Dead Village Here there is death. But even here, they say, Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon As desolate as ever the dead moon Did glimmer on dead Sardis, men were gay; And there were little children here to play, With small soft hands that once did keep in tune The strings that stretch from […]...
31. Bringers COVER me over In dusk and dust and dreams. Cover me over And leave me alone. Cover me over, You tireless, great. Hear me and cover me, Bringers of dusk and dust and dreams....
32. A Dead Rose O Rose! who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet; But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat, – Kept seven years in a drawer – thy titles shame thee. The breeze that used to blow thee Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odour up the lane to […]...
33. Sonnet 23 – Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead, Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine? And would the sun for thee more coldly shine Because of grave-damps falling round my head? I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine- But. . . so much to […]...
34. My first well Day since many ill My first well Day since many ill I asked to go abroad, And take the Sunshine in my hands, And see the things in Pod A ‘blossom just when I went in To take my Chance with pain Uncertain if myself, or He, Should prove the strongest One. The Summer deepened, while we strove She […]...
35. Friday We nailed the hands long ago, Wove the thorns, took up the scourge and shouted For excitement’s sake, we stood at the dusty edge Of the pebbled path and watched the extreme of pain. But one or two prayed, one or two Were silent, shocked, stood back And remembered remnants of words, a new vision, […]...
36. Of a Woman, Dead Young If she had been beautiful, even, Or wiser than women about her, Or had moved with a certain defiance; If she had had sons at her sides, And she with her hands on their shoulders, Sons, to make troubled the Gods- But where was there wonder in her? What had she, better or eviler, Whose […]...
37. Dead Men's Love There was a damned successful Poet; There was a Woman like the Sun. And they were dead. They did not know it. They did not know their time was done. They did not know his hymns Were silence; and her limbs, That had served Love so well, Dust, and a filthy smell. And so one […]...
38. Crossroads The second half of my life will be black To the white rind of the old and fading moon. The second half of my life will be water Over the cracked floor of these desert years. I will land on my feet this time, Knowing at least two languages and who My friends are. I […]...
39. Thou Whose Spell Can Raise the Dead Thou whose spell can raise the dead, Bid the prophet’s form appear. “Samuel, raise thy buried head! “King, behold the phantom seer!” Earth yawn’d; he stood the centre of a cloud: Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud. Death stood all glassy in the fixed eye: His hand was withered, and his veins were […]...
40. Sonnet 28 – My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said,-he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch […]...