Love's Strategems

Related poetry:

1. It's This Way I stand in the advancing light, My hands hungry, the world beautiful. My eyes can’t get enough of the trees They’re so hopeful, so green. A sunny road runs through the mulberries, I’m at the window of the prison infirmary. I can’t smell the medicines Carnations must be blooming nearby. It’s this way: Being captured […]...
2. Examination at the Womb-Door Who owns those scrawny little feet? Death. Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death. Who owns these still-working lungs? Death. Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death. Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death. Who owns these questionable brains? Death. All this messy blood? Death. These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death. This wicked little tongue? Death. This […]...
3. He Loves Me That God should love me is more wonderful Than that I so imperfectly love him. My reason is mortality, and dim Senses; his oh, insupportable Is that he sees me. Even when I pull Dark thoughts about my head, each vein and limb Delights him, though remembrance in him, grim With my worst crimes, should […]...
4. Two Loves One said; “Lo, I would walk hand-clasped with thee Adown the ways of joy and sunlit slopes Of earthly song in happiest vagrancy To pluck the blossom of a thousand hopes. Let us together drain the wide world’s cup With gladness brimméd up!” And one said, “I would pray to go with thee When sorrow […]...
5. Because He loves Her Because He loves Her We will pry and see if she is fair What difference is on her Face From Features others wear. It will not harm her magic pace That we so far behind Her Distances propitiate As Forests touch the Wind Not hoping for his notice vast But nearer to adore ‘Tis Glory’s […]...
6. When A Woman Loves A Man When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri. When she says quixotic she means mercurial. And when she says, “I’ll never speak to you again,” She means, “Put your arms around me from behind As I stand disconsolate at the window.” He’s supposed to know that. When a man loves a woman he is in New […]...
7. Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all; What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call; All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more. Then if for my love, thou my love receivest, I cannot blame thee, for my love thou […]...
8. The Skyscraper Loves Night ONE by one lights of a skyscraper fling their checkering cross work on the velvet gown of night. I believe the skyscraper loves night as a woman and brings her playthings she asks for, brings her a velvet gown, And loves the white of her shoulders hidden under the dark feel of it all. The […]...
9. Sonnet 144: Two loves I have, of comfort and despair Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman coloured ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a […]...
10. 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...
11. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
12. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. To Germany You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed, And no man claimed the conquest of your land. But gropers both through fields of thought confined We stumble and we do not understand. You only saw your future bigly planned, And we, the tapering paths of our own mind, And in each others dearest […]...
15. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
16. Dream Song 81: Op. posth. no. 4 He loom’ so cagey he say ‘Leema beans’ And measured his intake to the atmosphere Of that fairly stable country. His ear hurt. Left. The rock-cliffs, a mite sheer At his age, in these places. Scrubbing out his fear, — The knowledge that they will take off your hands, Both hands; as well as your […]...
17. To a Pupil IS reform needed? Is it through you? The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it. You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet? Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that when […]...
18. Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
19. Blind Bartimeus Blind Bartimeus at the gates Of Jericho in darkness waits; He hears the crowd; he hears a breath Say, “It is Christ of Nazareth!” And calls, in tones of agony, The thronging multitudes increase; Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace! But still, above the noisy crowd, The beggar’s cry is shrill and loud; Until they say, […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Forgiveness AT dusk the window panes grew grey; The wet world vanished in the gloom; The dim and silver end of day Scarce glimmered through the little room. And all my sins were told; I said Such things to her who knew not sin- The sharp ache throbbing in my head, The fever running high within. […]...
22. TO PANSIES Ah, Cruel Love! must I endure Thy many scorns, and find no cure? Say, are thy medicines made to be Helps to all others but to me? I’ll leave thee, and to Pansies come: Comforts you’ll afford me some: You can ease my heart, and do What Love could ne’er be brought unto....
23. Half An Hour I never had you, nor will I ever have you I suppose. A few words, an approach As in the bar yesterday, and nothing more. It is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art Sometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only For a short while, we create pleasure Which almost seems real. […]...
24. Eurydice – To Victor Hugo Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries, And hardly for the storm and ruin shed Can even thine eyes be certain of her head Who never passed out of thy spirit’s eyes, But stood and shone before them in such wise As when with love her lips and hands were fed, And with […]...
25. Song of Man XXV I was here from the moment of the Beginning, and here I am still. And I shall remain here until the end Of the world, for there is no Ending to my grief-stricken being. I roamed the infinite sky, and Soared in the ideal world, and Floated through the firmament. But Here I am, prisoner […]...
26. Hiawathas' photographing ( Part V ) Last, the youngest son was taken: Very rough and thick his hair was, Very round and red his face was, Very dusty was his jacket, Very fidgety his manner. And his overbearing sisters Called him names he disapproved of: Called him Johnny, ‘Daddy’s Darling,’ Called him Jacky, ‘Scrubby School-boy.’ And, so awful was the picture, […]...
27. 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...
28. Congratulations Congratulations, you’ve succeeded, You’ve acknowledged 60% of you at least Are the incredibly dense and mindless people Needed to make sense of incomprehensible Avoidance strategies on recycling water. You may have missed the point, the vote Was not to see which political policy would Prevail; tragically it was a statement to our Nation On re-use […]...
29. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
30. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
31. A Love Song Reject me not if I should say to you I do forget the sounding of your voice, I do forget your eyes that searching through The mists perceive our marriage, and rejoice. Yet, when the apple-blossom opens wide Under the pallid moonlight’s fingering, I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide My eyes […]...
32. Every Man Should have a Rifle So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb, Seeing visions “over yonder” of the war I know must come. In the corner – not a vision – but a sign for coming days Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize. And in this, the living […]...
33. Death Snips Proud Men DEATH is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t. Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of dice and says: Read ’em and weep. Death sends […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. Poor Peter Blind Peter Piper used to play All up and down the city; I’d often meet him on my way, And throw a coin for pity. But all amid his sparkling tones His ear was quick as any To catch upon the cobble-stones The jingle of my penny. And as upon a day that shone He […]...
36. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
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. What Fields Are As Fragrant As Your Hands? What fields are as fragrant as your hands? You feel how external fragrance stands Upon your stronger resistance. Stars stand in images above. Give me your mouth to soften, love; Ah, your hair is all in idleness. See, I want to surround you with yourself And the faded expectation lift From the edges of your […]...
39. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
40. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...