The Tourist From Syracuse

Related poetry:

1. Tourist To Italy a random tour I took to crown my education, Returning relatively poor In purse yet rich in conversation. Old Rome put up a jolly show, But I am not a classic purist, Preferring to Mike Angelo The slim stems of a lady tourist. Venice, they say, was built on piles; I used to […]...
2. His Bill is clasped his Eye forsook His Bill is clasped his Eye forsook His Feathers wilted low The Claws that clung, like lifeless Gloves Indifferent hanging now The Joy that in his happy Throat Was waiting to be poured Gored through and through with Death, to be Assassin of a Bird Resembles to my outraged mind The firing in Heaven, On […]...
3. Places among the stars Places among the stars, Soft gardens near the sun, Keep your distant beauty; Shed no beams upon my weak heart. Since she is here In a place of blackness, Not your golden days Nor your silver nights Can call me to you. Since she is here In a place of blackness, Here I stay and […]...
4. An Ancient Gesture I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron: Penelope did this too. And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day And undoing it all through the night; Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight; And along towards morning, when you think it will […]...
5. Waiting For The Miracle (co-written by Sharon Robinson) Baby, I’ve been waiting, I’ve been waiting night and day. I didn’t see the time, I waited half my life away. There were lots of invitations And I know you sent me some, But I was waiting For the miracle, for the miracle to come. I know you really loved me. […]...
6. Arrival At Santos Here is a coast; here is a harbor; Here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery: Impractically shaped and who knows? self-pitying mountains, Sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery, With a little church on top of one. And warehouses, Some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue, And some tall, uncertain […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Our Hired Girl Our hired girl, she’s ‘Lizabuth Ann; An’ she can cook best things to eat! She ist puts dough in our pie-pan, An’ pours in somepin’ ‘at’s good an’ sweet; An’ nen she salts it all on top With cinnamon; an’ nen she’ll stop An’ stoop an’ slide it, ist as slow, In th’ old cook-stove, […]...
9. Fragment At last I entered a long dark gallery, Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side Were the bodies of men from far and wide Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead. “The sense of waiting here strikes strong; Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me; What are you waiting for so long? What is to happen?” […]...
10. What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is if you’re Old enough to read this you know what Work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, Shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain […]...
11. This Is A Photograph Of Me It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be A smeared Print: blurred lines and grey flecks Blended with the paper; Then, as you scan It, you see in the left-hand corner A thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging And, to the right, halfway […]...
12. The Horses Barely a twelvemonth after The seven days war that put the world to sleep, Late in the evening the strange horses came. By then we had made our covenant with silence, But in the first few days it was so still We listened to our breathing and were afraid. On the second day The radios […]...
13. Sackcloth I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of drunkards. Psalm 102 I made sackcloth my garment once, by cutting Arm and neck holes into a burlap bag. A croker sack they called it. Sackdragger They […]...
14. Could Hope inspect her Basis Could Hope inspect her Basis Her Craft were done Has a fictitious Charter Or it has none Balked in the vastest instance But to renew Felled by but one assassin Prosperity...
15. Do You Want Affidavits? THERE’S a hole in the bottom of the sea. Do you want affidavits? There’s a man in the moon with money for you. Do you want affidavits? There are ten dancing girls in a sea-chamber off Nantucket waiting for you. There are tall candles in Timbuctoo burning penance for you. There are-anything else? Speak now-for […]...
16. FOUND ONCE through the forest Alone I went; To seek for nothing My thoughts were bent. I saw i’ the shadow A flower stand there As stars it glisten’d, As eyes ’twas fair. I sought to pluck it, It gently said: “Shall I be gather’d Only to fade?” With all its roots I dug it with […]...
17. Edinburgh Beautiful city of Edinburgh! Where the tourist can drown his sorrow By viewing your monuments and statues fine During the lovely summer-time. I’m sure it will his spirits cheer As Sir Walter Scott’s monument he draws near, That stands in East Prince’s Street Amongst flowery gardens, fine and neat. And Edinburgh Castle is magnificent to […]...
18. Psalm 73 v.22,3,6,17-20 L. M. The prosperity of sinners cursed. Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was I, To mourn, and murmur, and repine, To see the wicked placed on high, In pride and robes of honor shine! But O their end, their dreadful end! Thy sanctuary taught me so; On slipp’ry rocks I see them stand, And […]...
19. Apparently with no surprise Apparently with no surprise To any happy Flower The Frost beheads it at its play In accidental power The blonde Assassin passes on The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God....
20. I WILL NOT EAT MY POEM I kill for pleasure Not for gain. A man much more Than you my hands Find knives & flash them. I am guilty In my works While in their eyes I seek redemption. I find myself Forgotten Angry at the thought Of bread. I will not Eat my poem(A. Artaud) Much less be raped By […]...
21. THE LOVING ONE ONCE MORE WHY do I o’er my paper once more bend? Ask not too closely, dearest one, I pray For, to speak truth, I’ve nothing now to say; Yet to thy hands at length ’twill come, dear friend. Since I can come not with it, what I send My undivided heart shall now convey, With all its […]...
22. The Gardener XIV: I Was Walking by the Road I was walking by the road, I do not Know why, when the noonday was past And bamboo branches rustled in the Wind. The prone shadows with their out- Stretched arms clung to the feet of The hurrying light. The koels were weary of their Songs. I was walking by the road, I do not […]...
23. Model For The Laureate On thrones from China to Peru All sorts of kings have sat That men and women of all sorts Proclaimed both good and great; And what’s the odds if such as these For reason of the State Should keep their lovers waiting, Keep their lovers waiting? Some boast of beggar-kings and kings Of rascals black […]...
24. The Good-Natured Girls Two good little children, named Mary and Ann, Both happily live, as good girls always can; And though they are not either sullen or mute, They seldom or never are heard to dispute. If one wants a thing that the other would like­ Well,­what do they do? Must they quarrel and strike? No, each is […]...
25. Dream Song 22: Of 1826 I am the little man who smokes & smokes. I am the girl who does know better but. I am the king of the pool. I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut. I am a government official & a goddamned fool. I am a lady who takes jokes. I am the enemy […]...
26. Budapest Museum of Fine Arts a Memo from the Past This is to compliment those Who have made us petrified And conjured up evidence of our sufferings Into what they call a tourist’s attraction...
27. Motel Seedy The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base (a huge red slug with a hole Where its heart should be) or chose this print Of a butterscotch sunset, Must have been abused in art class As children, forced to fingerpaint With a nose, or a tongue. To put this color Green exhausted grave […]...
28. Dream Song 109: She mentioned 'worthless' & he took it in She mentioned ‘worthless’ & he took it in, Degraded Henry, at the ebb of love— O at the end of love— In undershorts, with visitors, whereof We can say their childlessness is ending. Love Finally took over, After their two adopted: she has a month to go And Henry has (perhaps) many months to go […]...
29. Antiphon (I) Chorus: Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing ‘My God and King.’ Verse: The heav’ns are not too high, His praise may thither fly: The earth is not too low, His praises there may grow. Chorus: Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing, ‘My God and King.’ Verse: The church with psalms must […]...
30. The Sun Have you ever seen Anything In your life More wonderful Than the way the sun, Every evening, Relaxed and easy, Floats toward the horizon And into the clouds or the hills, Or the rumpled sea, And is gone And how it slides again Out of the blackness, Every morning, On the other side of the […]...
31. A youth in apparel that glittered A youth in apparel that glittered Went to walk in a grim forest. There he met an assassin Attired all in garb of old days; He, scowling through the thickets, And dagger poised quivering, Rushed upon the youth. “Sir,” said this latter, “I am enchanted, believe me, To die, thus, In this medieval fashion, According […]...
32. Beautiful Comrie Ye lovers of the picturesque, away, away! To beautiful Comrie and have a holiday; Aud bask in the sunahine and inhale the fragrant air Emanating from the woodlands and shrubberies there. The charming village of Comrie is most lovely to be seen, Especially in the summer season when the trees are green; And near by […]...
33. Love's Language How does Love speak? In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek, And in the pallor that succeeds it; by The quivering lid of an averted eye – The smile that proves the parent to a sigh – Thus doth Love speak. How does Love speak? By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak Of bounding […]...
34. So Now? the words have come and gone, I sit ill. The phone rings, the cats sleep. Linda vacuums. I am waiting to live, Waiting to die. I wish I could ring in some bravery. It’s a lousy fix But the tree outside doesn’t know: I watch it moving with the wind In the late afternoon sun. […]...
35. Archimedes To Archimedes once a scholar came, “Teach me,” he said, “the art that won thy fame; The godlike art which gives such boons to toil, And showers such fruit upon thy native soil; The godlike art that girt the town when all Rome’s vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!” “Thou call’st art godlike it […]...
36. Quantum Est Quod Desit ‘Twas a new feeling – something more Than we had dar’d to own before, Which then we hid not; We saw it in each other’s eye, And wish’d in every broken sigh To speak, but did not! She felt my lips’ impassion’d touch; ‘Twas the first time I dar’d so much, And yet, she chid […]...
37. Beautiful North Berwick North Berwick is a watering-place with golfing links green, With a fine bathing beach most lovely to be seen; And there’s a large number of handsome villas also, And often it’s called the Scarborough of Scotland, as Portobello. The greatest attraction is Tantallon Castle, worthy of regard, About three miles distant to the eastward; Which […]...
38. Loch Leven Beautiful Loch Leven, near by Kinross For a good day’s fishing the angler is seldom at a loss, For the Loch it abounds with pike and trout, Which can be had for the catching without any doubt; And the scenery around it is most beautiful to be seen, Especially the Castle, wherein was imprisoned Scotland’s […]...
39. Bearhug Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight I yell ok. Finish something I’m doing, Then something else, walk slowly round The corner to my son’s room. He is standing arms outstretched Waiting for a bearhug. Grinning. Why do I give my emotion an animal’s name, Give it that dark squeeze of death? This is […]...
40. Julia Miller We quarreled that morning, For he was sixty-five, and I was thirty, And I was nervous and heavy with the child Whose birth I dreaded. I thought over the last letter written me By that estranged young soul Whose betrayal of me I had concealed By marrying the old man. Then I took morphine and […]...