January 1939

Related poetry:

1. Slants at Buffalo, New York A FOREFINGER of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky. It says: This way! this way! Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft. They too are the dream of a sculptor. They too say: This way! this way! The street cars swing at a curve. The middle-class passengers witness […]...
2. The Whole Soul Is it long as a noodle Or fat as an egg? Is it Lumpy like a potato or Ringed like an oak or an Onion and like the onion The same as you go toward The core? That would be Suitable, for is it not The human core and the rest Meant either to keep […]...
3. The Day Is A Poem (September 19, 1939) This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we hear his voice. A man of genius: that is, of amazing Ability, courage, devotion, cored on a sick child’s soul, Heard clearly through the dog wrath, a sick child Wailing in Danzig; invoking destruction and wailing at it. Here, the day was extremely hot; about noon A south […]...
4. January, 1795 Pavement slipp’ry, people sneezing, Lords in ermine, beggars freezing ; Titled gluttons dainties carving, Genius in a garret starving. Lofty mansions, warm and spacious ; Courtiers clinging and voracious ; Misers scarce the wretched heeding ; Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding. Wives who laugh at passive spouses ; Theatres, and meeting-houses ; Balls, where simp’ring misses […]...
5. Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun Too volatile, am I? too voluble? too much a word-person? I blame the soup:I’m a primordially Stirred person. Two pronouns and a vehicle was Icarus with wings. The apparatus of his selves made an ab- Surd person. The sound I make is sympathy’s:sad dogs are tied afar. But howling I become an ever more un- […]...
6. Witchcraft By A Picture I fix mine eye on thine, and there Pity my picture burning in thine eye; My picture drowned in a transparent tear, When I look lower I espy. Hadst thou the wicked skill By pictures made and mard, to kill, How many ways mightst thou perform thy will? But now I have drunk thy sweet […]...
7. Ode To Salt This salt In the saltcellar I once saw in the salt mines. I know You won’t Believe me, But It sings, Salt sings, the skin Of the salt mines Sings With a mouth smothered By the earth. I shivered in those solitudes When I heard The voice of The salt In the desert. Near Antofagasta […]...
8. Magellanic Penguin Neither clown nor child nor black Nor white but verticle And a questioning innocence Dressed in night and snow: The mother smiles at the sailor, The fisherman at the astronaunt, But the child child does not smile When he looks at the bird child, And from the disorderly ocean The immaculate passenger Emerges in snowy […]...
9. The Dauber In stilly grove beside the sea He mingles colours, measures space; A bronze and breezy man is he, Yet peace is in his face. Behold him stand and longly stare, Till deft of hand and deep of eye He captures on a canvas square The joy of earth and sky. Aloof from servitude and strife, […]...
10. A Song Of A Young Lady To Her Ancient Lover Ancient Person, for whom I All the flattering youth defy, Long be it e’er thou grow old, Aching, shaking, crazy cold; But still continue as thou art, Ancient Person of my heart. On thy withered lips and dry, Which like barren furrows lie, Brooding kisses I will pour, Shall thy youthful heart restore, Such kind […]...
11. Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat On the silent sea we have heard the sound That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet. Under the mile off moon we trembled listening To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound […]...
12. June Dreams, In January “So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills, In languid palpitation, half a-swoon With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills; “Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale And then as red as any virgin’s lips. […]...
13. In January Only one cell in the frozen hive of night Is lit, or so it seems to us: This Vietnamese café, with its oily light, Its odors whose colorful shapes are like flowers. Laughter and talking, the tick of chopsticks. Beyond the glass, the wintry city Creaks like an ancient wooden bridge. A great wind rushes […]...
14. January 2 The old war is over the new one has begun Between drivers and pedestrians on a Friday In New York light is the variable and structure The content according to Rodrigo Moynihan’s Self-portraits at the Robert Miller Gallery where The painter is serially pictured holding a canvas, Painting his mirror image, shirtless in summer, With […]...
15. West London Crouch’d on the pavement close by Belgrave Square A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, Pass’d opposite; she touch’d her girl, who hied Across, and begg’d […]...
16. January 1 Some people confuse inspiration with lightning Not me I know it comes from the lungs and air You breathe it in you breathe it out it circulates It’s the breath of my being the wind across the face Of the waters yes but it’s also something that comes At my command like a turkey club […]...
17. Forgetfulness Forgetfulness is like a song That, freed from beat and measure, wanders. Forgetfulness is like a bird whose wings are reconciled, Outspread and motionless, A bird that coasts the wind unwearyingly. Forgetfulness is rain at night, Or an old house in a forest, or a child. Forgetfulness is white, white as a blasted tree, And […]...
18. January 24 I was about to be mugged by a man With a chain so angry he growled At the Lincoln Center subway station When out of nowhere appeared a tall Chubby-faced Hasidic Jew with peyot And a black hat a black coat white shirt With prayer-shawl fringes showing We walked together out of the station And […]...
19. January 3 The shrink says, “Everything depends On how many stuffed animals you had As a boy,” and my mother tells me my Father was left-handed and so is my son And they’re both named Joe whose favorite Stuffed animal was a bear called Sweetheart While I, the sole constant in this dream, Am carrying a little […]...
20. January 31 Nothing extends a phone Call more effectively than Saying you’re on your way out But she wants to tell you The five things she requires In a man one is intelligence He must have a brain Also he must be good a term She likes because it embraces both The opposite of evil and “good […]...
21. Our Friendship (January 14) We have a name for it In the South: Asshole buddies. It means we’ve known Each other so long It doesn’t matter That he’s an asshole In my opinion Or I’m an asshole In his opinion Or whatever And I want you to know I’m not from the South And you’re not my buddy And […]...
22. January 31 (The sky is crumbling…) The sky is crumbling into millions of paper dots The wind blows in my face So I duck into my favorite barber shop And listen to Vivaldi and look in the mirror Reflecting the shopfront windows, Broadway And 104th, and watch the dots blown by the wind Blow into the faces of the walkers outside […]...
23. Ode Written On The First Of January Come melancholy Moralizer come! Gather with me the dark and wintry wreath; With me engarland now The SEPULCHRE OF TIME! Come Moralizer to the funeral song! I pour the dirge of the Departed Days, For well the funeral song Befits this solemn hour. But hark! even now the merry bells ring round With clamorous joy […]...
24. A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London Never until the mankind making Bird beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come of the sea tumbling in harness And I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead And the synagogue of the ear of corn Shall I […]...
25. Orchard Trees, January It’s not the case, though some might wish it so Who from a window watch the blizzard blow White riot through their branches vague and stark, That they keep snug beneath their pelted bark. They take affliction in until it jells To crystal ice between their frozen cells, And each of them is inwardly a […]...
26. A Calendar of Sonnets: January O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire The streams than under ice. June could not hire Her roses to forego the strength they learn In sleeping on thy breast. No […]...
27. Deeply Morbid Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters Always out of office hours running with her social betters But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about her Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt her It was that look within her eye Why […]...
28. A Prayer in Spring OH, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orcahrd white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the […]...
29. The Three Beggars ‘Though to my feathers in the wet, I have stood here from break of day. I have not found a thing to eat, For only rubbish comes my way. Am I to live on lebeen-lone?’ Muttered the old crane of Gort. ‘For all my pains on lebeen-lone?’ King Guaire walked amid his court The palace-yard […]...
30. Earth-Moon Once upon a time there was a person He was walking along He met the full burning moon Rolling slowly twoards him Crushing the stones and houses by the wayside. She shut his eyes from the glare. He drew his dagger And stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. The cry that quit the moon’s wounds Circled […]...
31. A Book Full of Pictures Father studied theology through the mail And this was exam time. Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book Full of pictures. Night fell. My hands grew cold touching the faces Of dead kings and queens. There was a black raincoat in the upstairs bedroom Swaying from the ceiling, But what was it doing there? […]...
32. Song From An Evening's Love After the pangs of a desperate lover, When day and night I have sighed all in vain, Ah, what a pleasure it is to discover In her eyes pity, who causes my pain! When with unkindness our love at a stand is, And both have punished ourselves with the pain, Ah, what a pleasure the […]...
33. Irkalla's White Caves I believe that a young woman Is standing in a circle of lions In the other side of the sky. In a little while I must carry her the flowers Which only fade here; and she will not cry If my hands are not very full. ± Fiery antlers toss within the forests of heaven […]...
34. Enigma Come riddle-me-ree, come riddle-me-ree, And tell me, what my name may be. I am nearly one hundred and thirty years old, And therefore no chicken, as you may suppose; Though a dwarf in my youth (as my nurses have told), I have, ev’ry year since, been outgrowing my clothes; Till, at last, such a corpulent […]...
35. When on a Summer's Morn When on a summer’s morn I wake, And open my two eyes, Out to the clear, born-singing rills My bird-like spirit flies. To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush, Or any bird in song; And common leaves that hum all day Without a throat or tongue. And when Time strikes the hour for sleep, Back in […]...
36. My Picture-Gallery IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house, It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other; Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories? Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death; Here, […]...
37. Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky; Contrariwise, my blood runs cold When little boys go by. For little boys as little boys, No special hate I carry, But now and then they grow to men, And when they do, they marry. No matter how they tarry, Eventually they marry. […]...
38. Dirge Boys and girls that held her dear, Do your weeping now; All you loved of her lies here. Brought to earth the arrogant brow, And the withering tongue Chastened; do your weeping now. Sing whatever songs are sung, Wind whatever wreath, For a playmate perished young, For a spirit spent in death. Boys and girls […]...
39. A Pinch of Salt When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You’ll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much. Dreams are like a bird that mocks, Flirting the feathers of his […]...
40. Either if you are young and bright At one and twenty, go to a: If you are old and gray At one and sixty, see b: A) Scorn these lines, Forget the book Put it lofty Things that matter Are now and here: Pleasure and glory Indulge with time Wallow with energy B) Take down this […]...