Ballad Of The Long-Legged Bait
The bows glided down, and the coast Blackened with birds took a last look At his thrashing hair and whale-blue eye; The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck. Then good-bye to the fishermanned
Incarnate Devil
Incarnate devil in a talking snake, The central plains of Asia in his garden, In shaping-time the circle stung awake, In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple, And God walked there who
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark
To-Day, This Insect
To-day, this insect, and the world I breathe, Now that my symbols have outelbowed space, Time at the city spectacles, and half The dear, daft time I take to nudge the sentence, In trust
On No Work Of Words
On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft:
Then Was My Neophyte
Then was my neophyte, Child in white blood bent on its knees Under the bell of rocks, Ducked in the twelve, disciple seas The winder of the water-clocks Calls a green day and night.
Now
Now Say nay, Man dry man, Dry lover mine The deadrock base and blow the flowered anchor, Should he, for centre sake, hop in the dust, Forsake, the fool, the hardiness of anger. Now
Twenty-Four Years
Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes. (Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.) In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor Sewing
In The Beginning
In the beginning was the three-pointed star, One smile of light across the empty face, One bough of bone across the rooting air, The substance forked that marrowed the first sun, And, burning ciphers
A Letter To My Aunt
A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach To Modern Poetry To you, my aunt, who would explore The literary Chankley Bore, The paths are hard, for you are not A literary Hottentot
There Was A Saviour
There was a saviour Rarer than radium, Commoner than water, crueller than truth; Children kept from the sun Assembled at his tongue To hear the golden note turn in a groove, Prisoners of wishes
Poem On His Birthday
In the mustardseed sun, By full tilt river and switchback sea Where the cormorants scud, In his house on stilts high among beaks And palavers of birds This sandgrain day in the bent bay’s
On A Wedding Anniversary
The sky is torn across This ragged anniversary of two Who moved for three years in tune Down the long walks of their vows. Now their love lies a loss And Love and his
Not From This Anger
Not from this anger, anticlimax after Refusal struck her loin and the lame flower Bent like a beast to lap the singular floods In a land strapped by hunger Shall she receive a bellyful
The Conversation Of Prayer
The conversation of prayers about to be said By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs Who climbs to his dying love in her high room, The one not caring