Outside History

Related poetry:

1. I Don't Know If History Repeats Itself I don’t Know if history repeats itself But I do know that you don’t. I remember that city was didvided Not only between Jews and Arabs, But Between me and you, When we were there together. We made ourselves a womb of dangers We built ourselves a house of deadening wars Like men of far […]...
2. PLEA FOR A HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS LEEDS I want a true history of my city FUCK THE DE LACY FAMILY AND DOUBLE FUCK JOHN OF GAUNT ESPECIALLY And all his descendants With their particular vilenesses – I met one in the sixties Who had all the coldness of Himmler So svelte and adored by the cognoscenti. I want a history responsive To […]...
3. While History's Muse While History’s Muse the memorial was keeping Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves, Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping, For hers was the story that blotted the leaves. But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright, When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame, She saw History write, […]...
4. Yesterday is History Yesterday is History, ‘Tis so far away Yesterday is Poetry ‘Tis Philosophy Yesterday is mystery Where it is Today While we shrewdly speculate Flutter both away...
5. History History has to live with what was here, Clutching and close to fumbling all we had It is so dull and gruesome how we die, Unlike writing, life never finishes. Abel was finished; death is not remote, A flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic, His cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire, His baby crying all night […]...
6. Account The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes. Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness, Like the flight of a moth which, had it known, Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame. Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety, The little whisper which, thought it is a warning, is ignored. I […]...
7. A Summary History of Lord Clive About a hundred and fifty years ago, History relates it happened so, A big ship sailed from the shores of Britain Bound for India across the raging main. And many of the passengers did cry and moan As they took the last look of their old home, Which they were fast leaving far behind, And […]...
8. Milkweed Remember how unimportant They seemed, growing loosely In the open fields we crossed On the way to school. We Would carve wooden swords And slash at the luscious trunks Until the white milk started And then flowed. Then we’d Go on to the long day After day of the History of History Or the tables […]...
9. A Little History Some people find out they are Jews. They can’t believe it. Thy had always hated Jews. As children they had roamed in gangs on winter nights in the old neighborhood, looking for Jews. They were not Jewish, they were Irish. They brandished broken bottles, tough guys with blood on their lips, looking for Jews. They […]...
10. Ancient History Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; ‘He was the grandest of them all was Cain! ‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire: ‘Swift as a stag: a stallion of […]...
11. The Summary History of Sir William Wallace Sir William Wallace of Ellerslie, I’m told he went to the High School in Dundee, For to learn to read and write, And after that he learned to fight, While at the High School in Dundee, The Provost’s son with him disagree, Because Wallace did wear a dirk, He despised him like an ignorant stirk, […]...
12. All That's Past Very old are the woods; And the buds that break Out of the brier’s boughs, When March winds wake, So old with their beauty are Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose. Very old are the brooks; And the rills that rise Where snow sleeps cold beneath The azure skies […]...
13. The Negro Speaks Of Rivers I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the […]...
14. Low-Anchored Cloud Low-anchored cloud, Newfoundland air, Fountain-head and source of rivers, Dew-cloth, dream-drapery, And napkin spread by fays; Drifting meadow of the air, Where bloom the daisied banks and violets, And in whose fenny labyrinth The bittern booms and heron wades; Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers, Bear only perfumes and the scent Of healing herbs […]...
15. History Of The Night Throughout the course of the generations Men constructed the night. At first she was blindness; Thorns raking bare feet, Fear of wolves. We shall never know who forged the word For the interval of shadow Dividing the two twilights; We shall never know in what age it came to mean The starry hours. Others created […]...
16. Perhaps I asked too large Perhaps I asked too large I take no less than skies For Earths, grow thick as Berries, in my native town My Basked holds just Firmaments Those dangle easy on my arm, But smaller bundles Cram....
17. A Brief History of Gods First, we worshipped the inanimate. Next, we learned to worship the gods Later, we discovered the Deity. Then, dazzled by our own Reason We returned to the inanimate And ended up worshipping anything, From football to economic growth....
18. Witchcraft was hung, in History ‘Twas such a little little boat That toddled down the bay! ‘Twas such a gallant gallant sea That beckoned it away! ‘Twas such a greedy, greedy wave That licked it from the Coast Nor ever guessed the stately sails My little craft was lost!...
19. The History Of One Tough Motherfucker he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and Terrorized A white cross-eyed tailless cat I took him in and fed him and he stayed Grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway And ran him over I took what was left to a vet who said,”not much Chance…give him […]...
20. Paradise Motel Millions were dead; everybody was innocent. I stayed in my room. The President Spoke of war as of a magic love potion. My eyes were opened in astonishment. In a mirror my face appeared to me Like a twice-canceled postage stamp. I lived well, but life was awful. There were so many soldiers that day, […]...
21. As if some little Arctic flower As if some little Arctic flower Upon the polar hem Went wandering down the Latitudes Until it puzzled came To continents of summer To firmaments of sun To strange, bright crowds of flowers And birds, of foreign tongue! I say, As if this little flower To Eden, wandered in What then? Why nothing, Only, your […]...
22. Forget Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting. Sometimes you hear a distant refrain. What does it mean, you ask, who is singing? A childlike sun grows warm. A grandson and a great-grandson are […]...
23. The Hypermarket history is a hurried Checklist of the goods Mankind wishes To unforget Poetry is a soft whisper Against the bads Mankind wishes To unregret (04/06/99 – 08/2001)...
24. Late, Late, So Late Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light had we: for that we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light: so late! […]...
25. Buckwheat 1THERE was a late autumn cricket, And two smoldering mountain sunsets Under the valley roads of her eyes. There was a late autumn cricket, A hangover of summer song, Scraping a tune Of the late night clocks of summer, In the late winter night fireglow, This in a circle of black velvet at her neck. […]...
26. Clouds 1 Dawn. First light tearing At the rough tongues of the zinnias, At the leaves of the just born. Today it will rain. On the road Black cars are abandoned, but the clouds Ride above, their wisdom intact. They are predictions. They never matter. The jet fighters lift above the flat roofs, Black arrowheads trailing […]...
27. On the Idle Hill of Summer On the idle hill of summer, Sleepy with the flow of streams, Far I hear the steady drummer Drumming like a noise in dreams. Far and near and low and louder On the roads of earth go by, Dear to friends and food for powder, Soldiers marching, all to die. East and west on fields […]...
28. Roc All feathered things yet ever known to men, From the huge Rucke, unto the little Wren; From Forrest, Fields, from Rivers and from Pons, All that have webs, or cloven-footed ones; To the Grand Arke, together friendly came, Whose several species were too long to name...
29. Aspens All day and night, save winter, every weather, Above the inn, the smithy and the shop, The aspens at the cross-roads talk together Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top. Out of the blacksmith’s cavern comes the ringing Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn The clink, the hum, the […]...
30. A Calendar of Sonnets: November This is the treacherous month when autumn days With summer’s voice come bearing summer’s gifts. Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways, And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts, The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts Ere […]...
31. Escape When foxes eat the last gold grape, And the last white antelope is killed, I shall stop fighting and escape Into a little house I’ll build. But first I’ll shrink to fairy size, With a whisper no one understands, Making blind moons of all your eyes, And muddy roads of all your hands. And you […]...
32. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
33. The Seven Sages The First. My great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke In Grattan’s house. The Second. My great-grandfather shared A pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once. The Third. My great-grandfather’s father talked of music, Drank tar-water with the Bishop of Cloyne. The Fourth. But mine saw Stella once. The Fifth. Whence came our thought? The Sixth. From four […]...
34. Roads I know a country laced with roads, They join the hills and they span the brooks, They weave like a shuttle between broad fields, And slide discreetly through hidden nooks. They are canopied like a Persian dome And carpeted with orient dyes. They are myriad-voiced, and musical, And scented with happiest memories. O Winding roads […]...
35. John Wasson Oh! the dew-wet grass of the meadow in North Carolina Through which Rebecca followed me wailing, wailing, One child in her arms, and three that ran along wailing, Lengthening out the farewell to me off to the war with the British, And then the long, hard years down to the day of Yorktown. And then […]...
36. URBS SACRA AETERNA Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been; In the first days thy sword republican Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span: Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen, Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen; And now upon thy walls the breezes fan (Ah, city crowned by God, […]...
37. Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; (As the last gun ceased-but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried-I charge […]...
38. Oh, Ye Dead! Oh, ye Dead! oh, ye Dead! whom we know by the light you give From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live, Why leave you thus your graves, In far off fields and waves, Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed, To haunt this spot where all Those […]...
39. Memorial Day For The War Dead Memorial day for the war dead. Add now The grief of all your losses to their grief, Even of a woman that has left you. Mix Sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history, Which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning On one day for easy, convenient memory. Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, In sweet milk […]...
40. Whispering in Wattle – Boughs OH, gaily sings the bird! and the wattle-boughs are stirred And rustled by the scented breath of Spring; Oh, the dreary wistful longing! Oh, the faces that are thronging! Oh, the voices that are vaguely whispering! Oh, tell me, father mine, ere the good ship crossed the brine, On the gangway one mute handgrip we […]...