Abel Melveny

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1. Cain and Abel Cain and Abel were brothers born. (Koop-la! Come along, cows!) One raised cattle and one raised corn. (Koop-la! Come along! Co-hoe!) And Cain he farmed by the river-side, So he did not care how much it dried. For he banked, and he sluiced, and he ditched and he led (And the Corn don’t care for […]...
2. Youth And Beauty I bought a dishmop – Having no daughter – For they had twisted Fine ribbons of shining copper About white twine And made a tousled head Of it, fastened it Upon a turned ash stick Slender at the neck Straight, tall – When tied upright On the brass wallbracket To be a light for me […]...
3. San Francisco This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is unknown. By accident, you put Your money in my Machine (#4) By accident, I put My money in another Machine (#6) On purpose, I put Your clothes in the Empty machine full Of water […]...
4. We are Transmitters As we live, we are transmitters of life. And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow through us. That is part of the mystery of sex, it is a flow onwards. Sexless people transmit nothing. And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work, Life, still more life, rushes […]...
5. 161. Epigram Addressed to an Artist DEAR -, I’ll gie ye some advice, You’ll tak it no uncivil: You shouldna paint at angels mair, But try and paint the devil. To paint an Angel’s kittle wark, Wi’ Nick, there’s little danger: You’ll easy draw a lang-kent face, But no sae weel a stranger.-R. B....
6. The Buyers Father drank himself to death, Quite enjoyed it. Urged to draw a sober breath He’d avoid it. ‘Save your sympathy,’ said Dad; ‘Never sought it. Hob-nail liver, gay and glad, Sure, I bought it.’ Uncle made a heap of dough, Ponies playing. ‘Easy come and easy go,’ Was his saying. Though he died in poverty […]...
7. Henry Phipps I was the Sunday school superintendent, The dummy president of the wagon works And the canning factory, Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique; My son the cashier of the bank, Wedded to Rhodes’ daughter, My week day spent in making money, My Sundays at church and in prayer. In everything a cog in […]...
8. Sky Song The flower of the Alps told the seashell: “You’re shining” The seashell told the sea: “You echo” The sea told the boat: “You’re shuddering” The boat told the fire: “You’re glowing brightly” The fire told me: “I glow less brightly than her eyes” The boat told me: “I shudder less than your heart does when […]...
9. To Any Dead Officer Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say, Because I’d like to know that you’re all right. Tell me, have you found everlasting day, Or been sucked in by everlasting night? For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; I hear you make some cheery old remark – I can rebuild […]...
10. Dedication In youth I longed to paint The loveliness I saw; And yet by dire constraint I had to study Law. But now all that is past, And I have no regret, For I am free at last Law to forget. To beauty newly born With brush and tube I play; And though my daubs you […]...
11. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
12. Ode To a Large Tuna in the Market Among the market greens, A bullet From the ocean Depths, A swimming Projectile, I saw you, Dead. All around you Were lettuces, Sea foam Of the earth, Carrots, Grapes, But Of the ocean Truth, Of the unknown, Of the Unfathomable Shadow, the Depths Of the sea, The abyss, Only you had survived, A pitch-black, varnished […]...
13. The Investment Over back where they speak of life as staying (‘You couldn’t call it living, for it ain’t’), There was an old, old house renewed with paint, And in it a piano loudly playing. Out in the plowed ground in the cold a digger, Among unearthed potatoes standing still, Was counting winter dinners, one a hill, […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. How Could You Not for Jane kenyon It is a day after many days of storms. Having been washed and washed, the air glitters; Small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower Visible against the firs douses the crocuses. We knew it would happen one day this week. Now, when I learn you have died, I go To […]...
16. The Kiss My mouth blooms like a cut. I’ve been wronged all year, tedious Nights, nothing but rough elbows in them And delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby Crybaby, you fool! Before today my body was useless. Now it’s tearing at its square corners. It’s tearing old Mary’s garments off, knot by knot And see Now it’s […]...
17. Sersmith the Dentist Do you think that odes and sermons, And the ringing of church bells, And the blood of old men and young men, Martyred for the truth they saw With eyes made bright by faith in God, Accomplished the world’s great reformations? Do you think that the Battle Hymn of the Republic Would have been heard […]...
18. MAY LIGHT and silv’ry cloudlets hover In the air, as yet scarce warm; Mild, with glimmer soft tinged over, Peeps the sun through fragrant balm. Gently rolls and heaves the ocean As its waves the bank o’erflow. And with ever restless motion Moves the verdure to and fro, Mirror’d brightly far below. What is now the […]...
19. Bird Nesting O wonderful! In sport we climbed the tree, Eager and laughing, as in all our play, To see the eggs where, in the nest, they lay, But silent fell before the mystery. For, one brief moment there, we understood By sudden sympathy too fine for words That we were sisters to the brooding birds And […]...
20. Grand-Pa's Whim While for me gapes the greedy grave It don’t make sense That I should have a crazy crave To paint our fence. Yet that is what I aim to do, Though dim my sight: Jest paint them aged pickets blue, Or green or white. Jest squat serenely in the sun Wi’ brush an’ paint, An’ […]...
21. The Touch For months my hand was sealed off In a tin box. Nothing was there but the subway railings. Perhaps it is bruised, I thought, And that is why they have locked it up. You could tell time by this, I thought, Like a clock, by its five knuckles And the thin underground veins. It lay […]...
22. Laziness Let laureates sing with rapturous swing Of the wonder and glory of work; Let pulpiteers preach and with passion impeach The indolent wretches who shirk. No doubt they are right: in the stress of the fight It’s the slackers who go to the wall; So though it’s my shame I perversely proclaim It’s fine to […]...
23. The Night Cometh Work! for the night is coming; Work! through the morning hours; Work! while the dew is sparkling; Work! ‘mid the springing flowers; Work! while the day grows brighter, Under the glowing sun; Work! for the night is coming, Night, when man’s work is done. Work! for the night is coming; Work! through the sunny noon; […]...
24. State's Attorney Fallas I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker, Smiter with whips and swords; I, hater of the breakers of the law; I, legalist, inexorable and bitter, Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden, Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes, And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow: Steel forceps fumbled by […]...
25. Professor Newcomer Everyone laughed at Col. Prichard For buying an engine so powerful That it wrecked itself, and wrecked the grinder He ran it with. But here is a joke of cosmic size: The urge of nature that made a man Evolve from his brain a spiritual life Oh miracle of the world! The very same brain […]...
26. The Norbert Dentressangle Van I heave my morning like a sack Of signs that don’t appear, Say August, August, takes me back… That it was not this year… Say greenness, greenness, that’s the link… That they were different trees Does not occur to those who think In anniversaries. I drive my morning like a truck With a backsliding load, […]...
27. Oaks Tutt My mother was for woman’s rights And my father was the rich miller at London Mills. I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them. When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries In order to learn how to reform the world. I traveled through many lands. […]...
28. Chase Henry In my life I was the town drunkard; When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground. The which rebounded to my good fortune. For the Protestants bought this lot, And buried my body here, Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas, And of his wife Priscilla. Take note, ye prudent and […]...
29. Lesson In Grammar THE SENTENCE Perhaps I can make it plain by analogy. Imagine a machine, not yet assembled, Each part being quite necessary To the functioning of the whole: if the job is fumbled And a vital piece mislaid The machine is quite valueless, The workers will not be paid. It is just the same when constructing […]...
30. God Needs Antonio Your soul was lifted by the wings today Hearing the master of the violin: You praised him, praised the great Sabastian too Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think Of old Antonio Stradivari? – him Who a good century and a half ago Put his true work in that brown instrument And by […]...
31. A Singing Lesson Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses, Is good, or was held so, for ladies: but nought In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is Far-fetched and dear-bought. As the turn of a wave should it sound, and the thought Ring smooth, and as light as the spray that disperses […]...
32. When You Go Away When you go away the wind clicks around to the north The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls Showing the black walls The clock goes back to striking the same hour That has no place in the years And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes In one breath I […]...
33. Millennium The great millennium is at hand. Redder apples grow on the tree. A saxophone is in ev’ry band. Brandy no longer taints our tea. Dimples smile in the red-rouged knee. The dowagers are no longer fat. Radio now makes safe the sea- And the Turk has bought him a derby hat. Even our sauerkraut now […]...
34. Phyllis's Age How old may Phyllis be, you ask, Whose beauty thus all hearts engages? To answer is no easy task; For she has really two ages. Stiff in brocard, and pinch’d in stays, Her patches, paint, and jewels on; All day let envy view her face; And Phyllis is but twenty-one. Paint, patches, jewels laid aside, […]...
35. Harmon Whitney Out of the lights and roar of cities, Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River, Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken, The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt, But to hide a wounded pride as well. To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds I, gifted […]...
36. Night Ray Most brightly of all burned the hair of my evening loved one: To her I send the coffin of lightest wood. Waves billow round it as round the bed of our dream in Rome; It wears a white wig as I do and speaks hoarsely: It talks as I do when I grant admittance to […]...
37. Franklin Jones If I could have lived another year I could have finished my flying machine, And become rich and famous. Hence it is fitting the workman Who tried to chisel a dove for me Made it look more like a chicken. For what is it all but being hatched, And running about the yard, To the […]...
38. The Christmas Goose Mr. Smiggs was a gentleman, And he lived in London town; His wife she was a good kind soul, And seldom known to frown. ‘Twas on Christmas eve, And Smiggs and his wife lay cosy in bed, When the thought of buying a goose Came into his head. So the next morning, Just as the […]...
39. Bonnie Dundee in 1878 Oh, Bonnie Dundee! I will sing in thy praise A few but true simple lays, Regarding some of your beauties of the present day And virtually speaking, there’s none can them gainsay; There’s no other town I know of with you can compare For spinning mills and lasses fair, And for stately buildings there’s none […]...
40. She She who ever had remained in the depth of my being, In the twilight of gleams and of glimpses; She who never opened her veils in the morning light, Will be my last gift to thee, my God, folded in my final song. Words have wooed yet failed to win her; Persuasion has stretched to […]...