Barry Holden

Related poetry:

1. As the Team's Head – Brass As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn The lovers disappeared into the wood. I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm That strewed the angle of the fallow, and Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square Of charlock. Every time the horses turned Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned Upon […]...
2. Axe Handles One afternoon the last week in April Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet One-half turn and it sticks in a stump. He recalls the hatchet-head Without a handle, in the shop And go gets it, and wants it for his own. A broken-off axe handle behind the door Is long enough for a hatchet, […]...
3. Nancy Knapp Well, don’t you see this was the way of it: We bought the farm with what he inherited, And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning His fathers mind against the rest of them. And we never had any peace with our treasure. The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed. And lightning […]...
4. Hare Drummer Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s For cider, after school, in late September? Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin? For many times with the laughing girls and boys Played I along the road and over the hills When the sun was low and […]...
5. To William Holden (July 15) We know who The guards are In those POW Movies with brutal But easy to Fool fat Germans Or sadistic Japanese Who never smiled They’re the grown-ups We’re the kids That’s the secret...
6. Percival Sharp Observe the clasped hands! Are they hands of farewell or greeting, Hands that I helped or hands that helped me? Would it not be well to carve a hand With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus? And yonder is a broken chain, The weakest-link idea perhaps But what was it? And lambs, some lying down, Others […]...
7. Breadfruit Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit, Whatever they are, As bribes to teach them how to execute Sixteen sexual positions on the sand; This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club, Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub By private car. Such uncorrected visions end […]...
8. Roy Butler If the learned Supreme Court of Illinois Got at the secret of every case As well as it does a case of rape It would be the greatest court in the world. A jury, of neighbors mostly, with “Butch” Weldy As foreman, found me guilty in ten minutes And two ballots on a case like […]...
9. George Trimble Do you remember when I stood on the steps Of the Court House and talked free-silver, And the single-tax of Henry George? Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader Lost the first battle, I began to talk prohibition, And became active in the church? That was due to my wife, Who pictured to […]...
10. Me Imperturbe ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, Master of all, or mistress of all-aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they-passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought; Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary-all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the […]...
11. House TWO Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs, and an old soldier, Uncle Joe. Two Swede boys go upstairs and see Joe. His wife is dead, his only son is dead, and his two daughters in Missouri and Texas don’t want him around. The boys and Uncle Joe crack walnuts with a hammer […]...
12. Elizabeth Childers Dust of my dust, And dust with my dust, O, child who died as you entered the world, Dead with my death! Not knowing breath, though you tried so hard, With a heart that beat when you lived with me, And stopped when you left me for Life. It is well, my child. For you […]...
13. I Remember, I Remember Coming up England by a different line For once, early in the cold new year, We stopped, and, watching men with number plates Sprint down the platform to familiar gates, ‘Why, Coventry!’ I exclaimed. ‘I was born here.’ I leant far out, and squinnied for a sign That this was still the town that had […]...
14. Sam Hookey I ran away from home with the circus, Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada, The lion tamer. One time, having starved the lions For more than a day, I entered the cage and began to beat Brutus And Leo and Gypsy. Whereupon Brutus sprang upon me, And killed me. On entering these regions I […]...
15. Washington McNeely Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, […]...
16. Alfred Moir Why was I not devoured by self-contempt, And rotted down by indifference And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones? Why, with all of my errant steps Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke? And why, though I stood at Burchard’s bar, As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys To buy the […]...
17. Child In Red Sometimes she walks through the village in her little red dress All absorbed in restraining herself, And yet, despite herself, she seems to move According to the rhythm of her life to come. She runs a bit, hesitates, stops, Half-turns around… And, all while dreaming, shakes her head For or against. Then she dances a […]...
18. The Father Of Toads A man had just delivered a toad from his wife’s armpit. He Held it by its legs and spanked it. Do you love it? said his wife. It’s our child, isn’t it? Does that mean you can’t love it? she said. It’s hard enough to love a toad, but when it turns out to be […]...
19. Vesta O CHRIST of God! whose life and death Our own have reconciled, Most quietly, most tenderly Take home thy star-named child! Thy grace is in her patient eyes, Thy words are on her tongue; The very silence round her seems As if the angels sung. Her smile is as a listening child’s Who hears its […]...
20. Herbert White “When I hit her on the head, it was good, And then I did it to her a couple of times, But it was funny, afterwards, It was as if somebody else did it… Everything flat, without sharpness, richness or line. Still, I liked to drive past the woods where she lay, Tell the old […]...
21. The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me It was the first gift he ever gave her, Buying it for five five francs in the Galeries In pre-war Paris. It was stifling. A starless drought made the nights stormy. They stayed in the city for the summer. The met in cafes. She was always early. He was late. That evening he was later. […]...
22. The Immortals I killed them, but they would not die. Yea! all the day and all the night For them I could not rest or sleep, Nor guard from them nor hide in flight. Then in my agony I turned And made my hands red in their gore. In vain – for faster than I slew They […]...
23. The Man From Cook's “You’re bloody right – I was a Red,” The Man from Cook’s morosely said. And if our chaps had won the War Today I’d be the Governor Of all Madrid, and rule with pride, Instead of just a lousy guide. “For I could talk in Councils high To draw down angels from the sky. They […]...
24. Dream Song 71: Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four Hearers in the racket of the market With ancient signs, infamous characters, New rythms. On the steps he was beloved, Hours a day, by all his four, or more, Depending. And they paid him. It was not, so, like no one listening But critics famed & Henry’s pals […]...
25. When we have ceased to care When we have ceased to care The Gift is given For which we gave the Earth And mortgaged Heaven But so declined in worth ‘Tis ignominy now To look upon...
26. Tom Merritt At first I suspected something She acted so calm and absent-minded. And one day I heard the back door shut, As I entered the front, and I saw him slink Back of the smokehouse into the lot, And run across the field. And I meant to kill him on sight. But that day, walking near […]...
27. If I were dead ‘IF I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’ The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! […]...
28. Aaron Hatfield Better than granite, Spoon River, Is the memory-picture you keep of me Standing before the pioneer men and women There at Concord Church on Communion day. Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth Of Galilee who went to the city And was killed by bankers and lawyers; My voice mingling with the June wind […]...
29. Dream Song 5: Henry sats in de bar & was odd Henry sats in de bar & was odd, Off in the glass from the glass, At odds wif de world & its god, His wife is a complete nothing, St Stephen Getting even. Henry sats in de plane & was gay. Careful Henry nothing said aloud But where a Virgin out of cloud To her […]...
30. Scots of the Riverina The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime. The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned, And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife’s back was turned. A […]...
31. Modern Love XXXIII: In Paris, at the Louvre ‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! The young Pharsalians did not disarray Less willingly their locks of floating silk: That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk Of heaven might still be feasting through […]...
32. Brown's Descent Brown lived at such a lofty farm That everyone for miles could see His lantern when he did his chores In winter after half-past three. And many must have seen him make His wild descent from there one night, ‘Cross lots, ‘cross walls, ‘cross everything, Describing rings of lantern light. Between the house and barn […]...
33. The Toy Band A Song of the Great Retreat Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town, Lights out and never a glint o’ moon: Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down, Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon. “Oh! if I’d a drum here to make them take the road again, Oh! if I’d a fife […]...
34. Always For The First Time Always for the first time Hardly do I know you by sight You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window A wholly imaginary house It is there that from one second to the next In the inviolate darkness I anticipate once more the fascinating rift occurring […]...
35. Letters From A Man In Solitary 1 I carved your name on my watchband With my fingernail. Where I am, you know, I don’t have a pearl-handled jackknife (they won’t give me anything sharp) or a plane tree with its head in the clouds. Trees may grow in the yard, But I’m not allowed to see the sky overhead… How many […]...
36. Trainor the Druggist Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist, What will result from compounding Fluids or solids. And who can tell How men and women will interact On each other, or what children will result? There were Benjamin Pantier and his wife, Good in themselves, but evil toward each other: He oxygen, she hydrogen, […]...
37. Jaws SEVEN nations stood with their hands on the jaws of death. It was the first week in August, Nineteen Hundred Fourteen. I was listening, you were listening, the whole world was Listening, And all of us heard a Voice murmuring: “I am the way and the light, He that believeth on me Shall not perish […]...
38. The Story of Uriah Jack Barrett went to Quetta Because they told him to. He left his wife at Simla On three-fourths his monthly screw. Jack Barrett died at Quetta Ere the next month’s pay he drew. Jack Barrett went to Quetta. He didn’t understand The reason of his transfer From the pleasant mountain-land. The season was September, And […]...
39. A Curse Against Elegies Oh, love, why do we argue like this? I am tired of all your pious talk. Also, I am tired of all the dead. They refuse to listen, So leave them alone. Take your foot out of the graveyard, They are busy being dead. Everyone was always to blame: The last empty fifth of booze, […]...
40. The Voice of Robert Desnos So like a flower and a current of air The flow of water fleeting shadows The smile glimpsed at midnight this excellent evening So like every joy and every sadness It is the midnight past lifting its naked body above belfries and poplars I call to me those lost in the fields Old skeletons young […]...