Gustav Richter

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1. People Who Must I PAINTED on the roof of a skyscraper. I painted a long while and called it a day’s work. The people on a corner swarmed and the traffic cop’s whistle never let up all afternoon. They were the same as bugs, many bugs on their way- Those people on the go or at a standstill; […]...
2. Mother, Among The Dustbins Mother, among the dustbins and the manure I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure As of the presence of God, I am sure In the dustbins, in the manure, in the cat at play, Is the presence of God, in a sure way He moves there. Mother, what do you say? I too […]...
3. Insomnia. Homer. Taut canvas Insomnia. Homer. Taut canvas. Half the catalogue of ships is mine: That flight of cranes, long stretched-out line, That once rose, out of Hellas. To an alien land, like a phalanx of cranes – Foam of the gods on the heads of kings – Where do you sail? What would the things Of Troy, be […]...
4. Lion & Honeycomb He didn’t want to do it with skill, He’d had enough of skill. If he never saw Another villanelle, it would be too soon; And the same went for sonnets. If it had been Hard work learning to rime, it would be much Harder learning not to. The time came He had to ask himself, […]...
5. Epilogue Che son contenti nel fuoco We are of those that Dante saw Glad, for love’s sake, among the flames of hell, Outdaring with a kiss all-powerful wrath; For we have passed athwart a fiercer hell, Through gloomier, more desperate circles Than ever Dante dreamed: And yet love kept us glad....
6. Be Angry At The Sun That public men publish falsehoods Is nothing new. That America must accept Like the historical republics corruption and empire Has been known for years. Be angry at the sun for setting If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn, They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors. This republic, […]...
7. Judson Stoddard On a mountain top above the clouds That streamed like a sea below me I said that peak is the thought of Budda, And that one is the prayer of Jesus, And this one is the dream of Plato, And that one there the song of Dante, And this is Kant and this is Newton, […]...
8. Root Cellar Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch, Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark, Shoots dangled and drooped, Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates, Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes. And what a congress of stinks! Roots ripe as old bait, Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich, Leaf-mold, […]...
9. Amos Sibley Not character, not fortitude, not patience Were mine, the which the village thought I had In bearing with my wife, while preaching on, Doing the work God chose for me. I loathed her as a termagant, as a wanton. I knew of her adulteries, every one. But even so, if I divorced the woman I […]...
10. The Iliad Tear forever the garland of Homer, and number the fathers Of the immortal work, that through all time will survive! Yet it has but one mother, and bears that mother’s own feature, ‘Tis thy features it bears, Nature, thy features eterne!...
11. Parlez-Vous Francais? Caesar, the amplifier voice, announces Crime and reparation. In the barber shop Recumbent men attend, while absently The barber doffs the naked face with cream. Caesar proposes, Caesar promises Pride, justice, and the sun Brilliant and strong on everyone, Speeding one hundred miles an hour across the land: Caesar declares the will. The barber firmly […]...
12. Mad As The Mist And Snow Bolt and bar the shutter, For the foul winds blow: Our minds are at their best this night, And I seem to know That everything outside us is Mad as the mist and snow. Horace there by Homer stands, Plato stands below, And here is Tully’s open page. How many years ago Were you and […]...
13. The Saint And The Hunchback Hunchback. Stand up and lift your hand and bless A man that finds great bitterness In thinking of his lost renown. A Roman Caesar is held down Under this hump. Saint. God tries each man According to a different plan. I shall not cease to bless because I lay about me with the taws That […]...
14. A Woman Homer Sung If any man drew near When I was young, I thought, ‘He holds her dear,’ And shook with hate and fear. But O! ’twas bitter wrong If he could pass her by With an indifferent eye. Whereon I wrote and wrought, And now, being grey, I dream that I have brought To such a pitch […]...
15. Lullaby Beloved, may your sleep be sound That have found it where you fed. What were all the world’s alarms To mighty paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen’s arms? Sleep, beloved, such a sleep As did that wild Tristram know When, the potion’s work being done, Roe could […]...
16. March The sun is hotter than the top ledge in a steam bath; The ravine, crazed, is rampaging below. Spring that corn-fed, husky milkmaid Is busy at her chores with never a letup. The snow is wasting (pernicious anemia See those branching veinlets of impotent blue?) Yet in the cowbarn life is burbling, steaming, And the […]...
17. At Feet Of Dogs At my feet the lapdogs of desire, I wont greet their fawning, least not yet, Their foul breath would shrink a haemorroid, Perhaps I’ll feed them oats with garlic Instead. I fed their need for family, I recognised each one and said I loved them. Unconditionally. Was I wrong? I cannot say they loved me […]...
18. November 6 Remember when Khrushchev said “We will bury you!” On the cover Of Time I thought he was Employing a metaphor As in “Braves Scalp Giants!” On the back page Of the Daily News I pictured the Russians Burying us under a mound Of all the rubble That rubles could buy When what he meant was […]...
19. On a Fine Morning Whence comes Solace? Not from seeing What is doing, suffering, being, Not from noting Life’s conditions, Nor from heeding Time’s monitions; But in cleaving to the Dream, And in gazing at the gleam Whereby gray things golden seem. II Thus do I this heyday, holding Shadows but as lights unfolding, As no specious show this […]...
20. Cherry bomb I said goodbye and went to bed to die; I never knew that they had lied – was quite Surprised they didn’t seem to care, I agonised, Refused to cry although in time the tears Were quietly shed. When I awoke and found My sight, listened to the sound of night’s Retreat, got to my […]...
21. 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; […]...
22. To Lady Jane Romance was always young. You come today Just eight years old With marvellous dark hair. Younger than Dante found you When you turned His heart into the way That found the heavenly stair. Perhaps we must be strangers. I confess My soul this hour is Dante’s, And your care Should be for dolls Whose painted […]...
23. Ninth Inning He woke up in New York City on Valentine’s Day, Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm, Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate Said her life wasn’t working he looked stricken she said You’re all bent out of shape, accusingly, and when he She […]...
24. The Gardener XXXIV: Do Not Go, My Love Do not go, my love, without asking My leave. I have watched all night, and now My eyes are heavy with sleep. I fear lest I lose you when I’m Sleeping. Do not go, my love, without asking My leave. I start up and stretch my hands to Touch you. I ask myself, “Is it […]...
25. A Waif My soul is like a poor caged bird to-night, Beating its wings against the prison bars, Longing to reach the outer world of light, And, all untrammelled, soar among the stars. Wild, mighty thoughts struggle within my soul For utterance. Great waves of passion roll Through all my being. As the lightnings play Through thunder […]...
26. Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen I Many ingenious lovely things are gone That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, Protected from the circle of the moon That pitches common things about. There stood Amid the ornamental bronze and stone An ancient image made of olive wood – And gone are phidias’ famous ivories And all the golden grasshoppers and bees. […]...
27. The Promise of Sleep Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind, The dreams from out thy breast; No joy for thee but thou shalt find Thy rest All day I could not work for woe, I could not work nor rest; The trouble drove me to and fro, Like a leaf on the storm’s breast. Night came and […]...
28. The Three Fishers 1 Three fishers went sailing away to the west, 2 Away to the west as the sun went down; 3 Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, 4 And the children stood watching them out of the town; 5 For men must work, and women must weep, 6 And there’s little to […]...
29. Sonnet LXIV: No More, My Dear No more, my dear, no more these counsels try; Oh, give my passions leave to run their race; Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace; Let folk o’ercharg’d with brain against me cry; Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye; Let me no steps but of lost labour trace; Let all the […]...
30. Dream Song 96: Under the table, no. That last was stunning Under the table, no. That last was stunning, That flagon had breasts. Some men grow down cursed. Why drink so, two days running? Two months, O seasons, years, two decades running? I answer (smiles) my question on the cuff: Man, I been thirsty. The brake is incomplete but white costumes Threaten his rum, his cointreau, […]...
31. Leaving and Leaving You When I leave you postcode and your commuting station, When I left undone all the things we planned to do You may feel you have been left by association But there is leaving and leaving you. When I leave your town and the club that you belong to, When I leave without much warning or […]...
32. Machines Dearest, note how these two are alike: This harpsicord pavane by Purcell And the racer’s twelve-speed bike. The machinery of grace is always simple. This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected To another of concentric gears, Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected, Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers. And in the playing, Purcell’s […]...
33. Shakespeare And Cervantes Obit 23rd April 1616 Is it not strange that on this common date, Two titans of their age, aye of all Time, Together should renounce this mortal state, And rise like gods, unsullied and sublime? Should mutually render up the ghost, And hand n hand join Jove’s celestial host? What wondrous welcome from the scribes […]...
34. The Klondike Never mind the day we left, or the day the women clung to us; All we need now is the last way they looked at us. Never mind the twelve men there amid the cheering – Twelve men or one man, ‘t will soon be all the same; For this is what we know: we […]...
35. The Sleepers As I walked down the waterside This silent morning, wet and dark; Before the cocks in farmyards crowed, Before the dogs began to bark; Before the hour of five was struck By old Westminster’s mighty clock: As I walked down the waterside This morning, in the cold damp air, I was a hundred women and […]...
36. Petit, The Poet Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof. Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus, Ballades by the score with the same old thought: The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished; And what […]...
37. On Leaving Mrs. Brown's Lodgings So goodbye, Mrs. Brown, I am going out of town, Over dale, over down, Where bugs bite not, Where lodgers fight not, Where below your chairmen drink not, Where beside your gutters stink not; But all is fresh and clean and gay, And merry lambkins sport and play, And they toss with rakes uncommonly short […]...
38. The White Lights When in from Delos came the gold That held the dream of Pericles, When first Athenian ears were told The tumult of Euripides, When men met Aristophanes, Who fledged them with immortal quills – Here, where the time knew none of these, There were some islands and some hills. When Rome went ravening to see […]...
39. Syrinx Like the foghorn that’s all lung, The wind chime that’s all percussion, Like the wind itself, that’s merely air In a terrible fret, without so much As a finger to articulate What ails it, the aeolian Syrinx, that reed In the throat of a bird, When it comes to the shaping of What we call […]...
40. Whoso List to Hunt Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, helas! I may no more. The vain travail hath worried me so sore, I am of them that furthest come behind. Yet may I by no means, my worried mind Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore Fainting I […]...