Harlan Sewall

Related poetry:

1. Withered Grave Forever yours My dearly beloved one Carved in stone, many years ago. Underneath those loving words, a resting body Far too young, left by it’s soul. A few lonely flowers come back every year, But it’s apparent, no living soul is tending here. From the date, by now, forever must also be gone. But where […]...
2. Samuel Sewall Samuel Sewall, in a world of wigs, Flouted opinion in his personal hair; For foppery he gave not any figs, But in his right and honor took the air. Thus in his naked style, though well attired, He went forth in the city, or paid court To Madam Winthrop, whom he much admired, Most godly, […]...
3. Do you know who is thinking of you? If you start out every day in the same old gloomy way It’s little wonder what other people think of you, but The ones who matter most are the ones who hold you close In their hearts, who’re always thinking of you; Do you know, do you know, Do you know who is thinking of […]...
4. Imagining Defeat She woke me up at dawn, Her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels. I sat up and looked out the window At the snow falling in the stand of blackjack trees. A bus ticket in her hand. Then she brought something black up to her mouth, A plum I thought, but it […]...
5. Agnostic Apology I am a stout materialist; With abstract terms I can’t agree, And so I’ve made a little list Of words that don’t make sense to me. To fool my reason I refuse, For honest thinking is my goal; And that is why I rarely use Vague words like Soul. In terms of matter I am […]...
6. To O. E. A Your voice is the color of a robin’s breast, And there’s a sweet sob in it like rain still rain in the night. Among the leaves of the trumpet-tree, close to his nest, The pea-dove sings, and each note thrills me with strange delight Like the words, wet with music, that well from your trembling […]...
7. Herman Altman Did I follow Truth wherever she led, And stand against the whole world for a cause, And uphold the weak against the strong? If I did I would be remembered among men As I was known in life among the people, And as I was hated and loved on earth, Therefore, build no monument to […]...
8. All That Love Asks All that I ask, ‘says Love, ‘is just to stand And gaze, unchided, deep in thy dear eyes; For in their depths lies largest Paradise. Yet, if perchance one pressure of thy hand Be granted me, then joy I thought complete Were still more sweet. ‘All that I ask, ‘ says Love, ‘all that I […]...
9. The house where I was born (09) And then the day came When I heard the extraordinary lines in Keats, The evocation of Ruth “when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn.” I did not need to search for the meaning Of these words, For it was in me since childhood, I had only to recognize and to […]...
10. Three Quatrains I As long as Fame’s imperious music rings Will poets mock it with crowned words august; And haggard men will clamber to be kings As long as Glory weighs itself in dust. II Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled, Nor shudder for the revels that are done: The wines that flushed Lucullus are all […]...
11. Remorse For Any Death Free of memory and of hope, Limitless, abstract, almost future, The dead man is not a dead man: he is death. Like the God of the mystics, Of Whom anything that could be said must be denied, The dead one, alien everywhere, Is but the ruin and absence of the world. We rob him of […]...
12. The Riddle Shall I love God for causing me to be? I was mere utterance; shall these words love me? Yet when I caused His work to jar and stammer, And one free subject loosened all His grammar, I love Him that He did not in a rage Once and forever rule me off the page, But, […]...
13. But Not Forgotten I think, no matter where you stray, That I shall go with you a way. Though you may wander sweeter lands, You will not soon forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head, Nor all the tremulous things I said. You still will see me, small and white And smiling, in the […]...
14. Going Away Walking to-day on the Common, I heard a stranger say To a friend who was standing near him, ‘Do you know I am going away? ‘ I had never seen their faces, May never see them again; Yet the words the stranger uttered, Stirred me with nameless pain. For I knew some heart would miss […]...
15. False Notions, Fears, And Other Things Of Wood Repeatedly, that sturdy stump in me Bears up like stone, Beneath some ritual I see: The blinding axe Swings up, holds, That moment of its weightlessness Inscrutable Till I confirm the arm is mine; I will it, grip, Feel moist the swelling handle, The shudder rude, The difference fallen. Toward that chopping block I carry […]...
16. When I was a Bird I climbed up the karaka tree Into a nest all made of leaves But soft as feathers. I made up a song that went on singing all by itself And hadn’t any words, but got sad at the end. There were daisies in the grass under the tree. I said just to try them: “I’ll […]...
17. Tennessee Claflin Shope I was the laughing-stock of the village, Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek The same as English. For instead of talking free trade, Or preaching some form of baptism; Instead of believing in the efficacy Of walking cracks picking up […]...
18. Philology Recapitulates Ontology, Poetry Is Ontology Faithful to your commandments, o consciousness, o Holy bird of words soaring ever whether to nothingness or to inconceivable fulfillment slowly: And still I follow you, awkward as that dandy of ontology and as awkward as his albatross and as Another dandy of ontology before him, another shepherd and watchdog of being, the one who […]...
19. An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father Both in their temporary failure. Our two voices met above The Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us. Neither of us wants the boy or […]...
20. Tess's Lament I I would that folk forgot me quite, Forgot me quite! I would that I could shrink from sight, And no more see the sun. Would it were time to say farewell, To claim my nook, to need my knell, Time for them all to stand and tell Of my day’s work as done. II […]...
21. The Circuit Judge Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred Were marking scores against me, But to destroy, and not preserve, my memory. I in life was the Circuit judge, a maker of notches, Deciding cases on the points the lawyers […]...
22. The Bargain As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven lives; Seven lives, In seven sacks, Like seven beeves On seven racks. These seven lives He offered to sell, But which was best He couldn’t tell. He swore with any I’d be happy forever; I bought all seven And thought I was […]...
23. For The Twentieth Century Bound, hungry to pluck again from the thousand Technologies of ecstasy Boundlessness, the world that at a drop of water Rises without boundaries, I push the PLAY button:- …Callas, Laurel & Hardy, Szigeti You are alive again,- The slow movement of K.218 Once again no longer Bland, merely pretty, nearly Banal, as it is In […]...
24. Rice Pudding What is the matter with Mary Jane? She’s crying with all her might and main, And she won’t eat her dinner – rice pudding again – What is the matter with Mary Jane? What is the matter with Mary Jane? I’ve promised her dolls and a daisy-chain, And a book about animals – all in […]...
25. In soothing, sweetened words No, she said, I never knew it was your first. It doesn’t Matter anyway. I always had an inkling that we’d find A way. And then we did. I’m glad about it just for that. Whether it was good or bad, or would have happened Had we made a pact or that it should have […]...
26. Silent Mark another day is here and my hands are still covered With a mantle of stoic ink Words scribbled on a hesitant paper Wishing to be read now not later. I want you to see this point-like light from an abyss Growing tongues tasting the wind Feel like the knife scraping soft butter And see that […]...
27. The Gardener LXI: Peace, My Heart Peace, my heart, let the time for The parting be sweet. Let it not be a death but completeness. Let love melt into memory and pain Into songs. Let the flight through the sky end In the folding of the wings over the Nest. Let the last touch of your hands be Gentle like the […]...
28. Salesmanship, With Half A Dram Of Tears Gripping the lectern, rocking it, searching The faces for the souls, for signs of heartfelt Mindfulness at work, I thought, as I recited Words I wrote in tears: instead of tears, If I had understood my father’s business, I could be selling men’s clothes. I could be Kneeling, complimenting someone at the bay Of mirrors, […]...
29. Walter Simmons My parents thought that I would be As great as Edison or greater: For as a boy I made balloons And wondrous kites and toys with clocks And little engines with tracks to run on And telephones of cans and thread. I played the cornet and painted pictures, Modeled in clay and took the part […]...
30. Jennie M'Grew Not, where the stairway turns in the dark, A hooded figure, shriveled under a flowing cloak! Not yellow eyes in the room at night, Staring out from a surface of cobweb gray! And not the flap of a condor wing, When the roar of life in your ears begins As a sound heard never before! […]...
31. The Tourist From Syracuse One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a Hired assassin. John D. MacDonald You would not recognize me. Mine is the face which blooms in The dank mirrors of washrooms As you grope for the light switch. My eyes have the expression Of the cold eyes […]...
32. A Better Ressurection I have no wit, no words, no tears; My heart within me like a stone Is numbed too much for hopes or fears. Look right, look left, I dwell alone; I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief No everlasting hills I see; My life is in the falling leaf: O Jesus, quicken me. My […]...
33. Psalm 139 part 3 Sincerity professed, and grace tried; or, The heart-searching God. My God, what inward grief I feel When impious men transgress thy will! I mourn to hear their lips profane Take thy tremendous name in vain. Does not my soul detest and hate The sons of malice and deceit? Those that oppose thy laws and thee, […]...
34. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
35. The Story Of The Ashes And The Flame No matter why, nor whence, nor when she came, There was her place. No matter what men said, No matter what she was; living or dead, Faithful or not, he loved her all the same. The story was as old as human shame, But ever since that lonely night she fled, With books to blind […]...
36. The missing the way loss seeps Into neck hollows And curls at temples Sits between front teeth Cavity Empty and waiting For mourning to open The way mourning stays Forever shadowing vision Shaping lives with memory A drawer won’t close Sleep elusive Smile illusive The only real is grief Forever counting the days Minutes missing without knowing […]...
37. Did you ever stand in a Cavern's Mouth Did you ever stand in a Cavern’s Mouth Widths out of the Sun And look and shudder, and block your breath And deem to be alone In such a place, what horror, How Goblin it would be And fly, as ’twere pursuing you? Then Loneliness looks so Did you ever look in a Cannon’s face […]...
38. The Angel Food Dogs Leaping, leaping, leaping, Down line by line, Growling at the cadavers, Filling the holy jugs with their piss, Falling into windows and mauling the parents, But soft, kiss-soft, And sobbing sobbing Into their awful dog dish. No point? No twist for you In my white tunnel? Let me speak plainly, Let me whisper it from […]...
39. The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top Blood blood and torn grass Had marked the rise of his agony This lone hunter. The grey-green woods impassive Had watched the threshing of his limbs. A canoe with flashing paddle, A girl with soft searching eyes, A call: “John!” . . . . . Come, arise, […]...
40. Contentment (Phillipians, iv.11) Fierce passions discompose the mind, As tempests vex the sea, But calm, content and peace we find, When, Lord, we turn to Thee. In vain by reason and by rule We try to bend the will; For none but in the Saviour’s school Can learn the heavenly skill. Since at His feet my […]...