Harold Arnett

Related poetry:

1. Justice Arnett It is true, fellow citizens, That my old docket lying there for years On a shelf above my head and over The seat of justice, I say it is true That docket had an iron rim Which gashed my baldness when it fell (Somehow I think it was shaken loose By the heave of the […]...
2. Flying Inside Your Own Body Your lungs fill & spread themselves, Wings of pink blood, and your bones Empty themselves and become hollow. When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon And your heart is light too & huge, Beating with pure joy, pure helium. The sun’s white winds blow through you, There’s nothing above you, You see the […]...
3. Looking, Walking, Being “The World is not something to Look at, it is something to be in.” Mark Rudman I look and look. Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, Sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever looking takes one. The eyes Dig and burrow into the world. They touch Fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor. World and the […]...
4. Dulce Et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to […]...
5. January 1 Some people confuse inspiration with lightning Not me I know it comes from the lungs and air You breathe it in you breathe it out it circulates It’s the breath of my being the wind across the face Of the waters yes but it’s also something that comes At my command like a turkey club […]...
6. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again at Christmas did we weave Again at Christmas did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth; The silent snow possess’d the earth, And calmly fell our Christmas-eve: The yule-log sparkled keen with frost, No wing of wind the region swept, But over all things brooding slept The quiet sense of something lost. As in the winters left behind, Again […]...
7. Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget,” Dove-white on her car’s window, and the wren, Because her heart is tender, might regret It called the sun to wake her. As I slept, She heard lost names recounted, one by one. She wrote in sidewalk chalk: “Never Forget,” And kept her heart’s own counsel. No […]...
8. Stupidity Dearest, forgive that with my clumsy touch I broke and bruised your rose. I hardly could suppose It were a thing so fragile that my clutch Could kill it, thus. It stood so proudly up upon its stem, I knew no thought of fear, And coming very near Fell, overbalanced, to your garment’s hem, Tearing […]...
9. 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! […]...
10. A Commonplace Day The day is turning ghost, And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively, To join the anonymous host Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe, To one of like degree. I part the fire-gnawed logs, Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends Upon the shining dogs; Further […]...
11. Thought Of Ph – a At News Of Her Death NOT a line of her writing have I, Not a thread of her hair, No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture her there; And in vain do I urge my unsight To conceive my lost prize At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming […]...
12. In Memoriam A. H. H.: Is it, then, regret for buried time Is it, then, regret for buried time That keenlier in sweet April wakes, And meets the year, and gives and takes The colours of the crescent prime? Not all: the songs, the stirring air, The life re-orient out of dust, Cry thro’ the sense to hearten trust In that which made the world so fair. […]...
13. Archibald Higbie I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, I was ashamed of you. I despised you As the place of my nativity. And there in Rome, among the artists, Speaking Italian, speaking French, I seemed to myself at times to be free Of every trace of my origin. I seemed to be […]...
14. When WHEN mine hour is come Let no teardrop fall And no darkness hover Round me where I lie. Let the vastness call One who was its lover, Let me breathe the sky. Where the lordly light Walks along the world, And its silent tread Leaves the grasses bright, Leaves the flowers uncurled, Let me to […]...
15. The Geranium When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail, She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle, Or a wizened aster in late September, I brought her back in again For a new routine Vitamins, water, and whatever Sustenance seemed sensible At the time: she’d lived So long […]...
16. A Channel Passage The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew I must think hard of something, or be sick; And could think hard of only one thing YOU! You, you alone could hold my fancy ever! And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole. Now […]...
17. We'll go no more a-roving SO, we’ll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made […]...
18. Paudeen Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite Of our old paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind Among the stones and thorn-trees, under morning light; Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind A curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thought That on the lonely height where all are in God’s eye, There […]...
19. Thoughts Of Phena at news of her death Not a line of her writing have I Not a thread of her hair, No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture her there; And in vain do I urge my unsight To conceive my lost prize At her close, whom I knew […]...
20. The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page, Wanted to lean, […]...
21. So We'll Go No More a-Roving So we’ll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart still be as loving, And the moon still be as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul outwears the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made for […]...
22. Later life Something this foggy day, a something which Is neither of this fog nor of today, Has set me dreaming of the winds that play Past certain cliffs, along one certain beach, And turn the topmost edge of waves to spray: Ah pleasant pebbly strand so far away, So out of reach while quite within my […]...
23. Mammy Hums THIS is the song I rested with: The right shoulder of a strong man I leaned on. The face of the rain that drizzled on the short neck of a canal boat. The eyes of a child who slept while death went over and under. The petals of peony pink that fluttered in a shot […]...
24. Song To Celia – II Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I’ll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove’s nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent […]...
25. How to Leave the World that Worships should Let faxes butter-curl on dusty shelves. Let junkmail build its castles in the hush Of other people’s halls. Let deadlines burst And flash like glorious fireworks somewhere else. As hours go softly by, let others curse The roads where distant drivers queue like sheep. Let e-mails fly like panicked, tiny birds. Let phones, unanswered, ring […]...
26. Apologetic Postscript Of A Year Later IF you see this song, my dear, And last year’s toast, I’m confoundedly in fear You’ll be serious and severe About the boast. Blame not that I sought such aid To cure regret. I was then so lowly laid I used all the Gasconnade That I could get. Being snubbed is somewhat smart, Believe, my […]...
27. The Stand-Ins In the dream The swastika is neon And flashes like a strobe light Into my eyes, all colors, All vibrations And I see the killer in him And he turns on an oven, An oven, an oven, an oven, And on a pie plate he sticks In my Yellow Star And then Then when it […]...
28. My Garden The world is sadly sick, they say, And plagued by woe and pain. But look! How looms my garden gay, With blooms in golden reign! With lyric music in the air, Of joy fulfilled in song, I can’t believe that anywhere Is hate and harm and wrong. A paradise my garden is, And there my […]...
29. The Death Bed We watch’d her breathing thro’ the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro. But when the morn came dim and sad And chill with early showers, Her queit eyelids closed – she had Another morn than ours....
30. Vomit The house grows sick in its dining room and begins to vomit. Father cries, the dining room is vomiting. No wonder, the way you eat, it’s enough to make anybody sick, Says his wife. What shall we do? What shall we do? he cries. Call the Vomit Doctor of course. Yes, but all he does […]...
31. Flying Fish I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself… and so I know you. I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel. I leaned so… and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now… and then under the […]...
32. Jonathan Swift Somers After you have enriched your soul To the highest point, With books, thought, suffering, the understanding of many personalities, The power to interpret glances, silences, The pauses in momentous transformations, The genius of divination and prophecy; So that you feel able at times to hold the world In the hollow of your hand; Then, if, […]...
33. Circe's Torment I regret bitterly The years of loving you in both Your presence and absence, regret The law, the vocation That forbid me to keep you, the sea A sheet of glass, the sun-bleached Beauty of the Greek ships: how Could I have power if I had no wish To transform you: as You loved my […]...
34. Bee-attitudes in the shadow Of the flower Is the sting The bee driven by need Uses its painful gift To keep its sense of beauty In proportion It does its job with A thoughtless dedication Its honeyed world Excites no inner space Bees are not poets Who wade through words With too much brain Around their […]...
35. Tarrant Moss I closed and drew for my love’s sake That now is false to me, And I slew the Reiver of Tarrant Moss And set Dumeny free. They have gone down, they have gone down, They are standing all arow Twenty knights in the peat-water, That never struck a blow! Their armour shall not dull nor […]...
36. Lying In Grass Is this everything now, the quick delusions of flowers, And the down colors of the bright summer meadow, The soft blue spread of heaven, the bees’ song, Is this everything only a god’s Groaning dream, The cry of unconscious powers for deliverance? The distant line of the mountain, That beautifully and courageously rests in the […]...
37. Love, We Must Part Now Love, we must part now: do not let it be Calamitious and bitter. In the past There has been too much moonlight and self-pity: Let us have done with it: for now at last Never has sun more boldly paced the sky, Never were hearts more eager to be free, To kick down worlds, lash […]...
38. The New Mistress “Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be? You may be good for something, but you are not good for me. Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here. And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear. “I will go where I […]...
39. The Immortal Part When I meet the morning beam, Or lay me down at night to dream, I hear my bones within me say, “Another night, another day. “When shall this slough of sense be cast, This dust of thoughts be laid at last, The man of flesh and soul be slain And the man of bone remain? […]...
40. We say we say blame the teachers Don’t we send our young to school To be taught the simple rules For decent public-spirited behaviour Do we pay such crushing rates To have our children turned to louts We’re sick of all this fuss We say blame the teachers Or the preachers They’re all the same to us […]...