Zenas Witt

Related poetry:

1. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
2. Killers I AM singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move: Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for shining teeth, Sharp eyes, hard legs, And a running of young warm blood in their wrists. And a red juice runs […]...
3. The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter After Li Po While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played at the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. […]...
4. When i was a boy Up in the attic where I slept When I was a boy, a little boy, In through the lattice the moonlight crept, Bringing a tide of dreams that swept Over the low, red trundle-bed, Bathing the tangled curly head, While moonbeams played at hide-and-seek With the dimples on the sun-browned cheek – When I was […]...
5. Sleep she was a short one Getting fat and she had once been Beautiful and She drank the wine She drank the wine in bed and Talked and screamed and cursed at Me And i told her Please, I need some Sleep. -sleep? sleep? ya son of a Bitch, ya never sleep, ya Don’t need any […]...
6. In a Disused Graveyard The living come with grassy tread To read the gravestones on the hill; The graveyard draws the living still, But never anymore the dead. The verses in it say and say: “The ones who living come today To read the stones and go away Tomorrow dead will come to stay.” So sure of death the […]...
7. Poem In the early evening, a now, as man is bending Over his writing table. Slowly he lifts his head; a woman Appears, carrying roses. Her face floats to the surface of the mirror, Marked with the green spokes of rose stems. It is a form Of suffering: then always the transparent page Raised to the […]...
8. Andy the Night-Watch In my Spanish cloak, And old slouch hat, And overshoes of felt, And Tyke, my faithful dog, And my knotted hickory cane, I slipped about with a bull’s-eye lantern From door to door on the square, As the midnight stars wheeled round, And the bell in the steeple murmured From the blowing of the wind; […]...
9. The Wrong Way Home All night a door floated down the river. It tried to remember little incidents of pleasure From its former life, like the time the lovers Leaned against it kissing for hours And whispering those famous words. Later, there were harsh words and a shoe Was thrown and the door was slammed. Comings and goings by […]...
10. To the Tune Breeze soft, sun frail, spring still early. In a new lined dress my heart was refreshed, But when I rose from sleep I felt a chill. I put plum blossoms in my hair. Now they are withered. Where is my homeland? I forgot it only when drunk. The sandal wood incense burned out while I […]...
11. Answers Why did you travel? Because the house was cold. Why did you travel? Because it is what I have always done between sunset and sunrise. What did you wear? I wore a blue suit, a white shirt, yellow tie, and yellow socks. What did you wear? I wore nothing. A scarf of pain kept me […]...
12. The Mare's Nest Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse Was good beyond all earthly need; But, on the other hand, her spouse Was very, very bad indeed. He smoked cigars, called churches slow, And raced but this she did not know. For Belial Machiavelli kept The little fact a secret, and, Though o’er his minor sins she wept, […]...
13. The Last Judgment With beating heart and lagging feet, Lord, I approach the Judgment-seat. All bring hither the fruits of toil, Measures of wheat and measures of oil; Gold and jewels and precious wine; No hands bare like these hands of mine. The treasure I have nor weighs nor gleams: Lord, I can bring you only dreams. In […]...
14. Occupational Hazard He has slept with accountants and brokers, With a cowgirl (well, someone from Healds). He has slept with non-smokers and smokers In commercial and cultural fields. He has slept with book-keepers, book-binders, Slept with auditors, florists, PAs Child psychologists, even child minders, With directors of firms and of plays. He has slept with the stupid […]...
15. I Held A Shelley Manuscript My hands did numb to beauty As they reached into Death and tightened! O sovereign was my touch Upon the tan-inks’s fragile page! Quickly, my eyes moved quickly, Sought for smell for dust for lace For dry hair! I would have taken the page Breathing in the crime! For no evidence have I wrung from […]...
16. The Gold Key The speaker in this case Is a middle-aged witch, me- Tangled on my two great arms, My face in a book And my mouth wide, Ready to tell you a story or two. I have come to remind you, All of you: Alice, Samuel, Kurt, Eleanor, Jane, Brian, Maryel, All of you draw near. Alice, […]...
17. A Cradle Song Sweet dreams form a shade, O’er my lovely infants head. Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, By happy silent moony beams Sweet sleep with soft down. Weave thy brows an infant crown. Sweet sleep Angel mild, Hover o’er my happy child. Sweet smiles in the night, Hover over my delight. Sweet smiles Mothers smiles, All the […]...
18. Three Pieces on the Smoke of Autumn SMOKE of autumn is on it all. The streamers loosen and travel. The red west is stopped with a gray haze. They fill the ash trees, they wrap the oaks, They make a long-tailed rider In the pocket of the first, the earliest evening star.. . . Three muskrats swim west on the Desplaines River. […]...
19. Minnie and Winnie Minnie and Winnie Slept in a shell. Sleep, little ladies! And they slept well. Pink was the shell within, Silver without; Sounds of the great sea Wander’d about. Sleep, little ladies! Wake not soon! Echo on echo Dies to the moon. Two bright stars Peep’d into the shell. “What are you dreaming of? Who can […]...
20. THE PAGE AND THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER PAGE. WHERE goest thou? Where? Miller’s daughter so fair! Thy name, pray? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. ‘Tis Lizzy. PAGE. Where goest thou? Where? With the rake in thy hand? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. Father’s meadows and land To visit, I’m busy. PAGE. Dost go there alone? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. By this rake, sir, ’tis shown That we’re making the hay; […]...
21. The School of Night What did I study in your School of Night? When your mouth’s first unfathomable yes Opened your body to be my book, I read My answers there and learned the spell aright, Yet, though I searched and searched, could never guess What spirits it raised nor where their questions led. Those others, familiar tenants of […]...
22. Dippold the Optician What do you see now? Globes of red, yellow, purple. Just a moment! And now? My father and mother and sisters. Yes! And now? Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces. Try this. A field of grain-a city. Very good! And now? A young woman with angels bending over her. A heavier lens! And now? […]...
23. Come Out with Me There’s sun on the river and sun on the hill. . . You can hear the sea if you stand quite still! There’s eight new puppies at Roundabout Farm- And I saw an old sailor with only one arm! But everyone says, “Run along!” (Run along, run along!) All of them say, “Run along! I’m […]...
24. Dusty Doors CHILD of the Aztec gods, How long must we listen here, How long before we go? The dust is deep on the lintels. The dust is dark on the doors. If the dreams shake our bones, what can we say or do? Since early morning we waited. Since early, early morning, child. There must be […]...
25. To Edward Fitzgerald I chanced upon a new book yesterday; I opened it, and, where my finger lay ‘Twixt page and uncut page, these words I read – Some six or seven at most – and learned thereby That you, Fitzgerald, whom by ear and eye She never knew, “thanked God my wife was dead.” Aye, dead! and […]...
26. Yee Bow They got me into the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, […]...
27. Isaiah Beethoven They told me I had three months to live, So I crept to Bernadotte, And sat by the mill for hours and hours Where the gathered waters deeply moving Seemed not to move: O world, that’s you! You are but a widened place in the river Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her […]...
28. Tom O'Roughley ‘Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,’ Or so did Tom O’Roughley say That saw the surges running by. ‘And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey. ‘If little planned is little sinned […]...
29. Lethargy of leaden wings I hadn’t had the ‘flu in ages, avoided all those awful places Fraught of gritty eyes and splitting heads, patrons ringed In lethargy of leaden wings, deafened by the roaring chills And still-life flushes, weakened in their clumsy trusses, Trodden on through breached defences, sore diseased And barely breathing; now I can’t decline a cough […]...
30. AN EVENING OF POETRY Arriving for a reading an hour too early: Ruefully, the general manager stopped putting out the chairs. “You don’t get any help these days. I have To sort out everything from furniture to faxes. Why not wander round the park? There are ducks And benches where you can sit and watch.” I realized it was […]...
31. Flossie Cabanis From Bindle’s opera house in the village To Broadway is a great step. But I tried to take it, my ambition fired When sixteen years of age, Seeing “East Lynne” played here in the village By Ralph Barrett, the coming Romantic actor, who enthralled my soul. True, I trailed back home, a broken failure, When […]...
32. Last Night I Drove A Car Last night I drove a car not knowing how to drive not owning a car I drove and knocked down people I loved …went 120 through one town. I stopped at Hedgeville and slept in the back seat …excited about my new life....
33. The Boy Who Laughed At Santa Claus In Baltimore there lived a boy. He wasn’t anybody’s joy. Although his name was Jabez Dawes, His character was full of flaws. In school he never led his classes, He hid old ladies’ reading glasses, His mouth was open when he chewed, And elbows to the table glued. He stole the milk of hungry kittens, […]...
34. Where Go the Boats? Dark brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating – Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. Lover's Gifts XLII: Are You a Mere Picture Are you a mere picture, and not as true as those stars, true as This dust? They throb with the pulse of things, but you are Immensely aloof in your stillness, painted form. The day was when you walked with me, your breath warm, your Limbs singing of life. My world found its speech in […]...
37. Has My Heart Gone To Sleep? Has my heart gone to sleep? Have the beehives of my dreams Stopped working, the waterwheel Of the mind run dry, Scoops turning empty, Only shadow inside? No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreaming- Its eyes are opened wide Watching distant signals, listening On the rim of […]...
38. To an Ungentle Critic The great sun sinks behind the town Through a red mist of Volnay wine…. But what’s the use of setting down That glorious blaze behind the town? You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look For newer pictures in this book; You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine. A fresh wind fills the evening air With […]...
39. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
40. Night Words after Juan Ramon A child wakens in a cold apartment. The windows are frosted. Outside he hears Words rising from the streets, words he cannot Understand, and then the semis gear down For the traffic light on Houston. He sleeps Again and dreams of another city On a high hill above a wide river Bathed […]...