Wraith

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. The Dark House Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief In the chilly, star-bright air: Though the house was shuttered for slumber, He had left one wakeful there. Nothing moved in the garden. Never a bird would […]...
3. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
4. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
5. I Years had been from Home I Years had been from Home And now before the Door I dared not enter, lest a Face I never saw before Stare solid into mine And ask my Business there “My Business but a Life I left Was such remaining there?” I leaned upon the Awe I lingered with Before The Second like an […]...
6. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
7. Talking to Grief Ah, Grief, I should not treat you Like a homeless dog Who comes to the back door For a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you Into the house and give you Your own corner, A worn mat to lie on, Your own water dish. You think I don’t […]...
8. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
9. Medusa I had come to the house, in a cave of trees, Facing a sheer sky. Everything moved, a bell hung ready to strike, Sun and reflection wheeled by. When the bare eyes were before me And the hissing hair, Held up at a window, seen through a door. The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on […]...
10. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
11. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
12. Pensive and Faltering PENSIVE and faltering, The words, the dead, I write; For living are the Dead; (Haply the only living, only real, And I the apparition-I the spectre.) 5...
13. Wild Swans I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over. And what did I see I had not seen before? Only a question less or a question more: Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying. Tiresome heart, forever living and dying, House without air, I leave you and lock your door. Wild […]...
14. The House with Nobody in It Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black. I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for A minute And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in It. I never have seen […]...
15. Mr Bleaney ‘This was Mr Bleaney’s room. He stayed The whole time he was at the Bodies, till They moved him.’ Flowered curtains, thin and frayed, Fall to within five inches of the sill, Whose window shows a strip of building land, Tussocky, littered. ‘Mr Bleaney took My bit of garden properly in hand.’ Bed, upright chair, […]...
16. Ears In The Turrets Hear Ears in the turrets hear Hands grumble on the door, Eyes in the gables see The fingers at the locks. Shall I unbolt or stay Alone till the day I die Unseen by stranger-eyes In this white house? Hands, hold you poison or grapes? Beyond this island bound By a thin sea of flesh And […]...
17. Rain Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me Remembering again that I shall die And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks For washing me cleaner than I have been Since I was born into this solitude. Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: […]...
18. Today If ever there were a spring day so perfect, So uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze That it made you want to throw Open all the windows in the house And unlatch the door to the canary’s cage, Indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, A day when the cool brick paths And the […]...
19. Yes, the Dead Speak to Us YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the […]...
20. Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
21. The Listeners “Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grass Of the forest’s ferny floor; And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller’s head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; “Is there anybody there?” he said. […]...
22. Wisteria The first purple wisteria I recall from boyhood hung On a wire outside the windows Of the breakfast room next door At the home of Steve Pisaris. I loved his tall, skinny daughter, Or so I thought, and I would wait Beside the back door, prostrate, Begging to be taken in. Perhaps It was only […]...
23. Oh, Gray And Tender Is The Rain Oh, gray and tender is the rain, That drips, drips on the pane! A hundred things come in the door, The scent of herbs, the thought of yore. I see the pool out in the grass, A bit of broken glass; The red flags running wet and straight, Down to the little flapping gate. Lombardy […]...
24. On A Wedding Anniversary The sky is torn across This ragged anniversary of two Who moved for three years in tune Down the long walks of their vows. Now their love lies a loss And Love and his patients roar on a chain; From every tune or crater Carrying cloud, Death strikes their house. Too late in the wrong […]...
25. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
26. The Houses ‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard; By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate, On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate. For my house and thy house no help shall we find Save […]...
27. The House This poem has a door, a locked door, And curtains drawn against the day, But at night the lights come on, one In each room, and the neighbors swear They hear music and the sound of dancing. These days the neighbors will swear To anything, but that is not why The house is locked up […]...
28. Love In The Asylum A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head, A girl mad as birds Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume. Strait in the mazed bed She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room, At large […]...
29. For you secular needs Somebody please explain, can you help Me understand; I’ve watched the weather Radar creep its colours on the screen And watched out of the window for the band Of welcome rain. One tells me its raining, The other looks unchanged. Are these events connected, are they Truly one and same? What should I watch For […]...
30. Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down… – from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air Of late afternoon Is now the colour of tea. […]...
31. The Fair Maid of Perth's House All ye good people, afar and near, To my request pray lend an ear; I advise you all without delay to go And see the Fair Maid’s House – it is a rare show. Some of the chairs there are very grand, They have been cut and carved by a skilful hand; And kings, perchance, […]...
32. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. The Sleeper As Ann came in one summer’s day, She felt that she must creep, So silent was the clear cool house, It seemed a house of sleep. And sure, when she pushed open the door, Rapt in the stillness there, Her mother sat, with stooping head, Asleep upon a chair; Fast fast asleep; her two hands […]...
35. The New Love If it shine or if it rain, Little will I care or know. Days, like drops upon a pane, Slip, and join, and go. At my door’s another lad; Here’s his flower in my hair. If he see me pale and sad, Will he see me fair? I sit looking at the floor. Little will […]...
36. Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]...
37. Neighbors ON Forty First Street Near Eighth Avenue A frame house wobbles. If houses went on crutches This house would be One of the cripples. A sign on the house: Church of the Living God And Rescue Home for Orphan Children. From a Greek coffee house Across the street A cabalistic jargon Jabbers back. And men […]...
38. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
39. The Deserted House Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide. Careless tenants they! All within is dark as night: In the windows is no light; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. Close the door; the shutters close; Or through the windows we shall see The […]...
40. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...