There was an old man of Thermopylж

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1. Choose your obsessions Choose your obsessions For they are unworthy possessions Trojan horses They bind you Without you realizing They hinder your natural design And make you completely blind Choose your obsessions For they are unworthy possessions; They are the weeds, You; yourself choose to grow. Some seeds are rotten.. Still you keep them, them, you don’t throw. […]...
2. My Favoured Fare Some poets sing of scenery; Some to fair maids make sonnets sweet. A fig for love and greenery, Be mine a song of things to eat. Let brother bards divinely dream, I’m just plain human, as you see; And choose to carol such a theme As ham and eggs and tea. Just two fried eggs […]...
3. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
4. 5.7 I don’t care if you are you and I am I. I am not some exotic flower. Whatever coat you have on, I will put it on to warm me… and the shoes however small… I will walk in them to balance our height difference. You don’t need to convert for me; I have already […]...
5. Parable I read how Quixote in his random ride Came to a crossing once, and lest he lose The purity of chance, would not decide Whither to fare, but wished his horse to choose. For glory lay wherever turned the fable. His head was light with pride, his horse’s shoes Were heavy, and he headed for […]...
6. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
7. Chorus Give away her gowns, Give away her shoes; She has no more use For her fragrant gowns; Take them all down, Blue, green, blue, Lilac, pink, blue, From their padded hangers; She will dance no more In her narrow shoes; Sweep her narrow shoes From the closet floor....
8. Song of Karen, the Dancing Child (O little white feet of mine) Out in the storm and the rain you fly; (Red, red shoes the colour of wine) Can the children hear my cry? (O little white feet of mine) Never a child in the whole great town; (Red, red shoes the colour of wine) Lights out and the blinds pulled […]...
9. Crazy Jane On God That lover of a night Came when he would, Went in the dawning light Whether I would or no; Men come, men go; All things remain in God. Banners choke the sky; Men-at-arms tread; Armoured horses neigh In the narrow pass: All things remain in God. Before their eyes a house That from childhood stood […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
12. Shoes when you’re young A pair of Female High-heeled shoes Just sitting Alone In the closet Can fire your Bones; When you’re old It’s just A pair of shoes Without Anybody In them And Just as Well....
13. An Epicure Should you preserve white mice in honey Don’t use imported ones from China, For though they cost you less in money You’ll find the Japanese ones finer. But if Chinese, stuff them with spice, Which certainly improves their savour, And though the Canton mice are nice, The Pekinese have finer flavour. If you should pickle […]...
14. The Gardener XXI: Why Did He Choose Why did he choose to come to my Door, the wandering youth, when the Day dawned? As I come in and out I pass by him Every time, and my eyes are caught by His face. I know not if I should speak to him Or keep silent. Why did he choose to Come to […]...
15. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
16. The Tortoise In Keystone Heights When I knew, it was raining. Winter in decline. I was tired. You in your soaked shirt diffused Into the western sky bulging with clouds, Speeding cars a few feet away- Why would they not slow down? Though afternoon, a slip of moon Busied itself with rising, And it had to mean something. If only […]...
17. Bessie's Boil Says I to my Missis: “Ba goom, lass! you’ve something I see, on your mind.” Says she: “You are right, Sam, I’ve something. It ‘appens it’s on me be’ind. A Boil as ‘ud make Job jealous. It ‘urts me no end when I sit.” Says I: “Go to ‘ospittel, Missis. They might ‘ave to coot […]...
18. You Remain As a perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me; all things leave me – You remain. Other thoughts may come and go, Other moments I may know That shall waft me, in their going, As a breath […]...
19. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
20. 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 […]...
21. A Tree Song (A. D. 1200) Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs, (All of a Midsummer morn!) Surely we sing no little thing, In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! Oak of the […]...
22. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
23. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
24. Balbus I’ll tell you the story of Balbus, You know, him as builded a wall; I’ll tell you the reason he built it, And the place where it happened an’ all. This ‘ere Balbus, though only a Tackler, Were the most enterprising of men; He’d heard Chicken Farms were lucrative, So he went out and purchased […]...
25. Nest Eggs Birds all the summer day Flutter and quarrel Here in the arbour-like Tent of the laurel. Here in the fork The brown nest is seated; For little blue eggs The mother keeps heated. While we stand watching her Staring like gabies, Safe in each egg are the Bird’s little babies. Soon the frail eggs they […]...
26. Sonnet 43 – How do I love thee? Let me count the ways How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee […]...
27. For My Daughter When I die choose a star And name it after me That you may know I have not abandoned Or forgotten you. You were such a star to me, Following you through birth And childhood, my hand In your hand. When I die Choose a star and name it After me so that I may […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. The first Day that I was a Life The first Day that I was a Life I recollect it How still That last Day that I was a Life I recollect it as well ‘Twas stiller though the first Was still “Twas empty but the first Was full This was my finallest Occasion But then My tenderer Experiment Toward Men “Which choose I”? […]...
30. The Explosion On the day of the explosion Shadows pointed towards the pithead. In the sun the slagheap slept. Down the lane came men in pitboots Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke, Shouldering off the freshened silence. One chased after rabbits; lost them; Came back with a nest of lark’s eggs; Showed them; lodged them in the grasses. […]...
31. 548. The Dean of Faculty: A new Ballad DIRE was the hate at old Harlaw, That Scot to Scot did carry; And dire the discord Langside saw For beauteous, hapless Mary: But Scot to Scot ne’er met so hot, Or were more in fury seen, Sir, Than ‘twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job, Who should be the Faculty’s Dean, Sir. This […]...
32. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
33. Restless It is that perennial immateriality dwelling between living and dying Crouched in the corners and grappling by the hinges Only to remain unseen; We weave our web of what we believe we understand Of the relationship of our acts and events Only to remain misunderstood; From that odd wisp of steam of heated discussions To […]...
34. Self-Love He that cannot choose but love, And strives against it still, Never shall my fancy move, For he loves ‘gainst his will; Nor he which is all his own, And can at pleasure choose, When I am caught he can be gone, And when he list refuse. Nor he that loves none but fair, For […]...
35. The Hangman at Home WHAT does the hangman think about When he goes home at night from work? When he sits down with his wife and Children for a cup of coffee and a Plate of ham and eggs, do they ask Him if it was a good day’s work And everything went well or do they Stay off […]...
36. The Whale The Whale that wanders round the Pole Is not a table fish. You cannot bake or boil him whole Nor serve him in a dish; But you may cut his blubber up And melt it down for oil. And so replace the colza bean (A product of the soil). These facts should all be noted […]...
37. 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...
38. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
39. Canute the Great I’ll tell of Canute, King of England, A native of Denmark was he, His hobbies was roving and raiding And paddling his feet in the sea. By trade he were what’s called a Viking, Every summer he’d visit our shore, Help himself to whatever he wanted, And come back in the autumn for more. These […]...
40. Dedication To W. R. B. And so, to you, who always were Perseus, D’Artagnan, Lancelot To me, I give these weedy rhymes In memory of earlier times. Now all those careless days are not. Of all my heroes, you endure. Words are such silly things! too rough, Too smooth, they boil up or congeal, And neither […]...