Home ⇒ 📌Edward Taylor ⇒ Non-Stop
Non-Stop
It seemed as if the enormous journey
Was finally approaching its conclusion.
From the window of the train
The last trees were dissipating,
A child-like sailor waved once,
A seal-like dog barked and died.
The conductor entered the lavatory
And was not seen again, although
His harmonica-playing was appreciated.
He was not without talent, some said.
A botanist with whom I had become acquainted
Actually suggested we form a group or something.
I was looking for a familiar signpost
In his face, or a landmark that would
Indicate the true colors of his tribe.
But, alas, there was not a glass of water
Anywhere or even the remains of a trail.
I got a bewildered expression of my own
And slinked to the back of the car
Where a nun started to tickle me.
She confided to me that it was her
Cowboy pride that got her through. . .
Through what? I thought, but drew
Close to my imaginary vest.
“That’s a beautiful vest,” she said,
As I began crawling down the aisle.
At last, I pressed my face against
The window: A little fog was licking
Its chop, as was the stationmaster
Licking something. We didn’t stop.
We didn’t appear to be arriving,
And yet we were almost out of landscape.
No creeks or rivers. Nothing
Even remotely reminding one of a mound.
O mound! Thou ain’t around no more.
A heap of abstract geometrical symbols,
That’s what it’s coming to, I thought.
A nothing you could sink your teeth into.
“Relief’s on the way,” a little
Know-nothing boy said to me.
“Imagine my surprise,” I said
And reached out to muss his hair.
But he had no hair and it felt unlucky
Touching his skull like that.
“Forget what I said,” he said.
“What did you say?” I asked
In automatic compliance.
And then it got very dark and quiet.
I closed my eyes and dreamed of an emu I once loved.
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)Related poetry:
- Epitaph Heap not on this mound Roses that she loved so well: Why bewilder her with roses, That she cannot see or smell? She is happy where she lies With the dust upon her eyes....
- You Ask Why Sometimes I Say Stop You ask why sometimes I say stop Why sometimes I cry no While I shake with pleasure. What do I fear, you ask, Why don’t I always want to come And come again to that molten Deep sea center where the nerves Fuse open and the brain And body shine with a black wordless light […]...
- Bus Stop Lights are burning In quiet rooms Where lives go on Resembling ours. The quiet lives That follow us – These lives we lead But do not own – Stand in the rain So quietly When we are gone, So quietly. . . And the last bus Comes letting dark Umbrellas out – Black flowers, black […]...
- Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death He kindly stopped for me The Carriage held but just Ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the School, where Children strove At recess in the ring We passed […]...
- If I can stop one Heart from breaking If I can stop one Heart from breaking I shall not live in vain If I can ease one Life the Aching Or cool one Pain Or help one fainting Robin Unto his Nest again I shall not live in Vain....
- Rondeau at the Train Stop It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay Drifting toward me on the T stop, the train Circling the city like a dingy, year-round Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin Is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound In the population. it bothers me Because it’s summer now and sticky – no rain To cool things […]...
- Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
- Thought Thought, I love thought. But not the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas I despise that self-important game. Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness, Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of consciousness, Thought is gazing onto the face of life, and reading what can be read, Thought […]...
- To The Whore Who Took My Poems some say we should keep personal remorse from the Poem, Stay abstract, and there is some reason in this, But jezus; Twelve poems gone and I don’t keep carbons and you have My Paintings too, my best ones; its stifling: Are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them? Why didn’t you […]...
- Two Kinds of Deliverance 1 Last night the geese came back, Slanting fast From the blossom of the rising moon down To the black pond. A muskrat Swimming in the twilight saw them and hurried To the secret lodges to tell everyone Spring had come. And so it had. By morning when I went out The last of the […]...
- The Boy It is the boy in me who’s looking out The window, while someone across the street Mends a pillowcase, clouds shift, the gutter spout Pours rain, someone else lights a cigarette? (Because he flinched, because he didn’t whirl Around, face them, because he didn’t hurl The challenge back-“Fascists?”-not “Faggots”-Swine! He briefly wonders-if he were a […]...
- In Trouble 1 It’s all for nothing: I’ve lost im now. 2 I suppose it ad to be: 3 But oh I never thought it of im, 4 Nor e never thought it of me. 5 And all for a kiss on your evening out 6 An a field where the grass was down… 7 And e […]...
- Tower Of Song Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey I ache in the places where I used to play And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on I’m just paying my rent every day Oh in the Tower of Song I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get? Hank Williams […]...
- Before Summer Rain Suddenly, from all the green around you, Something-you don’t know what-has disappeared; You feel it creeping closer to the window, In total silence. From the nearby wood You hear the urgent whistling of a plover, Reminding you of someone’s Saint Jerome: So much solitude and passion come From that one voice, whose fierce request the […]...
- Why Did I Dream Of You Last Night? Why did I dream of you last night? Now morning is pushing back hair with grey light Memories strike home, like slaps in the face; Raised on elbow, I stare at the pale fog beyond the window. So many things I had thought forgotten Return to my mind with stranger pain: – Like letters that […]...
- At The Window Every morning, as I walk down From my dreary lodgings, toward the town, I see at a window, near the street, The face of a woman, fair and sweet, With soft brown eyes and chestnut hair, And red lips, warm with the kisses left there. And she stands there as long as she can see […]...
- OPEN LETTER TO ANDY C Sorry, Writer in Residence on the Great North Run The last thing I’d ever do is listen to your spin “You risk losing potential allies in your war against the philistines, Astley, Armitage, Duffy, Sansom, unashamedly provincial, Defiantly Un-Oxbridge, not the enemy!” Sorry, Andy, arse-licking’s not to my taste. I always thought it wasn’t yours, […]...
- Picture Of A 23-Year-Old Youth Painted By His Friend Of The Same Age, An Amature He finished the painting yesterday noon. Now He studies it in detail. He has painted him in a Gray unbuttoned coat, a deep gray; without Any vest or any tie. With a rose-colored shirt; Open at the collar, so something might be seen Also of the beauty of his chest, of his neck. The right […]...
- Goodbye She stood at the window. There was A sound, a light. She stood at the window. A face. Was it that she was looking for, He thought. Was it that She was looking for. He said, Turn from it, turn From it. The pain is Not unpainful. Turn from it. The act of her anger, […]...
- Tudod-e? Your oft-repeated bocsánat Has grown me sick; it keeps Reminding me of a religious teaching. God the ever pardoning Can always forgive I can’t. So just wipe out my name from your record For though we share the same room, I always leave you Alone....
- Bear In There There’s a Polar Bear In our Frigidaire He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there. With his seat in the meat And his face in the fish And his big hairy paws In the buttery dish, He’s nibbling the noodles, He’s munching the rice, He’s slurping the soda, He’s licking the ice. And he lets […]...
- Home Burial He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see From up there always for […]...
- Without You My Pillow gazes upon me at night Empty as a gravestone; I never thought it would be so bitter To be alone, Not to lie down asleep in your hair. I lie alone in a silent house, The hanging lamp darkened, And gently stretch out my hands To gather in yours, And softly press my […]...
- The Heap of Rags One night when I went down Thames’ side, in London Town, A heap of rags saw I, And sat me down close by. That thing could shout and bawl, But showed no face at all; When any steamer passed And blew a loud shrill blast, That heap of rags would sit And make a sound […]...
- Rebecca Wasson Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter and Spring, After each other drifting, past my window drifting! And I lay so many years watching them drift and counting The years till a terror came in my heart at times, With the feeling that I had become eternal; at last My hundredth year was reached! And still […]...
- A Night-Rain in Summer Open the window, and let the air Freshly blow upon face and hair, And fill the room, as it fills the night, With the breath of the rain’s sweet might. Hark! the burthen, swift and prone! And how the odorous limes are blown! Stormy Love’s abroad, and keeps Hopeful coil for gentle sleeps. Not a […]...
- Southampton water song of sea-leaves in an orchestra of foam Branches of violins sprayed across the mind What is magnetic in a wave breaking white Drawing the chords of evening to a single sound I would liken your hair to a slow movement Of seagulls in the wind catching my eye By sheer virtue of design – […]...
- Shadow March All around the house is the jet-black night; It stares through the window-pane; It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light, And it moves with the moving flame. Now my little heart goes a beating like a drum, With the breath of the Bogies in my hair; And all around the candle and the […]...
- Eugene Carman Rhodes’ slave! Selling shoes and gingham, Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days For more than twenty years. Saying “Yes’m” and “Yes, sir”, and “Thank you” A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month. Living in this stinking room […]...
- To Lady Jane Romance was always young. You come today Just eight years old With marvellous dark hair. Younger than Dante found you When you turned His heart into the way That found the heavenly stair. Perhaps we must be strangers. I confess My soul this hour is Dante’s, And your care Should be for dolls Whose painted […]...
- Love's Coming She had looked for his coming as warriors come, With the clash of arms and the bugle’s call; But he came instead with a stealthy tread, Which she did not hear at all. She had thought how his armor would blaze in the sun, As he rode like a prince to claim his bride: In […]...
- Broken-face Gargoyles ALL I can give you is broken-face gargoyles. It is too early to sing and dance at funerals, Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker humming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-and-wing, now you see it and now you don’t. Fish to swim a […]...
- Messy Room Whosever room this is should be ashamed! His underwear is hanging on the lamp. His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair, And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp. His workbook is wedged in the window, His sweater’s been thrown on the floor. His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV, And […]...
- This Window is This window is confidence, Documenting proceedings, Capturing moments, Cleansing views Challenging sentiment. This window is nourishment Filling the eyes With strong drink, And acidly piercing Over-elaborate structures. This window is furniture Re-hung like a picture, Recording new outlooks When the old pleases No more. This window is doorway To feelings, Good feelings and bad, All […]...
- Of Three Or Four In The Room Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at the window. Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns, The fires on the hills. And people who left whole Are brought home in the evening, like small change. Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at […]...
- November 6 Remember when Khrushchev said “We will bury you!” On the cover Of Time I thought he was Employing a metaphor As in “Braves Scalp Giants!” On the back page Of the Daily News I pictured the Russians Burying us under a mound Of all the rubble That rubles could buy When what he meant was […]...
- The Sum-Up It is not power and fame That make success; It is not rank or name Rate happiness. It is not honour due Nor pile of pelf: The pay-off is: Did you Enjoy yourself? A pal of days gone by I reckon more Of a success than I Who’ve gold in store His life, though none […]...
- Lover's Gifts XXVIII: I Dreamt I dreamt that she sat by my head, tenderly ruffling my hair with Her fingers, playing the melody of her touch. I looked at her face And struggled with my tears, till the agony of unspoken words burst My sleep like a bubble. I sat up and saw the glow of the Milky Way above […]...
- Under Cover of Night To slip into your shadow under cover of night. To follow your footsteps, your shadow at the window. That shadow at the window is you and no one else; It’s you. Do not open that window behind whose curtains you’re moving. Shut your eyes. I’d like to shut them with my lips. But the window […]...
- Crossing Nation Under silver wing San Francisco’s towers sprouting thru thin gas clouds, Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure Berkeley hills pine-covered below Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence Declaration typewriter at window silver panorama in natural eyeball Sacramento valley rivercourse’s Chinese dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields to Sierras […]...