The Old Arm-chair

Related poetry:

1. The Table And The Chair Said the table to the chair, “You can scarcely be aware How I suffer from the heat And from blisters on my feet! If we took a little walk We might have a little talk. Pray, let us take the air!” Said the table to the chair. Said the chair unto the table, “Now you […]...
2. My Rocking-Chair When I am old and worse for wear I want to buy a rocking-chair, And set it on a porch where shine The stars of morning-glory vine; With just beyond, a gleam of grass, A shady street where people pass; And some who come with time to spare, To yarn beside my rocking-chair. Then I […]...
3. The Hideous Chair This hideous, Upholstered in gift-wrap fabric, chromed In places, design possibility For the future canned ham. Its genius Wonderful, circa I993. I’ve assumed a great many things: The perversity of choices, affairs I did or did not have. But let the record show That I was happy. O let the hideous chair Stand! For the […]...
4. The Piano (Notebook Version) Somewhere beneath that piano’s superb sleek black Must hide my mother’s piano, little and brown with the back That stood close to the wall, and the front’s faded silk, both torn And the keys with little hollows, that my mother’s fingers had worn. Softly, in the shadows, a woman is singing to me Quietly, through […]...
5. A Nativity 1914-18 The Babe was laid in the Manger Between the gentle kine All safe from cold and danger “But it was not so with mine, (With mine! With mine!) “Is it well with the child, is it well?” The waiting mother prayed. “For I know not how he fell, And I know not where he […]...
6. No Lilies For Lisette Said the Door: “She came in With no shadow of sin; Turned the key in the lock, Slipped out of her frock, The robe she liked best When for supper she dressed. Then a letter she tore. . . What a wan look she wore!” Said the Door. Said the Chair: “She sat down With […]...
7. THE WALKING BELL A CHILD refused to go betimes To church like other people; He roam’d abroad, when rang the chimes On Sundays from the steeple. His mother said: “Loud rings the bell, Its voice ne’er think of scorning; Unless thou wilt behave thee well, ‘Twill fetch thee without warning.” The child then thought: “High over head The […]...
8. Past Carin&#039 Now up and down the siding brown The great black crows are flyin’, And down below the spur, I know, Another ‘milker’s’ dyin’; The crops have withered from the ground, The tank’s clay bed is glarin’, But from my heart no tear nor sound, For I have gone past carin’ Past worryin’ or carin’, Past […]...
9. Benediction Bless this little heart, this white soul that has won the kiss of Heaven for our earth. He loves the light of the sun, he loves the sight of his Mother’s face. He has not learned to despise the dust, and to hanker after Gold. Clasp him to your heart and bless him. He has […]...
10. Nature's Touch In kindergarten classed Dislike they knew; And as the years went past It grew and grew; Until in maidenhood Each sought a mate, Then venom in their mood Was almost hate. The lure of love they learned And they were wed; Yet when they met each turned Away a head; Each went her waspish way […]...
11. The Idea of Ancestry Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black Faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand- Fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, Cousins (1st and 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare Across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know Their dark eyes, they know mine. I know […]...
12. Not A Child ‘Not a child: I call myself a boy,’ Says my king, with accent stern yet mild, Now nine years have brought him change of joy; ‘Not a child.’ How could reason be so far beguiled, Err so far from sense’s safe employ, Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild? Seeing his face bent […]...
13. A Dying Tiger moaned for Drink A Dying Tiger moaned for Drink I hunted all the Sand I caught the Dripping of a Rock And bore it in my Hand His Mighty Balls in death were thick But searching I could see A Vision on the Retina Of Water and of me ‘Twas not my blame who sped too slow ‘Twas […]...
14. To a Usurper Aha! a traitor in the camp, A rebel strangely bold, A lisping, laughing, toddling scamp, Not more than four years old! To think that I, who’ve ruled alone So proudly in the past, Should be ejected from my throne By my own son at last! He trots his treason to and fro, As only babies […]...
15. At play Play that you are mother dear, And play that papa is your beau; Play that we sit in the corner here, Just as we used to, long ago. Playing so, we lovers two Are just as happy as we can be, And I’ll say “I love you” to you, And you say “I love you” […]...
16. The Bread-Knife Ballad A little child was sitting Up on her mother’s knee And down down her cheeks the bitter tears did flow. And as I sadly listened I heard this tender plea, ‘Twas uttered in a voice so soft and low. “Not guilty” said the Jury And the Judge said “Set her free, But remember it must […]...
17. Mourning Alas my brother! the cry of the mourners of old That cried on each other, All crying aloud on the dead as the death-note rolled, Alas my brother! As flashes of dawn that mists from an east wind smother With fold upon fold, The past years gleam that linked us one with another. Time sunders […]...
18. The Gift of the Sea The dead child lay in the shroud, And the widow watched beside; And her mother slept, and the Channel swept The gale in the teeth of the tide. But the mother laughed at all. “I have lost my man in the sea, And the child is dead. Be still,” she said, “What more can ye […]...
19. Henry Mary and I were twenty-two When we were wed; A well-matched pair, right smart to view The town’s folk said. For twenty years I have been true To nuptial bed. But oh alas! The march of time, Life’s wear and tear! Now I am in my lusty prime With pep to spare, While she looks […]...
20. Trooper Campbell One day old Trooper Campbell Rode out to Blackman’s Run, His cap-peak and his sabre Were glancing in the sun. ‘Twas New Year’s Eve, and slowly Across the ridges low The sad Old Year was drifting To where the old years go. The trooper’s mind was reading The love-page of his life His love for […]...
21. The Disastrous Fire at Scarborough ‘Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 8th of June, A mother and six children met with a cruel doom In one of the most fearful fires for some years past And as the spectators gazed upon them they stood aghast The fire broke out in a hairdresser’s, in the town of Scarborough, […]...
22. What shall I do it whimpers so What shall I do it whimpers so This little Hound within the Heart All day and night with bark and start And yet, it will not go Would you untie it, were you me Would it stop whining if to Thee I sent it even now? It should not tease you By your chair or, […]...
23. Come On In, The Senility Is Fine People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa, But you don’t have to live forever to become a grampa. The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild, You only have to live until your child has a child. From that point on you start looking both ways over your shoulder, Because sometimes you […]...
24. Washington McNeely Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, […]...
25. Piano Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery […]...
26. Her Letter “I’m taking pen in hand this night, and hard it is for me; My poor old fingers tremble so, my hand is stiff and slow, And even with my glasses on I’m troubled sore to see. . . . You’d little know your mother, boy; you’d little, little know. You mind how brisk and bright […]...
27. Jim Never knew Jim, did you? Our boy Jim? Bless you, there was the likely lad; Supple and straight and long of limb, Clean as a whistle, and just as glad. Always laughing, wasn’t he, dad? Joy, pure joy to the heart of him, And, oh, but the soothering ways he had, Jim, our Jim! But […]...
28. December, 1919 Last night I heard your voice, mother, The words you sang to me When I, a little barefoot boy, Knelt down against your knee. And tears gushed from my heart, mother, And passed beyond its wall, But though the fountain reached my throat The drops refused to fall. ‘Tis ten years since you died, mother, […]...
29. Lady Clare IT was the time when lilies blow, And clouds are highest up in air, Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe To give his cousin, Lady Clare. I trow they did not part in scorn – Lovers long-betroth’d were they: They too will wed the morrow morn: God’s blessing on the day! ‘He does not love […]...
30. 136. Prayer-O Thou Dread Power O THOU dread Power, who reign’st above, I know thou wilt me hear, When for this scene of peace and love, I make this prayer sincere. The hoary Sire-the mortal stroke, Long, long be pleas’d to spare; To bless this little filial flock, And show what good men are. She, who her lovely offspring eyes […]...
31. Maude Clare Out of the church she followed them With a lofty step and mien: His bride was like a village maid, Maude Clare was like a queen. “Son Thomas, ” his lady mother said, With smiles, almost with tears: “May Nell and you but live as true As we have done for years; “Your father thirty […]...
32. Mistinguette He was my one and only love; My world was mirror for his face. We were as close as hand and glove, Until he came with smiling grace To say: ‘We must be wise, my dear. You are the idol of today, But I too plan a proud career, Let’s kiss and go our way.’ […]...
33. A Young Child And His Pregnant Mother At four years Nature is mountainous, Mysterious, and submarine. Even A city child knows this, hearing the subway’s Rumor underground. Between the grate, Dropping his penny, he learned out all loss, The irretrievable cent of fate, And now this newest of the mysteries, Confronts his honest and his studious eyes His mother much too fat […]...
34. Ecce Puer Of the dark past A child is born; With joy and grief My heart is torn. Calm in his cradle The living lies. May love and mercy Unclose his eyes! Young life is breathed On the glass; The world that was not Comes to pass. A child is sleeping: An old man gone. O, father […]...
35. Bastard The very skies wee black with shame, As near my moment drew; The very hour before you cam I felt I hated you. But now I see how fair you are, How divine your eyes, It seems I step upon a star To leap to Paradise. What care I who your father was: (‘Twas better […]...
36. My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty; I Am joy, son of joy, son of joy, son of joy. Behold, the Marquis of Glee has attainted felicity; this city and Plain are filled with soldiers and drums and flags. If I encounter a wolf, he becomes moonfaced Joseph; if I go Down into […]...
37. Girl In A Miniskirt Reading The Bible Outside My Window Sunday, I am eating a Grapefruit, church is over at the Russian Orthadox to the West. She is dark Of Eastern descent, Large brown eyes look up from the Bible Then down. a small red and black Bible, and as she reads Her legs keep moving, moving, She is doing a slow rythmic dance Reading […]...
38. Venus of the Louvre Down the long hall she glistens like a star, The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone, Yet none the less immortal, breathing on. Time’s brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar. When first the enthralled enchantress from afar Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone, Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne, As […]...
39. Scots of the Riverina The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime. The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned, And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife’s back was turned. A […]...
40. At The Smithville Methodist Church It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week, But when she came home With the “Jesus Saves” button, we knew what art Was up, what ancient craft. She liked her little friends. She liked the songs They sang when they weren’t Twisting and folding paper into dolls. What could be so bad? […]...