Over the Banisters

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1. Trickle, Drops TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, Candid, from me falling-drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, From my face-from my forehead and lips, From my breast-from within where I was conceal’d-press forth, red drops-confession drops; Stain every page-stain every song I sing, […]...
2. Silent Mark another day is here and my hands are still covered With a mantle of stoic ink Words scribbled on a hesitant paper Wishing to be read now not later. I want you to see this point-like light from an abyss Growing tongues tasting the wind Feel like the knife scraping soft butter And see that […]...
3. Sleeping in Blue I lean into you, We bury down In the dunes The breeze holds Like a whisper You stroke my brown knees Your fingers Are my unspoken thoughts The silence is sensuous, Suffuses like Scent of sandalwood I watch The sea Your hands The waves Seep into my bones The sky descends We sleep in blue....
4. Strings in the Earth and Air Strings in the earth and air Make music sweet; Strings by the river where The willows meet. There’s music along the river For Love wanders there, Pale flowers on his mantle, Dark leaves on his hair. All softly playing, With head to the music bent, And fingers straying Upon an instrument....
5. After Hearing a Waltz by Bartok But why did I kill him? Why? Why? In the small, gilded room, near the stair? My ears rack and throb with his cry, And his eyes goggle under his hair, As my fingers sink into the fair White skin of his throat. It was I! I killed him! My God! Don’t you hear? I […]...
6. The Origin of the Harp Tis believed that this Harp, which I wake now for thee Was a Siren of old, who sung under the sea; And who often, at eve, through the bright waters roved, To meet, on the green shore, a youth whom she loved. But she loved him in vain, for he left her to weep, And […]...
7. Brown Penny I whispered, ‘I am too young,’ And then, ‘I am old enough’; Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. ‘Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair.’ Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair. O […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. By the Spring, at Sunset Sometimes we remember kisses, Remember the dear heart-leap when they came: Not always, but sometimes we remember The kindness, the dumbness, the good flame Of laughter and farewell. Beside the road Afar from those who said “Good-by” I write, Far from my city task, my lawful load. Sun in my face, wind beside my shoulder, […]...
10. Sonnet 18 – I never gave a lock of hair away I never gave a lock of hair away To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully, I ring out to the full brown length and say ‘Take it.’ My day of youth went yesterday; My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee, Nor plant I it from rose […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun Seductive in the Air That Tun is hollow but the Tun With Hundred Weights to spare Too ponderous to suspect the snare Espies that fickle chair And seats itself to be let go By that perfidious Hair The “foolish Tun” the Critics say While that delusive Hair […]...
13. Midnight Mass for the Dying Year Yes, the Year is growing old, And his eye is pale and bleared! Death, with frosty hand and cold, Plucks the old man by the beard, Sorely, sorely! The leaves are falling, falling, Solemnly and slow; Caw! caw! the rooks are calling, It is a sound of woe, A sound of woe! Through woods and […]...
14. The Return They turned him loose; he bowed his head, A felon, bent and grey. His face was even as the Dead, He had no word to say. He sought the home of his old love, To look on her once more; And where her roses breathed above, He cowered beside the door. She sat there in […]...
15. Over The Alley Here in my office I sit and write Hour on hour, and day on day, With no one to speak to from morn till night, Though I have a neighbour just over the way. Across the alley that yawns between A maiden sits sewing the whole day long; A face more lovely is seldom seen […]...
16. Bluenote Time in the soft jazz and midnight hour Your eyes are dancing close to mine A sway of hips, a touch of lips While on the stand Piano player’s fingers Dance around the tune Above a gentle touch Caressing music from the bass Your fingers up and down my spine In the soft jazz and midnight […]...
17. Winter Song The browns, the olives, and the yellows died, And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide, And when the land lay pale for them, pale-snowed, Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed. From off your face, into the winds of winter, The sun-brown and […]...
18. Four Days In Vermont Window’s tree trunk’s predominant face A single eye-leveled hole where limb’s torn off Another larger contorts to swell growing in around Imploding wound beside a clutch of thin twigs Hold to one two three four five six dry twisted Yellowish brown leaves flat against the other Gray trees in back stick upright then the glimpse […]...
19. In Faith When the soft sweet wind o’ the south went by, I dwelt in the light of a dark brown eye; And out where the robin sang his song, We lived and loved, while the days were long. In the sweet, sweet eves, when the moon swung high, We wandered under the starry sky; Or sat […]...
20. Fading All in the beautiful Autumn weather One thought lingers with me and stays; Death and winter are coming together, Though both are veiled by the amber haze I look on the forest of royal splendour! I look on the face in my quiet room; A face all beautiful, sad and tender, And both are stamped […]...
21. THE FRIENDLY MEETING Lovingly I’ll sing of love; Ever comes she from above. THE FRIENDLY MEETING. IN spreading mantle to my chin conceald, I trod the rocky path, so steep and grey, Then to the wintry plain I bent my way Uneasily, to flight my bosom steel’d. But sudden was the newborn day reveal’d: A maiden came, in […]...
22. Eat Your Heart Out I’ve come by, she says, to tell you That this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s Over. this is it. I sit on the couch watching her arrange Her long red hair before my bedroom Mirror. She pulls her hair up and Piles it on top of her head- She lets her eyes look at […]...
23. The Low-Down White This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down; There’s money to burn in the streets to-night, so I’ve sent my klooch to town, With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown. And I know at the dawn she’ll come reeling home with […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. The Widow's Lament In Springtime Sorrow is my own yard Where the new grass Flames as it has flamed Often before but not With the cold fire That closes round me this year. Thirtyfive years I lived with my husband. The plumtree is white today With masses of flowers. Masses of flowers Load the cherry branches And color some bushes […]...
26. A Baby Asleep after Pain As a drenched, drowned bee Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower, So clings to me My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears And laid against her cheek; Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm Swinging heavily to my movements as I walk. My sleeping baby hangs upon my life, […]...
27. I Wrung My Hands I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . . “Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?” Because I have made my loved one drunk With an astringent sadness. I’ll never forget. He went out, reeling; His mouth was twisted, desolate. . . I ran downstairs, not touching the banisters, And followed him as […]...
28. New Territory Sent off to boarding school At twelve, with a pair of oxfords, A pair of patents, my sterling Silver christening rosary And two dozen name tags stitched Like drops of blood onto the collars Of starched blouses, I stare Down the hall, long and dim, Slippery from too many waxings. Plaster statues of the holy […]...
29. She Didn’t Mean To Do It Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad. She didn’t mean to do it. Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs, Go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces, But no more. Certain thrills knock you flat On your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade And they […]...
30. Performance I starred that night, I shone: I was footwork and firework in one, A rocket that wriggled up and shot Darkness with a parasol of brilliants And a peewee descant on a flung bit; I was blusters of glitter-bombs expanding To mantle and aurora from a crown, I was fouéttes, falls of blazing paint, Para-flares […]...
31. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
32. For Anne Gregory ‘Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.’ ‘But I can get a hair-dye And set such colour there, Brown, or black, or carrot, That young men in despair May love me for myself alone And not […]...
33. Within my reach! Within my reach! I could have touched! I might have chanced that way! Soft sauntered thro’ the village Sauntered as soft away! So unsuspected Violets Within the meadows go Too late for striving fingers That passed, an hour ago!...
34. DROPS OF A STREAM Bhaskar Roy Barman As does the Great River On to the sea and back To the matted hair of Lord Shiva, On flows the life-stream Adorned with ornaments, As is a newly-wed couple. Following on the footprints of the Great River That leaves nonchalantly behind A good many water-drops Evaporating midway through And mingling with […]...
35. Ancient History Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; ‘He was the grandest of them all was Cain! ‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire: ‘Swift as a stag: a stallion of […]...
36. Badger When midnight comes a host of dogs and men Go out and track the badger to his den, And put a sack within the hole, and lie Till the old grunting badger passes by. He comes an hears – they let the strongest loose. The old fox gears the noise and drops the goose. The […]...
37. Where Once The Waters Of Your Face Where once the waters of your face Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows, The dead turns up its eye; Where once the mermen through your ice Pushed up their hair, the dry wind steers Through salt and root and roe. Where once your green knots sank their splice Into the tided cord, there […]...
38. The Poor Singing Dame Beneath an old wall, that went round an old Castle, For many a year, with brown ivy o’erspread; A neat little Hovel, its lowly roof raising, Defied the wild winds that howl’d over its shed: The turrets, that frown’d on the poor simple dwelling, Were rock’d to and fro, when the Tempest would roar, And […]...
39. Jerome Each day brings its toad, each night its dragon. Der heilige Hieronymus his lion is at the zoo Listens, listens. All the long, soft, summer day Dreams affright his couch, the deep boils like a pot. As the sun sets, the last patient rises, Says to him, Father, trembles, turns away. Often, to the lion, […]...
40. Lover's Gifts LXX: Take Back Your Coins Take back your coins, King’s Councillor. I am of those women you Sent to the forest shrine to decoy the young ascetic who had never Seen a women. I failed in your bidding. Dimly day was breaking when the hermit boy came to bathe in The stream, his tawny locks crowded on his shoulders, like […]...