'Tis customary as we part

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1. Midnight On The Great Western In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy, And the roof-lamp’s oily flame Played down on his listless form and face, Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going, Or whence he came. In the band of his hat the journeying boy Had a ticket stuck; and a string Around his neck bore the key […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. I live with Him I see His face I live with Him I see His face I go no more away For Visitor or Sundown Death’s single privacy The Only One forestalling Mine And that by Right that He Presents a Claim invisible No wedlock granted Me I live with Him I hear His Voice I stand alive Today To witness to the […]...
5. Your thoughts don't have words every day Your thoughts don’t have words every day They come a single time Like signal esoteric sips Of the communion Wine Which while you taste so native seems So easy so to be You cannot comprehend its price Nor its infrequency...
6. The Family Monkey We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather Recklessly with funds carefully gathered since Grandfather’s time for the purchase of a steam monkey. We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric Or gas monkey. The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey Merchant. But the family always planned on a […]...
7. Sonnet 19 – The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise XIX The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise; I barter curl for curl upon that mart, And from my poet’s forehead to my heart Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,- As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . . The bay-crown’s […]...
8. 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...
9. 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...
10. Lesson 1 At least I’ve learned this much: Life doesn’t have to be All poetry and roses. Life Can be bus rides, gritty sidewalks, Electric bills, dishwashing, Chapped lips, dull stubby pencils With the erasers chewed off, Cheap radios played too loud, The rank smell of stale coffee Yet still glow With the inner fire of an […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. 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!...
13. Wires The widest prairies have electric fences, For though old cattle know they must not stray Young steers are always scenting purer water Not here but anywhere. Beyond the wires Leads them to blunder up against the wires Whose muscle-shredding violence gives no quarter. Young steers become old cattle from that day, Electric limits to their […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. 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...
16. Liaison A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight, Star-spiders spinning their thread Hang high suspended, withouten respite Watching us overhead. Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths Curtain us in so dark That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s Flitting remark. Here in this swarthy, secret tent, Where black boughs flap […]...
17. To A Poor Old Woman munching a plum on The street a paper bag Of them in her hand They taste good to her They taste good To her. They taste Good to her You can see it by The way she gives herself To the one half Sucked out in her hand Comforted A solace of ripe plums Seeming […]...
18. Lines Inscribed on The Wall of a Dungeon in The Southern P of I Though not a breath can enter here, I know the wind blows fresh and free; I know the sun is shining clear, Though not a gleam can visit me. They thought while I in darkness lay, ‘Twere pity that I should not know How all the earth is smiling gay; How fresh the vernal breezes […]...
19. Experiment to me Experiment to me Is every one I meet If it contain a Kernel? The Figure of a Nut Presents upon a Tree Equally plausibly, But Meat within, is requisite To Squirrels, and to Me....
20. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. A Confession To: I At the risk of being customary I wish to make a confession Not that it may be true They do not love that do not show it But because it’s true That to deny it is to argue with reality...
23. In the footsteps of the walking air In the footsteps of the walking air Sky’s prophetic chickens weave their cloth of awe And hillsides lift green wings in somber journeying. Night in his soft haste bumps on the shoulders of the abyss And a single drop of dark blood covers the earth. Now is the China of the spirit at walking In […]...
24. 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...
25. Hope is a strange invention Hope is a strange invention A Patent of the Heart In unremitting action Yet never wearing out Of this electric Adjunct Not anything is known But its unique momentum Embellish all we own...
26. Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit snow doesn’t land At your feet but keeps falling below You): single-cell-plant chains, shreds Of zooplankton’s mucus food traps, Fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts, Sand grains, pollen….And inside These jagged falling islands Live more microlives, […]...
27. The Germ A mighty creature is the germ, Though smaller than the pachyderm. His customary dwelling place Is deep within the human race. His childish pride he often pleases By giving people strange diseases. Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? You probably contain a germ....
28. 'Tis not the swaying frame we miss ‘Tis not the swaying frame we miss, It is the steadfast Heart, That had it beat a thousand years, With Love alone had bent, Its fervor the electric Oar, That bore it through the Tomb, Ourselves, denied the privilege, Consolelessly presume...
29. The Future never spoke The Future never spoke Nor will He like the Dumb Reveal by sign a syllable Of His Profound To Come But when the News be ripe Presents it in the Act Forestalling Preparation Escape or Substitute Indifference to Him The Dower as the Doom His Office but to execute Fate’s Telegram to Him...
30. Louise Smith Herbert broke our engagement of eight years When Annabelle returned to the village From the Seminary, ah me! If I had let my love for him alone It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow Who knows? filling my life with healing fragrance. But I tortured it, I poisoned it, I blinded its eyes, and […]...
31. The Heart is the Capital of the Mind The Heart is the Capital of the Mind The Mind is a single State The Heart and the Mind together make A single Continent One is the Population Numerous enough This ecstatic Nation Seek it is Yourself....
32. Paudeen Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite Of our old paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind Among the stones and thorn-trees, under morning light; Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind A curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thought That on the lonely height where all are in God’s eye, There […]...
33. With Pinions of Disdain With Pinions of Disdain The soul can farther fly Than any feather specified In Ornithology It wafts this sordid Flesh Beyond its dull control And during its electric gale The body is a soul Instructing by the same How little work it be To put off filaments like this For immortality...
34. The Bird her punctual music brings The Bird her punctual music brings And lays it in its place Its place is in the Human Heart And in the Heavenly Grace What respite from her thrilling toil Did Beauty ever take But Work might be electric Rest To those that Magic make...
35. At Half past Three, a single Bird At Half past Three, a single Bird Unto a silent Sky Propounded but a single term Of cautious melody. At Half past Four, Experiment Had subjugated test And lo, Her silver Principle Supplanted all the rest. At Half past Seven, Element Nor Implement, be seen And Place was where the Presence was Circumference between....
36. The Luxury to apprehend The Luxury to apprehend The Luxury ‘twould be To look at Thee a single time An Epicure of Me In whatsoever Presence makes Till for a further Food I scarcely recollect to starve So first am I supplied The Luxury to meditate The Luxury it was To banguet on thy Countenance A Sumptuousness bestows On […]...
37. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. Only a Curl I. FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land Unvisited over the sea, Who tell me how lonely you stand With a single gold curl in the hand Held up to be looked at by me, II. While you ask me to ponder and say What a father and mother can do, With the bright fellow-locks […]...
40. Hymn 135 The love of Christ shed abroad in the heart. Eph. 3:16ff. Come, dearest Lord, descend and dwell By faith and love in every breast; Then shall we know, and taste, and feel The joys that cannot be expressed. Come, fill our hearts with inward strength, Make our enlarged souls possess, And learn the height, and […]...