Each Scar I'll keep for Him

Related poetry:

1. The healed Heart shows its shallow scar The healed Heart shows its shallow scar With confidential moan Not mended by Mortality Are Fabrics truly torn To go its convalescent way So shameless is to see More genuine were Perfidy Than such Fidelity....
2. 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 […]...
3. Who never lost, are unprepared Who never lost, are unprepared A Coronet to find! Who never thirsted Flagons, and Cooling Tamarind! Who never climbed the weary league Can such a foot explore The purple territories On Pizarro’s shore? How many Legions overcome The Emperor will say? How many Colors taken On Revolution Day? How many Bullets bearest? Hast Thou the […]...
4. Your Dad Did What? Where they have been, if they have been away, Or what they’ve done at home, if they have not – You make them write about the holiday. One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what? That’s not a sentence. Never mind the bell. We stay behind until the work is done. You count […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. Flash Crimson I SHALL cry God to give me a broken foot. I shall ask for a scar and a slashed nose. I shall take the last and the worst. I shall be eaten by gray creepers in a bunkhouse where no runners of the sun come and no dogs live. And yet-of all “and yets” this […]...
7. 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...
8. The Time Around Scars A girl whom I’ve not spoken to Or shared coffee with for several years Writes of an old scar. On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white, The size of a leech. I gave it to her Brandishing a new Italian penknife. Look, I said turning, And blood spat onto her shirt. My wife has […]...
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. I reckon when I count it all I reckon when I count it all First Poets Then the Sun Then Summer Then the Heaven of God And then the List is done But, looking back the First so seems To Comprehend the Whole The Others look a needless Show So I write Poets All Their Summer lasts a Solid Year They can […]...
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. 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...
14. Count That Day Lost If you sit down at set of sun And count the acts that you have done, And, counting, find One self-denying deed, one word That eased the heart of him who heard, One glance most kind That fell like sunshine where it went Then you may count that day well spent. But if, through all […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
18. 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...
19. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
20. If you were coming in the Fall If you were coming in the Fall, I’d brush the Summer by With half a smile, and half a spurn, As Housewives do, a Fly. If I could see you in a year, I’d wind the months in balls And put them each in separate Drawers, For fear the numbers fuse If only Centuries, delayed, […]...
21. Their Barricade against the Sky Their Barricade against the Sky The martial Trees withdraw And with a Flag at every turn Their Armies are no more. What Russet Halts in Nature’s March They indicate or cause An inference of Mexico Effaces the Surmise Recurrent to the After Mind That Massacre of Air The Wound that was not Wound nor Scar […]...
22. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
23. Again his voice is at the door Again his voice is at the door I feel the old Degree I hear him ask the servant For such an one as me I take a flower as I go My face to justify He never saw me in this life I might surprise his eye! I cross the Hall with mingled steps I […]...
24. There's a certain Slant of light There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes Heavenly Hurt, it gives us We can find no scar, But internal difference, Where the Meanings, are None may teach it Any ‘Tis the Seal Despair An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air When it comes, the Landscape […]...
25. Style Flaubert wanted to write a novel About nothing. It was to have no subject And be sustained upon the style alone, Like the Holy Ghost cruising above The abyss, or like the little animals In Disney cartoons who stand upon a branch That breaks, but do not fall Till they look down. He never wrote […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
28. Think Of It Not, Sweet One Think not of it, sweet one, so; – Give it not a tear; Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go Any – anywhere. Do not lool so sad, sweet one, – Sad and fadingly; Shed one drop then, – it is gone – O ’twas born to die! Still so pale? then, dearest, weep; Weep, […]...
29. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
30. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
31. 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 […]...
32. A Valediction: Of Weeping Let me pour forth My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here, For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear, And by this mintage they are something worth, For thus they be Pregnant of thee; Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more; When a tear falls that, thou falls which […]...
33. Boots We’re foot slog slog slog sloggin’ over Africa Foot foot foot foot sloggin’ over Africa (Boots boots boots boots movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no discharge in the war! Seven six eleven five nine-an’-twenty mile to-day Four eleven seventeen thirty-two the day before (Boots boots boots boots movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no […]...
34. Sonnets 10: Oh, My Beloved, Have You Thought Of This Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this: How in the years to come unscrupulous Time, More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss, And make you old, and leave me in my prime? How you and I, who scale together yet A little while the sweet, immortal height No pilgrim may remember […]...
35. The Comet at Valbury or Yell'ham I It bends far over Yell’ham Plain, And we, from Yell’ham Height, Stand and regard its fiery train, So soon to swim from sight. II It will return long years hence, when As now its strange swift shine Will fall on Yell’ham; but not then On that sweet form of thine....
36. I bended unto me a Bough I bended unto me a bough of May, That I might see and smell: It bore it in a sort of way, It bore it very well. But, when I let it backward sway, Then it were hard to tell With what a toss, with what a swing, The dainty thing Resumed its proper level, […]...
37. At Eighty Years As nothingness draws near How I can see Inexorably clear My vanity. My sum of worthiness Always so small, Dwindles from less to less To none at all. As grisly destiny Claims me at last, How grievous seem to me Sins of my past! How keen a conscience edge Can come to be! How pitiless […]...
38. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
39. Euthanasia When Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave gently o’er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there, To weep, or wish, the coming blow: No maiden, with dishevelled hair, To feel, or feign, decorous woe. But silent let […]...
40. Still In sealed box cars travel Names across the land, And how far they will travel so, And will they ever get out, Don’t ask, I won’t say, I don’t know. The name Nathan strikes fist against wall, The name Isaac, demented, sings, The name Sarah calls out for water for The name Aaron that’s dying […]...