It sifts from Leaden Sieves

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write, And say’st my lines be dull and do not move, I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight, Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love. But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv’d, Whose stomach unto gall hath turn’d thy food, Whose senses, like poor […]...
2. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
3. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. False Notions, Fears, And Other Things Of Wood Repeatedly, that sturdy stump in me Bears up like stone, Beneath some ritual I see: The blinding axe Swings up, holds, That moment of its weightlessness Inscrutable Till I confirm the arm is mine; I will it, grip, Feel moist the swelling handle, The shudder rude, The difference fallen. Toward that chopping block I carry […]...
6. The Leaden-Eyed Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world’s one crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed. Not that they starve; but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap, Not that they serve, […]...
7. Lethargy of leaden wings I hadn’t had the ‘flu in ages, avoided all those awful places Fraught of gritty eyes and splitting heads, patrons ringed In lethargy of leaden wings, deafened by the roaring chills And still-life flushes, weakened in their clumsy trusses, Trodden on through breached defences, sore diseased And barely breathing; now I can’t decline a cough […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. Their Height in Heaven comforts not Their Height in Heaven comforts not Their Glory nought to me ‘Twas best imperfect as it was I’m finite I can’t see The House of Supposition The Glimmering Frontier that Skirts the Acres of Perhaps To Me shows insecure The Wealth I had contented me If ’twas a meaner size Then I had counted it […]...
10. Her Losses make our Gains ashamed Her Losses make our Gains ashamed She bore Life’s empty Pack As gallantly as if the East Were swinging at her Back. Life’s empty Pack is heaviest, As every Porter knows In vain to punish Honey It only sweeter grows....
11. Cooney Potter I inherited forty acres from my Father And, by working my wife, my two sons and two daughters From dawn to dusk, I acquired A thousand acres. But not content, Wishing to own two thousand acres, I bustled through the years with axe and plow, Toiling, denying myself, my wife, my sons, my daughters. Squire […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. Felix Schmidt It was only a little house of two rooms Almost like a child’s play-house With scarce five acres of ground around it; And I had so many children to feed And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick From bearing children. One day lawyer Whitney came along And proved to me that Christian […]...
14. The Three Roses When the buds began to burst, Long ago, with Rose the First I was walking; joyous then Far above all other men, Till before us up there stood Britonferry’s oaken wood, Whispering, “Happy as thou art, Happiness and thou must part.” Many summers have gone by Since a Second Rose and I (Rose from the […]...
15. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
16. 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...
17. A House upon the Height A House upon the Height That Wagon never reached No Dead, were ever carried down No Peddler’s Cart approached Whose Chimney never smoked Whose Windows Night and Morn Caught Sunrise first and Sunset last Then held an Empty Pane Whose fate Conjecture knew No other neighbor did And what it was we never lisped Because […]...
18. 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...
19. Make me a picture of the sun Make me a picture of the sun So I can hang it in my room And make believe I’m getting warm When others call it “Day”! Draw me a Robin on a stem So I am hearing him, I’ll dream, And when the Orchards stop their tune Put my pretense away Say if it’s really […]...
20. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
21. Absence My cup is empty to-night, Cold and dry are its sides, Chilled by the wind from the open window. Empty and void, it sparkles white in the moonlight. The room is filled with the strange scent Of wistaria blossoms. They sway in the moon’s radiance And tap against the wall. But the cup of my […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. A Song before Sailing Wind of the dead men’s feet, Blow down the empty street Of this old city by the sea With news for me! Blow me beyond the grime And pestilence of time! I am too sick at heart to war With failure any more. Thy chill is in my bones; The moonlight on the stones Is […]...
24. No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest Sons of the mountains of Scotland, Welshmen of coomb and defile, Breed of the moors of England, Children of Erin’s green isle, We stand four square to the tempest, Whatever the battering hail- No foe shall gather our harvest, Or sit on our stockyard rail. Our women shall walk in honour, Our children shall know […]...
25. 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!...
26. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
27. 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...
28. California Plush The only thing I miss about Los Angeles Is the Hollywood Freeway at midnight, windows down and Radio blaring Bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower On the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard Blazing pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars descending through the city fast as the law would […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. The Products of my Farm are these The Products of my Farm are these Sufficient for my Own And here and there a Benefit Unto a Neighbor’s Bin. With Us, ’tis Harvest all the Year For when the Frosts begin We just reverse the Zodiac And fetch the Acres in....
31. My Home This is the place that I love the best, A little brown house, like a ground-bird’s nest, Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees, Summer retreat of the birds and bees. The tenderest light that ever was seen Sifts through the vine-made window screen Sifts and quivers, and flits and falls On home-made carpets and […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
34. Sonnet 06: Bluebeard This door you might not open, and you did; So enter now, and see for what slight thing You are betrayed…. Here is no treasure hid No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain For greed like yours, no writhings of distress But only what you see…. Look yet […]...
35. Two Old Crows Two old crows sat on a fence rail. Two old crows sat on a fence rail, Thinking of effect and cause, Of weeds and flowers, And nature’s laws. One of them muttered, one of them stuttered, One of them stuttered, one of them muttered. Each of them thought far more than he uttered. One crow […]...
36. Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy Love’s Lunacy Why do I speak of joy, or write of love, When my heart is the very den of horror, And in my soul the pains of Hell I prove, With all his torments and infernal terror? What should I say? What yet remains to do? My brain is dry with weeping all too […]...
37. Name of Horses All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding And steerhide over the ash hames, to haul Sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer, For the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range. In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields, Dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs […]...
38. Lament For Meng Hao-Jan I can never see my old friend again- The river Han still streams to the east I might question some old man of his place- River and hills-empty is Tsaichou....
39. A nearness to Tremendousness A nearness to Tremendousness An Agony procures Affliction ranges Boundlessness Vicinity to Laws Contentment’s quiet Suburb Affliction cannot stay In Acres Its Location Is Illocality...
40. Delight is as the flight Delight is as the flight Or in the Ratio of it, As the Schools would say The Rainbow’s way A Skein Flung colored, after Rain, Would suit as bright, Except that flight Were Aliment “If it would last” I asked the East, When that Bent Stripe Struck up my childish Firmament And I, for glee, […]...