Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun

Related poetry:

1. His little Hearse like Figure His little Hearse like Figure Unto itself a Dirge To a delusive Lilac The vanity divulge Of Industry and Morals And every righteous thing For the divine Perdition Of Idleness and Spring...
2. To risk your Liberty Called The Hon ‘Lizard Gizzard’ with aptness bearing fruit From his septic yellow face to his pinstripe business suit, Famous for avowals starting, “Government Approved, ‘and in relation to’…” delivered deadpan monotone, eyes A distant, washed-out hue – quartered in a trance. Never any chance of sparkling talk or winsome repartee From he, to ask […]...
3. Crisis is a Hair Crisis is a Hair Toward which the forces creep Past which forces retrograde If it come in sleep To suspend the Breath Is the most we can Ignorant is it Life or Death Nicely balancing. Let an instant push Or an Atom press Or a Circle hesitate In Circumference It may jolt the Hand That […]...
4. Big Hair Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie Tear, wanting to look like a moll In a Chandler novel. Dinner, consisting of three parts gin And one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair. There are, she said, poems that can be written Only when the poet is clad in black underwear. […]...
5. Her face was in a bed of hair Her face was in a bed of hair, Like flowers in a plot Her hand was whiter than the sperm That feeds the sacred light. Her tongue more tender than the tune That totters in the leaves Who hears may be incredulous, Who witnesses, believes....
6. Women Washing Their Hair THEY have painted and sung The women washing their hair, And the plaits and strands in the sun, And the golden combs And the combs of elephant tusks And the combs of buffalo horn and hoof. The sun has been good to women, Drying their heads of hair As they stooped and shook their shoulders […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Dream Song 176: All that hair flashing over All that hair flashing over the Atlantic, Henry’s girl’s gone. She’ll find Paris a sweet place As many times he did. She’s there now, having left yesterday. I held Her cousin’s hand, all innocence, on the climb to the tower. Her cousin is if possible more beautiful than she is. All over the world grades […]...
9. Apology To Delia: For Desiring A Lock Of Her Hair Delia, the unkindest girl on earth, When I besought the fair, That favour of intrinsic worth A ringlet of her hair, Refused that instant to comply With my absurd request, For reasons she could specify, Some twenty score at least. Trust me, my dear, however odd It may appear to say, I sought it merely […]...
10. Upon Julia's Hair Filled With Dew Dew sat on Julia’s hair, And spangled too, Like leaves that laden are With trembling dew. Or glittered to my sight, As when the beams Have their reflected light Danced by the streams....
11. A Saucer holds a Cup A Saucer holds a Cup In sordid human Life But in a Squirrel’s estimate A Saucer hold a Loaf. A Table of a Tree Demands the little King And every Breeze that run along His Dining Room do swing. His Cutlery he keeps Within his Russer Lips To see it flashing when he dines Do […]...
12. Finding A Long Gray Hair I scrub the long floorboards In the kitchen, repeating The motions of other women Who have lived in this house. And when I find a long gray hair Floating in the pail, I feel my life added to theirs....
13. The Spider holds a Silver Ball The Spider holds a Silver Ball In unperceived Hands And dancing softly to Himself His Yarn of Pearl unwinds He plies from Nought to Nought In unsubstantial Trade Supplants our Tapestries with His In half the period An Hour to rear supreme His Continents of Light Then dangle from the Housewife’s Broom His Boundaries forgot...
14. Lolotte, Who Attires My Hair Lolotte, who attires my hair, Lost her lover. Lolotte weeps; Trails her hand before her eyes; Hangs her head and mopes and sighs, Mutters of the pangs of hell. Fills the circumambient air With her plaints and her despair. Looks at me: ‘May you never know, Mam’selle Love’s harsh cruelty.’...
15. I gave myself to Him I gave myself to Him And took Himself, for Pay, The solemn contract of a Life Was ratified, this way The Wealth might disappoint Myself a poorer prove Than this great Purchaser suspect, The Daily Own of Love Depreciate the Vision But till the Merchant buy Still Fable in the Isles of Spice The subtle […]...
16. 4. Song-In the Character of a Ruined Farmer THE SUN he is sunk in the west, All creatures retirиd to rest, While here I sit, all sore beset, With sorrow, grief, and woe: And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O! The prosperous man is asleep, Nor hears how the whirlwinds sweep; But Misery and I must watch The surly tempest blow: And it’s O, […]...
17. To Amarantha, That She Would Dishevel Her Hair Amarantha, sweet and fair, Ah, braid no more that shining hair! As my curious hand or eye Hovering round thee, let it fly! Let it fly as unconfined As its calm ravisher the wind, Who hath left his darling th’ East, To wanton o’er that spicy nest. Every tress must be confessed But neatly tangled […]...
18. To Robert Batty, M. D., on His Giving Me a Lock of Milton's Hair It lies before me there, and my own breath Stirs its thin outer threads, as though beside The living head I stood in honoured pride, Talking of lovely things that conquer death. Perhaps he pressed it once, or underneath Ran his fine fingers when he leant, blank-eyed, And saw in fancy Adam and his bride […]...
19. Hope Holds to Christ . . . . . . . . Hope holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out To take His lovely likeness more and more. It will not well, so she would bring about An ever brighter burnish than before And turns to wash it from her welling eyes And breathes the blots off all […]...
20. Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair In The Moonlight 1 You scream, waking from a nightmare. When I sleepwalk Into your room, and pick you up, And hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me Hard, As if clinging could save us. I think You think I will never die, I think I exude To you the permanence of smoke or stars, […]...
21. Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry “Amen” To every hymn that able spirit affords In polished form […]...
22. Toilet Seats While I am emulating Keats My brother fabrics toilet seats, The which, they say, are works of art, Aesthetic features of the mart; So exquisitely are they made With plastic of a pastel shade, Of topaz, ivory or rose, Inviting to serene repose. Rajahs I’m told have seats of gold, (They must, I fear, be […]...
23. Tenuous And Precarious Tenuous and Precarious Were my guardians, Precarious and Tenuous, Two Romans. My father was Hazardous, Hazardous Dear old man, Three Romans. There was my brother Spurious, Spurious Posthumous, Spurious was Spurious, Was four Romans. My husband was Perfidious, He was Perfidious Five Romans. Surreptitious, our son, Was Surreptitious, He was six Romans. Our cat Tedious […]...
24. Home I came back late and tired last night Into my little room, To the long chair and the firelight And comfortable gloom. But as I entered softly in I saw a woman there, The line of neck and cheek and chin, The darkness of her hair, The form of one I did not know Sitting […]...
25. Earth! my Likeness! EARTH! my likeness! Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there, I now suspect that is not all; I now suspect there is something fierce in you, eligible to burst forth; For an athlete is enamour’d of me-and I of him; But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me, eligible to […]...
26. To a Lock of Hair Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright As in that well – remember’d night When first thy mystic braid was wove, And first my Agnes whisper’d love. Since then how often hast thou prest The torrid zone of this wild breast, Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell With the first sin that […]...
27. I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair Don’t go far off, not even for a day Don’t go far off, not even for a day, Because I don’t know how to say it – a day is long And I will be waiting for you, as in An empty station when the trains are Parked off somewhere else, asleep. Don’t leave me, […]...
28. The Hunter The hunter crouches in his blind ‘Neath camouflage of every kind And conjures up a quacking noise To lend allure to his decoys This grown-up man, with pluck and luck Is hoping to outwit a duck...
29. As One does Sickness over As One does Sickness over In convalescent Mind, His scrutiny of Chances By blessed Health obscured As One rewalks a Precipice And whittles at the Twig That held Him from Perdition Sown sidewise in the Crag A Custom of the Soul Far after suffering Identity to question For evidence’t has been...
30. Song From Amphitryon Air Iris I love, and hourly I die, But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye: She’s fickle and false, and there we agree, For I am as false and as fickle as she. We neither believe what either can say; And, neither believing, we neither betray. ‘Tis civil to swear, and say things […]...
31. The distance that the dead have gone The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year. And then, that we have followed them, We more than half suspect, So intimate have we become With their dear retrospect....
32. Sonnet 70: That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair; The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air. So thou be good, slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater being wooed of time, For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, […]...
33. Sonnet LXX That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair; The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air. So thou be good, slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater, being woo’d of time; For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, […]...
34. I have a Bird in spring I have a Bird in spring Which for myself doth sing The spring decoys. And as the summer nears And as the Rose appears, Robin is gone. Yet do I not repine Knowing that Bird of mine Though flown Learneth beyond the sea Melody new for me And will return. Fast is a safer hand […]...
35. Until the Desert knows Until the Desert knows That Water grows His Sands suffice But let him once suspect That Caspian Fact Sahara dies Utmost is relative Have not or Have Adjacent sums Enough the first Abode On the familiar Road Galloped in Dreams...
36. What we see we know somewhat What we see we know somewhat Be it but a little What we don’t surmise we do Though it shows so fickle I shall vote for Lands with Locks Granted I can pick ’em Transport’s doubtful Dividend Patented by Adam....
37. Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time’s fickle glass his fickle hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st. If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back, She keeps thee to this purpose, that […]...
38. To Lady Jane Romance was always young. You come today Just eight years old With marvellous dark hair. Younger than Dante found you When you turned His heart into the way That found the heavenly stair. Perhaps we must be strangers. I confess My soul this hour is Dante’s, And your care Should be for dolls Whose painted […]...
39. What did They do since I saw Them? What did They do since I saw Them? Were They industrious? So many questions to put Them Have I the eagerness That could I snatch Their Faces That could Their lips reply Not till the last was answered Should They start for the Sky. Not if Their Party were waiting, Not if to talk with […]...
40. Fame is a fickle food Fame is a fickle food Upon a shifting plate Whose table once a Guest but not The second time is set. Whose crumbs the crows inspect And with ironic caw Flap past it to the Farmer’s Corn Men eat of it and die....