The distance that the dead have gone

Related poetry:

1. All Distance Writing from Boston, where sky is simply Property, a flourish topping crowds Of condos and historic real estate, I’m trying to imagine blue sky: The first time, where it happened, What I was becoming. Being taken there By car, from a town so newly born that grass Still accounted all distance, an explanation Drawn in […]...
2. A Distance From The Sea To Ernest Brace “And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was About to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto Me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and Write them not.” REVELATIONS, x, 4. That raft we rigged up, under the water, Was just the item: […]...
3. Troth with the Dead The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky; The other half of the broken coin of troth Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie. They buried her half in the grave when they laid her away; I had […]...
4. The dead babe Last night, as my dear babe lay dead, In agony I knelt and said: “0 God! what have I done, Or in what wise offended Thee, That Thou should’st take away from me My little son? “Upon the thousand useless lives, Upon the guilt that vaunting thrives, Thy wrath were better spent! Why should’st Thou […]...
5. The Blind And The Dead She lay like a saint on her copper couch; Like an angel asleep she lay, In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch Past the Dead and sneak away. Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze, Who begged in the streets for bread. Each day he had come for a year of days, […]...
6. Distance Were you to cross the world, my dear, To work or love or fight, I could be calm and wistful here, And close my eyes at night. It were a sweet and gallant pain To be a sea apart; But, oh, to have you down the lane Is bitter to my heart....
7. As by the dead we love to sit As by the dead we love to sit, Become so wondrous dear As for the lost we grapple Tho’ all the rest are here In broken mathematics We estimate our prize Vast in its fading ration To our penurious eyes!...
8. That Distance Apart I am only nineteen My whole life is changing Tonight I see her Shuttered eyes in my dreams I cannot pretend she’s never been My stitches pull and threaten to snap My own body a witness Leaking blood to sheets milk to shirts My stretch marks Record that birth Though I feel like somebody is […]...
9. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
10. Long Distance II Though my mother was already two years dead Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, Put hot water bottles her side of the bed And still went to renew her transport pass. You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone. He’d put you off an hour to give him time To clear away […]...
11. What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead for Day? ‘Tis late your Sunrise vex their face And Purple Ribaldry of Morning Pour as blank on them As on the Tier of Wall The Mason builded, yesterday, And equally as cool What care the Dead for Summer? The Solstice had no Sun Could […]...
12. Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I have found the closer your relationship The closer the fit; The unsettling bit is the fear Of not fitting the role, or where Your forbear made a name or leashed A reputation, which by imputation […]...
13. Dead Love Dead love, by treason slain, lies stark, White as a dead stark-stricken dove: None that pass by him pause to mark Dead love. His heart, that strained and yearned and strove As toward the sundawn strives the lark, Is cold as all the old joy thereof. Dead men, re-risen from dust, may hark When rings […]...
14. Lines Written In The Belief That The Ancient Roman Festival Of The Dead Was Called Ambarvalia Swings the way still by hollow and hill, And all the world’s a song; “She’s far,” it sings me, “but fair,” it rings me, “Quiet,” it laughs, “and strong!” Oh! spite of the miles and years between us, Spite of your chosen part, I do remember; and I go With laughter in my heart. So […]...
15. Dead Man's Dump The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched; Their shut mouths made […]...
16. Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; (As the last gun ceased-but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried-I charge […]...
17. I never hear that one is dead I never hear that one is dead Without the chance of Life Afresh annihilating me That mightiest Belief, Too mighty for the Daily mind That tilling its abyss, Had Madness, had it once or twice The yawning Consciousness, Beliefs are Bandaged, like the Tongue When Terror were it told In any Tone commensurate Would strike […]...
18. 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 […]...
19. A Dead Friend I. Gone, O gentle heart and true, Friend of hopes foregone, Hopes and hopeful days with you Gone? Days of old that shone Saw what none shall see anew, When we gazed thereon. Soul as clear as sunlit dew, Why so soon pass on, Forth from all we loved and knew Gone? II. Friend of […]...
20. Yes, the Dead Speak to Us YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the […]...
21. I Stood With the Dead I Stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still: When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead. And my slow heart said, ‘You must kill, you must kill: ‘Soldier, soldier, morning is red’. On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace I stared for a while through the thin cold rain… ‘O […]...
22. Grieg Being Dead GRIEG being dead we may speak of him and his art. Grieg being dead we can talk about whether he was any good or not. Grieg being with Ibsen, Björnson, Lief Ericson and the rest, Grieg being dead does not care a hell’s hoot what we say. Morning, Spring, Anitra’s Dance, He dreams them at […]...
23. If I were dead ‘IF I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’ The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! […]...
24. The Dead-Beat He dropped, more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet; Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; Didn’t appear to know a war was on, Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. “I’ll do ’em in,” he whined, “If this […]...
25. Is it dead Find it Is it dead Find it Out of sound Out of sight “Happy”? Which is wiser You, or the Wind? “Conscious”? Won’t you ask that Of the low Ground? “Homesick”? Many met it Even through them This Cannot testify Themself as dumb...
26. Long Distance I Your bed’s got two wrong sides. You life’s all grouse. I let your phone-call take its dismal course: Ah can’t stand it no more, this empty house! Carrots choke us wi’out your mam’s white sauce! Them sweets you brought me, you can have ’em back. Ah’m diabetic now. Got all the facts. (The diabetes comes […]...
27. Kaspar Is Dead alas our good kaspar is dead. Who will bury a burning flag in the wings of the clouds who will pull Black wool over our eyes day by day. Who will turn the coffee mills in the primal barrel. Who will lure the idyllic roe from his petrified paperbag. Who will sneeze oceanliners unbrellas windudders […]...
28. The City of the Dead XX Yesterday I drew myself from the noisome throngs and proceeded into the field until I reached a knoll upon which Nature had spread her comely garments. Now I could breathe. I looked back, and the city appeared with its magnificent mosques and stately residences veiled by the smoke of the shops. I commenced analyzing man’s […]...
29. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
30. EFFECTS AT A DISTANCE THE queen in the lofty hall takes her place, The tapers around her are flaming; She speaks to the page: “With a nimble pace Go, fetch me my purse for gaming. ‘Tis lying, I’ll pledge, On my table’s edge.” Each nerve the nimble boy straineth, And the end of the castle soon gaineth. The fairest […]...
31. The Dead A good man is seized by the police And spirited away. Months later Someone brags that he shot him once Through the back of the head With a Walther 7.65, and his life Ended just there. Those who loved Him go on searching the cafés In the Barrio Chino or the bars Near the harbor. […]...
32. City Dead-House, The BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause-for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d-it lies on the damp brick pavement; The divine woman, her body-I see the Body-I look on it alone, That house once full […]...
33. Praise it 'tis dead Praise it ’tis dead It cannot glow Warm this inclement Ear With the encomium it earned Since it was gathered here Invest this alabaster Zest In the Delights of Dust Remitted since it flitted it In recusance august....
34. 'Tis my first night beneath the Sun ‘Tis my first night beneath the Sun If I should spend it here Above him is too low a height For his Barometer Who Airs of expectation breathes And takes the Wind at prime But Distance his Delights confides To those who visit him...
35. Sonnet 28 – My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said,-he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch […]...
36. To a Dead Man Over the dead line we have called to you To come across with a word to us, Some beaten whisper of what happens Where you are over the dead line Deaf to our calls and voiceless. The flickering shadows have not answered Nor your lips sent a signal Whether love talks and roses grow And […]...
37. 'Tis easier to pity those when dead ‘Tis easier to pity those when dead That which pity previous Would have saved A Tragedy enacted Secures Applause That Tragedy enacting Too seldom does....
38. Love can do all but raise the Dead Love can do all but raise the Dead I doubt if even that From such a giant were withheld Were flesh equivalent But love is tired and must sleep, And hungry and must graze And so abets the shining Fleet Till it is out of gaze....
39. When You See Millions Of The Mouthless Dead When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind […]...
40. A Dream Lies Dead A dream lies dead here. May you softly go Before this place, and turn away your eyes, Nor seek to know the look of that which dies Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, But, for a little, let your step be slow. And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise With words of […]...