Two swimmers wrestled on the spar

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1. Mistrust YOU look at me with wan, bright eyes When in the deeper world I stray: You fear some hidden ambush lies In wait to call me, “Come away.” What if I see behind the veil Your starry self beseeching me, Or at its stern command grow pale, “Let her be free, let her be free”?...
2. Ships that Pass in the Night Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing; I look far out into the pregnant night, Where I can hear the solemn booming gun And catch the gleaming of a random light, That tells me that the ship I seek Is passing, passing. My tearful eyes my soul’s deep hurt are glassing; For […]...
3. Ears In The Turrets Hear Ears in the turrets hear Hands grumble on the door, Eyes in the gables see The fingers at the locks. Shall I unbolt or stay Alone till the day I die Unseen by stranger-eyes In this white house? Hands, hold you poison or grapes? Beyond this island bound By a thin sea of flesh And […]...
4. Tin Fish The ships destroy us above And ensnare us beneath. We arise, we lie down, and we In the belly of Death. The ships have a thousand eyes To mark where we come. . . But the mirth of a seaport dies When our blow gets home....
5. Far Within Us #7 Toothed eyes fly Over still waters Around us purple lips Flutter from branches Screams hit the blue And fall onto pillows Our homes hide Behind narrow backs Hands clutch at Flimsy clouds Our veins roll turbid Bed and tables Of shattered bones Noon has fallen into our hands And turned all gloomy An open grave […]...
6. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
7. The Gardener XXVI: What Comes From Your Willing Hands “What comes from your willing Hands I take. I beg for nothing More.” “Yes, yes, I know you, modest Mendicant, you ask for all that one Has.” “If there be a stray flower for me I will wear it in my heart.” “But if there be thorns?” “I will endure them.” “Yes, yes, I know […]...
8. Sonnet On An Alpine Night My hand, a little raised, might press a star- Where I may look, the frosted peaks are spun, So shaped before Olympus was begun, Spanned each to each, now, by a silver bar. Thus to face Beauty have I traveled far, But now, as if around my heart were run Hard, lacing fingers, so I […]...
9. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
10. "What says the sea, little shell?&quot “What says the sea, little shell? What says the sea? Long has our brother been silent to us, Kept his message for the ships, Awkward ships, stupid ships.” “The sea bids you mourn, O Pines, Sing low in the moonlight. He sends tale of the land of doom, Of place where endless falls A rain […]...
11. The Avowal As swimmers dare To lie face to the sky And water bears them, As hawks rest upon air And air sustains them, So would I learn to attain Freefall, and float Into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, Knowing no effort earns That all-surrounding grace....
12. It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon The Flower distinct and Red I, passing, thought another Noon Another in its stead Will equal glow, and thought no More But came another Day To find the Species disappeared The Same Locality The Sun in place no other fraud On Nature’s perfect Sum Had I but lingered […]...
13. The Art Of Poetry To gaze at a river made of time and water And remember Time is another river. To know we stray like a river And our faces vanish like water. To feel that waking is another dream That dreams of not dreaming and that the death We fear in our bones is the death That every […]...
14. O Germany, Pale Mother! Let others speak of her shame, I speak of my own. O Germany, pale mother! How soiled you are As you sit among the peoples. You flaunt yourself Among the besmirched. The poorest of your sons Lies struck down. When his hunger was great. Your other sons Raised their hands against him. This is notorious. […]...
15. The Rose Of The World Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place Like the pale […]...
16. Yvytot Where wail the waters in their flaw A spectre wanders to and fro, And evermore that ghostly shore Bemoans the heir of Yvytot. Sometimes, when, like a fleecy pall, The mists upon the waters fall, Across the main float shadows twain That do not heed the spectre’s call. The king his son of Yvytot Stood […]...
17. Landscape of a Vomiting Multitude The fat lady came out first, Tearing out roots and moistening drumskins. The fat lady Who turns dying octopuses inside out. The fat lady, the moon’s antagonist, Was running through the streets and deserted buildings And leaving tiny skulls of pigeons in the corners And stirring up the furies of the last centuries’ feasts And […]...
18. Change Change Said the sun to the moon, You cannot stay. Change Says the moon to the waters, All is flowing. Change Says the fields to the grass, Seed-time and harvest, Chaff and grain. You must change said, Said the worm to the bud, Though not to a rose, Petals fade That wings may rise Borne […]...
19. August Why should this Negro insolently stride Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed, Their copper petals shriveled up with pride, Hot with a superfluity of heat, Like a great brazier borne along the street By captive leopards, black and burning pied. […]...
20. Hours Continuing Long HOURS continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted, Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my hands; Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries; […]...
21. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
22. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
23. The Blossom ON a day alack the day! Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind All unseen ‘gan passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; Air, would I might […]...
24. To His Mistress Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye? Without thy light what light remains in me? Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee; I live, I move, and by thy beams I see. Thou art my life-if […]...
25. Tell as a Marksman were forgotten Tell as a Marksman were forgotten Tell this Day endures Ruddy as that coeval Apple The Tradition bears Fresh as Mankind that humble story Though a statelier Tale Grown in the Repetition hoary Scarcely would prevail Tell had a son The ones that knew it Need not linger here Those who did not to Human […]...
26. The Sonnets To Orpheus: X You who are close to my heart always, I welcome you, ancient coffins of stone, Which the cheerful water of Roman days Still flows through, like a wandering song. Or those other ones that are open wide Like the eyes of a happily waking shepard -with silence and bee-suck nettle inside, From which ecstatic butterflies […]...
27. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
28. In soothing, sweetened words No, she said, I never knew it was your first. It doesn’t Matter anyway. I always had an inkling that we’d find A way. And then we did. I’m glad about it just for that. Whether it was good or bad, or would have happened Had we made a pact or that it should have […]...
29. Song Who hath his fancy pleased With fruits of happy sight, Let here his eyes be raised On Nature’s sweetest light; A light which doth dissever And yet unite the eyes, A light which, dying never, Is cause the looker dies. She never dies, but lasteth In life of lover’s heart; He ever dies that wasteth […]...
30. The Appology ‘Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule I am alone forbid to play the fool To follow through the Groves a wand’ring Muse And fain’d Idea’s for my pleasures chuse Why shou’d it in my Pen be held a fault Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought Whilst Lamia to […]...
31. We talked as Girls do We talked as Girls do Fond, and late We speculated fair, on every subject, but the Grave Of ours, none affair We handled Destinies, as cool As we Disposers be And God, a Quiet Party To our Authority But fondest, dwelt upon Ourself As we eventual be When Girls to Women, softly raised We occupy […]...
32. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
33. San Sebastian And your sunny years with a gracious wife Have brought you a daughter dear. “I watched her to-day; a more comely maid, As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue, Round a Hintock maypole never gayed.” “Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too, As it happens,” the Sergeant said. “My daughter is now,” […]...
34. Searching These quiet Autumn days, My soul, like Noah’s dove, on airy wings Goes out and searches for the hidden things Beyond the hills of haze. With mournful, pleading cries, Above the waters of the voiceless sea That laps the shore of broad Eternity, Day after day, it flies, Searching, but all in vain, For some […]...
35. Wedding Wind The wind blew all my wedding-day, And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind; And a stable door was banging, again and again, That he must go and shut it, leaving me Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain, Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick, Yet seeing nothing. When he came back He said […]...
36. World Below the Brine, The THE world below the brine; Forests at the bottom of the sea-the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds-the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold-the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks-coral, gluten, grass, rushes-and […]...
37. The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water I heard the old, old men say, ‘Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.’ They had hands like claws, and their knees Were twisted like the old thorn-trees By the waters. I heard the old, old men say, ‘All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.’...
38. When I Suspected There will be a time when it will end. Be it parting Be it death So each passing minute with you Pendulummed with sadness. So many times I looked long into your face. I could hear the clock ticking....
39. A Descriptive Poem on the Silvery Tay Beautiful silvery Tay, With your landscapes, so lovely and gay, Along each side of your waters, to Perth all the way; No other river in the world has got scenery more fine, Only I am told the beautiful Rhine, Near to Wormit Bay, it seems very fine, Where the Railway Bridge is towering above its […]...
40. Whispers of Heavenly Death WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear; Labial gossip of night-sibilant chorals; Footsteps gently ascending-mystical breezes, wafted soft and low; Ripples of unseen rivers-tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing; (Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?) I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses; Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently […]...