Autobiographical

Related poetry:

1. The Naked And The Nude For me, the naked and the nude (By lexicographers construed As synonyms that should express The same deficiency of dress Or shelter) stand as wide apart As love from lies, or truth from art. Lovers without reproach will gaze On bodies naked and ablaze; The Hippocratic eye will see In nakedness, anatomy; And naked shines […]...
2. John Donne – The Paradox No Lover saith, I love, nor any other Can judge a perfect Lover; Hee thinkes that else none can, nor will agree That any loves but hee; I cannot say I’lov’d. for who can say Hee was kill’d yesterday? Lover withh excesse of heat, more yong than old, Death kills with too much cold; Wee […]...
3. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
4. Among the Multitude AMONG the men and women, the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else-not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am; Some are baffled-But that one is not-that one knows me. Ah, lover and perfect equal! I meant that you should discover me so, by […]...
5. SONNET OF AUTUMN THEY say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes: “Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?” Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise All save that antique brute-like faith of thine; And will not bare the secret of their shame To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long, Nor their […]...
6. Without Disguise If I have erred in showing all my heart, And lost your favour by a lack of pride; If standing like a beggar at your side With naked feet, I have forgot the art Of those who bargain well in passion’s mart, And win the thing they want by what they hide; Be mine the […]...
7. Just Walking Around What name do I have for you? Certainly there is not name for you In the sense that the stars have names That somehow fit them. Just walking around, An object of curiosity to some, But you are too preoccupied By the secret smudge in the back of your soul To say much and wander […]...
8. LoveSpell: Against Endings All the endings in my life Rise up against me Like that sea of troubles Shakespeare mixed With metaphors; Like Vikings in their boats Singing Wagner, Like witches Burning at The stake I submit To my fate. I know beginnings, Their sweetnesses, And endings, Their bitternesses But I do not know Continuance I do not […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. Henry James Who comes to-night? We open the doors in vain. Who comes? My bursting walls, can you contain The presences that now together throng Your narrow entry, as with flowers and song, As with the air of life, the breath of talk? Lo, how these fair immaculate women walk Behind their jocund maker; and we see […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
13. Mrs. Sibley The secret of the stars, gravitation. The secret of the earth, layers of rock. The secret of the soil, to receive seed. The secret of the seed, the germ. The secret of man, the sower. The secret of woman, the soil. My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find....
14. Mary, Pity Women! You call yourself a man, For all you used to swear, An’ Leave me, as you can, My certain shame to bear? I’ear! You do not care You done the worst you know. I ‘ate you, grinnin’ there…. Ah, Gawd, I love you so! Nice while it lasted, an’ now it is over Tear out […]...
15. In The Village Of My Ancestors Someone embraces me Someone looks at me with the eyes of a wolf Someone takes off his hat So I can see him better Everyone asks me Do you know how I’m related to you Unknown old men and women Appropriate the names Of young men and women from my memory I ask one of […]...
16. Christ of Everywhere “Christ of the Andes,” Christ of Everywhere, Great lover of the hills, the open air, And patient lover of impatient men Who blindly strive and sin and strive again, Thou Living Word, larger than any creed, Thou Love Divine, uttered in human deed, Oh, teach the world, warring and wandering still, Thy way of Peace, […]...
17. 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, […]...
18. Abou Ben Adhem Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold:- Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the Presence in the room […]...
19. The Lake The yard half a yard, Half a lake blue as a corpse. The lake will tell things you long to hear: Get away from here. Three o’clock. Dry leaves rat-tat like maracas. Whisky-colored grass Breaks at every step and trees Are slowly realizing they are nude. How long will you stay? For the lake asks […]...
20. Several Questions Answered What is it men in women do require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire. What is it women do in men require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire. The look of love alarms Because ’tis fill’d with fire; But the look of soft deceit Shall Win the lover’s hire. Soft Deceit & Idleness, These are Beauty’s sweetest […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. The Laughter Of Women The laughter of women sets fire To the Halls of Injustice And the false evidence burns To a beautiful white lightness It rattles the Chambers of Congress And forces the windows wide open So the fatuous speeches can fly out The laughter of women wipes the mist From the spectacles of the old; It infects […]...
23. A Man Young And Old: IX. The Secrets Of The Old I have old women’s secrets now That had those of the young; Madge tells me what I dared not think When my blood was strong, And what had drowned a lover once Sounds like an old song. Though Margery is stricken dumb If thrown in Madge’s way, We three make up a solitude; For none […]...
24. Dynamiter I SAT with a dynamiter at supper in a German saloon Eating steak and onions. And he laughed and told stories of his wife and children And the cause of labor and the working class. It was laughter of an unshakable man knowing life to be A rich and red-blooded thing. Yes, his laugh rang […]...
25. Circumstantial Evidence She does not mind a good cigar (The kind, that is, I smoke); She thinks all men quite stupid are, (But laughs whene’er I joke). She says she does not care for verse (But praises all I write); She says that punning is a curse, (But then mine are so bright!) She does not like […]...
26. 483. Esteem for Chloris AH, Chloris, since it may not be, That thou of love wilt hear; If from the lover thou maun flee, Yet let the friend be dear. Altho’ I love my Chloris mair Than ever tongue could tell; My passion I will ne’er declare- I’ll say, I wish thee well. Tho’ a’ my daily care thou […]...
27. Father And Child She hears me strike the board and say That she is under ban Of all good men and women, Being mentioned with a man That has the worst of all bad names; And thereupon replies That his hair is beautiful, Cold as the March wind his eyes....
28. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
29. Dippold the Optician What do you see now? Globes of red, yellow, purple. Just a moment! And now? My father and mother and sisters. Yes! And now? Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces. Try this. A field of grain-a city. Very good! And now? A young woman with angels bending over her. A heavier lens! And now? […]...
30. Unholy Trinity Though Virtue hurt you Vice is nice; Aye, Parson says it’s wrong, Yet for my pleasing I’ll suffice With Women, Wine and Song. But though it be with jocund glee My tavern voice is ringing, Had I to chuck on of the three, By gad! I’d give up singing. Bu not the vine. What draught […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. A Celebration of Charis: I. His Excuse for Loving Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers; Poets, though divine, are men, Some have lov’d as old again. And it is not always face, Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace; Or the feature, or the youth. But […]...
33. Retirement Far from the world, O Lord, I flee, From strife and tumult far; From scenes where Satan wages still His most successful war. The calm retreat, the silent shade, With prayer and praise agree; And seem, by Thy sweet bounty made, For those who follow Thee. There if Thy Spirit touch the soul, And grace […]...
34. The Spring (After Rilke) Spring has returned! Everything has returned! The earth, just like a schoolgirl, memorizes Poems, so many poems. … Look, she has learned So many famous poems, she has earned so many prizes! Teacher was strict. We delighted in the white Of the old man’s beard, bright like the snow’s: Now we may ask […]...
35. My Earlier Life I’ve been home a long time among the vast porticos, Which the mariner sun has tinged with a million fires, Whose grandest pillars, upright, majestic and cold Render them the same, this evening, as caves with basalt spires. The swells’ overwhelming accords of rich music, Heaving images of heaven to the skies, Mingle in a […]...
36. Summer Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom, And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest, And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast; She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair, And […]...
37. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
38. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
39. "I am the only being whose doom…&quot I am the only being whose doom No tongue would ask no eye would mourn I never caused a thought of gloom A smile of joy since I was born In secret pleasure – secret tears This changeful life has slipped away As friendless after eighteen years As lone as on my natal day There […]...
40. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...