Beast, Book, Body

Related poetry:

1. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
2. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
3. Thoughts On The Shape Of The Human Body How can we find? how can we rest? how can We, being gods, win joy, or peace, being man? We, the gaunt zanies of a witless Fate, Who love the unloving and lover hate, Forget the moment ere the moment slips, Kiss with blind lips that seek beyond the lips, Who want, and know not […]...
4. When I read the Book WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life? And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life; Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or […]...
5. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. Coloring Book Each picture is heartbreakingly banal, A kitten and a ball of yarn, A dog and bone. The paper is cheap, easily torn. A coloring book’s authority is derived From its heavy black lines As unalterable as the ten commandments Within which minor decisions are possible: The dog black and white, The kitten gray. Under the […]...
8. Book Passion I dreamed I was eating A book. It was made from 8″ by 12″ slabs One inch deep. It tasted like cheese But cut like watercress. As I chewed I understood. As I looked around Others were reading The same title But in the regular way I couldn’t determine Which was best, Eyes only Or […]...
9. I Go Back To The House For A Book I turn around on the gravel And go back to the house for a book, Something to read at the doctor’s office, And while I am inside, running the finger Of inquisition along a shelf, Another me that did not bother To go back to the house for a book Heads out on his own, […]...
10. Beast and Man in India Written for John Lockwood Kipling’s They killed a Child to please the Gods In Earth’s young penitence, And I have bled in that Babe’s stead Because of innocence. I bear the sins of sinful men That have no sin of my own, They drive me forth to Heaven’s wrath Unpastured and alone. I am the […]...
11. My Mother's Body 1. The dark socket of the year The pit, the cave where the sun lies down And threatens never to rise, When despair descends softly as the snow Covering all paths and choking roads: Then hawkfaced pain seized you Threw you so you fell with a sharp Cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk. […]...
12. Go, Little Book – The Ancient Phrase GO, little book – the ancient phrase And still the daintiest – go your ways, My Otto, over sea and land, Till you shall come to Nelly’s hand. How shall I your Nelly know? By her blue eyes and her black brow, By her fierce and slender look, And by her goodness, little book! What […]...
13. Demon And Beast For certain minutes at the least That crafty demon and that loud beast That plague me day and night Ran out of my sight; Though I had long perned in the gyre, Between my hatred and desire. I saw my freedom won And all laugh in the sun. The glittering eyes in a death’s head […]...
14. A Book Full of Pictures Father studied theology through the mail And this was exam time. Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book Full of pictures. Night fell. My hands grew cold touching the faces Of dead kings and queens. There was a black raincoat in the upstairs bedroom Swaying from the ceiling, But what was it doing there? […]...
15. Modern Love IX: He Felt the Wild Beast He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles So masterfully rude, that he would grieve To see the helpless delicate thing receive His guardianship through certain dark defiles. Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too? But still he spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’ He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; […]...
16. Remember, Body Body, remember not only how much you were loved, Not only the beds on which you lay, But also those desires which for you Plainly glowed in the eyes, And trembled in the voice and some Chance obstacle made them futile. Now that all belongs to the past, It is almost as if you had […]...
17. The Book of Annandale I Partly to think, more to be left alone, George Annandale said something to his friends – A word or two, brusque, but yet smoothed enough To suit their funeral gaze-and went upstairs; And there, in the one room that he could call His own, he found a sort of meaningless Annoyance in the mute […]...
18. To Any Reader As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear […]...
19. Book Lover I keep collecting books I know I’ll never, never read; My wife and daughter tell me so, And yet I never head. “Please make me,” says some wistful tome, “A wee bit of yourself.” And so I take my treasure home, And tuck it in a shelf. And now my very shelves complain; They jam […]...
20. On Mr. G. Herbert's Book, Entitled the Temple of Sacred Poe Know you fair, on what you look; Divinest love lies in this book, Expecting fire from your eyes, To kindle this his sacrifice. When your hands untie these strings, Think you’have an angel by th’ wings. One that gladly will be nigh, To wait upon each morning sigh. To flutter in the balmy air Of […]...
21. There is no Frigate like a Book There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll How frugal is the Chariot That bears the Human soul....
22. The Poet And His Book Down, you mongrel, Death! Back into your kennel! I have stolen breath In a stalk of fennel! You shall scratch and you shall whine Many a night, and you shall worry Many a bone, before you bury One sweet bone of mine! When shall I be dead? When my flesh is withered, And above my […]...
23. Dream Song 171: Go, ill-sped book, and whisper to her or Go, ill-sped book, and whisper to her or Storm out the message for her only ear That she is beautiful. Mention sunsets, be not silent of her eyes And mouth and other prospects, praise her size, Say her figure is full. Say her small figure is heavenly & full, So as stunned Henry yatters like […]...
24. Dream Song 4: Filling her compact & delicious body Filling her compact & delicious body With chicken páprika, she glanced at me Twice. Fainting with interest, I hungered back And only the fact of her husband & four other people Kept me from springing on her Or falling at her little feet and crying ‘You are the hottest one for years of night Henry’s […]...
25. Depressed By A Book Of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward An Unused Pasture And Invite The Insects To Join Me Relieved, I let the book fall behind a stone. I climb a slight rise of grass. I do not want to disturb the ants Who are walking single file up the fence post, Carrying small white petals, Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them. I close my eyes for a moment and […]...
26. The Dark House Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief In the chilly, star-bright air: Though the house was shuttered for slumber, He had left one wakeful there. Nothing moved in the garden. Never a bird would […]...
27. That Bright Chimeric Beast That bright chimeric beast Conceived yet never born, Save in the poet’s breast, The white-flanked unicorn, Never may be shaken From his solitude; Never may be taken In any earthly wood. That bird forever feathered, Of its new self the sire, After aeons weathered, Reincarnate by fire, Falcon may not nor eagle Swerve from his […]...
28. Upon Some Distemper of Body In anguish of my heart replete with woes, And wasting pains, which best my body knows, In tossing slumbers on my wakeful bed, Bedrenched with tears that flowed from mournful head, Till nature had exhausted all her store, Then eyes lay dry, disabled to weep more; And looking up unto his throne on high, Who […]...
29. Sonnet LXXI: Who Will in Fairest Book Who will in fairest book of nature know How virtue may best lodg’d in beauty be, Let him but learn of love to read in thee, Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show. There shall he find all vices’ overthrow, Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty Of reason, from whose light those night-birds […]...
30. Dream Song 3: A Stimulant for an Old Beast Acacia, burnt myrrh, velvet, pricky stings. €”I’m not so young but not so very old, Said screwed-up lovely 23. A final sense of being right out in the cold, Unkissed. (—My psychiatrist can lick your psychiatrist.) Women get under things. All these old criminals sooner or later Have had it. I’ve been reading old journals. […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. My Garden The world is sadly sick, they say, And plagued by woe and pain. But look! How looms my garden gay, With blooms in golden reign! With lyric music in the air, Of joy fulfilled in song, I can’t believe that anywhere Is hate and harm and wrong. A paradise my garden is, And there my […]...
33. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
34. The Book of Urizen: Chapter IX 1. Then the Inhabitants of those Cities: Felt their Nerves change into Marrow And hardening Bones began In swift diseases and torments, In throbbings & shootings & grindings Thro’ all the coasts; till weaken’d The Senses inward rush’d shrinking, Beneath the dark net of infection. 2. Till the shrunken eyes clouded over Discernd not the […]...
35. I Sing the Body Electric 1 I SING the Body electric; The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them; They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul. Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies […]...
36. We say we say blame the teachers Don’t we send our young to school To be taught the simple rules For decent public-spirited behaviour Do we pay such crushing rates To have our children turned to louts We’re sick of all this fuss We say blame the teachers Or the preachers They’re all the same to us […]...
37. Book Borrower I am a mild man, you’ll agree, But red my rage is, When folks who borrow books from me Turn down their pages. Or when a chap a book I lend, And find he’s loaned it Without permission to a friend – As if he owned it. But worst of all I hate those crooks […]...
38. The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: VI Rose, you majesty-once, to the ancients, you were Just a calyx with the simplest of rims. But for us, you are the full, the numberless flower, The inexhaustible countenance. In your wealth you seem to be wearing gown upon gown Upon a body of nothing but light; Yet each seperate petal is at the same […]...
39. Autobiographical The lover in these poems Is me; The doctor, Love. He appears As husband, lover Analyst & muse, As father, son & maybe even God & surely death. All this is true. The man you turn to In the dark Is many men. This is an open secret Women share & yet agree to hide […]...
40. Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening I’d watched the sorrow of the evening sky, And smelt the sea, and earth, and the warm clover, And heard the waves, and the seagull’s mocking cry. And in them all was only the old cry, That song they always sing “The best is over! You may remember now, and think, and sigh, O silly […]...