The duel

Related poetry:

1. The Duel In Pat Mahoney’s booze bazaar the fun was fast and free, And Ragtime Billy spanked the baby grand; While caroling a saucy song was Montreal Maree, With sozzled sourdoughs giving her a hand. When suddenly erupting in the gay and gilded hall, A stranger draped himself upon the bar; As in a voice like bedrock […]...
2. The ride to bumpville Play that my knee was a calico mare Saddled and bridled for Bumpville; Leap to the back of this steed, if you dare, And gallop away to Bumpville! I hope you’ll be sure to sit fast in your seat, For this calico mare is prodigiously fleet, And many adventures you’re likely to meet As you […]...
3. Twelve O'Clock Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons now. I have been at my Book all the morning. You say it is only twelve o’clock. Suppose it isn’t any later; Can’t you ever think it is afternoon when it is only twelve O’clock? I can easily imagine now that the sun has reached the […]...
4. Song For The Severed Head In 'The King Of The Great Clock Tower&#039 Saddle and ride, I heard a man say, Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea, What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower? All those tragic characters ride But turn from Rosses’ crawling tide, The meet’s upon the mountain-side. A slow low note and an iron bell. What brought them there so far from their […]...
5. Little miss brag Little Miss Brag has much to say To the rich little lady from over the way And the rich little lady puts out a lip As she looks at her own white, dainty slip, And wishes that she could wear a gown As pretty as gingham of faded brown! For little Miss Brag she lays […]...
6. Images of snow – february 1996 snow is a thousand flowers The chinese probably said Hundreds and thousands this morning Drop their garlands on my head Last night the festoons started Long before we went to bed Snow is a white-furred rabbit The chinese probably wrote Hedgerows and fields this morning Wear a similar fluffy coat Last night the winter danced […]...
7. The Junk Man I AM glad God saw Death And gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired Of living: When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and The connections loose And the clock goes on ticking and telling the wrong time From hour to hour And people around the house […]...
8. Inheritance/Improvisation Inheritance. I wasn’t raised to call Myself Black, Indian, Chinese “You’re human,” said my parents. That was all. By the west window sits a Chinese camphor chest Folded full of blankets and grandmother’s dresses. Tiny Chinese bones she had. They’ll never fit me But the fabric’s pretty. Atop the chest: a set of Mali drums. […]...
9. The Three Bushes An incident from the ‘Historia mei Temporis’ Of the Abbe Michel de Bourdeille Said lady once to lover, ‘None can rely upon A love that lacks its proper food; And if your love were gone How could you sing those songs of love? I should be blamed, young man. O my dear, O my dear. […]...
10. Suppose Suppose, my dear, that you were I And by your side your sweetheart sate; Suppose you noticed by and by The distance ‘twixt you were too great; Now tell me, dear, what would you do? I know and so do you. And when (so comfortably placed) Suppose you only grew aware That that dear, dainty […]...
11. Three Balls JABOWSKY’S place is on a side street and only the rain washes the dusty three balls. When I passed the window a month ago, there rested in proud isolation: A family bible with hasps of brass twisted off, a wooden clock with pendulum gone, And a porcelain crucifix with the glaze nicked where the left […]...
12. Empty Room The clock disserts on punctuation, syntax. The clock’s voice, thin and dry, asserts, repeats. The clock insists: a lecturer demonstrating, Loudly, with finger raised, when the class has gone. But time flows through the room, light flows through the room Like someone picking flowers, like someone whistling Without a tune, like talk in front of […]...
13. Holy Thursday They’re kindly here, to let us linger so late, Long after the shutters are up. A waiter glides from the kitchen with a plate Of stew, or some thick soup, And settles himself at the next table but one. We know, you and I, that it’s over, That something or other has come between Us, […]...
14. The Alligator Bride The clock of my days winds down. The cat eats sparrows outside my window. Once, she brought me a small rabbit Which we devoured together, under The Empire Table While the men shrieked Repossessing the gold umbrella. Now the beard on my clock turns white. My cat stares into dark corners Missing her gold umbrella. […]...
15. Dream Song 16: Henry's pelt was put on sundry walls Henry’s pelt was put on sundry walls Where it did much resemble Henry and Them persons was delighted. Especially his long & glowing tail By all them was admired, and visitors. They whistled: This is it! Golden, whilst your frozen daiquiris Whir at midnight, gleams on you his fur & silky & black. Mission accomplished, […]...
16. The Family Monkey We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather Recklessly with funds carefully gathered since Grandfather’s time for the purchase of a steam monkey. We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric Or gas monkey. The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey Merchant. But the family always planned on a […]...
17. A Note Left In Jimmy Leonard's Shack Near the dry river’s water-mark we found Your brother Minnegan, Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground. Beany, the kid whose yellow hair turns green, Told me to find you, even if the rain, And tell you he was drowned. I hid behind the chassis on the bank, The wreck of someone’s Ford: I […]...
18. Earth's Immortalities FAME. See, as the prettiest graves will do in time, Our poet’s wants the freshness of its prime; Spite of the sexton’s browsing horse, the sods Have struggled through its binding osier rods; Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry, Wanting the brick-work promised by-and-by; How the minute grey lichens, plate o’er plate, Have softened down […]...
19. Forget-Me-Not A gallant knight and his betroth’d bride, Were walking one day by a river side, They talk’d of love, and they talk’d of war, And how very foolish lovers are. At length the bride to the knight did say, ‘There have been many young ladies led astray By believing in all their lovers said, And […]...
20. Fields of Soria Hills of silver plate, Grey heights, dark red rocks Through which the Duero bends Its crossbow arc Round Soria, shadowed oaks, Stone dry-lands, naked mountains, White roads and river poplars, Twilights of Soria, warlike and mystical, Today I feel, for you, In my hearts depths, sadness, Sadness of love! Fields of Soria, Where it seems […]...
21. Sky Song The flower of the Alps told the seashell: “You’re shining” The seashell told the sea: “You echo” The sea told the boat: “You’re shuddering” The boat told the fire: “You’re glowing brightly” The fire told me: “I glow less brightly than her eyes” The boat told me: “I shudder less than your heart does when […]...
22. Potions The old woman made mint Candy for the children Who’d bolt through her front door, Silhouettes of the great blue Heron. She sold ten-dollar potions From a half-lit kitchen. Chinese boxes Furnished with fliers & sinkers. Sassafras & lizard tongues. They’d walk out Of the woods or drive in from cities, Clutching lovesick dollar bills […]...
23. Half Steps folly cracked the mirror A soul gasping wound Voodoo induced vertigo Psychedelic blackouts In the cracks Between art and blasphemy Paralyzing paranoia of becoming The vision that heals Cast shadows to douse the flames Starved enlightenment I betrayed my muse I wallowed in nostalgic fumes Blood clots from yesteryears insurrection mad dissident desire found wanting […]...
24. The Twenty-Third Psalm My Shepherd is the Lord my God, There is no want I know; His flock He leads in verdant meads, Where tranquil waters flow. He doth restore my fainting soul With His divine caress, And, when I stray, He points the way To paths of righteousness. Yea, though I walk the vale of death, What […]...
25. Why? American Detectives Never remove their hats When investigating murders In other people’s flats. P. S. Chinese Tecs Are far more dreaded! And they always appear Bare-headed!...
26. Clock-O'-Clay In the cowslip pips I lie, Hidden from the buzzing fly, While green grass beneath me lies, Pearled with dew like fishes’ eyes, Here I lie, a clock-o’-clay, Waiting for the time o’ day. While the forest quakes surprise, And the wild wind sobs and sighs, My home rocks as like to fall, On its […]...
27. Mack The Knife Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear And he shows them pearly white. Just a jack knife has Macheath, dear And he keeps it out of sight. When the shark bites with his teeth, dear Scarlet billows start to spread. Fancy gloves, though, wears Macheath, dear So there’s not a trace of red. On the […]...
28. I prayed, at first, a little Girl I prayed, at first, a little Girl, Because they told me to But stopped, when qualified to guess How prayer would feel to me If I believed God looked around, Each time my Childish eye Fixed full, and steady, on his own In Childish honesty And told him what I’d like, today, And parts of […]...
29. Condolence They hurried here, as soon as you had died, Their faces damp with haste and sympathy, And pressed my hand in theirs, and smoothed my knee, And clicked their tongues, and watched me, mournful-eyed. Gently they told me of that Other Side- How, even then, you waited there for me, And what ecstatic meeting ours […]...
30. The Wander-Light And they heard the tent-poles clatter, And the fly in twain was torn – ‘Tis the soiled rag of a tatter Of the tent where I was born. And what matters it, I wonder? Brick or stone or calico? – Or a bush you were born under, When it happened long ago? And my beds […]...
31. Thought it was America Is there anything which isn’t made in China? The answer is… of course there is, the question Was rhetorical, a crude attempt to palliate China’s late renaissance; eighty years ago you’d say That nothing was – or nothing much that Mattered was, and still been wrong. I’d clipped my nails, don’t like them long and […]...
32. The Troubles of Matthew Mahoney In a little town in Devonshire, in the mellow September moonlight, A gentleman passing along a street saw a pitiful sight, A man bending over the form of a woman on the pavement. He was uttering plaintive words and seemingly discontent. “What’s the matter with the woman?” asked the gentleman, As the poor, fallen woman […]...
33. The Satin Dress Needle, needle, dip and dart, Thrusting up and down, Where’s the man could ease a heart Like a satin gown? See the stitches curve and crawl Round the cunning seams- Patterns thin and sweet and small As a lady’s dreams. Wantons go in bright brocade; Brides in organdie; Gingham’s for the plighted maid; Satin’s for […]...
34. A Route of Evanescence A Route of Evanescence With a revolving Wheel A Resonance of Emerald A Rush of Cochineal And every Blossom on the Bush Adjusts its tumbled Head The mail from Tunis, probably, An easy Morning’s Ride...
35. Vaudeville Dancer ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville. The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to The Livery Stable Blues. It is long ago, Elsie Flimmerwon, I saw your mother over a washtub in a grape arbor when your father came with the locomotor […]...
36. Incense Think not that incense-smoke has had its day. My friends, the incense-time has but begun. Creed upon creed, cult upon cult shall bloom, Shrine after shrine grow gray beneath the sun. And mountain-boulders in our aged West Shall guard the graves of hermits truth-endowed: And there the scholar from the Chinese hills Shall do deep […]...
37. June Paula is digging and shaping the loam of a salvia, Scarlet Chinese talker of summer. Two petals of crabapple blossom blow fallen in Paula’s hair, And fluff of white from a cottonwood....
38. September We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold: No clock counts this. When kisses are repeated and the arms hold There is no telling where time is. It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still: Behind the eye a star, Under the silk of the wrist a sea, tell Time is nowhere. We stand; […]...
39. Inscription for my little son's silver plate When thou dost eat from off this plate, I charge thee be thou temperate; Unto thine elders at the board Do thou sweet reverence accord; And, though to dignity inclined, Unto the serving-folk be kind; Be ever mindful of the poor, Nor turn them hungry from the door; And unto God, for health and food […]...
40. A Little Song When you, my Dear, are away, away, How wearily goes the creeping day. A year drags after morning, and night Starts another year of candle light. O Pausing Sun and Lingering Moon! Grant me, I beg of you, this boon. Whirl round the earth as never sun Has his diurnal journey run. And, Moon, slip […]...