A dull sound, varying now and again

Related poetry:

1. TO THE SOUND OF VIOLINS Give me life at its most garish Friday night in the Square, pink sequins dazzle And dance on clubbers bare to the midriff Young men in crisp shirts and pressed pants ‘Dress code smart’ gyrate to ‘Sex Bomb, Sex Bomb’ And sing along its lyrics to the throng of which I’m one My shorts, shoulder […]...
2. Two south coast poems (a) this morning i came within sound of the sea for a man whose eyes till now were a bed of rock Whose hands were drier than deserts The sea’s voice drove fear up through the valley The tributaries meandering inside me longing for outlet Shrivelled even as their own courses became straight My demand for ocean died now the ocean approached The clouds put […]...
3. The Aboriginal Cricketer Mid-9th century Good-looking young man In your Crimean shirt With your willow shield Up, as if to face spears, You’re inside their men’s Law, One church they do obey; They’ll remember you were here. Keep fending off their casts. Don’t come out of character. Like you they suspect Idiosyncrasy of witchcraft. Above all, don’t get […]...
4. O Dull Cold Northern Sky O DULL cold northern sky, O brawling sabbath bells, O feebly twittering Autumn bird that tells The year is like to die! O still, spoiled trees, O city ways, O sun desired in vain, O dread presentiment of coming rain That cloys the sullen days! Thee, heart of mine, I greet. In what hard mountain […]...
5. Unlike, For Example, The Sound Of A Riptooth Saw gnawing through a shinbone, a high howl Inside of which a bloody, slashed-by-growls note Is heard, unlike that Sound, and instead, its opposite: a barely sounded Sound (put your nuclear ears On for it, your giant hearing horn, its cornucopia mouth Wide) a slippery whoosh of rain Sliding down a mirror Leaned against a windfallen […]...
6. When Your Pants Begin to Go When you wear a cloudy collar and a shirt that isn’t white, And you cannot sleep for thinking how you’ll reach to-morrow night, You may be a man of sorrows, and on speaking terms with Care, And as yet be unacquainted with the Demon of Despair; For I rather think that nothing heaps the trouble […]...
7. The Manor Farm THE rock-like mud unfroze a little, and rills Ran and sparkled down each side of the road Under the catkins wagging in the hedge. But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun; Nor did I value that thin gliding beam More than a pretty February thing Till I came down to the […]...
8. Sunday Afternoons I sit at home At my desk alone As I used to do On many sunday afternoons When you came back to me, Your arms ached for me, And your arms would close me in Though they smelled of other women. I think of you On Sunday afternoons. Your sweet head would bow, Like a […]...
9. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness; Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d, Sandals more interwoven and complete To fit the naked foot of poesy; Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Of every chord, and […]...
10. A slant of sun on dull brown walls A slant of sun on dull brown walls, A forgotten sky of bashful blue. Toward God a mighty hymn, A song of collisions and cries, Rumbling wheels, hoof-beats, bells, Welcomes, farewells, love-calls, final moans, Voices of joy, idiocy, warning, despair, The unknown appeals of brutes, The chanting of flowers, The screams of cut trees, The […]...
11. Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea […]...
12. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
13. Bredon Hill In summertime on Bredon The bells they sound so clear; Round both the shires they ring them In steeples far and near, A happy noise to hear. Here of a Sunday morning My love and I would lie, And see the coloured counties, And hear the larks so high About us in the sky. The […]...
14. Then A solitary apartment house, the last one Before the boulevard ends and a dusty road Winds its slow way out of town. On the third floor Through the dusty windows Karen beholds The elegant couples walking arm in arm In the public park. It is Saturday afternoon, And she is waiting for a particular young […]...
15. The Sound of the Sea The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, And round the pebbly beaches far and wide I heard the first wave of the rising tide Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep; A voice out of the silence of the deep, A sound mysteriously multiplied As of a cataract from the mountain’s side, Or roar of winds […]...
16. Christmas party at the South Danbury Church December twenty-first We gather at the white Church festooned Red and green, the tree flashing Green-red lights beside the altar. After the children of Sunday School Recite Scripture, sing songs, And scrape out solos, They retire to dress for the finale, To perform the pageant Again: Mary and Joseph kneeling Cradleside, Three Kings, Shepherds and […]...
17. The Sound of the Trees I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place? We suffer them by the day Till we lose all measure of pace, And fixity in our joys, And acquire a listening air. They are that that talks of […]...
18. Sound And Sense True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. ‘Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, The sound must seem an echo to the sense: Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash […]...
19. It don't sound so terrible quite as it did It don’t sound so terrible quite as it did I run it over “Dead”, Brain, “Dead.” Put it in Latin left of my school Seems it don’t shriek so under rule. Turn it, a little full in the face A Trouble looks bitterest Shift it just Say “When Tomorrow comes this way I shall have […]...
20. SOUND OF SLEAT I always looked out at the world, And wondered if the world looked back at me, Standing on the edge of something, On my face – the wind from the cold sea. Across the waters were mirrors to see Faces that looked like me, People caught between two places, People crossing over the seas. And […]...
21. Hamlet Off-Stage: Laertes Cool Laertes has groupies, proof he has taste, Has cool. Wears skate-board clothes: elephant pants, The crotch snagging his knees, tent-size tee-shirt. He wants the play staged at a roller rink: Him, Fortinbras, and me wearing in-lines, The rest in quads. And instead of a duel, We throw ourselves a roller-derby brawl. Why not? Do something […]...
22. Long Island Sound I see it as it looked one afternoon In August,-by a fresh soft breeze o’erblown. The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon, A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon. The shining waters with pale currents strewn, The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove, The semi-circle of its dark, green grove. The luminous grasses, and […]...
23. SOUND, SWEET SONG SOUND, sweet song, from some far land, Sighing softly close at hand, Now of joy, and now of woe! Stars are wont to glimmer so. Sooner thus will good unfold; Children young and children old Gladly hear thy numbers flow. 1820.* – * In the cases in which the date is marked thus (*), it […]...
24. The Loneliness One dare not sound The Loneliness One dare not sound And would as soon surmise As in its Grave go plumbing To ascertain the size The Loneliness whose worst alarm Is lest itself should see And perish from before itself For just a scrutiny The Horror not to be surveyed But skirted in the Dark With Consciousness suspended And […]...
25. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro’ the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze. And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold: Calm and […]...
26. Happy the Lab'rer Happy the lab’rer in his Sunday clothes! In light-drab coat, smart waistcoat, well-darn’d hose, Andhat upon his head, to church he goes; As oft, with conscious pride, he downward throws A glance upon the ample cabbage rose That, stuck in button-hole, regales his nose, He envies not the gayest London beaux. In church he takes […]...
27. Paris, October 1936 From all of this I am the only one who leaves. From this bench I go away, from my pants, From my great situation, from my actions, From my number split side to side, From all of this I am the only one who leaves. From the Champs Elysées or as the strange Alley of […]...
28. The Red Shirt “…his poems that no one reads anymore become dust, wind, nothing, Like the insolent colored shirt he bought to die in.” -Vargas Llosa If I gave 5 birds Each 4 eyes I would be blind Unto the 3rd Generation, if I Gave no one a word For a day And let the day Grow into […]...
29. Picture Of A 23-Year-Old Youth Painted By His Friend Of The Same Age, An Amature He finished the painting yesterday noon. Now He studies it in detail. He has painted him in a Gray unbuttoned coat, a deep gray; without Any vest or any tie. With a rose-colored shirt; Open at the collar, so something might be seen Also of the beauty of his chest, of his neck. The right […]...
30. Shiloh A Requiem Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low Over the fields in cloudy days, The forest-field of Shiloh – Over the field where April rain Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain Through the pause of night That followed the Sunday fight Around the church of Shiloh – The church, so lone, the […]...
31. New Mexico I was fairly drunk when it Began and I took out my bottle and used it Along the way. I was reading a week or two after Kandel and I did not look quite as Pretty but I brought it off and we Ended up at the Webbs, 6, 8, 10 of Us, and I […]...
32. Filthy Savior Look at this storm, the idiot, Pouring its heart out here, of all places, An industrial suburb on a Sunday, Soaking nothing but cinder-block And parking lots, wasting its breath on smokeless Smoke-stacks, not even a trash can To send rumbling through the streets. And that lightning bolt, forking itself To death, to hit nothing […]...
33. Clothes Put on a clean shirt Before you die, some Russian said. Nothing with drool, please, No egg spots, no blood, No sweat, no sperm. You want me clean, God, So I’ll try to comply. The hat I was married in, Will it do? White, broad, fake flowers in a tiny array. It’s old-fashioned, as stylish […]...
34. Falstaff's Lament Over Prince Hal Become Henry V One that I cherished, Yea, loved as a son – Up early, up late with, My promising one: No use in good nurture, None, lads, none! Here on this settle He wore the true crown, King of good fellows, And Fat Jack was one – Now, Beadle of England In formal array – Best fellow […]...
35. Some keep the Sabbath going to Church Some keep the Sabbath going to Church I keep it, staying at Home With a Bobolink for a Chorister And an Orchard, for a Dome Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice I just wear my Wings And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church, Our little Sexton sings. God preaches, a noted Clergyman And the […]...
36. I never felt at Home Below I never felt at Home Below And in the Handsome Skies I shall not feel at Home I know I don’t like Paradise Because it’s Sunday all the time And Recess never comes And Eden’ll be so lonesome Bright Wednesday Afternoons If God could make a visit Or ever took a Nap So not to […]...
37. Fulfillment For this my mother wrapped me warm, And called me home against the storm, And coaxed my infant nights to quiet, And gave me roughage in my diet, And tucked me in my bed at eight, And clipped my hair, and marked my weight, And watched me as I sat and stood: That I might […]...
38. Late Moon 2 a. m. December, and still no mon Rising from the river. My mother Home from the beer garden Stands before the open closet Her hands still burning. She smooths the fur collar, The scarf, opens the gloves Crumpled like letters. Nothing is lost She says to the darkness, nothing. The moon finally above the […]...
39. Lydia Humphrey Back and forth, back and forth, to and from the church, With my Bible under my arm Till I was gray and old; Unwedded, alone in the world, Finding brothers and sisters in the congregation, And children in the church. I know they laughed and thought me queer. I knew of the eagle souls that […]...
40. Meddlesome Matty One ugly trick has often spoil’d The sweetest and the best; Matilda, though a pleasant child, One ugly trick possess’d, Which, like a cloud before the skies, Hid all her better qualities. Sometimes she’d lift the tea-pot lid, To peep at what was in it, Or tilt the kettle, if you did But turn your […]...