The Skeleton

Related poetry:

1. Cocoon For A Skeleton Clothes: to compose The furtive, lone Pillar of bone To some repose. To let hands shirk Utterance behind A pocket’s blind Deceptive smirk. To mask, belie The undue haste Of breast for breast Or thigh for thigh. To screen, conserve The pose, when death Half strips the sheath And leaves the nerve. To edit, glose […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. The Skeleton in Armor “Speak! speak I thou fearful guest Who, with thy hollow breast Still in rude armor drest, Comest to daunt me! Wrapt not in Eastern balms, Bat with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms, Why dost thou haunt me?” Then, from those cavernous eyes Pale flashes seemed to rise, As when the Northern skies […]...
4. On The Skeleton Of A Hound Nightfall, that saw the morning-glories float Tendril and string against the crumbling wall, Nurses him now, his skeleton for grief, His locks for comfort curled among the leaf. Shuttles of moonlight weave his shadow tall, Milkweed and dew flow upward to his throat. Now catbird feathers plume the apple mound, And starlings drowse to winter […]...
5. Prayer You talk o’ prayer an’ such – Well, I jest don’t know how; I guess I got as much Religion as a cow. I fight an’ drink an’ swear; Red hell I often raise, But never said a prayer In all my days. I’m honest, right enough; Don’t take no stock in crimes; I’m jest […]...
6. Exeat I remember the Roman Emperor, one of the cruellest of them, Who used to visit for pleasure his poor prisoners cramped in dungeons, So then they would beg him for death, and then he would say: Oh no, oh no, we are not yet friends enough. He meant they were not yet friends enough for […]...
7. Brave Coward Elisabeth imagines I’ve A yellow streak She deems I have no dash and drive, Jest dogoned weak. ‘A man should be a man,’ says Liz ‘Trade blow for blow.’ Poor kid! What my position is She jest don’t know. She jest don’t know my old man killed, Yea, slew and slew. As steamy blood he […]...
8. Grand-Pa's Whim While for me gapes the greedy grave It don’t make sense That I should have a crazy crave To paint our fence. Yet that is what I aim to do, Though dim my sight: Jest paint them aged pickets blue, Or green or white. Jest squat serenely in the sun Wi’ brush an’ paint, An’ […]...
9. Ballad of Dead Friends As we the withered ferns By the roadway lying, Time, the jester, spurns All our prayers and prying All our tears and sighing, Sorrow, change, and woe All our where-and-whying For friends that come and go. Life awakes and burns, Age and death defying, Till at last it learns All but Love is dying; Love’s […]...
10. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
11. The Tramps Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God’s land together, And we sang the old, old Earth-song, for our youth was very sweet; When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether, Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet Along the road to Anywhere, when […]...
12. Russian Sonia I, born in Weimar Of a mother who was French And German father, a most learned professor, Orphaned at fourteen years, Became a dancer, known as Russian Sonia, All up and down the boulevards of Paris, Mistress betimes of sundry dukes and counts, And later of poor artists and of poets. At forty years, passée, […]...
13. At Cheyenne Young Lochinvar came in from the West, With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest; The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat, His No. Brogans were chuck full of feet, His girdle was horrent with pistols and things, And he flourished a handful of aces on kings. The fair Mariana sate […]...
14. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
15. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
16. The Old Times Were the Best Friends, my heart is half aweary Of its happiness to-night: Though your songs are gay and cheery, And your spirits feather-light, There’s a ghostly music haunting Still the heart of every guest And a voiceless chorus chanting That the Old Times were the best. CHORUS All about is bright and pleasant With the sound of […]...
17. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
18. 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 […]...
19. Remarks About Kings “God said I am tired of kings.” EMERSON God said, “I am tired of kings,” But that was a long while ago! And meantime man said, “No, I like their looks in their robes and rings.” So he crowned a few more, And they went on playing the game as before, Fighting and spoiling things. […]...
20. Penelope's Song Little soul, little perpetually undressed one, Do now as I bid you, climb The shelf-like branches of the spruce tree; Wait at the top, attentive, like A sentry or look-out. He will be home soon; It behooves you to be Generous. You have not been completely Perfect either; with your troublesome body You have done […]...
21. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
22. Her final Summer was it Her final Summer was it And yet We guessed it not If tenderer industriousness Pervaded Her, We thought A further force of life Developed from within When Death lit all the shortness up It made the hurry plain We wondered at our blindness When nothing was to see But Her Carrara Guide post At Our […]...
23. Wet-weather Talk It hain’t no use to grumble and complane; It’s jest as cheap and easy to rejoice. When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, W’y rain’s my choice. Men ginerly, to all intents Although they’re apt to grumble some Puts most theyr trust in Providence, And takes things as they come That is, the […]...
24. Romulus and Remus Oh, little did the Wolf-Child care When first he planned his home, What City should arise and bear The weight and state of Rome. A shiftless, westward-wandering tramp, Checked by the Tiber flood, He reared a wall around his camp Of uninspired mud. But when his brother leaped the Wall And mocked its height and […]...
25. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
26. Kings (For the Rev. James B. Dollard) The Kings of the earth are men of might, And cities are burned for their delight, And the skies rain death in the silent night, And the hills belch death all day! But the King of Heaven, Who made them all, Is fair and gentle, and very small; He […]...
27. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
28. Streets Too Old I WALKED among the streets of an old city and the streets were lean as the throats of hard seafish soaked in salt and kept in barrels many years. How old, how old, how old, we are:-the walls went on saying, street walls leaning toward each other like old women of the people, like old […]...
29. That Shadow, my Likeness THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering; How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits; How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; -But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs, O I never doubt whether that […]...
30. For A Depressed Woman I My friends do not know. But what could my friends not know? About what? What friends? II She sleeps late each day, Stifling each reason to rise, Choked into the quilt. III “I’ll never find work.” She swallows this thought with pills, Finds tears in the glass....
31. The Doomed Ship The doomed ship drives on helpless through the sea, All that the mariners may do is done And death is left for men to gaze upon, While side by side two friends sit silently; Friends once, foes once, and now by death made free Of Love and Hate, of all things lost or won; Yet […]...
32. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
33. 1887 From Clee to heaven the beacon burns, The shires have seen it plain, From north and south the sign returns And beacons burn again. Look left, look right, the hills are bright, The dales are light between, Because ’tis fifty years to-night That God has saved the Queen. Now, when the flame they watch not […]...
34. Poem (As the cat) As the cat Climbed over The top of The jamcloset First the right Forefoot Carefully Then the hind Stepped down Into the pit of The empty Flowerpot...
35. Birds Of A Feather Of bosom friends I’ve had but seven, Despite my years are ripe; I hope they’re now enjoying Heaven, Although they’re not the type; Nor, candidly, no more am I, Though overdue to die. For looking back I see that they Were weak and wasteful men; They loved a sultry jest alway, And women now and […]...
36. I know that He exists I know that He exists. Somewhere in Silence He has hid his rare life From our gross eyes. ‘Tis an instant’s play. ‘Tis a fond Ambush Just to make Bliss Earn her own surprise! But should the play Prove piercing earnest Should the glee glaze In Death’s stiff stare Would not the fun Look too […]...
37. Liebestod When I was bold, when I was bold- And that’s a hundred years!- Oh, never I thought my breast could hold The terrible weight of tears. I said: “Now some be dolorous; I hear them wail and sigh, And if it be Love that play them thus, Then never a love will I.” I said: […]...
38. Three Counsellors IT was the fairy of the place, Moving within a little light, Who touched with dim and shadowy grace The conflict at its fever height. It seemed to whisper “Quietness,” Then quietly itself was gone: Yet echoes of its mute caress Were with me as the years went on. It was the warrior within Who […]...
39. Give Me Back My Rags #12 Enough chattering violets enough sweet trash I won’t hear anything know anything Enough enough of all I’ll say the last enough Fill my mouth with earth Grit my teeth To break off you skull guzzler To break off once for all I’ll just be what I am Without root without branch without crown I’ll lean […]...
40. Delayed till she had ceased to know Delayed till she had ceased to know Delayed till in its vest of snow Her loving bosom lay An hour behind the fleeting breath Later by just an hour than Death Oh lagging Yesterday! Could she have guessed that it would be Could but a crier of the joy Have climbed the distant hill Had […]...