The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye To His Poetry Students

Related poetry:

1. The New Poetry Handbook 1 If a man understands a poem, he shall have troubles. 2 If a man lives with a poem, he shall die lonely. 3 If a man lives with two poems, he shall be unfaithful to one. 4 If a man conceives of a poem, he shall have one less child. 5 If a man […]...
2. Poetry And Religion Religions are poems. They concert Our daylight and dreaming mind, our Emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture Into the only whole thinking: poetry. Nothing’s said till it’s dreamed out in words And nothing’s true that figures in words only. A poem, compared with an arrayed religion, May be like a soldier’s one short marriage night […]...
3. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
4. The Poetry Reading at high noon At a small college near the beach Sober The sweat running down my arms A spot of sweat on the table I flatten it with my finger Blood money blood money My god they must think I love this like the others But it’s for bread and beer and rent Blood money […]...
5. Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry Relax. This won’t last long. Or if it does, or if the lines Make you sleepy or bored, Give in to sleep, turn on The T. V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand Such things. Its feelings Cannot be hurt. They exist Somewhere in the poet, And I am far away. Pick […]...
6. Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem And hold it up to the light Like a color slide Or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem And watch him probe his way out, Or walk inside the poem’s room And feel the walls for a light switch. I […]...
7. Goodbye To The Poetry Of Calcium Dark cypresses The world is uneasily happy; It will all be forgotten. Theodore Storm Mother of roots, you have not seeded The tall ashes of loneliness For me. Therefore, Now I go. If I knew the name, Your name, all trellises of vineyards and old fire Would quicken to shake terribly my Earth, mother of […]...
8. Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, Yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, In city and in forest they smiled like me and you, But now it’s come to distances and both of us must […]...
9. A Poetry Reading At West Point I read to the entire plebe class, In two batches. Twice the hall filled With bodies dressed alike, each toting A copy of my book. What would my Shrink say, if I had one, about Such a dream, if it were a dream? Question and answer time. “Sir,” a cadet yelled from the balcony, And […]...
10. A SIMPLE POEM I want you to continue writing Because I will not always be around With lips that will never touch mine Read your poems out loud So that the words are left engraved On the wall Make me feel your voice rush through me Like a breeze from Oyá I want to hear about Puerto Rico […]...
11. WYTHER PARK SCHOOL LEEDS FIVE I stood there in front of forty-five faces The first day of term, not especially fancying “Exercises in Mechanical Arithmetic” and so instead I read a poem from Kirkup in Japan, about Nijinsky, Hand-written on a fan of rice-paper. Thirty years later, taking a Sri Lankan girl In search of her first job around London […]...
12. Poetry For Supper ‘Listen, now, verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty.’ ‘Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil That goes like blood to the poem’s making? Leave it to nature and the verse […]...
13. Poem for My Wife This morning when we woke up The meat cages still locked us up* We took a bath so they’d look nice Had our breakfast of eggs and rice Wore the the stuff that Pinurbo** From his father once borrowed Braved the traffic never cool Sending our daughter to school Day by day we replay the […]...
14. Imagining you'd come to say goodbye Imagining you’d come to say goodbye, I made a doll of raffia and string. I gave her thatch hair, and a broomstick skirt Of patchwork satin rags. Around each eye I stitched thick lashes. Such a touching thing She was! That even you could not debate – Impassive, undemanding and inert. Yes, surely she’d cause […]...
15. Of Modern Poetry The poem of the mind in the act of finding What will suffice. It has not always had To find: the scene was set; it repeated what Was in the script. Then the theatre was changed To something else. Its past was a souvenir. It has to be living, to learn the speech of the […]...
16. Dream Song 39: Goodbye, sir, & fare well. You're in the clear Goodbye, sir, & fare well. You’re in the clear. ‘Nobody’ (Mark says you said) ‘is ever found out.’ I figure you were right, Having as Henry got away with murder For long. Some jarred clock tell me it’s late, Not for you who went straight But for the lorn. Our roof is lefted off Lately: […]...
17. A Following the phone rang at 1:30 a. m. and it was a man from Denver: “Chinaski, you got a following in Denver…” “yeah?” “yeah, I got a magazine and I want some poems from you…” “FUCK YOU, CHINASKI!” I heard a voice in the background… “I see you have a friend,” I said. “yeah,” he answered, […]...
18. THE SINGING SCHOOL The Poetry School, The Poetry Book Society, The Poetry Business: So much poetry about you’d think I’d want to shout, “Hurray, hurray, Every day’s Poetry Day!” but I don’t and you don’t either- You know its flim-flam on the ether, grants for Jack-the-lads Of both sexes, poets who’ve never been seen in a little magazine […]...
19. The Instructor At times when under cover I ‘ave said, To keep my spirits up an’ raise a laugh, ‘Earin ‘im pass so busy over-‘ead Old Nickel-Neck, ‘oo is n’t on the Staff “There’s one above is greater than us all” Before ‘im I ‘ave seen my Colonel fall, An ‘watched ‘im write my Captain’s epitaph, So […]...
20. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
21. MY PERFECT ROSE At ten she came to me, three years ago, There was ‘something between us’ even then; Watching her write like Eliot every day, Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat, Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet; Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’. […]...
22. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
23. Inspiration How often have I started out With no thought in my noodle, And wandered here and there about, Where fancy bade me toddle; Till feeling faunlike in my glee I’ve voiced some gay distiches, Returning joyfully to tea, A poem in my britches. A-squatting on a thymy slope With vast of sky about me, I’ve […]...
24. Prologue 1/ The taste of a poem Is in the relishing Sweet, sour or bitter Cold, lukewarm or hot The test of a poem Is in the nourishing Undying, fleeting or naught Its effect in the heart 2/ Here are the lines That got stuck in the jam On their way to your heart Possibly the […]...
25. Your Poem My poem may be yours indeed In melody and tone, If in its rhythm you can read A music of your own; If in its pale woof you can weave Your lovelier design, ‘Twill make my lyric, I believe, More yours than mine. I’m but a prompter at the best; Crude cues are all I […]...
26. Be Angry At San Pedro I say to my woman, “Jeffers was A great poet. think of a title Like Be Angry At The Sun. don’t you Realize how great that is? “you like that negative stuff.” she Says “positively,” I agree, finishing my Drink and pouring another. “in one of Jeffers’ poems, not the sun poem, This woman fucks […]...
27. The Inventory Of Goodbye I have a pack of letters, I have a pack of memories. I could cut out the eyes of both. I could wear them like a patchwork apron. I could stick them in the washer, the drier, And maybe some of the pain would float off like dirt? Perhaps down the disposal I could grind […]...
28. Glass Words of a poem should be glass But glass so simple-subtle its shape Is nothing but the shape of what it holds. A glass spun for itself is empty, Brittle, at best Venetian trinket. Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence. Words should be looked through, should be windows. The best word were invisible. […]...
29. Eating Poetry Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad And she walks with her hands in her dress. The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs […]...
30. Goodbye She stood at the window. There was A sound, a light. She stood at the window. A face. Was it that she was looking for, He thought. Was it that She was looking for. He said, Turn from it, turn From it. The pain is Not unpainful. Turn from it. The act of her anger, […]...
31. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
32. To The Students Of The Workers' And Peasants' Faculty So there you sit. And how much blood was shed That you might sit there. Do such stories bore you? Well, don’t forget that others sat before you Who later sat on people. Keep your head! Your science will be valueless, you’ll find And learning will be sterile, if inviting Unless you pledge your intellect […]...
33. Revolt In The Ranks I have just spent one-hour-and-a-half Handicapping tomorrow’s Card. When am I going to get at the poems? Well, they’ll just have to wait They’ll have to warm their feet in the Anteroom Where they’ll sit gossiping about Me. “this Chinaski, doesn’t he realize that Without us he would have long ago Gone mad, been dead?” […]...
34. The Journey Of A Poem Compared To All The Sad Variety Of Travel A poem moves forward, Like the passages and percussions of trains in progress A pattern of recurrence, a hammer of repetetiveoccurrence A slow less and less heard Low thunder under all passengers Steel sounds tripping and tripled and Grinding, revolving, gripping, turning, and returning As the flung carpet of the wide countryside spreads out on […]...
35. The School of Night What did I study in your School of Night? When your mouth’s first unfathomable yes Opened your body to be my book, I read My answers there and learned the spell aright, Yet, though I searched and searched, could never guess What spirits it raised nor where their questions led. Those others, familiar tenants of […]...
36. Lit Instructor Day after day up there beating my wings With all the softness truth requires I feel them shrug whenever I pause: They class my voice among tentative things, And they credit fact, force, battering. I dance my way toward the family of knowing, Embracing stray error as a long-lost boy And bringing him home with […]...
37. Mingus At The Showplace I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen And so I swung into action and wrote a poem And it was miserable, for that was how I thought Poetry worked: you digested experience shat Literature. It was 1960 at The Showplace, long since Defunct, on West 4th st., and I sat at the bar, […]...
38. Apollo Musagete, Poetry, And The Leader Of The Muses Nothing is given which is not taken. Little or nothing is taken which is not freely desired, freely, truly and fully. “You would not seek me if you had not found me”: this is true of all that is supremely desired and admired… “An enigma is an animal,” said the hurried, harried schoolboy: And a […]...
39. HIS POETRY HIS PILLAR Only a little more I have to write: Then I’ll give o’er, And bid the world good-night. ‘Tis but a flying minute, That I must stay, Or linger in it: And then I must away. O Time, that cut’st down all, And scarce leav’st here Memorial Of any men that were; How many lie forgot […]...
40. As The Poems Go as the poems go into the thousands you Realize that you’ve created very Little. It comes down to the rain, the sunlight, The traffic, the nights and the days of the Years, the faces. Leaving this will be easier than living It, typing one more line now as A man plays a piano through the […]...