I Am 25

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1. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
2. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
3. Mediums THEY shall arise in the States, They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness; They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos; They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive; They shall be complete women and men-their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear; They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products-they […]...
4. Sonnet VI: Is It to Love Is it to love, to fix the tender gaze, To hide the timid blush, and steal away; To shun the busy world, and waste the day In some rude mountain’s solitary maze? Is it to chant one name in ceaseless lays, To hear no words that other tongues can say, To watch the pale moon’s […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. Hymn 134 Religion vain without love. 1 Cor. 13:1-3. Had I the tongues of Greeks and Jews, And nobler speech, that angels use, If love be absent, I am found, Like tinkling brass, an empty sound. Were I inspired to preach and tell All that is done in heav’n and hell; Or could my faith the world […]...
7. Love is Enough Love is enough. Let us not ask for gold. Wealth breeds false aims, and pride and selfishness; In those serene, Arcadian days of old Men gave no thought to princely homes and dress. The gods who dwelt on fair Olympia’s height Lived only for dear love and love’s delight. Love is enough. Love is enough. […]...
8. Sonnet XV: When I consider everything that grows When I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and check’d even by the selfsame sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their […]...
9. Sonnet 15: When I consider every thing that grows When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment. That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment. When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheerèd and checked even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear […]...
10. Sonnet XV When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and cheque’d even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear […]...
11. Dead poet I’m sure it would be easier to survive as a dead poet, I mean it in the surmise that I won’t be tempted To revise or rewrite the poem I wrote last night, or the Poems I wrote last week (which make me cringe when I Read them again), or when I read poetry of […]...
12. A Song Of Success Ho! we were strong, we were swift, we were brave. Youth was a challenge, and Life was a fight. All that was best in us gladly we gave, Sprang from the rally, and leapt for the height. Smiling is Love in a foam of Spring flowers: Harden our hearts to him on let us press! […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses’ day, their morning star! If works, not th’ author’s, their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your book? But these, desir’d by you, the maker’s ends Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends. Yet satires, since […]...
17. The Spring (After Rilke) Spring has returned! Everything has returned! The earth, just like a schoolgirl, memorizes Poems, so many poems. … Look, she has learned So many famous poems, she has earned so many prizes! Teacher was strict. We delighted in the white Of the old man’s beard, bright like the snow’s: Now we may ask […]...
18. The Poet The riches of the poet are equal to his poetry His power is his left hand It is idle weak and precious His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him like Midas Because it is that laziness which is a form of impatience And this he may be destroyed by the gold […]...
19. Judson Stoddard On a mountain top above the clouds That streamed like a sea below me I said that peak is the thought of Budda, And that one is the prayer of Jesus, And this one is the dream of Plato, And that one there the song of Dante, And this is Kant and this is Newton, […]...
20. 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...
21. Thought OF what I write from myself-As if that were not the resumé; Of Histories-As if such, however complete, were not less complete than the preceding poems; As if those shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as the preceding poems; As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of […]...
22. The Planet On The Table Ariel was glad he had written his poems. They were of a remembered time Or of something seen that he liked. Other makings of the sun Were waste and welter And the ripe shrub writhed. His self and the sun were one And his poems, although makings of his self, Were no less makings of […]...
23. And They Obey SMASH down the cities. Knock the walls to pieces. Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses And homes Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black Burnt wood: You are the soldiers and we command you. Build up the cities. Set up the walls again. Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, Warehouses and […]...
24. 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, […]...
25. 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...
26. To The Whore Who Took My Poems some say we should keep personal remorse from the Poem, Stay abstract, and there is some reason in this, But jezus; Twelve poems gone and I don’t keep carbons and you have My Paintings too, my best ones; its stifling: Are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them? Why didn’t you […]...
27. Ai There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five. There’s a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice Just won the National Book Award. The name “Ai” is pronounced “I” So that whenever I talk about the poet Ai Such as I’m teaching Ai’s poems again this semester It sounds like I’m teaching […]...
28. 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!...
29. Big Hair Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie Tear, wanting to look like a moll In a Chandler novel. Dinner, consisting of three parts gin And one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair. There are, she said, poems that can be written Only when the poet is clad in black underwear. […]...
30. For Lew Welch In A Snowfall Snowfall in March: I sit in the white glow reading a thesis About you. Your poems, your life. The author’s my student, He even quotes me. Forty years since we joked in a kitchen in Portland Twenty since you disappeared. All those years and their moments- Crackling bacon, slamming car doors, Poems tried out on […]...
31. Spring Carol WHEN loud by landside streamlets gush, And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush, With sun on the meadows And songs in the shadows Comes again to me The gift of the tongues of the lea, The gift of the tongues of meadows. Straightway my olden heart returns And dances with the dancing burns; It […]...
32. Days of 1986 He was believed by his peers to be an important poet, But his erotic obsession, condemned and strictly forbidden, Compromised his standing, and led to his ruin. Over sixty, and a father many times over, The objects of his attention grew younger and younger: He tried to corrupt the sons of his dearest friends; He […]...
33. 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...
34. Roofs (For Amelia Josephine Burr) The road is wide and the stars are out And the breath of the night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet. But I’m glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my Face, And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. Elegy Here rests beneath this hospitable spot A youth to flats and flatties not unknown. The Plymouth Brethren gave it to him hot; Trinity, Cambridge, claimed him for her own. At chess a minor master, Hoylake set His handicap a 2. Love drove him crazy; Thrre thousand women used to call him “pet”; In other gardens […]...
37. The Leaves like Women interchange The Leaves like Women interchange Exclusive Confidence Somewhat of nods and somewhat Portentous inference. The Parties in both cases Enjoining secrecy Inviolable compact To notoriety....
38. 262. Delia: An Ode FAIR the face of orient day, Fair the tints of op’ning rose; But fairer still my Delia dawns, More lovely far her beauty shows. Sweet the lark’s wild warbled lay, Sweet the tinkling rill to hear; But, Delia, more delightful still, Steal thine accents on mine ear. The flower-enamour’d busy bee The rosy banquet loves […]...
39. Youth and Love What does youth know of love? Little enough, I trow! He plucks the myrtle for his brow, For his forehead the rose. Nay, but of love It is not youth who knows....
40. What Would Freud Say? Wasn’t on purpose that I drilled Through my finger or the nurse Laughed. She apologized Three times and gave me a shot Of something that was a lusher Apology. The person Who drove me home Said my smile was a smeared Totem that followed His body that night as it arced Over a cliff in […]...