The Professional Wanderer

Related poetry:

1. Changed From the outskirts of the town, Where of old the mile-stone stood, Now a stranger, looking down I behold the shadowy crown Of the dark and haunted wood. Is it changed, or am I changed? Ah! the oaks are fresh and green, But the friends with whom I ranged Through their thickets are estranged By […]...
2. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
3. San Francisco This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is unknown. By accident, you put Your money in my Machine (#4) By accident, I put My money in another Machine (#6) On purpose, I put Your clothes in the Empty machine full Of water […]...
4. Money When I had money, money, O! I knew no joy till I went poor; For many a false man as a friend Came knocking all day at my door. Then felt I like a child that holds A trumpet that he must not blow Because a man is dead; I dared Not speak to let […]...
5. THE WANDERER [Published in the Gottingen Musen Almanach, Having been written “to express his feelings and caprices” after His separation from Frederica.] WANDERER. YOUNG woman, may God bless thee, Thee, and the sucking infant Upon thy breast! Let me, ‘gainst this rocky wall, Neath the elm-tree’s shadow, Lay aside my burden, Near thee take my rest. WOMAN. […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. Larry Levis My poem would eat nothing. I tried giving it water But it said no, Worrying me. Day after day, I held it up to the llight, Turning it over, But it only pressed its lips More tightly together. It grew sullen, like a toad Through with being teased. I offered it money, My clothes, my […]...
8. Homage To A Government Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home For lack of money, and it is all right. Places they guarded, or kept orderly, We want the money for ourselves at home Instead of working. And this is all right. It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen, But now it’s been decided […]...
9. The Wanderer ALL day they loitered by the resting ships, Telling their beauties over, taking stock; At night the verdict left my messmate’s lips, “The Wanderer is the finest ship in dock.” I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned, Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean, Saying, “The Wanderer, clipper, outward bound, The […]...
10. Rhythm of Life The clock is silent Nowadays clocks no longer Need to make That rhythmic sound of life. We have moved on And everything is changed I am no longer sad I don’t weep for you. In still moments I see you solitary, reflective- Running with the wind along the waterfront With your Walkman on. Radiowaves carry […]...
11. A Wanderer When Watkin shifts the burden of his cares And all that irked him in his bound employ, Once more become a vagrom-hearted boy, He moves to roundelays and jocund airs; Loitering with dusty harvestmen, he shares Old ale and sunshine; or, with maids half-coy, Pays court to shadows; fools himself with joy, Shaking a leg […]...
12. The Wanderer To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves, Back of old-storied spires and architraves To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut, And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day Flooded with gold some domed metropolis, Between new towers to waken and new bliss Spread on his pillow […]...
13. THE WANDERER'S STORM-SONG [Goethe says of this ode, that it is the only One remaining out of several strange hymns and dithyrambs composed By him at a period of great unhappiness, when the love-affair between Him and Frederica had been broken off by him. He used to sing them While wandering wildly about the country. This particular one […]...
14. THE WANDERER'S NIGHT-SONG THOU who comest from on high, Who all woes and sorrows stillest, Who, for twofold misery, Hearts with twofold balsam fillest, Would this constant strife would cease! What are pain and rapture now? Blissful Peace, To my bosom hasten thou! 1789.*...
15. From the Hymn of Empedocles IS it so small a thing To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes; That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And while we dream on this Lose all […]...
16. A Wanderer's Song A WIND’S in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels, I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels; I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limit of the land, Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand. Oh I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street, To where […]...
17. The Antique To The Northern Wanderer Thou hast crossed over torrents, and swung through wide-spreading ocean, Over the chain of the Alps dizzily bore thee the bridge, That thou might’st see me from near, and learn to value my beauty, Which the voice of renown spreads through the wandering world. And now before me thou standest, canst touch my altar so […]...
18. The Loveable Characters I long for the streets but the Lord knoweth best, For there I am never a saint; There are lovable characters out in the West, With humour heroic and quaint; And, be it Up Country, or be it Out Back, When I shall have gone to my Home, I trust to be buried ‘twixt River […]...
19. Since Then I met Jack Ellis in town to-day Jack Ellis my old mate, Jack Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh, We carried our swags together away To the Never-Again, Out Back. But times have altered since those old days, And the times have changed the men. Ah, well! there’s little to blame or praise Jack Ellis […]...
20. The Place of the Damned All folks who pretend to religion and grace, Allow there’s a HELL, but dispute of the place: But, if HELL may by logical rules be defined The place of the damned – I’ll tell you my mind. Wherever the damned do chiefly abound, Most certainly there is HELL to be found: Damned poets, damned critics, […]...
21. Freethinker Although the Preacher be a bore, The Atheist is even more. I ain’t religious worth a damn; My views are reckoned to be broad; And yet I shut up like a clam When folks get figgerin’ on God; I’d hate my kids to think like me, And though they leave me in the lurch, I’m […]...
22. Fable Oh, there once was a lady, and so I’ve been told, Whose lover grew weary, whose lover grew cold. “My child,” he remarked, “though our episode ends, In the manner of men, I suggest we be friends.” And the truest of friends ever after they were- Oh, they lied in their teeth when they told […]...
23. Queen Matilda Henry the first, surnamed ” Beauclare,” Lost his only son William at sea, So when Henry died it were hard to decide Who his heir and successor should be. There were two runners-up for the title – His daughter Matilda was one, And the other, a boy, known as Stephen of Blois, His young sister […]...
24. Rules and Regulations A short direction To avoid dejection, By variations In occupations, And prolongation Of relaxation, And combinations Of recreations, And disputation On the state of the nation In adaptation To your station, By invitations To friends and relations, By evitation Of amputation, By permutation In conversation, And deep reflection You’ll avoid dejection. Learn well your grammar, […]...
25. The Little Big Man I am small because I am a little child. I shall be big when I am As old as my father is. My teacher will come and say, “It is late, bring your slate And your books.” I shall tell him, ” Do you not know I am as big as father? And I must […]...
26. You Take My Hand You take my hand and I’m suddenly in a bad movie, It goes on and on and Why am I fascinated We waltz in slow motion Through an air stale with aphrodisms We meet behind the endless ptted palms You climb through the wrong windows Other people are leaving But I always stay till the […]...
27. Money Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: ‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully? I am all you never had of goods and sex, You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’ So I look at others, what they do with theirs: They certainly don’t keep it upstairs. By now they’ve a second […]...
28. The Mother Your children grow from you apart, Afar and still afar; And yet it should rejoice your heart To see how glad they are; In school and sport, in work and play, And last, in wedded bliss How others claim with joy to-day The lips you used to kiss. Your children distant will become, And wide […]...
29. Thanksgiving Gettin’ together to smile an’ rejoice, An’ eatin’ an’ laughin’ with folks of your choice; An’ kissin’ the girls an’ declarin’ that they Are growin’ more beautiful day after day; Chattin’ an’ braggin’ a bit with the men, Buildin’ the old family circle again; Livin’ the wholesome an’ old-fashioned cheer, Just for awhile at the […]...
30. Freddy Nobody knows what I feel about Freddy I cannot make anyone understand I love him sub specie aet ernitaties I love him out of hand. I don’t love him so much in the restaurants that’s a fact To get him hobnob with my old pub chums needs too much tact He don’t love them and […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. Adam Weirauch I was crushed between Altgeld and Armour. I lost many friends, much time and money Fighting for Altgeld whom Editor Whedon Denounced as the candidate of gamblers and anarchists. Then Armour started to ship dressed meat to Spoon River, Forcing me to shut down my slaughter-house, And my butcher shop went all to pieces. The […]...
33. John Kinsella's Lament For Mrs. Mary Moore I A bloody and a sudden end, Gunshot or a noose, For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose. He might have had my sister, My cousins by the score, But nothing satisfied the fool But my dear Mary Moore, None other knows what pleasures man At table or in […]...
34. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again at Christmas did we weave Again at Christmas did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth; The silent snow possess’d the earth, And calmly fell our Christmas-eve: The yule-log sparkled keen with frost, No wing of wind the region swept, But over all things brooding slept The quiet sense of something lost. As in the winters left behind, Again […]...
35. Change Changed? Yes, I will confess it – I have changed. I do not love you in the old fond way. I am your friend still – time has not estranged One kindly feeling of that vanished day. But the bright glamour which made life a dream, The rapture of that time, its sweet content, Like […]...
36. After the parties let’s all go to the party friends Where left over bottles and stale fag-ends Are proudly on offer from the last time round And our hosts believe by a ritual sound Fine spirits will flow and new cellophane wrappers Will tingle the fingers of eligible clappers Let’s all ignite at the party friends And burn […]...
37. The September Gale I’M not a chicken; I have seen Full many a chill September, And though I was a youngster then, That gale I well remember; The day before, my kite-string snapped, And I, my kite pursuing, The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat; For me two storms were brewing! It came as quarrels sometimes do, When […]...
38. The Lost Mistress All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that today; One day more bursts them open fully -You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? May […]...
39. THE MUSES' SON [Goethe quotes the beginning of this song in His Autobiography, as expressing the manner in which his poetical Effusions used to pour out from him.] THROUGH field and wood to stray, And pipe my tuneful lay, ‘Tis thus my days are pass’d; And all keep tune with me, And move in harmony, And so on, […]...
40. Weekend Glory Some clichty folks Don’t know the facts, Posin’ and preenin’ And puttin’ on acts, Stretchin’ their backs. They move into condos Up over the ranks, Pawn their souls To the local banks. Buying big cars They can’t afford, Ridin’ around town Actin’ bored. If they want to learn how to live life right They ought […]...