CURFEW

Related poetry:

1. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
2. The Story Of Our Lives 1 We are reading the story of our lives Which takes place in a room. The room looks out on a street. There is no one there, No sound of anything. The tress are heavy with leaves, The parked cars never move. We keep turning the pages, hoping for something, Something like mercy or change, […]...
3. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
4. Curfew What else could we do, for the doors were guarded, What else could we do, for they had imprisoned us, What else could we do, for the streets were forbidden us, What else could we do, for the town was asleep? What else could we do, for she hungered and thirsted, What else could we […]...
5. Endymion The rising moon has hid the stars; Her level rays, like golden bars, Lie on the landscape green, With shadows brown between. And silver white the river gleams, As if Diana, in her dreams, Had dropt her silver bow Upon the meadows low. On such a tranquil night as this, She woke Endymion with a […]...
6. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
7. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
8. Silence There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave-under the deep, deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hush’d-no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy […]...
9. Midnight Mass for the Dying Year Yes, the Year is growing old, And his eye is pale and bleared! Death, with frosty hand and cold, Plucks the old man by the beard, Sorely, sorely! The leaves are falling, falling, Solemnly and slow; Caw! caw! the rooks are calling, It is a sound of woe, A sound of woe! Through woods and […]...
10. Nirvana not much chance, Completely cut loose from Purpose, He was a young man Riding a bus Through North Carolina On the wat to somewhere And it began to snow And the bus stopped At a little cafe In the hills And the passengers Entered. He sat at the counter With the others, He ordered and […]...
11. Pictured My work, I’m very careful about it, and I love it. But today I’m discouraged by how slowly it’s going. The day has affected my mood. It gets darker and darker. Endless wind and rain. I’m more in the mood for looking than for writing. In this picture, I’m now gazing at a handsome boy […]...
12. A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE This is the place. Stand still, my steed, Let me review the scene, And summon from the shadowy Past The forms that once have been. The Past and Present here unite Beneath Time’s flowing tide, Like footprints hidden by a brook, But seen on either side. Here runs the highway to the town; There the […]...
13. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
14. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 13: The half-shut doors through which we heard that music The half-shut doors through which we heard that music Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence. The stars whirl out, the night grows deep. Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain. In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep. Where have we been? What savage chaos of music […]...
15. Snow Day Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, Its white flag waving over everything, The landscape vanished, Not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, And beyond these windows The government buildings smothered, Schools and libraries buried, the post office lost Under the noiseless drift, The paths of trains softly blocked, The world fallen […]...
16. Not Love Perhaps This is not Love, perhaps, Love that lays down its life, That many waters cannot quench, Nor the floods drown, But something written in lighter ink, Said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own. A need, at times, to be together and talk, And then the finding we can walk More firmly through […]...
17. Calverly's We go no more to Calverly’s, For there the lights are few and low; And who are there to see by them, Or what they see, we do not know. Poor strangers of another tongue May now creep in from anywhere, And we, forgotten, be no more Than twilight on a ruin there. We two, […]...
18. Clenched Soul We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening hand in hand While the blue night dropped on the world. I have seen from my window The fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of sun Burned like a coin in my hand. I remembered you with my […]...
19. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
20. Shadows Before “Like clouds o’er the South are the nations who reign On fair islands that we would command; But clouds that are darker and denser than these Have sailed from an Isle in the Northern Seas And rest on our Southern Land. Low in dust is our Goddess of Liberty hurled At our feet, and the […]...
21. Elizabeth Elizabeth, it surely is most fit [Logic and common usage so commanding] In thy own book that first thy name be writ, Zeno and other sages notwithstanding; And I have other reasons for so doing Besides my innate love of contradiction; Each poet – if a poet – in pursuing The muses thro’ their bowers […]...
22. Hanging Fire I am fourteen And my skin has betrayed me The boy I cannot live without Still sucks his tumb In secret How come my knees are Always so ashy What if I die Before the morning comes And momma’s in the bedroom With the door closed. I have to learn how to dance In time […]...
23. Lullaby Beloved, may your sleep be sound That have found it where you fed. What were all the world’s alarms To mighty paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen’s arms? Sleep, beloved, such a sleep As did that wild Tristram know When, the potion’s work being done, Roe could […]...
24. A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Each vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray, And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day: Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. They breathe their spells towards the departing day, Encompassing the […]...
25. Written On A Summer Evening The church bells toll a melancholy round, Calling the people to some other prayers, Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares, More harkening to the sermon’s horrid sound. Surely the mind of man is closely bound In some blind spell: seeing that each one tears Himself from fireside joys and Lydian airs, And converse high of […]...
26. THE DAYS GO BY for Daniel Weissbort Some poems meant only for my eyes About a grief I can’t let go But I want to, want to throw It away like an old worn-out cloak Or screw up like a ball of over-written Trash and toss into the corner bin. I said it must come up or out I […]...
27. A Fleeting Passion Thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not romp, Let’s grimly kiss with bated breath; As quietly and solemnly As Life when it is kissing Death. Now in the silence of the grave, My hand is squeezing that soft breast; While thou dost in such passion lie, It mocks me with its look of rest. But […]...
28. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 06: Portrait Of One Dead This is the house. On one side there is darkness, On one side there is light. Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns- O, any number-it will still be night. And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward To long sonorous halls. And here is spring forever at these windows, With roses on […]...
29. The Genesis of the Butterfly The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings, That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide, With muffled music, murmured far and wide. Ah, the Spring time, when we […]...
30. For Joseph Your ears will never hear sounds that to me are ordinary as air. From the hour that you were born the tight white shell of silence closed around you. You edged away from friendship. Silence clung and stung like sand, smothering words before they could break free. Sand has a brittle sound as it stutters […]...
31. To Any Reader As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear […]...
32. Well I Remember How You Smiled Well I remember how you smiled To see me write your name upon The soft sea-sand. . . “O! what a child! You think you’re writing upon stone!” I have since written what no tide Shall ever wash away, what men Unborn shall read o’er ocean wide And find Ianthe’s name again....
33. An Address to the Rev. George Gilfillan All hail to the Rev. George Gilfillan of Dundee, He is the greatest preacher I did ever hear or see. He is a man of genius bright, And in him his congregation does delight, Because they find him to be honest and plain, Affable in temper, and seldom known to complain. He preaches in a […]...
34. Factory Windows are Always Broken FACTORY windows are always broken. Somebody’s always throwing bricks, Somebody’s always heaving cinders, Playing ugly Yahoo tricks. Factory windows are always broken. Other windows are let alone. No one throws through the chapel-window The bitter, snarling, derisive stone. Factory windows are always broken. Something or other is going wrong. Something is rotten I think, in […]...
35. Passers-By PASSERS-BY, Out of your many faces Flash memories to me Now at the day end Away from the sidewalks Where your shoe soles traveled And your voices rose and blend To form the city’s afternoon roar Hindering an old silence. Passers-by, I remember lean ones among you, Throats in the clutch of a hope, Lips […]...
36. The Deserted House Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide. Careless tenants they! All within is dark as night: In the windows is no light; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. Close the door; the shutters close; Or through the windows we shall see The […]...
37. The Exorcists And I solemnly swear On the chill of secrecy That I know you not, this room never, The swollen dress I wear, Nor the anonymous spoons that free me, Nor this calendar nor the pulse we pare and cover. For all these present, Before that wandering ghost, That yellow moth of my summer bed, I […]...
38. Not Fear Not fear. Maybe, out there somewhere, The possibility of fear; the wall That might tumble down, because it’s for sure That behind it is the sea. Not fear. Fear has a countenance; It’s external, concrete, Like a rifle, a shot bolt, A suffering child, Like the darkness that’s hidden In every human mouth. Not fear. […]...
39. Sleep she was a short one Getting fat and she had once been Beautiful and She drank the wine She drank the wine in bed and Talked and screamed and cursed at Me And i told her Please, I need some Sleep. -sleep? sleep? ya son of a Bitch, ya never sleep, ya Don’t need any […]...
40. To Dorothy You are not beautiful, exactly. You are beautiful, inexactly. You let a weed grow by the mulberry And a mulberry grow by the house. So close, in the personal quiet Of a windy night, it brushes the wall And sweeps away the day till we sleep. A child said it, and it seemed true: “Things […]...