The Maldive Shark

Related poetry:

1. The Shark’s Parlor Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on Cumberland Island Where the night tide came crawling under the stairs came up the first Two or three steps and the cottage stood on poles all night With the sea sprawled under it as we dreamed of the great fin circling Under […]...
2. The Fury Of Hating Eyes I would like to bury All the hating eyes Under the sand somewhere off The North Atlantic and suffocate Them with the awful sand And put all their colors to sleep In that soft smother. Take the brown eyes of my father, Those gun shots, those mean muds. Bury them. Take the blue eyes of […]...
3. Ad Piscatorem FOR these are sacred fishes all Who know that lord that is the lord of all; Come to the brim and nose the friendly hand That sways and can beshadow all the land. Nor only so, but have their names, and come When they are summoned by the Lord of Rome. Here once his line […]...
4. Sentimental Shark Give me a cabin in the woods Where not a human soul intrudes; Where I can sit beside a stream Beneath a balsam bough and deam, And every morning see arise The sun like bird of paradise; Then go down to the creek and fish A speckled trout for breakfast dish, And fry it in […]...
5. Dream Song 7: 'The Prisoner of Shark Island' with Paul Muni Henry is old, old; for Henry remembers Mr Deeds’ tuba, & the Cameo, & the race in Ben Hur, —The Lost World, with sound, & The Man from Blankey’s, which he did not dig, Nor did he understand one caption of, Bewildered Henry, while the Big Ones laughed. Now Henry is unmistakably a Big One. […]...
6. Light As The Linnet On My Way I Start LIGHT as the linnet on my way I start, For all my pack I bear a chartered heart. Forth on the world without a guide or chart, Content to know, through all man’s varying fates, The eternal woman by the wayside waits....
7. Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet I Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood? For ever must your Nigers tainted flood Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain? Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rear The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore Can hell-sprung Glory claim the […]...
8. While the Fates Sleep Come, let us to the sunways of the west, Hasten, while crystal dews the rose-cups fill, Let us dream dreams again in our blithe quest O’er whispering wold and hill. Castles of air yon wimpling valleys keep Where milk-white mist steals from the purpling sea, They shall be ours in the moon’s wizardry, While the […]...
9. Desolation I think that the bitterest sorrow or pain Of love unrequited, or cold death’s woe, Is sweet, compared to that hour when we know That some grand passion is on the wane. When we see that the glory, and glow, and grace Which lent a splendour to night and day, Are surely fading, and showing […]...
10. The Voice of the Lobster ”Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare ‘You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.’ As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, […]...
11. Damsel flies certain creatures it seems are never seen Straight on – they occupy the corner of the eye Once sensed (a second look) they’re gone The damsel even more so than the dragon-fly She’s a tough cookie for all her slender flutters Huge eyes strong jaws belie her evanescence The kind of female to leave love’s […]...
12. When I Came Last to Ludlow When I came last to Ludlow Amidst the moonlight pale, Two friends kept step beside me, Two honest friends and hale. Now Dick lies long in the churchyard, And Ned lies long in jail, And I come home to Ludlow Amidst the moonlight pale....
13. His Books MY days among the Dead are past; Around me I behold, Where’er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old: My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day. With them I take delight in weal And seek relief in woe; And while I understand and feel How much to […]...
14. Song Why so pale and wan fond lover? Prithee why so pale? Will, when looking well can’t move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee why so pale? Why so dull and mute young sinner? Prithee why so mute? Will, when speaking well can’t win her, Saying nothing do’t? Prithee why so mute? Quit, quit for shame, this […]...
15. The Merry Guide Once in the wind of morning I ranged the thymy wold; The world-wide air was azure And all the brooks ran gold. There through the dews beside me Behold a youth that trod, With feathered cap on forehead, And poised a golden rod. With mien to match the morning And gay delightful guise And friendly […]...
16. A Special Friend Everyone needs a special friend To help them on their way, To pick them up when they are down, To guide them when they stray. To share a chat and cup of tea, To work out hard decisions, To lend a hand with household Chores and help them achieve Their ambitions. A special friend is […]...
17. The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean The one who has flung herself out of the grass, The one who is eating sugar out of my hand, Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down Who is […]...
18. Ohio I have questioned The loyalty Of rivers in winter, Their yearnings for oceans obstructed, Indecisive meandering Clogged by ice floes And winter drought. No Amazon or Nile Would endure this thickening Of their blood, lethargic existence Of shivering in the season, Or the final degradation Of coal barges, indifferently Scraping congealing skin. (2005)...
19. Long ago I once knew all the birds that came And nested in our orchard trees; For every flower I had a name My friends were woodchucks, toads, and bees; I knew where thrived in yonder glen What plants would soothe a stone-bruised toe Oh, I was very learned then; But that was very long ago! I […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. The Exile We told her that her far off shore was bleak and dour to view, And that her sky was dull and mirk while ours was smiling blue. She only sighed in answer, “It is even as ye say, But oh, the ragged splendor when the sun bursts through the gray!” We brought her dew-wet roses […]...
22. Dream Song 87: Op. posth. no. 10 these hearings endlessly, friends, word is had Henry may be returning to our life Adult & difficult. There exist rumors that remote and sad And quite beyond the knowledge of his wife To the foothills of the cult Will come in silence this distinguished one Essaying once again the lower slopes In triumph, keeping up […]...
23. God's Light-Houses 1 When night falls on the earth, the sea 2 From east to west lies twinkling bright 3 With shining beams from beacons high 4 Which flash afar a friendly light. 5 The sailor’s eyes, like eyes in prayer, 6 Turn unto them for guiding ray: 7 If storms obscure their radiance, 8 The great […]...
24. 43. Song-O Leave Novels! O LEAVE novels, 1 ye Mauchline belles, Ye’re safer at your spinning-wheel; Such witching books are baited hooks For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel; Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons, They make your youthful fancies reel; They heat your brains, and fire your veins, And then you’re prey for Rob Mossgiel. Beware a tongue that’s […]...
25. Jaws SEVEN nations stood with their hands on the jaws of death. It was the first week in August, Nineteen Hundred Fourteen. I was listening, you were listening, the whole world was Listening, And all of us heard a Voice murmuring: “I am the way and the light, He that believeth on me Shall not perish […]...
26. The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends Though you are in your shining days, Voices among the crowd And new friends busy with your praise, Be not unkind or proud, But think about old friends the most: Time’s bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost For all eyes but these eyes....
27. Toledo Three widows of the Middle West We’re grimly chewing gum; The Lido chef a quail had dressed With garlic and with rum, And they were painfully oppressed For they had eaten some. Said One: “This famed El Greco guy Gives me the blessed pip; Them Saints look like they want to die – Let’s give […]...
28. Mack The Knife Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear And he shows them pearly white. Just a jack knife has Macheath, dear And he keeps it out of sight. When the shark bites with his teeth, dear Scarlet billows start to spread. Fancy gloves, though, wears Macheath, dear So there’s not a trace of red. On the […]...
29. In a Breath To the Williamson Brothers HIGH noon. White sun flashes on the Michigan Avenue Asphalt. Drum of hoofs and whirr of motors. Women trapsing along in flimsy clothes catching Play of sun-fire to their skin and eyes. Inside the playhouse are movies from under the sea. From the heat of pavements and the dust of sidewalks, […]...
30. Give Me Back My Rags Just come to my mind My thoughts will scratch out your face Just come into my sight My eyes will start snarling at you Just open your mouth My silence will smash your jaws Just remind me of you My remembering will paw up the ground under your feet That’s what it’s come to between […]...
31. 450. Monody on a Lady, famed for her Caprice HOW cold is that bosom which folly once fired, How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten’d; How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired, How dull is that ear which to flatt’ry so listen’d! If sorrow and anguish their exit await, From friendship and dearest affection remov’d; How doubly severer, Maria, […]...
32. My Hundred Books A thousand books my library Contains; And all are primed, it seems to me With brains. Mine are so few I scratch in thought My head; For just a hundred of the lot I’ve read. A hundred books, but of the best, I can With wisdom savour and digest And scan. Yet when afar from […]...
33. My Friends My friends without shields walk on the target It is late the windows are breaking My friends without shoes leave What they love Grief moves among them as a fire among Its bells My friends without clocks turn On the dial they turn They part My friends with names like gloves set out Bare handed […]...
34. Let such pure hate still underprop “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers.” Let such pure hate still underprop Our love, that we may be Each other’s conscience, And have our sympathy Mainly from thence. We’ll one another treat like gods, And all the faith we have In virtue and in truth, bestow On either, and suspicion leave To gods below. Two solitary […]...
35. Docks STROLLING along By the teeming docks, I watch the ships put out. Black ships that heave and lunge And move like mastodons Arising from lethargic sleep. The fathomed harbor Calls them not nor dares Them to a strain of action, But outward, on and outward, Sounding low-reverberating calls, Shaggy in the half-lit distance, They pass […]...
36. The Truce of Night Lo, it is dark, Save for the crystal spark Of a virgin star o’er the purpling lea, Or the fine, keen, silvery grace of a young Moon that is hung O’er the priest-like firs by the sea; Lo, it is still, Save for the wind of the hill, And the luring, primeval sounds that fill […]...
37. More Than Myself Not that it was beautiful, But that, in the end, there was A certain sense of order there; Something worth learning In that narrow diary of my mind, In the commonplaces of the asylum Where the cracked mirror Or my own selfish death Outstared me. . . I tapped my own head; It was glass, […]...
38. Mortality The first-class brains of a senior civil servant Shiver and shatter and fall As the steering column of his comfortable Humber Batters in the bony wall. All those delicate re-adjustments “On the one hand, if we proceed With the ad hoc policy hitherto adapted To individual need… On the other hand, too rigid an arrangement […]...
39. On a Portrait of a Deaf Man The kind old face, the egg-shaped head, The tie, discreetly loud, The loosely fitting shooting clothes, A closely fitting shroud. He liked old city dining rooms, Potatoes in their skin, But now his mouth is wide to let The London clay come in. He took me on long silent walks In country lanes when young. […]...
40. "In re a Gentleman, One&quot We see it each day in the paper, And know that there’s mischief in store; That some unprofessional caper Has landed a shark on the shore. We know there’ll be plenty of trouble Before they get through with the fun, Because he’s been coming the double On clients, has “Gentleman, One”. Alas for the gallant […]...