Storm Windows
People are putting up storm windows now,
Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain
Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon,
I saw storm windows lying on the ground,
Frame-full of rain; through the water and glass
I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream
Away in lines like seaweed on the tide
Or blades of wheat leaning under the wind.
The ripple and splash of rain on the blurred glass
Seemed that it briefly said, as I walked by,
Something I should have liked to say to you,
Something… the dry grass bent under the pane
Brimful of bouncing water… something of
A swaying clarity which blindly echoes
This lonely afternoon of memories
And missed desires, while the wintry rain
(Unspeakable, the distance in the mind!)
Runs on the standing windows and away.
Related poetry:
- 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 […]...
- The Storm 1 Against the stone breakwater, Only an ominous lapping, While the wind whines overhead, Coming down from the mountain, Whistling between the arbors, the winding terraces; A thin whine of wires, a rattling and flapping of leaves, And the small street-lamp swinging and slamming against the lamp pole. Where have the people gone? There is […]...
- Storm God in me is the fury on the bare heath God in me shakes the interior kingdom of my heaven. God in me is the fire wherein I burn. God in me swirling cloud and driving rain God in me cries a lonely nameless bird God in me beats my head upon a stone. God […]...
- The Windows In these darkened rooms, where I spend Oppresive days, I pace to and fro To find the windows. When a window Opens, it will be a consolation. But the windows cannot be found, or I cannot Find them. And maybe it is best that I do not find them. Maybe the light will be a […]...
- Now Close the Windows Now close the windows and hush all the fields: If the trees must, let them silently toss; No bird is singing now, and if there is, Be it my loss. It will be long ere the marshes resume, I will be long ere the earliest bird: So close the windows and not hear the wind, […]...
- A Line-Storm Song The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift. The road is forlorn all day, Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift, And the hoof-prints vanish away. The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee, Expend their bloom in vain. Come over the hills and far with me, And be my love in the rain. The birds […]...
- High Windows When I see a couple of kids And guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, […]...
- In the Storm that is to come By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone – When the nations fly at each other’s throats let Australia look to her own; Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home; For the South must look to the South […]...
- Night (This night, agitated by the growing storm) This night, agitated by the growing storm, How it has suddenly expanded its dimensions, That ordinarily would have gone unnoticed, Like a cloth folded, and hidden in the folds of time. Where the stars give resistance it does not stop there, Neither does it begin within the forest’s depths, Nor show upon the surface of […]...
- Storm and Sunlight I In barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw, Harking the storm that rides a hurtling legion Up the arched sky, and speeds quick heels of panic With growling thunder loosed in fork and clap That echoes crashing thro’ the slumbrous vault. The whispering woodlands darken: vulture Gloom Stoops, menacing the skeltering flocks of […]...
- Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm 1903 Before a midnight breaks in storm, Or herded sea in wrath, Ye know what wavering gusts inform The greater tempest’s path? Till the loosed wind Drive all from mind, Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry, O’ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky. Ere rivers league against the land In piratry of flood, Ye […]...
- 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 […]...
- She Hears The Storm There was a time in former years While my roof-tree was his When I should have been distressed by fears At such a night as this! I should have murmured anxiously, ‘The prickling rain strikes cold; His road is bare of hedge or tree, And he is getting old.’ But now the fitful chimney-roar, The […]...
- One Lonely Afternoon Since the fern can’t go to the sink for a drink of Water, I graciously submit myself to the task, bringing two Glasses from the sink. And so we sit, the fern and I, sipping water together. Of course I’m more complex than a fern, full of deep Thoughts as I am. But I lay […]...
- Night Opens to the Storm Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. Night opens to the storm, A mauve coupling, Swollen. The sky, laden Like a merchant ship, Throws off its anchor. Danger, heavier Each instant, Exudes the mugginess Of a greenhouse. Shimmering like mercury The Valley of the Seven Muses Breathes mist Through its gray nostrils. The valley […]...
- A Passing Bell Mournfully to and fro, to and fro the trees are waving; What did you say, my dear? The rain-bruised leaves are suddenly shaken, as a child Asleep still shakes in the clutch of a sob – Yes, my love, I hear. One lonely bell, one only, the storm-tossed afternoon is braving, Why not let it […]...
- The Storm I Ran to the forest for shelter, Breathless, half sobbing; I put my arms round a tree, Pillowed my head against the rough bark. “Protect me,” I said. “I am a lost child.” But the tree showered silver drops on my face and hair. A wind sprang up from the ends of the earth; It […]...
- Before Storm There’s a grayness over the harbor like fear on the face of a woman, The sob of the waves has a sound akin to a woman’s cry, And the deeps beyond the bar are moaning with evil presage Of a storm that will leap from its lair in that dour north-eastern sky. Slowly the pale […]...
- The Wreck of the Steamer Storm Queen Ye landsmen, all pray list to me, While I relate a terrible tale of the sea, Concerning the screw steamer “Storm Queen” Which was wrecked, alas! a most heast-rending scene. From Sebastopol, with a cargo of grain, she was on her way, And soon after entering the Bay of Biscay, On the 21st of December, […]...
- A Piece Of The Storm For Sharon Horvath From the shadow of domes in the city of domes, A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That’s all There was to it. No more than […]...
- 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. […]...
- On this long storm the Rainbow rose On this long storm the Rainbow rose On this late Morn the Sun The clouds like listless Elephants Horizons straggled down The Birds rose smiling, in their nests The gales indeed were done Alas, how heedless were the eyes On whom the summer shone! The quiet nonchalance of death No Daybreak can bestir The slow […]...
- Glee The great storm is over Glee The great storm is over Four have recovered the Land Forty gone down together Into the boiling Sand Ring for the Scant Salvation Toll for the bonnie Souls Neighbor and friend and Bridegroom Spinning upon the Shoals How they will tell the Story When Winter shake the Door Till the Children urge But the […]...
- The Art of Storm-riding I could not decipher the living riddle of my body Put it to sleep when it hungered, and overfed it When time came to dream I nearly choked on the forked tongue of my spirit Between the real and the ideal, rejecting the one And rejected by the other I still have not mastered that […]...
- Desire WITH Thee a moment! Then what dreams have play! Traditions of eternal toil arise, Search for the high, austere and lonely way The Spirit moves in through eternities. Ah, in the soul what memories arise! And with what yearning inexpressible, Rising from long forgetfulness I turn To Thee, invisible, unrumoured, still: White for Thy whiteness […]...
- Proud Music of The Storm 1 PROUD music of the storm! Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains! Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert, Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus, all the tongues of nations; You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses! […]...
- Storm-Music O Music hast thou only heard The laughing river, the singing bird, The murmuring wind in the poplar-trees, Nothing but Nature’s melodies? Nay, thou hearest all her tones, As a Queen must hear! Sounds of wrath and fear, Mutterings, shouts, and moans, Madness, tumult, and despair, All she has that shakes the air With voices […]...
- The Empty Boats Why do I see these empty boats, sailing on airy seas? One haunted me the whole night long, swaying with every breeze, Returning always near the eaves, or by the skylight glass: There it will wait me many weeks, and then, at last, will pass. Each soul is haunted by a ship in which that […]...
- Rain Has Fallen All the Day Rain has fallen all the day. O come among the laden trees: The leaves lie thick upon the way Of memories. Staying a little by the way Of memories shall we depart. Come, my beloved, where I may Speak to your heart....
- Wonderment Then a wind blew; And he who had forgot he moved Lonely amid the green and silver morning weather, Suddenly grew Aware of clouds and trees Gleaming and white and shafted, shaken together And blown to music by the ruffling breeze. Like flush of wings The moment passed: he stood Dazzled with blossom in the […]...
- Boy and Father THE BOY Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer. The leather law books of Alexander’s father fill a room like hay in a barn. Alexander has asked his father to let him build a house like bricklayers build, a house with walls and roofs made of big leather law books. The rain beats […]...
- Bric-a-Brac Little things that no one needs Little things to joke about Little landscapes, done in beads. Little morals, woven out, Little wreaths of gilded grass, Little brigs of whittled oak Bottled painfully in glass; These are made by lonely folk. Lonely folk have lines of days Long and faltering and thin; Therefore little wax bouquets, […]...
- The Snow-Storm Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates […]...
- The Windows Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word? He is a brittle crazie glasse: Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window, through thy grace. But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie, Making thy life to shine within The holy Preachers ; then the […]...
- The Rainwalkers An old man whose black face Shines golden-brown as wet pebbles Under the streetlamp, is walking two mongrel dogs of dis- Proportionate size, in the rain, In the relaxed early-evening avenue. The small sleek one wants to stop, Docile to the imploring soul of the trashbasket, But the young tall curly one Wants to walk […]...
- Gacela of the Dead Child Each afternoon in Granada, Each afternoon, a child dies. Each afternoon the water sits down And chats with its companions. The dead wear mossy wings. The cloudy wind and the clear wind Are two pheasants in flight through the towers, And the day is a wounded boy. Not a flicker of lark was left in […]...
- Looking Upwards in a Storm God of my life, to Thee I call, Afflicted at Thy feet I fall; When the great water-floods prevail, Leave not my trembling heart to fail! Friend of the friendless and the faint, Where should I lodge my deep complaint, Where but with Thee, whose open door Invites the helpless and the poor! Did ever […]...
- Congratulations Congratulations, you’ve succeeded, You’ve acknowledged 60% of you at least Are the incredibly dense and mindless people Needed to make sense of incomprehensible Avoidance strategies on recycling water. You may have missed the point, the vote Was not to see which political policy would Prevail; tragically it was a statement to our Nation On re-use […]...
- The Song of the Ungirt Runners We swing ungirded hips, And lightened are our eyes, The rain is on our lips, We do not run for prize. We know not whom we trust Nor whitherward we fare, But we run because we must Through the great wide air. The waters of the seas Are troubled as by storm. The tempest strips […]...
- San Francisco Night Windows So hangs the hour like fruit fullblown and sweet, Our strict and desperate avatar, Despite that antique westward gulls lament Over enormous waters which retreat Weary unto the white and sensual star. Accept these images for what they are Out of the past a fragile element Of substance into accident. I would speak honestly and […]...