Athritic Fingers Have To Last

Related poetry:

1. The Fingers of the Light The Fingers of the Light Tapped soft upon the Town With “I am great and cannot wait So therefore let me in.” “You’re soon,” the Town replied, “My Faces are asleep But swear, and I will let you by, You will not wake them up.” The easy Guest complied But once within the Town The […]...
2. I held a Jewel in my fingers I held a Jewel in my fingers And went to sleep The day was warm, and winds were prosy I said “‘Twill keep” I woke and chid my honest fingers, The Gem was gone And now, an Amethyst remembrance Is all I own...
3. Dream Song 224: Lonely in his great age Eighty Lonely in his great age, Henry’s old friend Leaned on his burning cane while hís old friend Was hymnéd out of living. The Abbey rang with sound. Pound white as snow Bowed to them with his thoughts—it’s hard to know them though For the old man sang no word. Dry, ripe with pain, busy […]...
4. Half An Hour I never had you, nor will I ever have you I suppose. A few words, an approach As in the bar yesterday, and nothing more. It is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art Sometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only For a short while, we create pleasure Which almost seems real. […]...
5. Escape is such a thankful Word Escape is such a thankful Word I often in the Night Consider it unto myself No spectacle in sight Escape it is the Basket In which the Heart is caught When down some awful Battlement The rest of Life is dropt ‘Tis not to sight the savior It is to be the saved And that […]...
6. Your noble reign The man whose term we would remember as our longest, Constant serving Head of State, besides the late Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, turned 67 yesterday. Congratulations John, You’ve run a long and torrid race, kept up a frenzied pace As leader of the pack. When looking back you’ll smile no Doubt, take time out to […]...
7. The Choice Some inherit manly beauty, Some come into worldly wealth; Some have lofty sense of duty, Others boast exultant health. Though the pick may be confusing, Health, wealth, charm or character, If you had the chance of choosing Which would you prefer? I’m not sold on body beauty, Though health I appreciate; Character and sense of […]...
8. Psalm 119 part 9 Desire of knowledge; or, The teachings of the Spirit with the word. Ver. 64,68,18 Thy mercies fill the earth, O Lord; How good thy works appear! Open mine eyes to read thy word, And see thy wonders there. Ver. 73,125 My heart was fashioned by thy hand; My service is thy due: O make thy […]...
9. God Needs Antonio Your soul was lifted by the wings today Hearing the master of the violin: You praised him, praised the great Sabastian too Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think Of old Antonio Stradivari? – him Who a good century and a half ago Put his true work in that brown instrument And by […]...
10. Spelling My daughter plays on the floor With plastic letters, Red, blue & hard yellow, Learning how to spell, Spelling, How to make spells. * I wonder how many women Denied themselves daughters, Closed themselves in rooms, Drew the curtains So they could mainline words. * A child is not a poem, A poem is not […]...
11. The Spice-Tree This is the song The spice-tree sings: “Hunger and fire, Hunger and fire, Sky-born Beauty- Spice of desire,” Under the spice-tree Watch and wait, Burning maidens And lads that mate. The spice-tree spreads And its boughs come down Shadowing village and farm and town. And none can see But the pure of heart The great […]...
12. The Wage-Slaves Oh, glorious are the guarded heights Where guardian souls abide Self-exiled from our gross delights Above, beyond, outside: An ampler arc their spirit swings Commands a juster view We have their word for all these things, No doubt their words are true. Yet we, the bond slaves of our day, Whom dirt and danger press […]...
13. True Story they found him walking along the freeway All red in Front He had taken a rusty tin can And cut off his sexual Machinery As if to say See what you’ve done to Me? you might as well have the Rest. And he put part of him In one pocket and Part of him in […]...
14. Shut Not Your Doors, &c SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries, For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet needed most, I bring; Forth from the army, the war emerging-a book I have made, The words of my book nothing-the drift of it everything; A book separate, not link’d with the rest, nor felt by […]...
15. I knew that I had gained I knew that I had gained And yet I knew not how By Diminution it was not But Discipline unto A Rigor unrelieved Except by the Content Another bear its Duplicate In other Continent....
16. 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 […]...
17. An Abandoned Factory, Detroit The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands, An iron authority against the snow, And this grey monument to common sense Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands, Of protest, men in league, and of the slow Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence. Beyond, through broken windows one can see Where the great […]...
18. Coda There’s little in taking or giving, There’s little in water or wine; This living, this living, this living Was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at the top, For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent flop, And work […]...
19. A School Song “Let us now praise famous men” Men of little showing For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Broad and deep continues, Greater then their knowing! Western wind and open surge Took us from our mothers Flung us on a naked shore (Twelve bleak houses by the shore. Seven summers by the shore! ) ‘Mid […]...
20. Bee-attitudes in the shadow Of the flower Is the sting The bee driven by need Uses its painful gift To keep its sense of beauty In proportion It does its job with A thoughtless dedication Its honeyed world Excites no inner space Bees are not poets Who wade through words With too much brain Around their […]...
21. The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain There it was, word for word, The poem that took the place of a mountain. He breathed its oxygen, Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table. It reminded him how he had needed A place to go to in his own direction, How he had recomposed the pines, Shifted the […]...
22. Blessing A feel of warmth in this place. In winter air, a scent of harvest. No form of prayer is needed, When by sudden grace attended. Naturally, we fall from grace. Mere humans, we forget what light Led us, lonely, to this place....
23. A Maiden's Secret I have written this day down in my heart As the sweetest day in the season; From all of the others I’ve set it apart – But I will not tell you the reason, That is my secret – I must not tell; But the skies are soft and tender, And never before, I know […]...
24. Attack On The Ad-Man This trumpeter of nothingness, employed To keep our reason dull and null and void. This man of wind and froth and flux will sell The wares of any who reward him well. Praising whatever he is paid to praise, He hunts for ever-newer, smarter ways To make the gilt seen gold; the shoddy, silk; To […]...
25. Forgiveness AT dusk the window panes grew grey; The wet world vanished in the gloom; The dim and silver end of day Scarce glimmered through the little room. And all my sins were told; I said Such things to her who knew not sin- The sharp ache throbbing in my head, The fever running high within. […]...
26. The Christ of the 'Never&#039 With eyes that are narrowed to pierce To the awful horizons of land, Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce White heat-waves that flow on the sand; Through the Never Land westward and nor’ward, Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track, Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward The Christ of the Outer Out-back. For […]...
27. Hymn 99 Stones made children of Abraham. Matt. 3:9. Vain are the hopes that rebels place Upon their birth and blood, Descended from a pious race; Their fathers now with God. He from the caves of earth and hell Can take the hardest stones, And fill the house of Abram well With new-created sons. Such wondrous power […]...
28. Wonder For failure I was well equipped And should have come to grief, By atavism grimly gripped, A fool beyond belief. But lo! the Lord was good to me, And with a heart to sing, He gave me to a rare degree The Gift of Wondering. I could not play a stalwart part My shoddy soul […]...
29. Psalm 40 Part 1 v.1-8,5,17 C. M. A song of deliverance from great distress. I waited patient for the Lord, He bowed to hear my cry; He saw me resting on his word, And brought salvation nigh. He raised me from a horrid pit, Where mourning long I lay, And from my bonds released my feet, Deep bonds of […]...
30. Agnostic Apology I am a stout materialist; With abstract terms I can’t agree, And so I’ve made a little list Of words that don’t make sense to me. To fool my reason I refuse, For honest thinking is my goal; And that is why I rarely use Vague words like Soul. In terms of matter I am […]...
31. Ballad of the Old Cypress In front of the temple of Chu-ko Liang there is an old cypress. Its branches Are like green bronze; its roots like rocks; around its great girth of forty Spans its rimy bark withstands the washing of the rain. Its jet-colored top Rises two thousand feet to greet the sky. Prince and statesman have long […]...
32. We, The Living We, the living, buried deep in selfish grief Strive to comprehend the passing of your hour, Minds are numbed, aghast and grasping For some sense of revelation, Seeking analgesic succour in our weeping, Searching for respite from clamoured Conscience shattered in the shriek of desolation; Each bereaved is silenced, trance-like, Choking cries that chorus, welling […]...
33. Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World Whether what we sense of this world Is the what of this world only, or the what Of which of several possible worlds which what? something of what we sense May be true, may be the world, what it is, what we sense. For the rest, a truce is possible, the tolerance Of travelers, eating […]...
34. I cannot let the moment pass I cannot let the moment pass without a weary greeting, Or retard the recent past where shadows still are fleeting, I’d sabotage the future by just staring in a mirror And never let the glimmer pass and try to hold my image fast In healing my dilemma. Time is gliding in array, I sense it […]...
35. Coal I Is the total black, being spoken From the earth’s inside. There are many kinds of open How a diamond comes into a knot of flame How sound comes into a words, coloured By who pays what for speaking. Some words are open like a diamond On glass windows Singing out within the crash of […]...
36. The List of Famous Hats Napoleon’s hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous Hat, but that’s not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for Show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all hon- Esty wasn’t much different than the one any jerk might buy at a Corner […]...
37. Words Words are like days: Coloring books or pickpockets, Signposts or scratching posts, Fakirs over hot coals. Certain words must be earned Just as emotions are suffered Before they can be uttered – clean as a kept promise. Words as witnesses Testifying their truths Squalid or rarefied Inevitable, irrefutable. But, words must not carry More than […]...
38. Elegy X: The Dream Image of her whom I love, more than she, Whose fair impression in my faithful heart Makes me her medal, and makes her love me, As Kings do coins, to which their stamps impart The value: go, and take my heart from hence, Which now is grown too great and good for me: Honours oppress […]...
39. The Gardener X: Let Your Work Be, Bride Let your work be, bride. Listen, the Guest has come. Do you hear, he is gently shaking The chain which fastens the door? See that your anklets make no loud Noise, and that your step is not over- Hurried at meeting him. Let your work be, bride, the guest Had come in the evening. No, […]...
40. The Cat in the Kitchen (For Donald Hall) Have you heard about the boy who walked by The black water? I won’t say much more. Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered. Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand Reaches out and pulls him in. There was no Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, […]...