Blame Katrina, or Larry

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. He Wonders Whether to Praise or Blame Her I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over, But if to praise or blame you, cannot say. For, who decries the loved, decries the lover; Yet what man lauds the thing he’s thrown away? Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught, The more fool I, so great a fool to […]...
3. Oh! Blame Not the Bard Oh! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame; He was born for much more, and in happier hours His soul might have burn’d with a holier flame. The string, that now languishes loose o’er the lyre, Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior’s […]...
4. The Flower must not blame the Bee The Flower must not blame the Bee That seeketh his felicity Too often at her door But teach the Footman from Vevay Mistress is “not at home” to say To people any more!...
5. The Logic Of This State Marking time in pencil strokes across a virgin page And waiting for coincidence of heart-beat and second-hand, Keying to the electronic blips that phase The passing time; visionary states of grace Do not deluge to stupefy a mounting conscience, Prescience would ease the wait and melt The phlegm of apprehension clotted In the membranes of […]...
6. Procreation It hurts my pride that I should be The issue of a night of lust; Yet even Bishops, you’ll agree, Obey the biologic ‘must’; Though no doubt with more dignity Than we of layman dust. I think the Lord made a mistake When he designed the human race, That man and angel in the make […]...
7. COMING TO TERMS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA Why our son, why? Every morning the same dark chorus wakes me And I wonder how I am still alive. “Balance the forces of life and death” Is the Kleinian recipe for survival. “It is God’s will, life is meant to test us” My Christian heritage tells me. “Life is a vale of soul making” […]...
8. Rondeau Redoublé I know the rules and hear myself agree Not to invest beyond this one night stand. I know your patter: in, out, like the sea. The sharp north wind must blow away the sand. Soon my supply will meet your last demand And you will have no further use for me. I will not swim […]...
9. The Alchemist I burned my life, that I may find A passion wholly of the mind, Thought divorced from eye and bone Ecstasy come to breath alone. I broke my life, to seek relief From the flawed light of love and grief. With mounting beat the utter fire Charred existence and desire. It died low, ceased its […]...
10. The Auctioneer of Parting The Auctioneer of Parting His “Going, going, gone” Shouts even from the Crucifix, And brings his Hammer down He only sells the Wilderness, The prices of Despair Range from a single human Heart To Two not any more...
11. Modern Love III: This Was the Woman This was the woman; what now of the man? But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel, He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, Or, being callous, haply till he can. But he is nothing: nothing? Only mark The rich light striking out from her on him! Ha! what a sense it is […]...
12. Pasa Thalassa Thalassa “The sea is everywhere the sea.” I Gone-faded out of the story, the sea-faring friend I remember? Gone for a decade, they say: never a word or a sign. Gone with his hard red face that only his laughter could wrinkle, Down where men go to be still, by the old way of the sea. […]...
13. Wife Killer He killed his wife at night. He had tried once or twice in the daylight But she refused to die. In darkness the deed was done, Not crudely with a hammer-hard gun Or strangler’s black kid gloves on. She just ceased being alive, Not there to interfere or connive, Linger, leave or arrive. It seemed […]...
14. I live with Him I see His face I live with Him I see His face I go no more away For Visitor or Sundown Death’s single privacy The Only One forestalling Mine And that by Right that He Presents a Claim invisible No wedlock granted Me I live with Him I hear His Voice I stand alive Today To witness to the […]...
15. A Cabbage Patch Folk ask if I’m alive, Most think I’m not; Yet gaily I contrive To till my plot. The world its way can go, I little heed, So long as I can grow The grub I need. For though long overdue, The years to me, Have taught a lesson true, Humility. Such better men than I […]...
16. Floss won't save you from an Abyss Floss won’t save you from an Abyss But a Rope will Notwithstanding a Rope for a Souvenir Is not beautiful But I tell you every step is a Trough And every stop a Well Now will you have the Rope or the Floss? Prices reasonable...
17. Song V: Through the Trouble and Tangle Love is enough: through the trouble and tangle From yesterday’s dawning to yesterday’s night I sought through the vales where the prisoned winds wrangle, Till, wearied and bleeding, at end of the light I met him, and we wrestled, and great was my might. O great was my joy, though no rest was around me, […]...
18. On an Invitation to the United States I My ardours for emprize nigh lost Since Life has bared its bones to me, I shrink to seek a modern coast Whose riper times have yet to be; Where the new regions claim them free From that long drip of human tears Which peoples old in tragedy Have left upon the centuried years. II […]...
19. Fill For Me A Brimming Bowl Fill for me a brimming bowl And in it let me drown my soul: But put therein some drug, designed To Banish Women from my mind: For I want not the stream inspiring That fills the mind with fond desiring, But I want as deep a draught As e’er from Lethe’s wave was quaff’d; From […]...
20. To be alive is Power To be alive is Power Existence in itself Without a further function Omnipotence Enough To be alive and Will! ‘Tis able as a God The Maker of Ourselves be what Such being Finitude!...
21. Possums came at night You could see the signs which said that possums came at night And fed upon this tree, they left their mark in fruit discards And broken twigs and shredded leaves spread randomly In careless piles beneath its ravaged canopy. Our father ground his teeth, his frown a sentence to the pests, Such waste he said, […]...
22. 'Tis Sunrise Little Maid Hast Thou ‘Tis Sunrise Little Maid Hast Thou No Station in the Day? ‘Twas not thy wont, to hinder so Retrieve thine industry ‘Tis Noon My little Maid Alas and art thou sleeping yet? The Lily waiting to be Wed The Bee Hast thou forgot? My little Maid ‘Tis Night Alas That Night should be to thee […]...
23. I am alive I guess I am alive I guess The Branches on my Hand Are full of Morning Glory And at my finger’s end The Carmine tingles warm And if I hold a Glass Across my Mouth it blurs it Physician’s proof of Breath I am alive because I am not in a Room The Parlor Commonly it is […]...
24. The Lake Isle O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop, With the little bright boxes Piled up neatly upon the shelves And the loose fragment cavendish And the shag, And the bright Virginia Loose under the bright glass cases, And a pair of scales Not […]...
25. Theme with Variations I never loved a dear Gazelle Nor anything that cost me much: High prices profit those who sell, But why should I be fond of such? To glad me with his soft black eye My son comes trotting home from school; He’s had a fight but can’t tell why He always was a little fool! […]...
26. His little Hearse like Figure His little Hearse like Figure Unto itself a Dirge To a delusive Lilac The vanity divulge Of Industry and Morals And every righteous thing For the divine Perdition Of Idleness and Spring...
27. I Heard You, Solemn-sweet Pipes of the Organ I HEARD you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass’d the church; Winds of autumn!-as I walk’d the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch’d sighs, up above, so mournful; I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera-I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing; … […]...
28. Far Rockaway Night till Morning WHAT can we say of the night? The fog night, the moon night, the fog moon night last night? There swept out of the sea a song. There swept out of the sea-torn white plungers. There came on the coast wind drive In the spit of a driven spray, On the boom of foam and […]...
29. A chilly Peace infests the Grass A chilly Peace infests the Grass The Sun respectful lies Not any Trance of industry These shadows scrutinize Whose Allies go no more astray For service or for Glee But all mankind deliver here From whatsoever sea...
30. October 16 What can you say about the Mets Down three games to none One run down with six outs to go Cedeno singles steals second Mora walks They pull off a double steal And Olerud singles them home Off the previously unhittable John Rocker (look at his eyes, he’s so intense He looks cross-eyed) and we’re […]...
31. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
32. He is alive, this morning He is alive, this morning He is alive and awake Birds are resuming for Him Blossoms dress for His Sake. Bees to their Loaves of Honey Add an Amber Crumb Him to regale Me Only Motion, and am dumb....
33. By the Pool of the Third Rosses I heard the sighing of the reed In the grey pool in the green land, The sea-wind in the long reeds sighing Between the green hill and the sand. I heard the sighing of the reeds Day after day, night after night; I heard the whirring wild ducks flying, I saw the sea-gull’s wheeling flight. […]...
34. Sonnet 02: Time Does Not Bring Relief; You All Have Lied Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last […]...
35. Corn and Catholics “What! still those two infernal questions, That with our meals our slumbers mix That spoil our tempers and digestions Eternal Corn and Catholics! Gods! were there ever two such bores? Nothing else talk’d of night or morn Nothing in doors, or out of doors, But endless Catholics and Corn! Never was such a brace of […]...
36. A Prisoner in a Dungeon Deep A prisoner in a dungeon deep Sat musing silently; His head was rested on his hand, His elbow on his knee. Turned he his thoughts to future times Or are they backward cast? For freedom is he pining now Or mourning for the past? No, he has lived so long enthralled Alone in dungeon gloom […]...
37. The butterfly obtains The butterfly obtains But little sympathy Though favorably mentioned In Entomology Because he travels freely And wears a proper coat The circumspect are certain That he is dissolute Had he the homely scutcheon Of modest Industry ‘Twere fitter certifying For Immortality...
38. Ye Mariners of England 1 Ye Mariners of England 2 That guard our native seas, 3 Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, 4 The battle and the breeze 5 Your glorious standard launch again 6 To match another foe! 7 And sweep through the deep, 8 While the stormy winds do blow, 9 While the battle rages loud […]...
39. My Consolation ‘Nay; I don’t need a hearing aid’ I told Mama-in-law; ‘For if I had I’d be afraid Of your eternal jaw; Although at me you often shout, I’m undisturbed; To tell the truth I can’t make out A single word.’ And it’s the same with others who Attempt to gab at me; I listen to […]...
40. Memoriam A. H. H.: 67. When on my bed the moonlight fall When on my bed the moonlight falls, I know that in thy place of rest By that broad water of the west, There comes a glory on the walls: Thy marble bright in dark appears, As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name, And o’er the number of thy years. The […]...