Seven suits

Related poetry:

1. Warning When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandles, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up […]...
2. Finery In an elegant frock, trimm’d with beautiful lace, And hair nicely curl’d, hanging over her face, Young Fanny went out to the house of a friend, With a large little party the evening to spend. “Ah! how they will all be delighted, I guess, And stare with surprise at my handsome new dress!” Thus said […]...
3. Sweet is the swamp with its secrets Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, Until we meet a snake; ‘Tis then we sigh for houses, And our departure take At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is summer’s treason, And guile is where it goes....
4. As It Was Written Earth, earth, Riding your merry-go-round Toward extinction, Right to the roots, Thickening the oceans like gravy, Festering in your caves, You are becoming a latrine. Your trees are twisted chairs. Your flowers moan at their mirrors, And cry for a sun that doesn’t wear a mask. Your clouds wear white, Trying to become nuns And […]...
5. Corn Hut Talk WRITE your wishes on the door and come in. Stand outside in the pools of the harvest moon. Bring in the handshake of the pumpkins. There’s a wish for every hazel nut? There’s a hope for every corn shock? There’s a kiss for every clumsy climbing shadow? Clover and the bumblebees once, High winds and […]...
6. Joey I thought I would go daft when Joey died. He was my first, and wise beyond his years. For nigh a hundred nights I cried and cried, Until my weary eyes burned up my tears. Willie and Rosie tried to comfort me: A woeful, weeping family were we. I was a widow with no friends […]...
7. Song of Karen, the Dancing Child (O little white feet of mine) Out in the storm and the rain you fly; (Red, red shoes the colour of wine) Can the children hear my cry? (O little white feet of mine) Never a child in the whole great town; (Red, red shoes the colour of wine) Lights out and the blinds pulled […]...
8. Chorus Give away her gowns, Give away her shoes; She has no more use For her fragrant gowns; Take them all down, Blue, green, blue, Lilac, pink, blue, From their padded hangers; She will dance no more In her narrow shoes; Sweep her narrow shoes From the closet floor....
9. What is "Paradise&quot What is “Paradise” Who live there Are they “Farmers” Do they “hoe” Do they know that this is “Amherst” And that I am coming too Do they wear “new shoes” in “Eden” Is it always pleasant there Won’t they scold us when we’re homesick Or tell God how cross we are You are sure there’s […]...
10. Sorrow Sorrow like a ceaseless rain Beats upon my heart. People twist and scream in pain,- Dawn will find them still again; This has neither wax nor wane, Neither stop nor start. People dress and go to town; I sit in my chair. All my thoughts are slow and brown: Standing up or sitting down Little […]...
11. Shoes when you’re young A pair of Female High-heeled shoes Just sitting Alone In the closet Can fire your Bones; When you’re old It’s just A pair of shoes Without Anybody In them And Just as Well....
12. Men with trivial scars We wear scars from our youth, trifling things Reflecting those earnings from growing days, Of battles raised and wounds worn in simple Praise of a Spring of early learning’s. I was there when you broke your arm, We were sliding a plank in mad array, Shouting hurrah, daring the day when you fell. A clean […]...
13. Pi The admirable number pi: Three point one four one. All the following digits are also just a start, Five nine two because it never ends. It can’t be grasped, six five three five, at a glance, Eight nine, by calculation, Seven nine, through imagination, Or even three two three eight in jest, or by comparison […]...
14. SCHOOL SMELL Composed of chalk dust, Pencil shavings and The sharp odour Of stale urine; It meets me now and then Creeping down a creosoted corridor Or waiting to be banged With the dust from piles of books On top of a cupboard. The double desks heeled with iron Having long been replaced; The steel-nibbed pens and […]...
15. The Garden of God WITHIN the iron cities One walked unknown for years, In his heart the pity of pities That grew for human tears. When love and grief were ended The flower of pity grew: By unseen hands ‘t was tended And fed with holy dew. Though in his heart were barred in The blooms of beauty blown, […]...
16. Friendships Mystery, To My Dearest Lucasia Come, my Lucasia, since we see That miracles Men’s Faith do move, By wonder and by prodigy To the dull angry World let’s prove There’s a Religion in our Love. For Though we were design’d t’agree, That Fate no liberty destroys, But our Election is as free As Angels, who with greedy choice Are yet […]...
17. Happiness In the afternoon I watched The she-bear; she was looking For the secret bin of sweetness – Honey, that the bees store In the trees’ soft caves. Black block of gloom, she climbed down Tree after tree and shuffled on Through the woods. And then She found it! The honey-house deep As heartwood, and dipped […]...
18. Honor Among Scamps We are the smirched. Queen Honor is the spotless. We slept thro’ wars where Honor could not sleep. We were faint-hearted. Honor was full-valiant. We kept a silence Honor could not keep. Yet this late day we make a song to praise her. We, codeless, will yet vindicate her code. She who was mighty, walks […]...
19. Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I have found the closer your relationship The closer the fit; The unsettling bit is the fear Of not fitting the role, or where Your forbear made a name or leashed A reputation, which by imputation […]...
20. Fanciful creators What fanciful creators we are: Bestowing shock absorbers on cars Sprinkling tenderizer on meats And stitching wrinkle-resistant shirts Such wishful thinking, this Gifting what we desire....
21. The Reason Why I'm Fat I thought my father was far too fat – eagerly I told him so, If he was offended it didn’t show and I don’t recall Where that strange conversation went. Now I know He was offended – as I am too, it is not a jibe to Pass off lightly, no matter who accuses you […]...
22. Nature's Touch In kindergarten classed Dislike they knew; And as the years went past It grew and grew; Until in maidenhood Each sought a mate, Then venom in their mood Was almost hate. The lure of love they learned And they were wed; Yet when they met each turned Away a head; Each went her waspish way […]...
23. Nellie Clark I was only eight years old; And before I grew up and knew what it meant I had no words for it, except That I was frightened and told my Mother; And that my Father got a pistol And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy, Fifteen years old, except for his Mother. […]...
24. After the Earthquake After the first astounding rush, After the weeks at the lake, The crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks, The snow breaking under our boots like skin, & the long mornings in bed. . . After the tangos in the kitchen, & our eyes fixed on each other at dinner, As if we would […]...
25. A Walgett Episode The sun strikes down with a blinding glare; The skies are blue and the plains are wide, The saltbush plains that are burnt and bare By Walgett out on the Barwon side The Barwon River that wanders down In a leisurely manner by Walgett Town. There came a stranger a “Cockatoo” The word means farmer, […]...
26. UNCLE BOB Shell-shocked from Korea A grenade that left him The platoon’s only survivor, Put him in Stanley Royd For thirty years. He tailored there And out on weekend leaves He made and mended Everybody’s clothes, Crying copiously While he sewed. When they cleared out The chronic cases Uncle Bob came home, Shopping for Edna, Doing the […]...
27. A Song For Kilts How grand the human race would be If every man would wear a kilt, A flirt of Tartan finery, Instead of trousers, custom built! Nay, do not think I speak to joke: (You know I’m not that kind of man), I am convinced that all men folk. Should wear the costume of a Clan. Imagine […]...
28. The Boy It is the boy in me who’s looking out The window, while someone across the street Mends a pillowcase, clouds shift, the gutter spout Pours rain, someone else lights a cigarette? (Because he flinched, because he didn’t whirl Around, face them, because he didn’t hurl The challenge back-“Fascists?”-not “Faggots”-Swine! He briefly wonders-if he were a […]...
29. Once A Great Love Once a great love cut my life in two. The first part goes on twisting At some other place like a snake cut in two. The passing years have calmed me And brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes. And I’m like someone standing in the Judean desert, looking at a sign: […]...
30. Classical Indian Explanation: Music past the hippies Past Ravi Shankar Eons before When the first Asian snake Came alive Stiffened with sound Through some empty shell Some hollow wood Some emptiness The snake Was not so much charmed As listening intently To the accidental flute To that which he knew Must be female Its empty insides Calling him With […]...
31. To the Snake Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck And stroked your cold, pulsing throat As you hissed to me, glinting Arrowy gold scales, and I felt The weight of you on my shoulders, And the whispering silver of your dryness Sounded close at my ears Green Snake I swore to my companions that certainly […]...
32. Colophon TO LAYLAH EIGHT-AND-TWENTY Lamp of living loveliness, Maid miraculously male, Rapture of thine own excess Blushing through the velvet veil Where the olive cheeks aglow Shadow-soften into snow, Breasts like Bacchanals afloat Under the proudly phallic throat! Be thou to my pilgrimage Light, and laughter sweet and sage, Till the darkling day expire Of my […]...
33. Shirt The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams, The nearly invisible stitches along the collar Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break Or talking money or politics while one fitted This armpiece with its overseam to the band Of cuff I button at my wrist. The […]...
34. Stay Now the journey is ending, The wind is losing heart. Into your hands it’s falling, A rickety house of cards. The cards are backed with pictures Displaying all the world. You’ve stacked up all the images And shuffled them with words. And how profound the playing That once again begins! Stay, the card you’re drawing […]...
35. Henry Mary and I were twenty-two When we were wed; A well-matched pair, right smart to view The town’s folk said. For twenty years I have been true To nuptial bed. But oh alas! The march of time, Life’s wear and tear! Now I am in my lusty prime With pep to spare, While she looks […]...
36. Marizibill Dans la Haute-Rue à Cologne Elle allait et venait le soir Offerte à tous en tout mignonne Puis buvait lasse des trottoirs Très tard dans les brasseries borgnes Elle se mettait sur la paille Pour un maquereau roux et rose C’était un juif il sentait l’ail Et l’avait venant de Formose Tirée d’un bordel de […]...
37. TO A GENTLEWOMAN, OBJECTING TO HIM HISGRAY HAIRS Am I despised, because you say; And I dare swear, that I am gray? Know, Lady, you have but your day! And time will come when you shall wear Such frost and snow upon your hair; And when, though long, it comes to pass, You question with your looking-glass, And in that sincere crystal seek […]...
38. Things What happened is, we grew lonely Living among the things, So we gave the clock a face, The chair a back, The table four stout legs Which will never suffer fatigue. We fitted our shoes with tongues As smooth as our own And hung tongues inside bells So we could listen To their emotional language, […]...
39. Josiah Tompkins I was well known and much beloved And rich, as fortunes are reckoned In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked. That was the home for me, Though all my children had flown afar- Which is the way of Nature-all but one. The boy, who was the baby, stayed at home, To be my […]...
40. Firelight Ten years together without yet a cloud, They seek each other’s eyes at intervals Of gratefulness to firelight and four walls For love’s obliteration of the crowd. Serenely and perennially endowed And bowered as few may be, their joy recalls No snake, no sword; and over them there falls The blessing of what neither says […]...