Travellers Whom We Met

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1. Two Travellers perishing in Snow Two Travellers perishing in Snow The Forests as they froze Together heard them strengthening Each other with the words That Heaven if Heaven must contain What Either left behind And then the cheer too solemn grew For language, and the wind Long steps across the features took That Love had touched the Morn With reverential […]...
2. Two Travellers in the Place Vendome Reign of Louis Philippe A great tall column spearing at the sky With a little man on top. Goodness! Tell me Why? He looks a silly thing enough to stand up there so high. What a strange fellow, like a soldier in a play, Tight-fitting coat with the tails cut away, High-crowned hat which the […]...
3. The Travellers' Curse after Misdirection (from the Welsh) May they stumble, stage by stage On an endless Pilgrimage Dawn and dusk, mile after mile At each and every step a stile At each and every step withal May they catch their feet and fall At each and every fall they take May a bone within them break And may the […]...
4. Out of ideas If I don’t write something good tonight I will sleep Without the comforting Canopus of deep believers, If I sleep at all, and this light which ignites My enormous poetic conceit and guides my muse Will suffer and die, my hands be stilled. Tomorrow I might read these words and endure The bite of astral […]...
5. Jazzanatomy EVERYTHING is jazz: Snails, jails, rails, tails, males, females, Snow-white cotton bales. Knee-bone, thigh, hip-bone. Jazz slips you percussion bone Classified “unknown.” Slick lizard rhythms, Cigar-smoke tunes, straight-gin sky Laced with double moons. Second-chance rhythms, Don’t-give-up riffs: jazz gets HIGH Off can’ts, buts, and ifs....
6. The Color of a Queen, is this The Color of a Queen, is this The Color of a Sun At setting this and Amber Beryl and this, at Noon And when at night Auroran widths Fling suddenly on men ‘Tis this and Witchcraft nature keeps A Rank for Iodine...
7. Delight becomes pictorial Delight becomes pictorial When viewed through Pain More fair because impossible Than any gain The Mountain at a given distance In Amber lies Approached the Amber flits a little And That’s the Skies...
8. In Praise of Meter The earth is full of rhythms so precise The octave of the crystal can produce A trillion oscillations, yet not lose A second’s beat. The ear needs no device To hear the unsprung rhythms of the couch Drown out the mouth’s; the lips can be debauched By kisses, should the heart put back its watch […]...
9. An Aquarium Streaks of green and yellow iridescence, Silver shiftings, Rings veering out of rings, Silver gold Grey-green opaqueness sliding down, With sharp white bubbles Shooting and dancing, Flinging quickly outward. Nosing the bubbles, Swallowing them, Fish. Blue shadows against silver-saffron water, The light rippling over them In steel-bright tremors. Outspread translucent fins Flute, fold, and relapse; […]...
10. THE PRISM Through the windows the sun’s light Turns to amber, the moon’s to jade; All night long I lie awake, wondering How much your stunned heart can take. That moment’s ‘sudden interminable splendour’, Our love kept up through the years of stress, Strange dark-haired creature, the light over the water Burns and beckons through our emptiness....
11. Sonnet 02 Think Valentine, as speeding on thy way Homeward thou hastest light of heart along, If heavily creep on one little day The medley crew of travellers among, Think on thine absent friend: reflect that here On Life’s sad journey comfortless he roves, Remote from every scene his heart holds dear, From him he values, and […]...
12. Dreams of a lifetime Ronald Hi Khong Wong is gone, Sadly he deceased The commencement of this week. It wasn’t unexpected. He never contradicted The prediction of his death Although, perhaps, he hoped for time To sort some odds and ends, And we for time to make allowances For our friend’s impending end. Alas it weren’t to be. We […]...
13. The Moon was but a Chin of Gold The Moon was but a Chin of Gold A Night or two ago And now she turns Her perfect Face Upon the World below Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde Her Cheek a Beryl hewn Her Eye unto the Summer Dew The likest I have known Her Lips of Amber never part But what must […]...
14. The Moon is distant from the Sea The Moon is distant from the Sea And yet, with Amber Hands She leads Him docile as a Boy Along appointed Sands He never misses a Degree Obedient to Her Eye He comes just so far toward the Town Just so far goes away Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand And mine the distant Sea […]...
15. Medallion Luini in porcelain! The grand piano Utters a profane Protest with her clear soprano. The sleek head emerges From the gold-yellow frock As Anadyomene in the opening Pages of Reinach. Honey-red, closing the face-oval, A basket-work of braids which seem as if they were Spun in King Minos’ hall From metal, or intractable amber; The […]...
16. Spanish Dancer As in one’s hand a lighted match blinds you before It comes aflame and sends out brilliant flickering Tongues to every side so, within the ring of the Spectators, her dance begins in hasty, heated rhythms And spreads itself darting flames around. And suddenly the dance is altogether flame! With a fierce glance she sets […]...
17. Tezcotzinco Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold, Thou wert sometime the garden of a king. The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing. The flowers are few. It was not so of old. It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled Through arbors perfumed with undying Spring Bare bodies beautiful, […]...
18. Black Cat A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place Your sight can knock on, echoing; but here Within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze Will be absorbed and utterly disappear: Just as a raving madman, when nothing else Can ease him, charges into his dark night Howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels […]...
19. The Sun kept setting setting still The Sun kept setting setting still No Hue of Afternoon Upon the Village I perceived From House to House ’twas Noon The Dusk kept dropping dropping still No Dew upon the Grass But only on my Forehead stopped And wandered in my Face My Feet kept drowsing drowsing still My fingers were awake Yet why […]...
20. Out of sight? What of that? Out of sight? What of that? See the Bird reach it! Curve by Curve Sweep by Sweep Round the Steep Air Danger! What is that to Her? Better ’tis to fail there Than debate here Blue is Blue the World through Amber Amber Dew Dew Seek Friend and see Heaven is shy of Earth that’s […]...
21. The Bather Where the path to the lake twists out of sight, A puff of dust, the kind bare feet make running, Is what I saw in the dying light, Night swooping down everywhere else. A low branch heavy with leaves Swaying momentarily where the shade Lay thickest, some late bather Disrobing right there for a quick […]...
22. The Boola-Boola Maid In the wilds of Madagascar, Dwelt a Boola-boola maid; For her hand young men would ask her, But she always was afraid. Oh that Boola-boola maid She was living in the shade Of a spreading Yum-yum tree; And – when the day was done At the setting of the sun, She would make this melodee: […]...
23. Prologue All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather&xclm. […]...
24. All In The Golden Afternoon All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretense Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! […]...
25. September 1961 This is the year the old ones, The old great ones Leave us alone on the road. The road leads to the sea. We have the words in our pockets, Obscure directions. The old ones Have taken away the light of their presence, We see it moving away over a hill Off to one side. […]...
26. She died at play She died at play, Gambolled away Her lease of spotted hours, Then sank as gaily as a Turn Upon a Couch of flowers. Her ghost strolled softly o’er the hill Yesterday, and Today, Her vestments as the silver fleece Her countenance as spray....
27. Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks Sit together, building blocks; Shuffle-Shoon is old and grey, Amber-Locks a little child, But together at their play Age and Youth are reconciled, And with sympathetic glee Build their castles fair to see. “When I grow to be a man” (So the wee one’s prattle ran), “I shall build a castle so […]...
28. The Gardener XLV: To the Guests To the guests that must go bid God’s speed and brush away all traces Of their steps. Take to your bosom with a smile What is easy and simple and near. To-day is the festival of phantoms That know not when they die. Let your laughter be but a meaning- Less mirth like twinkles of […]...
29. After a hundred years After a hundred years Nobody knows the Place Agony that enacted there Motionless as Peace Weeds triumphant ranged Strangers strolled and spelled At the lone Orthography Of the Elder Dead Winds of Summer Fields Recollect the way Instinct picking up the Key Dropped by memory...
30. Houses Of Dreams You took my empty dreams And filled them every one With tenderness and nobleness, April and the sun. The old empty dreams Where my thoughts would throng Are far too full of happiness To even hold a song. Oh, the empty dreams were dim And the empty dreams were wide, They were sweet and shadowy […]...
31. Pedestrian ambitions My thoughts are like the boots randomly arrayed In the rack outside the window, some in pairs neatly Stacked, comfortably worn with a relaxed air of Confidence, some scattered in patterns of bizarre Relationships, one in Benson’s den under guard from Thought predators he fears plagiarized and stole Its partner’s soul. While I find it […]...
32. Elegy II: The Anagram Marry, and love thy Flavia, for she Hath all things whereby others beautious be, For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great, Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet, Though they be dim, yet she is light enough, And though her harsh hair fall, her skin is rough; What though her […]...
33. THE OLD STRAIGHT TRACK Runs to no compass point But starts within the human heart Where travellers in twos may go As for a while it winds beside A man-made road then veers aside We met at a cross-roads once and journeyed Together for a while across a moor And then on horseback sadly you waved adieu....
34. Morning's Reflections Were meetings predestined then ours was intended, Great oracles decreed it as fate, and the auguries chattered With sweet benefactors and fêted to chance with a face. We were then both separate and free in our choosing Sailed in clean air on the breeze, a following sea to sail Where we pleased and our pleasure […]...
35. Eventide The day is past and the toilers cease; The land grows dim ‘mid the shadows grey, And hearts are glad, for the dark brings peace At the close of day. Each weary toiler, with lingering pace, As he homeward turns, with the long day done, Looks out to the west, with the light on his […]...
36. Consciousness Of Our Return Night’s grating of steel on stone and splash Of water crashing from the buckets Brings back that moment in a flash; The night burnt bright in limb’s caress And flesh yielding flesh in passions Blessed by sealed lips. Abandon bested grace in our pummelled bed Where we found a beauty in a closeness Of our […]...
37. Thank you Ambrose Thank you Ambrose for the kitchen door ajar, A sign your friendship never closed on me, an amity extended From afar although it was a distant glow I didn’t really know. Thank you Ambrose for staying staunch and true, A fellowship renewed in time of need, reviewed each time indeed Concentric paths of earthy spheres […]...
38. Absorbed in familiar rhythms Absorbed in familiar rhythms, Carillon of senses steeped In good vibrations, surrounded By musical beat Pulsing potently In avidly articulated veins, Moving heated blood Faultlessly, delivering its purity Into a reservoir of deep power, Preserving a cadence of fractured drumbeat Accurately with timeless Ocean sounds wound effortlessly In an eager counterpoint, Breathing a relaxed coda, […]...
39. Sang from the Heart, Sire Sang from the Heart, Sire, Dipped my Beak in it, If the Tune drip too much Have a tint too Red Pardon the Cochineal Suffer the Vermillion Death is the Wealth Of the Poorest Bird. Bear with the Ballad Awkward faltering Death twists the strings ‘Twasn’t my blame Pause in your Liturgies Wait your Chorals […]...
40. Dew is the Freshet in the Grass Dew is the Freshet in the Grass ‘Tis many a tiny Mill Turns unperceived beneath our feet And Artisan lies still We spy the Forests and the Hills The Tents to Nature’s Show Mistake the Outside for the in And mention what we saw. Could Commentators on the Sign Of Nature’s Caravan Obtain “Admission” as […]...