The Treehouse

Related poetry:

1. Flight Of Stairs Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers Before they close them. They curiously investigate […]...
2. The Anniversary “This bunch of violets,” he said, “Is for my daughter dear. Since that glad morn when she was wed It is today a year. She lives atop this flight of stairs Please give an arm to me: If we can take her unawares How glad she’ll be!” We climbed the stairs; the flight was four, […]...
3. Sacrifice How my body blooms from every vein More fragrantly, since you appeard to me; Look, I walk slimmer now and straighter, And all you do is wait-:who are you then? Look: I feel how I’m moving away, How I’m shedding my old life, leaf by leaf. Only your smile spreads like sheer stars Over you […]...
4. At Baia I should have thought In a dream you would have brought Some lovely, perilous thing, Orchids piled in a great sheath, As who would say (in a dream), “I send you this, Who left the blue veins Of your throat unkissed.” Why was it that your hands (that never took mine), Your hands that I […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. Send Me A Leaf Send me a leaf, but from a bush That grows at least one half hour Away from your house, then You must go and will be strong, and I Thank you for the pretty leaf....
7. Moving On In this war we’re always moving, Moving on; When we make a friend another friend has gone; Should a woman’s kindly face Make us welcome for a space, Then it’s boot and saddle, boys, we’re Moving on. In the hospitals they’re moving, Moving on; They’re here today, tomorrow they are gone; When the bravest and […]...
8. Tsushima Screen The perilous yellow sun follows with its slant eyes Masts of the shuddered grove steaming up to capsize In the frozen straits of Epiphany. February has fewer Days than the other months; therefore, it’s more cruel Than the rest. Dearest, it’s more sound To wrap up our sailing round The globe with habitual naval grace, […]...
9. Promises, Promises I am stretched out under the lean-to Of an old tobacco-shed On a farm in North Carolina. A cardinal sings from the dogwood For the love of marijuana. His song goes over my head. There is such splendour in the grass I might be the picture of happiness. Yet I am utterly bereft Of the […]...
10. Flame-Heart So much have I forgotten in ten years, So much in ten brief years! I have forgot What time the purple apples come to juice, And what month brings the shy forget-me-not. I have forgot the special, startling season Of the pimento’s flowering and fruiting; What time of year the ground doves brown the fields […]...
11. The House This poem has a door, a locked door, And curtains drawn against the day, But at night the lights come on, one In each room, and the neighbors swear They hear music and the sound of dancing. These days the neighbors will swear To anything, but that is not why The house is locked up […]...
12. An Eternity There is no dusk to be, There is no dawn that was, Only there’s now, and now, And the wind in the grass. Days I remember of Now in my heart, are now; Days that I dream will bloom White the peach bough. Dying shall never be Now in the windy grass; Now under shooken […]...
13. De M. Antonio NOW Antoninus, in a smiling age, Counts of his life the fifteenth finished stage. The rounded days and the safe years he sees, Nor fears death’s water mounting round his knees. To him remembering not one day is sad, Not one but that its memory makes him glad. So good men lengthen life; and to […]...
14. Pals Take a hold now On the silver handles here, Six silver handles, One for each of his old pals. Take hold And lift him down the stairs, Put him on the rollers Over the floor of the hearse. Take him on the last haul, To the cold straight house, The level even house, To the […]...
15. Christmas Morn Cold frosty mornings Ice on window pain Huddle under coats Keep the warmth in Tiptoe down the stairs All quiet and hushed Barge through the door To see what’s waiting for us. A Christmas tree sparkling, Multi coloured lights, Large shiny baubles, and An angel smiling with delight. Paper chains, garlands Bells, stars and balloons […]...
16. Malvern Hill Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill In prime of morn and May, Recall ye how McClellan’s men Here stood at bay? While deep within yon forest dim Our rigid comrades lay – Some with the cartridge in their mouth, Others with fixed arms lifted South – Invoking so The cypress glades? Ah wilds of […]...
17. Low-Tide These wet rocks where the tide has been, Barnacled white and weeded brown And slimed beneath to a beautiful green, These wet rocks where the tide went down Will show again when the tide is high Faint and perilous, far from shore, No place to dream, but a place to die,- The bottom of the […]...
18. Twinkletoes When the sun Shines through the leaves of the apple-tree, When the sun Makes shadows of the leaves of the apple-tree, Then I pass On the grass From one leaf to another, From one leaf to its brother, Tip-toe, tip-toe! Here I go!...
19. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 01: As evening falls As evening falls, And the yellow lights leap one by one Along high walls; And along black streets that glisten as if with rain, The muted city seems Like one in a restless sleep, who lies and dreams Of vague desires, and memories, and half-forgotten pain. . . Along dark veins, like lights the quick […]...
20. XI. Written at Ostend HOW sweet the tuneful bells’ responsive peal! As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze Breathes on the trembling sense of wan disease, So piercing to my heart their force I feel! And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall, And now, along the white and level tide, They fling their melancholy music wide, Bidding […]...
21. Sonnet: At Ostend, July 22nd 1787 How sweet the tuneful bells’ responsive peal! As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze Breathes on the trembling sense of wan disease, So piercing to my heart their force I feel! And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall, And now, along the white and level tide, They fling their melancholy music wide, Bidding […]...
22. The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean The one who has flung herself out of the grass, The one who is eating sugar out of my hand, Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down Who is […]...
23. 'Tis good the looking back on Grief ‘Tis good the looking back on Grief To re-endure a Day We thought the Mighty Funeral Of All Conceived Joy To recollect how Busy Grass Did meddle one by one Till all the Grief with Summer waved And none could see the stone. And though the Woe you have Today Be larger As the Sea […]...
24. In the shadow of a broken house In the shadow of a broken house, Down a deserted street, Propt walls, cold hearths, and phantom stairs, And the silence of dead feet – Locked wildly in one another’s arms I saw two lovers meet. And over that hearthless house aghast Rose from the mind’s abyss Lost stars and ruined, peering moons, Worlds overshadowing […]...
25. Memoranda THIS handful of grass, brown, says little. This quarter mile field of it, waving seeds ripening in the sun, is a lake of luminous firefly lavender. Prairie roses, two of them, climb down the sides of a road ditch. In the clear pool they find their faces along stiff knives of grass, and cat-tails who […]...
26. A Good Play We built a ship upon the stairs All made of the back-bedroom chairs, And filled it full of soft pillows To go a-sailing on the billows. We took a saw and several nails, And water in the nursery pails; And Tom said, “Let us also take An apple and a slice of cake;” Which was […]...
27. Braggart The days will rally, wreathing Their crazy tarantelle; And you must go on breathing, But I’ll be safe in hell. Like January weather, The years will bite and smart, And pull your bones together To wrap your chattering heart. The pretty stuff you’re made of Will crack and crease and dry. The thing you are […]...
28. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 04: Up high black walls, up sombre terraces Up high black walls, up sombre terraces, Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs, The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky. From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain, Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye. They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower, Along high terraces quicker […]...
29. The Houses ‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard; By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate, On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate. For my house and thy house no help shall we find Save […]...
30. Race Some bite from the others A leg an arm or whatever Take it between their teeth Run out as fast as they can Cover it up with earth The others scatter everywhere Sniff look sniff look Dig up the whole earth If they are lucky and find an arm Or leg or whatever It’s their […]...
31. Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay....
32. Spring To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is […]...
33. Sweet Dancer The girl goes dancing there On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth Grass plot of the garden; Escaped from bitter youth, Escaped out of her crowd, Or out of her black cloud. Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer! If strange men come from the house To lead her away, do not say That she is happy being crazy; […]...
34. Her Kind I have gone out, a possessed witch, Haunting the black air, braver at night; Dreaming evil, I have done my hitch Over the plain houses, light by light: Lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in […]...
35. Bert Kessler I winged my bird, Though he flew toward the setting sun; But just as the shot rang out, he soared Up and up through the splinters of golden light, Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled, With some of the down of him floating near, And fell like a plummet into the grass. I tramped […]...
36. Habitation Marriage is not A house or even a tent It is before that, and colder: The edge of the forest, the edge Of the desert the unpainted stairs At the back where we squat Outside, eating popcorn Where painfully and with wonder At having survived even This far We are learning to make fire...
37. My House I have a house I’ve lived in long: I can’t recall my going in. ‘Twere better bartered for a song Ere ruin, rot and rust begin. When it was fresh and fine and fair, I used it with neglect, I fear; But now I husband it with care And cherish it form year to year. […]...
38. Bombay In your bosom we wake up with fear, In your sky there’s only unending tears, You always roar, but within, Hangs silence like a shroud of death. You are rocked, periodically, by bombs, Yet, we go about our business, As if nothing happened, all’s well, Are we too dazed to protest? In your hungry, convoluted […]...
39. Who Learns My Lesson Complete? WHO learns my lesson complete? Boss, journeyman, apprentice-churchman and atheist, The stupid and the wise thinker-parents and offspring-merchant, clerk, porter and customer, Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy-Draw nigh and commence; It is no lesson-it lets down the bars to a good lesson, And that to another, and every one to another still. The great laws […]...
40. Invention Tonight the moon is a cracker, With a bite out of it Floating in the night, And in a week or so According to the calendar It will probably look Like a silver football, And nine, maybe ten days ago It reminded me of a thin bright claw. But eventually By the end of the […]...