A Fish Answers

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1. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
2. 495. Song-Canst thou leave me thus, my Katie Chorus-Canst thou leave me thus, my Katie? Canst thou leave me thus, my Katie? Well thou know’st my aching heart, And canst thou leave me thus, for pity? IS this thy plighted, fond regard, Thus cruelly to part, my Katie? Is this thy faithful swain’s reward- An aching, broken heart, my Katie! Canst thou leave […]...
3. A Challenge To The Dark shot in the eye Shot in the brain Shot in the ass Shot like a flower in the dance Amazing how death wins hands down Amazing how much credence is given to idiot forms of life Amazing how laughter has been drowned out Amazing how viciousness is such a constant I must soon declare my […]...
4. Last Answers I wrote a poem on the mist And a woman asked me what I meant by it. I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist, how pearl and gray of it mix and reel, And change the drab shanties with lighted lamps at evening into points of mystery quivering with color. […]...
5. Answers I keep my answers small and keep them near; Big questions bruised my mind but still I let Small answers be a bulwark to my fear. The huge abstractions I keep from the light; Small things I handled and caressed and loved. I let the stars assume the whole of night. But the big answers […]...
6. Answers Why did you travel? Because the house was cold. Why did you travel? Because it is what I have always done between sunset and sunrise. What did you wear? I wore a blue suit, a white shirt, yellow tie, and yellow socks. What did you wear? I wore nothing. A scarf of pain kept me […]...
7. To a Fish You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea, Gulping salt-water everlastingly, Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced, And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste; And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be, Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry, Legless, unloving, infamously chaste: O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring […]...
8. TO HIS SAVIOUR, A CHILD;A PRESENT, BY A CHILD Go, pretty child, and bear this flower Unto thy little Saviour; And tell him, by that bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon his bib or stomacher; And tell him, for good handsel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of […]...
9. ANSWERS IN A GAME OF QUESTIONS THE LADY. IN the small and great world too, What most charms a woman’s heart? It is doubtless what is new, For its blossoms joy impart; Nobler far is what is true, For fresh blossoms it can shoot Even in the time of fruit. THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN. With the Nymphs in wood and cave Paris […]...
10. In Maximum WOULDST thou be free? I think it not, indeed; But if thou wouldst, attend this simple rede: When quite contented }thou canst dine at home Thou shall be free when } And drink a small wine of the march of Rome; When thou canst see unmoved thy neighbour’s plate, And wear my threadbare toga in […]...
11. Sonnet 16 – And yet, because thou overcomest so And yet, because thou overcomest so, Because thou art more noble and like a king, Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow Too close against thine heart henceforth to know How it shook when alone. Why, conquering May prove as lordly and complete a thing […]...
12. A Dialog I. Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee: Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built, One shelter where our spirits fain would be, Death, if thou wilt? No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt, Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree, Too mean for sceptre’s heft or […]...
13. A Dialogue I DEATH, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee: Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built, One shelter where our spirits fain would be, Death, if thou wit? No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt, Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree, Too mean for sceptre’s heft or […]...
14. A prayer to the Wind Go thou gentle whispering wind, Bear this sigh; and if thou find Where my cruel fair doth rest, Cast it in her snowy breast, So, enflam’d by my desire, It may set her heart a-fire. Those sweet kisses thou shalt gain, Will reward thee for thy pain: Boldly light upon her lip, There suck odours, […]...
15. To His Honoured and Most Ingenious Friend Mr. Charles Cotton For brave comportment, wit without offence, Words fully flowing, yet of influence: Thou art that man of men, the man alone, Worthy the public admiration: Who with thine own eyes read’st what we do write, And giv’st our numbers euphony, and weight. Tell’st when a verse springs high, how understood To be, or not born […]...
16. 16. A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish O THOU Great Being! what Thou art, Surpasses me to know; Yet sure I am, that known to Thee Are all Thy works below. Thy creature here before Thee stands, All wretched and distrest; Yet sure those ills that wring my soul Obey Thy high behest. Sure, Thou, Almighty, canst not act From cruelty or […]...
17. To Time Time! on whose arbitrary wing The varying hours must flag or fly, Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring, But drag or drive us on to die – Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed Those boons to all that know thee known; Yet better I sustain thy load, For now I bear the weight alone. I […]...
18. Sonnet IV: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free: Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet […]...
19. Crying to be written Dawn has reached the ridges to the north and a thin Line of light chased the night west; it is the best Time of day for me – a cup of coffee, Benson & Scud Pretending to sleep in their baskets at my feet, I am seated, ready to write knowing the lounge fire Is […]...
20. Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free. Then, beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse, The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums yet […]...
21. Sonnet 04 – Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems! where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear To let thy music drop here […]...
22. A Farewell to the World FALSE world, good night! since thou hast brought That hour upon my morn of age; Henceforth I quit thee from my thought, My part is ended on thy stage. Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear As little as I hope from thee: I know thou canst not show nor bear More hatred than thou hast […]...
23. The Fish wade Through black jade. Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps adjusting the ash-heaps; opening and shutting itself like An Injured fan. The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave, cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the Sun, Split like spun glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices- in and out, […]...
24. A Wreath To The Fish Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth, Flat on my drainboard, dead asleep, Its suit of mail proof only against the stream? What is it to live in a stream, To dwell forever in a tunnel of cold, Never to leave your shining birthsuit, Never to spend your inheritance of thin coins? And who […]...
25. Tin Fish The ships destroy us above And ensnare us beneath. We arise, we lie down, and we In the belly of Death. The ships have a thousand eyes To mark where we come. . . But the mirth of a seaport dies When our blow gets home....
26. The Goose Fish On the long shore, lit by the moon To show them properly alone, Two lovers suddenly embraced So that their shadows were as one. The ordinary night was graced For them by the swift tide of blood That silently they took at flood, And for a little time they prized Themselves emparadised. Then, as if […]...
27. The Fish The first fish I ever caught Would not lie down Quiet in the pail But flailed and sucked At the burning Amazement of the air And died In the slow pouring off Of rainbows. Later I opened his body and separated The flesh from the bones And ate him. Now the sea Is in me: […]...
28. The Fish I caught a tremendous fish And held him beside the boat Half out of water, with my hook Fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, Battered and venerable And homely. Here and there His brown skin hung in strips Like ancient wallpaper, […]...
29. Sonnet IV Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free. Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet canst […]...
30. Yes, the Fish Music A trout-colored wind blows Through my eyes, through my fingers, And I remember how the trout Used to hide from the dinosaurs When they came to drink at the river. The trout hid in subways, castles, And automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away....
31. Flying Fish I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself… and so I know you. I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel. I leaned so… and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now… and then under the […]...
32. Fish Crier I KNOW a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with a Voice like a north wind blowing over corn stubble In January. He dangles herring before prospective customers evincing A joy identical with that of Pavlowa dancing. His face is that of a man terribly glad to be selling fish, Terribly glad that God […]...
33. The Fish In a cool curving world he lies And ripples with dark ecstasies. The kind luxurious lapse and steal Shapes all his universe to feel And know and be; the clinging stream Closes his memory, glooms his dream, Who lips the roots o’ the shore, and glides Superb on unreturning tides. Those silent waters weave for […]...
34. Our biggest fish When in the halcyon days of old, I was a little tyke, I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and the like; And oh, the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I’d caught! And, oh, the indignation and the valor I’d […]...
35. The Lung Fish The Honorable Ardleigh Wyse Was every fisherman’s despair; He caught his fish on floating flies, In fact he caught them in the air, And wet-fly men good sports, perhaps He called “those chuck-and-chance-it chaps”. And then the Fates that sometimes play A joke on such as me and you Deported him up Queensland way To […]...
36. The Fish Although you hide in the ebb and flow Of the pale tide when the moon has set, The people of coming days will know About the casting out of my net, And how you have leaped times out of mind Over the little silver cords, And think that you were hard and unkind, And blame […]...
37. Sonnet 17 – My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes God set between his After and Before, And strike up and strike off the general roar Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats In a serene air purely. Antidotes Of medicated music, answering for Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour From thence into their ears. […]...
38. A Certain Man A certain man wishes to be a prince Of this earth; he also wants to be A saint and master of the being-world. Conscience cannot exist in the first: The second cannot exist without conscience. Therefore he, who has enough conscience To be disturbed but not enough to be Compelled, can neither reject the one […]...
39. The Fairest Apparition If thou never hast gazed upon beauty in moments of sorrow, Thou canst with truth never boast that thou true beauty hast seen. If thou never hast gazed upon gladness in beauteous features, Thou canst with truth never boast that thou true gladness hast seen....
40. The Hour of the King WHO would think this quiet breather From the world had taken flight? Yet within the form we see there Wakes the Golden King to-night. Out upon the face of faces He looked forth before his sleep: Now he knows the starry races Haunters of the ancient deep. On the Bird of Diamond Glory Floats in […]...