The Suitor

Related poetry:

1. Death is the supple Suitor Death is the supple Suitor That wins at last It is a stealthy Wooing Conducted first By pallid innuendoes And dim approach But brave at last with Bugles And a bisected Coach It bears away in triumph To Troth unknown And Kindred as responsive As Porcelain....
2. SUMMER FEVER The unsettled trees seem to share My tensions of body and mind: Unable to move before the shell of the wind, Yielding as much as their nature allows, They will break if pushed too far, Splinter to show the white flesh of their wood And sweet transparencies of sap. If 1 am pushed too far […]...
3. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
4. Perhaps they do not go so far Perhaps they do not go so far As we who stay, suppose Perhaps come closer, for the lapse Of their corporeal clothes It may be know so certainly How short we have to fear That comprehension antedates And estimates us there...
5. 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 […]...
6. The Storm 1 Against the stone breakwater, Only an ominous lapping, While the wind whines overhead, Coming down from the mountain, Whistling between the arbors, the winding terraces; A thin whine of wires, a rattling and flapping of leaves, And the small street-lamp swinging and slamming against the lamp pole. Where have the people gone? There is […]...
7. Summer Evening The frog half fearful jumps across the path, And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath; My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive, Till past, and then the cricket sings more strong, And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear The short night weary with their fretting song. […]...
8. Variations on ‘The short night Below are eleven Buson haiku Beginning with the phrase ‘The short night ‘ The short night On the hairy caterpillar Beads of dew. The short night Patrolmen Washing in the river. The short night Bubbles of crab froth Among the river reeds. The short night A broom thrown away On the beach. The short night […]...
9. We shun it ere it comes We shun it ere it comes, Afraid of Joy, Then sue it to delay And lest it fly, Beguile it more and more May not this be Old Suitor Heaven, Like our dismay at thee?...
10. Their Height in Heaven comforts not Their Height in Heaven comforts not Their Glory nought to me ‘Twas best imperfect as it was I’m finite I can’t see The House of Supposition The Glimmering Frontier that Skirts the Acres of Perhaps To Me shows insecure The Wealth I had contented me If ’twas a meaner size Then I had counted it […]...
11. OBSTACLES A thousand visits to the supermarket A thousand acts of sexual intimacy Spread over forty years. Your essence was quite other A smile of absolute connection Repeated a thousand times. Your daily visits to the outside lavatory While I stood talking outside, An intimacy I have sought With no other. My greatest fear is that […]...
12. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
13. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
14. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
15. Quantum Est Quod Desit ‘Twas a new feeling – something more Than we had dar’d to own before, Which then we hid not; We saw it in each other’s eye, And wish’d in every broken sigh To speak, but did not! She felt my lips’ impassion’d touch; ‘Twas the first time I dar’d so much, And yet, she chid […]...
16. Forever it composed of Nows Forever it composed of Nows ‘Tis not a different time Except for Infiniteness And Latitude of Home From this experienced Here Remove the Dates to These Let Months dissolve in further Months And Years exhale in Years Without Debate or Pause Or Celebrated Days No different Our Years would be From Anno Domini’s...
17. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
18. Did Not ‘Twas a new feeling – something more Than we had dared to own before, Which then we hid not; We saw it in each other’s eye, And wished, in every half-breathed sigh, To speak, but did not. She felt my lips’ impassioned touch – ‘Twas the first time I dared so much, And yet she […]...
19. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
20. Psalm 65 part 3 The blessings of the spring; or, God gives rain. A Psalm for the husbandman. Good is the Lord, the heav’nly King, Who makes the earth his care; Visits the pastures ev’ry spring, And bids the grass appear. The clouds, like rivers raised on high, Pour out at thy command Their wat’ry blessings from the sky, […]...
21. A Musician's Wife Between the visits to the shock ward The doctors used to let you play On the old upright Baldwin Donated by a former patient Who is said to be quite stable now. And all day long you played Chopin, Badly and hauntingly, when you weren’t Screaming on the porch that looked Like an enormous birdcage. […]...
22. 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!...
23. What News Here, ever since you went abroad, If there be change, no change I see, I only walk our wonted road, The road is only walkt by me. Yes; I forgot; a change there is; Was it of that you bade me tell? I catch at times, at times I miss The sight, the tone, I […]...
24. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
25. In The Cool Of The Evening I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear A sound, a little sound? My curious ear Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree Goes whisper, whisper, whisper silently Till all its whispers spread into the sound Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground, The shade is deep and He may pass […]...
26. If you were coming in the Fall If you were coming in the Fall, I’d brush the Summer by With half a smile, and half a spurn, As Housewives do, a Fly. If I could see you in a year, I’d wind the months in balls And put them each in separate Drawers, For fear the numbers fuse If only Centuries, delayed, […]...
27. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
28. Absence HERE, ever since you went abroad, If there be change no change I see: I only walk our wonted road, The road is only walk’d by me. Yes; I forgot; a change there is Was it of that you bade me tell? I catch at times, at times I miss The sight, the tone, I […]...
29. Sonnet XXXII: Blest As the Gods Blest as the Gods! Sicilian Maid is he, The youth whose soul thy yielding graces charm; Who bound, O! thraldom sweet! by beauty’s arm, In idle dalliance fondly sports with thee! Blest as the Gods! that iv’ry throne to see, Throbbing with transports, tender, timid, warm! While round thy fragrant lips zephyrs swarm! As op’ning […]...
30. A Retrospect Of Humidity All the air conditioners now slacken Their hummed carrier wave. Once again We’ve served our three months with remissions In the steam and dry iron of this seaboard. In jellied glare, through the nettle-rash season We’ve watched the sky’s fermenting laundry Portend downpours. Some came, and steamed away, And we were clutched back into the […]...
31. You'll know Her by Her Foot You’ll know Her by Her Foot The smallest Gamboge Hand With Fingers where the Toes should be Would more affront the Sand Than this Quaint Creature’s Boot Adjusted by a Stern Without a Button I could vouch Unto a Velvet Limb You’ll know Her by Her Vest Tight fitting Orange Brown Inside a Jacket duller […]...
32. Home After Three Months Away Gone now the baby’s nurse, A lioness who ruled the roost And made the Mother cry. She used to tie Gobbets of porkrind to bowknots of gauze- Three months they hung like soggy toast On our eight foot magnolia tree, And helped the English sparrows Weather a Boston winter. Three months, three months! Is Richard […]...
33. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
34. Two Or Three: A Recipe To Make A Cuckold Two or three visits, and two or three bows, Two or three civil things, two or three vows, Two or three kisses, with two or three sighs, Two or three Jesus’s – and let me dies- Two or three squeezes, and two or three towses, With two or three thousand pound lost at their houses, […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. On Stopping Here To: WBY Walking up your life girdle you may then Get tired or just need to look down To see how far you have stepped Or how high you have elevated On stopping here, what would you say? Would you say oh how fast time does pass Leaving us memories and realities Or how slowly […]...
37. My Dog ‘Twas in a pub just off the Strand When I was in my cups, There passed a bloke with in his hand Two tiny puling pups; And one was on me with a bound, Seeking to lick my face, And so I bought him for a pound And took him to my place. Three acres […]...
38. A Visitor in Marl A Visitor in Marl Who influences Flowers Till they are orderly as Busts And Elegant as Glass Who visits in the Night And just before the Sun Concludes his glistening interview Caresses and is gone But whom his fingers touched And where his feet have run And whatsoever Mouth be kissed Is as it had […]...
39. Herbert White “When I hit her on the head, it was good, And then I did it to her a couple of times, But it was funny, afterwards, It was as if somebody else did it… Everything flat, without sharpness, richness or line. Still, I liked to drive past the woods where she lay, Tell the old […]...
40. Hugo's "flower to butterfly&quot Sweet, bide with me and let my love Be an enduring tether; Oh, wanton not from spot to spot, But let us dwell together. You’ve come each morn to sip the sweets With which you found me dripping, Yet never knew it was not dew But tears that you were sipping. You gambol over honey […]...