Sapphics For Celebrity

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1. A Hall The road led straight to the temple. Notre Dame, though not Gothic at all. The huge doors were closed. I chose one on the side, Not to the main building-to its left wing, The one in green copper, worn into gaps below. I pushed. Then it was revealed: An astonishing large hall, in warm light. […]...
2. CELEBRITY [A satire on his own Sorrows of Werther.] ON bridges small and bridges great Stands Nepomucks in ev’ry state, Of bronze, wood, painted, or of stone, Some small as dolls, some giants grown; Each passer must worship before Nepomuck, Who to die on a bridge chanced to have the ill luck, When once a man […]...
3. The Color of the Grave is Green The Color of the Grave is Green The Outer Grave I mean You would not know it from the Field Except it own a Stone To help the fond to find it Too infinite asleep To stop and tell them where it is But just a Daisy deep The Color of the Grave is white […]...
4. The Keys of Morning While at her bedroom window once, Learning her task for school, Little Louisa lonely sat In the morning clear and cool, She slanted her small bead-brown eyes Across the empty street, And saw Death softly watching her In the sunshine pale and sweet. His was a long lean sallow face; He sat with half-shut eyes, […]...
5. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
6. The sage lectured brilliantly The sage lectured brilliantly. Before him, two images: “Now this one is a devil, And this one is me.” He turned away. Then a cunning pupil Changed the positions. Turned the sage again: “Now this one is a devil, And this one is me.” The pupils sat, all grinning, And rejoiced in the game. But […]...
7. Even Because Because it all just breaks apart, and the pieces scatter and rearrange without much fanfare or notice. Because you can’t and don’t remember the step that kicked up dust and left this planet-you’d give up even more now. Because the body itself-the heart’s Not dead but deeper, wrapped up in curtains, a different color, among […]...
8. Is White a Color? White, pristine, unblemished They say it is not a color I love white mists, clouds Lingering on blue mountains. White, no shades No off white, cream Pure as snow on shimmering peaks Is my favorite sight. Nurses, priests, politicians Are bound, chained to white White nebulous clouds Evoke deep nostalgic thoughts. They swaddled my father […]...
9. By This Pitch And Motion In the upstairs hallway, complacent sunlight Stings the walls with gold and translucent almond Over Turkish runners betraying patterns Faded with travel. At their raveled edges, my daughter slumbers In the room from which this lost sun arranges Through a window high on an eastern sill of Drapes and black lacquer. Past the pillowcase where […]...
10. In a lonely place In a lonely place, I encountered a sage Who sat, all still, Regarding a newspaper. He accosted me: “Sir, what is this?” Then I saw that I was greater, Aye, greater than this sage. I answered him at once, “Old, old man, it is the wisdom of the age.” The sage looked upon me with […]...
11. Sonnets 04: Only Until This Cigarette Is Ended Only until this cigarette is ended, A little moment at the end of all, While on the floor the quiet ashes fall, And in the firelight to a lance extended, Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended, The broken shadow dances on the wall, I will permit my memory to recall The vision of you, by […]...
12. The Two Old Bachelors Two old Bachelors were living in one house; One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse. Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse, – “This happens just in time! For we’ve nothing in the house, “Save a tiny slice of lemon and a teaspoonful of honey, “And what to […]...
13. Epitaph Even such is time, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord […]...
14. I Don't Feel At Home Where I Am I don’t feel at home where I am, Or where I spend time; only where, Beyond counting, there’s freedom and calm, That is, waves, that is, space where, when there, You consist of pure freedom, which, seen, Turns that Gorgon, the crowd, to stone, To pebbles and sand. . . where life’s mean- Ing lies […]...
15. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sat gossiping with Robert. (She was really a raving beauty in her day. With Mary Pickford curls in clouds and whirls.) She was trying to think of something nice to say, So she pointed to a page by her fellow star and sage, And said: “I wish that I could write that […]...
16. Nicotine Hymn to the Dope Goddess of the murmuring courts, Nicotine, my Nicotine, Houri of the mystic sports, Trailing-robed in gabardine, Gliding where the breath hath glided, Hidden sylph of filmy veils, Truth behind the dream is veiléd E’en as thou art, smiling ever, ever gliding, Wraith of wraiths, dim lights dividing Purple, grey, and shadow […]...
17. Oh Who Is That Young Sinner Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they’re taking him to prison for the color of his hair. ‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head […]...
18. Sestina I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow, To the short day and to the whitening hills, When the colour is all lost from the grass, Though my desire will not lose its green, So rooted is it in this hardest stone, That speaks and feels as though it were a woman. And […]...
19. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
20. The First Dream The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight And as I lean against the door of sleep I begin to think about the first person to dream, How quiet he must have seemed the next morning As the others stood around the fire Draped in the skins of animals Talking to each other only in […]...
21. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
22. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
23. The Wistful One I sought the trails of South and North, I wandered East and West; But pride and passion drove me forth And would not let me rest. And still I seek, as still I roam, A snug roof overhead; Four walls, my own; a quiet home. . . . “You’ll have it when you’re dead.”...
24. 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...
25. December 14 This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere, The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, That never touch with inarticulate pang Those dying generations-at their song. The One remains, the many change and pass The expiring swan, and as he sings he dies. The earth, […]...
26. Bee-attitudes in the shadow Of the flower Is the sting The bee driven by need Uses its painful gift To keep its sense of beauty In proportion It does its job with A thoughtless dedication Its honeyed world Excites no inner space Bees are not poets Who wade through words With too much brain Around their […]...
27. The Images Alone Scarlet as the cloth draped over a sword, White as steaming rice, blue as leschenaultia, Old curried towns, the frog in its green human skin; A ploughman walking his furrow as if in irons, but As at a whoop of young men running loose In brick passages, there occurred the thought Like instant stitches all […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. Nine Things It’s night And a numbered beauty Lapses at the wind, Chortles with the Branches of a tree, giggles, Plays shadow dance With a dead kite, Cajoles affection From falling leaves, And knows four Other things. One is the color Of your hair....
30. A Blockhead Before me lies a mass of shapeless days, Unseparated atoms, and I must Sort them apart and live them. Sifted dust Covers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays, There are none, ever. As a monk who prays The sliding beads asunder, so I thrust Each tasteless particle aside, and just Begin again the task which never […]...
31. 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. […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. Clean Curtains NEW neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets. The look of their clean white curtains was the same as the rim of a nun’s bonnet. One way was an oyster pail factory, one way they made candy, one way paper boxes, strawboard cartons. The warehouse trucks shook the dust of the […]...
34. Morning Poem #43 I close my eyes And there it is A concrete walkway Leading out of a Small village Hugging the sides Of a green green Tree filled mountainside And to the right A pipe railing Paited the color Of oxidized metaland even firther To my right A small beach Costline-an ocean All under a pale blue […]...
35. The Moon is a Painter He coveted her portrait. He toiled as she grew gay. She loved to see him labor In that devoted way. And in the end it pleased her, But bowed him more with care. Her rose-smile showed so plainly, Her soul-smile was not there. That night he groped without a lamp To find a cloak, a […]...
36. In Lovers' Lane I know a place for loitering feet Deep in the valley where the breeze Makes melody in lichened boughs, And murmurs low love-litanies. There slender harebells nod and dream, And pale wild roses offer up The fragrance of their golden hearts, As from some incense-brimméd cup. It holds the sunshine sifted down Softly through many […]...
37. 50. Another on the said Occasion ONE Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell, When deprived of her husband she loved so well, In respect for the love and affection he show’d her, She reduc’d him to dust and she drank up the powder. But Queen Netherplace, of a diff’rent complexion, When called on to order the fun’ral direction, Would have eat […]...
38. To A Friend Going Blind Today, because I couldn’t find the shortcut through, I had to walk this town’s entire inner Perimeter to find Where the medieval walls break open In an eighteenth century Arch. The yellow valley flickered on and off Through cracks and the gaps For guns. Bruna is teaching me To cut a pattern. Saturdays we buy […]...
39. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 07: Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers The golden lights go out. . . The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn, In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn, We lie face down, we dream, We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem To stare at the ceiling or walls. […]...
40. Inspiration How often have I started out With no thought in my noodle, And wandered here and there about, Where fancy bade me toddle; Till feeling faunlike in my glee I’ve voiced some gay distiches, Returning joyfully to tea, A poem in my britches. A-squatting on a thymy slope With vast of sky about me, I’ve […]...