How To Get On In Society

Related poetry:

1. Stable society the horses have bolted The one door’s been locked The flood can’t get out The greasy bilge swills Up the walls to the roof Hercules is hopeless The manger is mangy Fresh myths and sayings Are urgently wanted Mythmakers get busy...
2. July 10 The sky was a midnight blue Velvet cloth draping A birdcage and no moon But the breeze was whistling And the sound of a car On Valentine Place was The rush of a waterfall On the phone in New York City And that’s when the muse Turned up with curly brown locks She was a […]...
3. The New Mistress “Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be? You may be good for something, but you are not good for me. Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here. And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear. “I will go where I […]...
4. The Pros and Cons He’ll be pleased if I phone to ask him how he is. It will make me look considerate and he likes considerate people. He’ll be reassured to see that I haven’t lost interest, Which might make him happy and then I’ll have done him a favour. If I phone him right now I’ll get to […]...
5. Never for Society Never for Society He shall seek in vain Who His own acquaintance Cultivate Of Men Wiser Men may weary But the Man within Never knew Satiety Better entertain Than could Border Ballad Or Biscayan Hymn Neither introduction Need You unto Him...
6. Best Society When I was a child, I thought, Casually, that solitude Never needed to be sought. Something everybody had, Like nakedness, it lay at hand, Not specially right or specially wrong, A plentiful and obvious thing Not at all hard to understand. Then, after twenty, it became At once more difficult to get And more desired […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. The Soul selects her own Society The Soul selects her own Society Then shuts the Door To her divine Majority Present no more Unmoved she notes the Chariots pausing At her low Gate Unmoved an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat I’ve known her from an ample nation Choose One Then close the Valves of her attention Like Stone...
9. Madam And The Phone Bill You say I O. K. ed LONG DISTANCE? O. K. ed it when? My goodness, Central That was then! I’m mad and disgusted With that Negro now. I don’t pay no REVERSED CHARGES nohow. You say, I will pay it Else you’ll take out my phone? You better let My phone alone. I didn’t ask […]...
10. Our journey had advanced Our journey had advanced Our feet were almost come To that odd Fork in Being’s Road Eternity by Term Our pace took sudden awe Our feet reluctant led Before were Cities but Between The Forest of the Dead Retreat was out of Hope Behind a Sealed Route Eternity’s White Flag Before And God at every […]...
11. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
12. The Night I Was Going To Die the night I was going to die I was sweating on the bed And I could hear the crickets And there was a cat fight outside And I could feel my soul dropping down through the Mattress And just before it hit the floor I jumped up I was almost too weak to walk But […]...
13. Siren Song I phone from time to time, to see if she’s Changed the music on her answerphone. ‘Tell me in two words’, goes the recording, ‘what you were going to tell in a thousand’. I peer into that thought, like peering out To sea at night, hearing the sound of waves Breaking on rocks, knowing she […]...
14. Four-Feet “THE WOMAN IN HIS LIFE” I have done mostly what most men do, And pushed it out of my mind; But I can’t forget, if I wanted to, Four-Feet trotting behind. Day after day, the whole day through Wherever my road inclined Four-feet said, “I am coming with you!” And trotted along behind. Now I […]...
15. Style Flaubert wanted to write a novel About nothing. It was to have no subject And be sustained upon the style alone, Like the Holy Ghost cruising above The abyss, or like the little animals In Disney cartoons who stand upon a branch That breaks, but do not fall Till they look down. He never wrote […]...
16. After the Engagement Well, Mabel, ’tis over and ended – The ball I wrote was to be; And oh! it was perfectly splendid – If you could have been here to see. I’ve a thousand things to write you That I know you are wanting to hear, And one, that is sure to delight you – I am […]...
17. Long Distance II Though my mother was already two years dead Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, Put hot water bottles her side of the bed And still went to renew her transport pass. You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone. He’d put you off an hour to give him time To clear away […]...
18. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
19. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
20. Farmer, Dying for Hank and Nancy Seven thousand acres of grass have faded yellow From his cough. These limp days, his anger, Legend forty years from moon to Stevensville, Lives on, just barely, in a Great Falls whore. Cruel times, he cries, cruel winds. His geese roam Unattended in the meadow. The gold last leaves Of cottonwoods […]...
21. Another Awkward Stage Of Convalescence Drunk, I kissed the moon Where it stretched on the floor. I’d removed happiness from a green bottle, Both sipped and gulped Just as a river changes its mind, Mostly there was a flood in my mouth Because I wanted to love the toaster As soon as possible, and the toothbrush With multi-level brissels Created […]...
22. Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife, Our chance to live depends on such a sign While others talk and The Pentagon from the moon Is bouncing exact commands: “Forget your faith; Be ready for whatever […]...
23. Metamorphosis a girlfriend came in Built me a bed Scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor Scrubbed the walls Vacuumed Cleaned the toilet The bathtub Scrubbed the bathroom floor And cut my toenails and My hair. Then All on the same day The plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet And the toilet And the gas man […]...
24. Joseph Dixon Who carved this shattered harp on my stone? I died to you, no doubt. But how many harps and pianos Wired I and tightened and disentangled for you, Making them sweet again with tuning fork or without? Oh well! A harp leaps out of the ear of a man, you say, But whence the ear […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Cappuccino smile Ah, the aromas of that conversation, The brimming, cappuccino smile Swirled in chocolate rich and cinnamoned, The gentle coffee curlicues interlaced In arabesques of creamy foam, redolent Upon your lips, lilted in the cup of your Countenance, glazed in syrup gilt. Your words were velvet plumes Of soothing, honeyed dews You tea-spooned in my mind, […]...
27. You Asked How (formerly Even Now She Is Turning, Saying Everything I Always Wanted Her to Say) At the end there were straws In her glove compartment, I’d split them open To taste the familiar bitter residue, near the end I ate all her Percodans, hungry to know How far they could take me. A bottle of red wine each night moved her along As she wrote, I feel too much, again […]...
28. Mary's Son If you stop to find out what your wages will be And how they will clothe and feed you, Willie, my son, don’t you go on the Sea. For the Sea will never need you. If you ask for the reason of every command, And argue with people about you, Willie, my son, don’t you […]...
29. YOU “Remember, you loved me, when we were young, one day” The words of the song in Tauber’s mellifluous tenor Haunt my nights and days, make me tremble when I hear Your voice on the phone, sadden me when I can’t make into your smile The pucker of your lips, the gleam in your eye. The […]...
30. The Space Heater On the then-below-zero day, it was on, Near the patients’ chair, the old heater Kept by the analyst’s couch, at the end, Like the infant’s headstone that was added near the foot Of my father’s grave. And it was hot, with the almost Laughing satire of a fire’s heat, The little coils like hairs in […]...
31. 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...
32. 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...
33. The Story Of Our Lives 1 We are reading the story of our lives Which takes place in a room. The room looks out on a street. There is no one there, No sound of anything. The tress are heavy with leaves, The parked cars never move. We keep turning the pages, hoping for something, Something like mercy or change, […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
37. Fifth Amendment The fear of perjuring herself turned into a tacit Admission of her guilt. Yet she had the skill And the luck to elude her implacable pursuers. God was everywhere like a faceless guard in a gallery. Death was last seen in the auction room, looking worried. She hadn’t seen him leave. She narrowly avoided him […]...
38. 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!...
39. 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 […]...
40. 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 […]...