CROW AND AUDEN

Related poetry:

1. Crow's Fall When Crow was white he decided the sun was too white. He decided it glared much too whitely. He decided to attack it and defeat it. He got his strength up flush and in full glitter. He clawed and fluffed his rage up. He aimed his beak direct at the sun’s centre. He laughed himself […]...
2. COCK-CROW Bell-man of night, if I about shall go For to deny my Master, do thou crow! Thou stop’st Saint Peter in the midst of sin; Stay me, by crowing, ere I do begin; Better it is, premonish’d, for to shun A sin, than fall to weeping when ’tis done....
3. Crow's Nerve Fails Crow, feeling his brain slip, Finds his every feather the fossil of a murder. Who murdered all these? These living dead, that root in his nerves and his blood Till he is visibly black? How can he fly from his feathers? And why have they homed on him? Is he the archive of their accusations? […]...
4. A Joyful Song Of Five Come, let us all sing very high And all sing very loud And keep on singing in the street Until there’s quite a crowd; And keep on singing in the house And up and down the stairs; Then underneath the furniture Let’s all play Polar bears; And crawl about with doormats on, And growl and […]...
5. The Pretty Lady He asked the lady in the train If he might smoke: she smiled consent. So lighting his cigar and fain To talk he puffed away content, Reflecting: how delightful are Fair dame and fine cigar. Then from his bulging wallet he A photograph with pride displayed, His charming wife and children three, When suddenly he […]...
6. The Seraph and the Poet THE seraph sings before the manifest God-One, and in the burning of the Seven, And with the full life of consummate Heaving beneath him like a mother’s Warm with her first-born’s slumber in that The poet sings upon the earth grave-riven, Before the naughty world, soon self-forgiven For wronging him, and in the darkness prest […]...
7. Typographical The Editor wrote his political screed In ink that was fainter and fainter; He rose to the call of his country’s need, And in spiderish characters wrote with speed, A column on “Cutting the Painter”. The “reader” sat in his high-backed chair, For literals he was a hunter; But he stared aghast at the column […]...
8. Sir Giles' War-Song Ho! is there any will ride with me, Sir Giles, le bon des barrières? The clink of arms is good to hear, The flap of pennons fair to see; Ho! is there any will ride with me, Sir Giles, le bon des barrières? The leopards and lilies are fair to see; “St. George Guienne” right […]...
9. Train Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train. Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train’s whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with […]...
10. The Albatross Often, to amuse themselves, the crew of the ship Would fell an albatross, the largest of sea birds, Indolent companions of their trip As they slide across the deep sea’s bitters. Scarcely had they dropped to the plank Than these blue kings, maladroit and ashamed Let their great white wings sink Like an oar dragging […]...
11. Lucky One sweet pound of filet mignon Sizzles on the roadside. Let’s say a hundred yards below The buzzard. The buzzard Sees no cars or other buzzards Between the mountain range due north And the horizon to the south And across the desert west and east No other creature’s nose leads him to this feast. The […]...
12. Red Dust This harpie with dry red curls Talked openly of her husband, His impotence, his death, the death Of her lover, the birth and death Of her own beauty. She stared Into the mirror next to Our table littered with the wreck Of her appetite and groaned: Look what you’ve done to me! As though only […]...
13. A Song at Cock-Crow The first time that Peter denied his Lord He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord, But followed far off to see what they would do, Till the cock crew till the cock crew After Gethsemane, till the cock crew! The first time that Peter denied his Lord ‘Twas only a maid in […]...
14. Merry-Go-Round COLORED CHILD AT CARNIVAL Where is the Jim Crow section On this merry-go-round, Mister, cause I want to ride? Down South where I come from White and colored Can’t sit side by side. Down South on the train There’s a Jim Crow car. On the bus we’re put in the back But there ain’t no […]...
15. Travel The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn’t a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming, But I see its cinders red on the sky, […]...
16. Two Old Crows Two old crows sat on a fence rail. Two old crows sat on a fence rail, Thinking of effect and cause, Of weeds and flowers, And nature’s laws. One of them muttered, one of them stuttered, One of them stuttered, one of them muttered. Each of them thought far more than he uttered. One crow […]...
17. The Poet Fears Failure The poet fears failure & so she says “Hold on pen What if the critics Hate me?” & with that question She blots out more lines Than any critic could. The critic is only doing his job: Keeping the poet lonely. He barks Like a dog at the door When the master comes home. It’s […]...
18. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
19. A monument in words And so I had a glaring revelation, I couldn’t find the poet in the man although I read his life composed by writers true disposed To tell it with veracity. They built a monument in words And deeds, a shrine of writers’ reeds inlaid with refined And proper quotes. Those motes were hardly real; I […]...
20. Sonnet To Liberty These are the letters which Endymion wrote To one he loved in secret, and apart. And now the brawlers of the auction mart Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note, Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote The merchant’s price. I think they love not art Who break the crystal of a poet’s […]...
21. Henry Tripp The bank broke and I lost my savings. I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River And I made up my mind to run away And leave my place in life and my family; But just as the midnight train pulled in, Quick off the steps jumped Cully Green And Martin Vise, and […]...
22. Tourists In a strange town in a far land They met amid a throng; They stared, they could not understand How life was sudden song. As brown eyes looked in eyes of grey Just for a moment’s space, Twin spirits met with sweet dismay In that strange place. And then the mob that swept them near […]...
23. Apology (For Eleanor Rogers Cox) For blows on the fort of evil That never shows a breach, For terrible life-long races To a goal no foot can reach, For reckless leaps into darkness With hands outstretched to a star, There is jubilation in Heaven Where the great dead poets are. There is joy over disappointment And […]...
24. The End We decided to have the abortion, became Killers together. The period that came Changed nothing. They were dead, that young couple Who had been for life. As we talked of it in bed, the crash Was not a surprise. We went to the window, Looked at the crushed cars and the gleaming Curved shears of […]...
25. At The Parade I cannot flap a flag Or beat a drum; Behind the mob I lag With larynx dumb; Alas! I fear I’m not A Patriot. With acrid eyes I see The soul of things; And equal unto me Are cooks and kings; I would not cross the street A duke to meet. Oh curse me for […]...
26. Birds of Prey Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day, As they go lumbering across the sky, Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high, Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray. They scare the singing birds of earth away As, greed-impelled, they circle threateningly, Watching the toilers with malignant eye, From their exclusive haven birds of […]...
27. Cuchulain Comforted A man that had six mortal wounds, a man Violent and famous, strode among the dead; Eyes stared out of the branches and were gone. Then certain Shrouds that muttered head to head Came and were gone. He leant upon a tree As though to meditate on wounds and blood. A Shroud that seemed to […]...
28. The Protest I say ‘e isn’t Remorse! ‘Ow do I know? Saw ‘im on Riccarton course Two year ago! Think I’d forget any ‘orse? Course ‘e’s The Crow! Bumper Maginnis and I After a “go”, Walkin’ our ‘orses to dry, I says “Hello! What’s that old black goin’ by?” Bumper says “Oh! That’s an old cuddy of […]...
29. Of Love & Sex said once a friend of mine That love was just a bucket of bullshit; then I Thought about his parents Wrote once a neighbour poet That sex was a thing overrated; so I Asked for her other poems...
30. Window Shopper I stood before a candy shop Which with a Christmas radiance shone; I saw my parents pass and stop To grin at me and then go on. The sweets were heaped in gleamy rows; On each I feasted – what a game! Against the glass with flatted nose, Gulping my spittle as it came; So […]...
31. The Poet And The Bird Said a people to a poet -” Go out from among us straightway! While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine. There’s a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!” The poet went out weeping – the nightingale ceased chanting; […]...
32. The Baby's Dance Dance little baby, dance up high, Never mind baby, mother is by; Crow and caper, caper and crow, There little baby, there you go; Up to the ceiling, down to the ground, Backwards and forwards, round and round; Dance little baby, and mother shall sing, With the merry coral, ding, ding, ding....
33. Thangbrand the Priest Short of stature, large of limb, Burly face and russet beard, All the women stared at him, When in Iceland he appeared. “Look!” they said, With nodding head, “There goes Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.” All the prayers he knew by rote, He could preach like Chrysostome, From the Fathers he could quote, He had even been […]...
34. Blind Bartimeus Blind Bartimeus at the gates Of Jericho in darkness waits; He hears the crowd; he hears a breath Say, “It is Christ of Nazareth!” And calls, in tones of agony, The thronging multitudes increase; Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace! But still, above the noisy crowd, The beggar’s cry is shrill and loud; Until they say, […]...
35. A Gardener-Sage Here in the garden-bed, Hoeing the celery, Wonders the Lord has made Pass ever before me. I see the young birds build, And swallows come and go, And summer grow and gild, And winter die in snow. Many a thing I note, And store it in my mind, For all my ragged coat That scarce […]...
36. Dark Prophecy: I Sing Of Shine And, yeah brothers While white America sings about the unsinkable molly brown (who was hustling the titanic When it went down) I sing to thee of Shine The stoker who was hip enough to flee the fucking ship And let the white folks drown With screams on their lips (jumped his black ass into the […]...
37. An Antheme O sing a new song to the Lord, Praise in the hight and deeper strayne; Come beare your parts with one accord, Which you in Heaven may sing againe. Yee elders all, and all the crowd That in white robes apparrell’d stands Like Saints on earth, sing out aloud, Think now the palmes are in […]...
38. Dream Song 121: Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it, The whole humiliating Human round, Out of this & that. He made a-many hearts go pit-a-pat Who now need never mind his nostril-hair Nor a critical error laid bare. He endured fifty years. He was Randall Jarrell And wrote a-many books & he wrote well. Peace to […]...
39. Autumn Birds The wild duck startles like a sudden thought, And heron slow as if it might be caught. The flopping crows on weary wings go by And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly. The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by, And darken like a clod the evening sky. The larks like thunder rise and […]...
40. DIRECTIONS/MISDIRECTIONS I sit inside the train of tears The station mellow in shade Unoriginal phrases air-brush the canvas. Puzzling minds I wonder If all are like my own Closed to stillness. From girders hang the acrobats of gone Pearl grey Whistlers. We sat on A train like this once, you and I, Face to face but […]...