Uprooting

Related poetry:

1. To a Dead Poet I knew not if to laugh or weep; They sat and talked of you “‘Twas here he sat; ’twas this he said! ‘Twas that he used to do. “Here is the book wherein he read, The room wherein he dwelt; And he” (they said) “was such a man, Such things he thought and felt.” I […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. Finding A Long Gray Hair I scrub the long floorboards In the kitchen, repeating The motions of other women Who have lived in this house. And when I find a long gray hair Floating in the pail, I feel my life added to theirs....
4. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. The Island of Skyros Here, where we stood together, we three men, Before the war had swept us to the East Three thousand miles away, I stand again And hear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast. We trod the same path, to the selfsame place, Yet here I stand, having beheld their graves, Skyros whose shadows the […]...
10. A Man Young And Old: VIII. Summer And Spring We sat under an old thorn-tree And talked away the night, Told all that had been said or done Since first we saw the light, And when we talked of growing up Knew that we’d halved a soul And fell the one in t’other’s arms That we might make it whole; Then peter had a […]...
11. The Dream-Follower A dream of mine flew over the mead To the halls where my old Love reigns; And it drew me on to follow its lead: And I stood at her window-panes; And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone Speeding on to its cleft in the clay; And my dream was scared, and […]...
12. Apollonius Of Tyana In Rhodes Apollonius was talking about Proper education and conduct with a young Man who was building a luxurious House in Rhodes. “As for me” said the Tyanian At last, “when I enter a temple However small it may be, I very much prefer To see a statue of ivory and gold Than a clay and vulgar […]...
13. Love Of Jerusalem There is a street where they sell only red meat And there is a street where they sell only clothes and perfumes. And there Is a day when I see only cripples and the blind And those covered with leprosy, and spastics and those with twisted lips. Here they build a house and there they […]...
14. 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...
15. Song of the Wise Children 1902 When the darkened Fifties dip to the North, And frost and the fog divide the air, And the day is dead at his breaking-forth, Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear! Far to Southward they wheel and glance, The million molten spears of morn The spears of our deliverance That shine on the house […]...
16. 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...
17. George Trimble Do you remember when I stood on the steps Of the Court House and talked free-silver, And the single-tax of Henry George? Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader Lost the first battle, I began to talk prohibition, And became active in the church? That was due to my wife, Who pictured to […]...
18. 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 […]...
19. 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!...
20. Dust I HEARD them in their sadness say, “The earth rebukes the thought of God; We are but embers wrapped in clay A little nobler than the sod.” But I have touched the lips of clay, Mother, thy rudest sod to me Is thrilled with fire of hidden day, And haunted by all mystery....
21. 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 […]...
22. 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...
23. Epitaph for Maria Wentworth And here the precious dust is laid; Whose purely-temper’d clay was made So fine that it the guest betray’d. Else the soul grew so fast within, It broke the outward shell of sin, And so was hatch’d a cherubin. In height, it soar’d to God above; In depth, it did to knowledge move, And spread […]...
24. Mercian Hymns VII Gasholders, russet among fields. Milldams, marlpools that lay Unstirring. Eel-swarms. Coagulations of frogs: once, with branches and Half-bricks, he battered a ditchful; then sidled away from the stillness And silence. Ceolred was his friend and remained so, even after the day of the lost Fighter: a biplane, already obsolete and irreplaceable, two inches of Heavy […]...
25. Casabianca Love’s the boy stood on the burning deck Trying to recite “The boy stood on The burning deck.” Love’s the son stood stammering elocution while the poor ship in flames went down. Love’s the obstinate boy, the ship, Even the swimming sailors, who Would like a schoolroom platform, too, or an excuse to stay on […]...
26. Phedre (To Sarah Bernhardt) How vain and dull this common world must seem To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked At Florence with Mirandola, or walked Through the cool olives of the Academe: Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played With the white […]...
27. Back From Australia Cocooned in Time, at this inhuman height, The packaged food tastes neutrally of clay, We never seem to catch the running day But travel on in everlasting night With all the chic accoutrements of flight: Lotions and essences in neat array And yet another plastic cup and tray. “Thank you so much. Oh no, I’m […]...
28. Answer THE WARMTH of life is quenched with bitter frost; Upon the lonely road a child limps by Skirting the frozen pools: our way is lost: Our hearts sink utterly. But from the snow-patched moorland chill and drear, Lifting our eyes beyond the spirëd height, With white-fire lips apart the dawn breathes clear Its soundless hymn […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. Sonnet XIII I fancied, while you stood conversing there, Superb, in every attitude a queen, Her ermine thus Boadicea bare, So moved amid the multitude Faustine. My life, whose whole religion Beauty is, Be charged with sin if ever before yours A lesser feeling crossed my mind than his Who owning grandeur marvels and adores. Nay, rather […]...
31. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
32. My prayers must meet a brazen heaven My prayers must meet a brazen heaven And fail and scatter all away. Unclean and seeming unforgiven My prayers I scarcely call to pray. I cannot buoy my heart above; Above I cannot entrance win. I reckon precedents of love, But feel the long success of sin. My heaven is brass and iron my earth: […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. The Conundrum of the Workshops When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but […]...
35. Meditation on the A30 A man on his own in a car Is revenging himself on his wife; He open the throttle and bubbles with dottle And puffs at his pitiful life She’s losing her looks very fast, She loses her temper all day; That lorry won’t let me get past, This Mini is blocking my way. “Why can’t […]...
36. Clock-O'-Clay In the cowslip pips I lie, Hidden from the buzzing fly, While green grass beneath me lies, Pearled with dew like fishes’ eyes, Here I lie, a clock-o’-clay, Waiting for the time o’ day. While the forest quakes surprise, And the wild wind sobs and sighs, My home rocks as like to fall, On its […]...
37. The Self and the Mulberry I wanted to see the self, so I looked at the mulberry. It had no trouble accepting its limits, Yet defining and redefining a small area So that any shape was possible, any movement. It stayed put, but was part of all the air. I wanted to learn to be there and not there Like […]...
38. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
39. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
40. The Soldier Yes. Why do we бll, seeing of a soldier, bless him? bless Our redcoats, our tars? Both these being, the greater part, But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Here it is: the heart, Since, proud, it calls the calling manly, gives a guess That, hopes that, makesbelieve, the men must be no less; It […]...