Da Gama returns

Related poetry:

1. Fare Well If I die, Leave the balcony open. The little boy is eating oranges. (From my balcony I can see him.) The reaper is harvesting the wheat. (From my balcony I can hear him.) If I die, Leave the balcony open!...
2. A Miracle For Breakfast At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee, Waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb That was going to be served from a certain balcony -like kings of old, or like a miracle. It was still dark. One foot of the sun Steadied itself on a long ripple in the river. The first ferry of […]...
3. 232. Song-The Day Returns THE DAY returns, my bosom burns, The blissful day we twa did meet: Tho’ winter wild in tempest toil’d, Ne’er summer-sun was half sae sweet. Than a’ the pride that loads the tide, And crosses o’er the sultry line; Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes, Heav’n gave me more-it made thee mine! While day […]...
4. Jeanne d'Arc Returns 1914-1916 What hast thou done, O womanhood of France, Mother and daughter, sister, sweetheart, wife, What hast thou done, amid this fateful strife, To prove the pride of thine inheritance In this fair land of freedom and romance? I hear thy voice with tears and courage rife, Smiling against the swords that seek thy life, […]...
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. Hard Rock Returns To Prison From The Hospital For The Criminal Insane Hard Rock/ was/ “known not to take no shit From nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it: Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut Across his temple and plowed through a thick Canopy of kinky hair. The WORD/ was/ that Hard Rock wasn’t a […]...
7. Crimson CRIMSON is the slow smolder of the cigar end I hold, Gray is the ash that stiffens and covers all silent the fire. (A great man I know is dead and while he lies in his Coffin a gone flame I sit here in cumbering shadows And smoke and watch my thoughts come and go.)...
8. The Betrothed “You must choose between me and your cigar.” BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885. Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout, For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out. We quarrelled about Havanas we fought o’er a good cheroot, And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am […]...
9. I Shall Return I shall return again; I shall return To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes At golden noon the forest fires burn, Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies. I shall return to loiter by the streams That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses, And realize once more my thousand dreams Of waters […]...
10. The Smoking Frog Three men I saw beside a bar, Regarding o’er their bottle, A frog who smoked a rank cigar They’d jammed within its throttle. A Pasha frog it must have been So big it as and bloated; And from its lips the nicotine In graceful festoon floated. And while the trio jeered and joked, As if […]...
11. Immortality WE must pass like smoke or live within the spirit’s fire; For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire, As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn. Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days: Surely here […]...
12. Flight Of Stairs Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers Before they close them. They curiously investigate […]...
13. Jazzanatomy EVERYTHING is jazz: Snails, jails, rails, tails, males, females, Snow-white cotton bales. Knee-bone, thigh, hip-bone. Jazz slips you percussion bone Classified “unknown.” Slick lizard rhythms, Cigar-smoke tunes, straight-gin sky Laced with double moons. Second-chance rhythms, Don’t-give-up riffs: jazz gets HIGH Off can’ts, buts, and ifs....
14. Circumstantial Evidence She does not mind a good cigar (The kind, that is, I smoke); She thinks all men quite stupid are, (But laughs whene’er I joke). She says she does not care for verse (But praises all I write); She says that punning is a curse, (But then mine are so bright!) She does not like […]...
15. Love Preparing to Fly He play’d his wings as tho’ for flight; They webb’d the sky with glassy light. His body sway’d upon tiptoes, Like a wind-perplexed rose; In eddies of the wind he went At last up the blue element....
16. The First Extra A Waltz Song. O sway, and swing, and sway, And swing, and sway, and swing! Ah me, what bliss like unto this, Can days and daylight bring? A rose beneath your feet Has fallen from my head; Its odour rises sweet, All crushed it lies, and dead. O Love is like a rose, Fair-hued, of […]...
17. The Christening What shall I call My dear little dormouse? His eyes are small, But his tail is e-nor-mouse. I sometimes call him Terrible John, ‘Cos his tail goes on – And on – And on. And I sometimes call him Terrible Jack, ‘Cos his tail goes on to the end of his back. And I sometimes […]...
18. Legs rivers and age with landbound legs a wish For the easy flow of a river – not The clambering up crags to seek More favour from the sun (or long-haired moon) harped for Since those sparks of who am i First clicked through consciousness How the river sidles round Rocks blocking the painful straight Seems to brush aside […]...
19. The Stand-Ins In the dream The swastika is neon And flashes like a strobe light Into my eyes, all colors, All vibrations And I see the killer in him And he turns on an oven, An oven, an oven, an oven, And on a pie plate he sticks In my Yellow Star And then Then when it […]...
20. The Walking Man of Rodin LEGS hold a torso away from the earth. And a regular high poem of legs is here. Powers of bone and cord raise a belly and lungs Out of ooze and over the loam where eyes look and ears hear And arms have a chance to hammer and shoot and run motors. You make us […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. The Race Of Banquo Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly! Leave thy guilty sire to die. O’er the heath the stripling fled, The wild storm howling round his head. Fear mightier thro’ the shades of night Urged his feet, and wing’d his flight; And still he heard his father cry Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly. Fly, son of […]...
23. Men When I was young, I used to Watch behind the curtains As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men. Young men sharp as mustard. See them. Men are always Going somewhere. They knew I was there. Fifteen Years old and starving for them. Under my window, they would pause, Their shoulders […]...
24. 98. To Mr. M'Adam, of Craigen-Gillan SIR, o’er a gill I gat your card, I trow it made me proud; “See wha taks notice o’ the bard!” I lap and cried fu’ loud. Now deil-ma-care about their jaw, The senseless, gawky million; I’ll cock my nose abune them a’, I’m roos’d by Craigen-Gillan! ‘Twas noble, sir; ’twas like yourself’, To grant […]...
25. The Bench-Legged Fyce Speakin’ of dorgs, my bench-legged fyce Hed most o’ the virtues, an’ nary a vice. Some folks called him Sooner, a name that arose From his predisposition to chronic repose; But, rouse his ambition, he couldn’t be beat – Yer bet yer he got thar on all his four feet! Mos’ dorgs hez some forte […]...
26. Frankenstein The monster has escaped from the dungeon Where he was kept by the Baron, Who made him with knobs sticking out from each side of his neck Where the head was attached to the body And stitching all over Where parts of cadavers were sewed together. He is pursued by the ignorant villagers, Who think […]...
27. The Gardener LV: It Was Mid-Day It was mid-day when you went Away. The sun was strong in the sky. I had done my work and sat alone On my balcony when you went away. Fitful gusts came winnowing Through the smells of may distant Fields. The doves cooed tireless in the shade, And a bee strayed in my room hum- […]...
28. A Fable Securely sunning in a forest glade, A mild, well-meaning snake Approved the adaptations he had made For safety’s sake. He liked the skin he had- Its mottled camouflage, its look of mail, And was content that he had thought to add A rattling tail. The tail was not for drumming up a fight; No, nothing […]...
29. Dream Song 99: Temples He does not live here but it is the god. A priest tools in a top his motorbike. You do not enter. Us the landscape circles hard abroad, Sunned, stone. Like calls, too low, to like. One submachine-gun cleared the Durga Temple. It is very dark here in this groping forth Gulp rhubarb for a […]...
30. Elephant Dormitory An elephant went to bed and pulled a crazy quilt up under Its tusks. But just as the great gray head began filling with the gray Wrinkles of sleep it was awakened by the thud of its tail Falling out of bed. Would you get my tail? said the elephant to another Elephant also tucked […]...
31. A Lament O World! O Life! O Time! On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before; When will return the glory of your prime? No more – Oh, never more! Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight: Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar Move my faint […]...
32. Sway With Me sway with me, everything sad Madmen in stone houses Without doors, Lepers steaming love and song Frogs trying to figure The sky; Sway with me, sad things Fingers split on a forge Old age like breakfast shell Used books, used people Used flowers, used love I need you I need you I need you: It […]...
33. Smoke Smoke, it is all smoke In the throat of eternity. . . . For centuries, the air was full of witches Whistling up chimneys On their spiky brooms Cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe, As they flew over rooftops Blessing & cursing their Kind. We banished & burned them Making them smoke in the […]...
34. The Reckoning It’s fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant, With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want; To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass, Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass. It’s bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill, […]...
35. The Glove – A Tale Before his lion-court, Impatient for the sport, King Francis sat one day; The peers of his realm sat around, And in balcony high from the ground Sat the ladies in beauteous array. And when with his finger he beckoned, The gate opened wide in a second, And in, with deliberate tread, Enters a lion dread, […]...
36. Wild Swans I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over. And what did I see I had not seen before? Only a question less or a question more: Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying. Tiresome heart, forever living and dying, House without air, I leave you and lock your door. Wild […]...
37. Sleepyheads SLEEP is a maker of makers. Birds sleep. Feet cling to a perch. Look at the balance. Let the legs loosen, the backbone untwist, the head go heavy over, the whole works tumbles a done bird off the perch. Fox cubs sleep. The pointed head curls round into hind legs and tail. It is a […]...
38. The Voice of Robert Desnos So like a flower and a current of air The flow of water fleeting shadows The smile glimpsed at midnight this excellent evening So like every joy and every sadness It is the midnight past lifting its naked body above belfries and poplars I call to me those lost in the fields Old skeletons young […]...
39. The Earth God loafs around heaven, Without a shape But He would like to smoke His cigar Or bite His fingernails And so forth. God owns heaven But He craves the earth, The earth with its little sleepy caves, Its bird resting at the kitchen window, Even its murders lined up like broken chairs, Even its writers […]...
40. She Didn’t Mean To Do It Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad. She didn’t mean to do it. Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs, Go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces, But no more. Certain thrills knock you flat On your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade And they […]...