Vienna, December 1999

Related poetry:

1. A Calendar of Sonnets: December The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes Of water ‘neath the summer sunshine gleamed: Far fairer than when placidly it streamed, The brook its frozen architecture makes, And under bridges white its swift way takes. Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed Might linger on the road; or one who deemed His […]...
2. Ode Written On The First Of December Tho’ now no more the musing ear Delights to listen to the breeze That lingers o’er the green wood shade, I love thee Winter! well. Sweet are the harmonies of Spring, Sweet is the summer’s evening gale, Pleasant the autumnal winds that shake The many-colour’d grove. And pleasant to the sober’d soul The silence of […]...
3. What Fifty Said When I was young my teachers were the old. I gave up fire for form till I was cold. I suffered like a metal being cast. I went to school to age to learn the past. Now when I am old my teachers are the young. What can’t be molded must be cracked and sprung. […]...
4. LE JARDIN DES TUILERIES This winter air is keen and cold, And keen and cold this winter sun, But round my chair the children run Like little things of dancing gold. Sometimes about the painted kiosk The mimic soldiers strut and stride, Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide In the bleak tangles of the bosk. And sometimes, while the old […]...
5. December Night The cold slope is standing in darkness But the south of the trees is dry to the touch The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers I came to watch these White plants older at night The oldest Come first to the ruins And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon The water […]...
6. Ho, everyone that thirsteth Ho, everyone that thirsteth And hath the price to give, Come to the stolen waters, Drink and your soul shall live. Come to the stolen waters, And leap the guarded pale, And pull the flower in season Before desire shall fail. It shall not last for ever, No more than earth and skies; But he […]...
7. The Trail Of No Return So now I take a bitter road Whereon no bourne I see, And wearily I lift the load That once I bore with glee. For me no more by sea or shore Adventure’s star shall burn, As I forsake wild ways to take The Trail of No Return. Such paths of peril I have trod: […]...
8. When Cold December WHEN cold December Froze to grisamber The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees Then fading slow And furred is the snow As the almond’s sweet husk And smelling like musk. The snow amygdaline Under the eglantine Where the bristling stars shine Like a gilt porcupine The snow confesses The little Princesses On their small chioppines […]...
9. 362. Song-Thou Gloomy December ANCE mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December! Ance mair I hail thee wi’ sorrow and care; Sad was the parting thou makes me remember- Parting wi’ Nancy, oh, ne’er to meet mair! Fond lovers’ parting is sweet, painful pleasure, Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour; But the dire feeling, O farewell for […]...
10. The Lone Trail Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it, Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit. Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love good-by; The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die. The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried; […]...
11. Light Between the Trees Long, long, long the trail Through the brooding forest-gloom, Down the shadowy, lonely vale Into silence, like a room Where the light of life has fled, And the jealous curtains close Round the passionless repose Of the silent dead. Plod, plod, plod away, Step by step in mouldering moss; Thick branches bar the day Over […]...
12. Good-by and Keep Cold This saying good-by on the edge of the dark And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark Reminds me of all that can happen to harm An orchard away at the end of the farm All winter, cut off by a hill from the house. I don’t want it girdled by rabbit […]...
13. The Long Trail There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield, And the ricks stand grey to the sun, Singing: “Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the dover, “And your English summer’s done.” You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind, And the thresh of the deep-sea rain; You […]...
14. L'Envoi There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield, And the ricks stand gray to the sun, Singing: “Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover, And your English summer’s done.” You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind, And the thresh of the deep-sea rain; You […]...
15. 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, […]...
16. Sicily, December 1908 O garden isle, beloved by Sun and Sea, Whose bluest billows kiss thy curving bays, Whose amorous light enfolds thee in warm rays That fill with fruit each dark-leaved orange-tree, What hidden hatred hath the Earth for thee? Behold, again, in these dark, dreadful days, She trembles with her wrath, and swiftly lays Thy beauty […]...
17. The First Rain The first rain reminds me Of the rising summer dust. The rain doesn’t remember the rain of yesteryear. A year is a trained beast with no memories. Soon you will again wear your harnesses, Beautiful and embroidered, to hold Sheer stockings: you Mare and harnesser in one body. The white panic of soft flesh In […]...
18. February 23 Light rain is falling in Central Park But not on Upper Fifth Avenue or Central Park West Where sun and sky are yellow and blue Winds are gusting on Washington Square Through the arches and on to LaGuardia Place But calm is the corner of 8th Street and Second Avenue Which reminds me of something […]...
19. Birds Of Passage Black shadows fall From the lindens tall, That lift aloft their massive wall Against the southern sky; And from the realms Of the shadowy elms A tide-like darkness overwhelm The fields that round us lie. But the night is fair, And everywhere A warm, soft vapor fills the air, And distant sounds seem near; And […]...
20. The Moon Maiden's Song Sleep! Cast thy canopy Over this sleeper’s brain, Dim grow his memory, When he wake again. Love stays a summer night, Till lights of morning come; Then takes her winged flight Back to her starry home. Sleep! Yet thy days are mine; Love’s seal is over thee: Far though my ways from thine, Dim though […]...
21. Drumnotes DAYS of the dead men, Danny. Drum for the dead, drum on your remembering heart. Jaurès, a great love-heart of France, a slug of lead in the red valves. Kitchener of Khartoum, tall, cold, proud, a shark’s mouthful. Franz Josef, the old man of forty haunted kingdoms, in a tomb with the Hapsburg fathers, moths […]...
22. Cold cold world in the night The deep deep night Do i dance Where mirror images Are lost within I bleed across The shattered hopes The ice reflections Would you That a child Might live, Without seeing their eyes Without hearing their cries Black in light Am i wandering In dreams Where only Shadows dance Oh, This cold […]...
23. The Hand Throughout my life I see A guiding hand; The pitfalls set for me Were grimly planned. But always when and where They opened wide, Someone who seemed to care Stood by my side. When up the pathway dark I stumbled on, Afar, ahead a spark Of guidance shone. When forked the tragic trail And sad […]...
24. The End Of The Trail Life, you’ve been mighty good to me, Yet here’s the end of the trail; No more mountain, moor and sea, No more saddle and sail. Waves a-leap in the laughing sun Call to me as of yore. . . . Alas! my errant days are done: I’ll rove no more, no more. Life, you’ve cheered […]...
25. Why Did I Dream Of You Last Night? Why did I dream of you last night? Now morning is pushing back hair with grey light Memories strike home, like slaps in the face; Raised on elbow, I stare at the pale fog beyond the window. So many things I had thought forgotten Return to my mind with stranger pain: – Like letters that […]...
26. Smoke Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird, Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, Circling above the hamlets as thy nest; Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; By night star-veiling, and by day Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; Go thou […]...
27. See it Through When you’re up against a trouble, Meet it squarely, face to face; Lift your chin and set your shoulders, Plant your feet and take a brace. When it’s vain to try to dodge it, Do the best that you can do; You may fail, but you may conquer, See it through! Black may be the […]...
28. December 7 As I sit at my desk wishing I did not have to edit a book On poetry and painting a Subject that fascinates me Usually, but today is not as Usual, being today, white sky, Decent amount of sunlight, Forty one degrees in Central Park, And it makes sense to dream of Chicago, another big […]...
29. December 30 At 1:30 in the morning a fart Smells like a marriage between An avocado and a fish head. I have to get out of bed To write this down without My glasses on....
30. December 25 Christmas defeated Chanukah Once again last night By a margin of three billion dollars Or so, but every time I hear A Yiddish word like bupkes In a movie (L. A. Confidential) Or when Oleg Cassini in that new play Jackie Calls a garment a shmatta, it’s “good For the Jews,” as our parents used […]...
31. MID-DECEMBER A full moon shines Over the morning frost; The lanes are full of late-fallen leaves; Walking across the mulch Is almost as tricky As treading over ice. In town the carol-singers are in Crowding the shopping-mall, While a group of muffled musicians Play by the outside market. This year but two robins On the early […]...
32. In Drear-Nighted December In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime. In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollo’s summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They […]...
33. December, 1919 Last night I heard your voice, mother, The words you sang to me When I, a little barefoot boy, Knelt down against your knee. And tears gushed from my heart, mother, And passed beyond its wall, But though the fountain reached my throat The drops refused to fall. ‘Tis ten years since you died, mother, […]...
34. Trojans Our efforts are those of the unfortunate; Our efforts are like those of the Trojans. Somewhat we succeed; somewhat We regain confidence; and we start To have courage and high hopes. But something always happens and stops us. Achilles in the trench before us Emerges and with loud cries terrifies us. Our efforts are like […]...
35. Three Spring Notations on Bipeds 1THE DOWN drop of the blackbird, The wing catch of arrested flight, The stop midway and then off: off for triangles, circles, loops of new hieroglyphs- This is April’s way: a woman: “O yes, I’m here again and your heart knows I was coming.” 2White pigeons rush at the sun, A marathon of wing feats […]...
36. 1985 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. Psalm 58 It was the fortieth year since Buchenwald: two thousand Jewish refugees in Sudan starved while Reagan visited The graves of Nazis. CBS paid off Westmoreland For their rude disclosure of his lies and […]...
37. December At Yase You said, that October, In the tall dry grass by the orchard When you chose to be free, “Again someday, maybe ten years.” After college I saw you One time. You were strange, And I was obsessed with a plan. Now ten years and more have Gone by: I’ve always known where you were- I […]...
38. The Land Of Beyond Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond, That dreams at the gates of the day? Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies, And ever so far away; Alluring it calls: O ye the yoke galls, And ye of the trail overfond, With saddle and pack, by paddle and track, Let’s go […]...
39. 201. Birthday Ode for 31st December, 1787 AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams, Whom kingdoms on this day should hail; An inmate in the casual shed, On transient pity’s bounty fed, Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale! Beasts of the forest have their savage homes, But He, who should imperial purple wear, Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal […]...
40. For the naming of tara december 4th 2005 for the naming of tara This bowl of joy That her fruits of earth She’ll well employ For the naming of tara This bunch of flowers That she bloom brightly Through her natural powers For tbe naming of tara This poem’s desire That (in a full life) She may kindly aspire For the naming of […]...