Crossroads

Related poetry:

1. The Tramps Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God’s land together, And we sang the old, old Earth-song, for our youth was very sweet; When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether, Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet Along the road to Anywhere, when […]...
2. The Old Home Calls Come back to me, little dancing feet that roam the wide world o’er, I long for the lilt of your flying steps in my silent rooms once more; Come back to me, little voices gay with laughter and with song, Come back, little hearts beating high with hopes, I have missed and mourned you long. […]...
3. Roofs (For Amelia Josephine Burr) The road is wide and the stars are out And the breath of the night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet. But I’m glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my Face, And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors […]...
4. KINDERGARTEN PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER AT MARDI GRAS She looks rather pathetic, really, Leaning against the black air, The three mangled fingers of her left hand Clutching a yellow purse, Her right arm raised over her head As if to shield herself From the silver shower of stars Raining down upon her. Her mouth is a crack Growing beneath her nose. Two dimples […]...
5. The Mother Here I lean over you, small son, sleeping Warm in my arms, And I con to my heart all your dew-fresh charms, As you lie close, close in my hungry hold. . . Your hair like a miser’s dream of gold, And the white rose of your face far fairer, Finer, and rarer Than all […]...
6. Dance Figure For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee Dark-eyed, O woman of my dreams, Ivory sandalled, There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet. I have not found thee in the tents, In the broken darkness. I have not found thee at the well-head Among the women with pitchers. Thine arms are […]...
7. The Open Sea From my window I can see, Where the sandhills dip, One far glimpse of open sea. Just a slender slip Curving like a crescent moon – Yet a greater prize Than the harbour garden-fair Spread beneath my eyes. Just below me swings the bay, Sings a sunny tune, But my heart is far away Out […]...
8. Until the Desert knows Until the Desert knows That Water grows His Sands suffice But let him once suspect That Caspian Fact Sahara dies Utmost is relative Have not or Have Adjacent sums Enough the first Abode On the familiar Road Galloped in Dreams...
9. Over the Banisters Over the banisters bends a face, Daringly sweet and beguiling. Somebody stands in careless grace, And watches the picture, smiling. The light burns dim in the hall below, Nobody sees her standing, Saying good-night again, soft and slow, Half way up to the landing. Nobody only the eyes of brown, Tender and full of meaning, […]...
10. The Giver of Stars Hold your soul open for my welcoming. Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me With its clear and rippled coolness, That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest, Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory. Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me, That into my limbs may come […]...
11. House Of Silence The winter sun, golden and tired, Settles on the irregular army Of bottles. Outside the trucks Jostle toward the open road, Outside it’s Saturday afternoon, And young women in black pass by Arm in arm. This bar Is the house of silence, and we drink To silence without raising our voices In the old way. […]...
12. Why We Tell Stories For Linda Foster I Because we used to have leaves And on damp days Our muscles feel a tug, Painful now, from when roots Pulled us into the ground And because our children believe They can fly, an instinct retained From when the bones in our arms Were shaped like zithers and broke Neatly under […]...
13. Venetian Interior Allegra, rising from her canopied dreams, Slides both white feet across the slanted beams Which lace the peacock jalousies: behold An idol of fine clay, with feet of gold...
14. The Shovel Man ON the street Slung on his shoulder is a handle half way across, Tied in a big knot on the scoop of cast iron Are the overalls faded from sun and rain in the ditches; Spatter of dry clay sticking yellow on his left sleeve And a flimsy shirt open at the throat, I know […]...
15. Through The Metodja To Abd-El-Kadr 1842 I As I ride, as I ride, With a full heart for my guide, So its tide rocks my side, As I ride, as I ride, That, as I were double-eyed, He, in whom our Tribes confide, Is descried, ways untried As I ride, as I ride. II As I ride, as I ride […]...
16. The Rovers Over the fields we go, through the sweets of the purple clover, That letters a message for us as for every vagrant rover; Before us the dells are abloom, and a leaping brook calls after, Feeling its kinship with us in lore of dreams and laughter. Out of the valleys of moonlight elfin voices are […]...
17. The Fairies' Siege I have been given my charge to keep Well have I kept the same! Playing with strife for the most of my life, But this is a different game. I’11 not fight against swords unseen, Or spears that I cannot view Hand him the keys of the place on your knees ‘Tis the Dreamer whose […]...
18. I Prefer the Gorgeous Freedom I prefer the gorgeous freedom, And I fly to lands of grace, Where in wide and clear meadows All is good, as dreams, and blest. Here they rice: the clover clear, And corn-flower’s gentle lace, And the rustle is always here: “Ears are leaning… Take your ways!” In this immense sea of fair, Only one […]...
19. He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because […]...
20. THE WITNESSES In Ocean’s wide domains, Half buried in the sands, Lie skeletons in chains, With shackled feet and hands. Beyond the fall of dews, Deeper than plummet lies, Float ships, with all their crews, No more to sink nor rise. There the black Slave-ship swims, Freighted with human forms, Whose fettered, fleshless limbs Are not the […]...
21. Sphincter I hope my good old asshole holds out 60 years it’s been mostly OK Tho in Bolivia a fissure operation survived the altiplano hospital A little blood, no polyps, occasionally A small hemorrhoid Active, eager, receptive to phallus coke bottle, candle, carrot banana & fingers – Now AIDS makes it shy, but still eager to […]...
22. The Rolling English Road Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread The […]...
23. Then A solitary apartment house, the last one Before the boulevard ends and a dusty road Winds its slow way out of town. On the third floor Through the dusty windows Karen beholds The elegant couples walking arm in arm In the public park. It is Saturday afternoon, And she is waiting for a particular young […]...
24. The Tombstone-Maker He primmed his loose red mouth and leaned his head Against a sorrowing angel’s breast, and said: ‘You’d think so much bereavement would have made ‘Unusual big demands upon my trade. ‘The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk; ‘Unless the fighting stops I’ll soon be broke.’ He eyed the Cemetery across the road. […]...
25. French Quarter Singer Strumming your polished guitar with long, nail-lightened fingers, Where are you now, leaning forward a peasant-dressed arm – Lark on the near side of midnight, my crescent curb lady, Ear to your sound, dangling each with a silver folk charm? Sweet was your voice for an evening, amid the brash jazzy – Seamless soprano, your […]...
26. Working Girls THE working girls in the morning are going to work Long lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores And factories, thousands with little brick-shaped Lunches wrapped in newspapers under their arms. Each morning as I move through this river of young- Woman life I feel a wonder about where it is all Going, so […]...
27. Night Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day. Each rules a half of earth with different sway, Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway. Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine, The sun half sinks i’ the brimming, rosy brine: The wild Night drinks all up: how her eyes shine! Now the swift […]...
28. The Way Through the Woods They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Before they planted the trees. It is underneath the coppice and heath, And the thin anemones. Only the keeper sees That, where the ring-dove […]...
29. Peonies This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready To break my heart As the sun rises, As the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers And they open – Pools of lace, White and pink – And all day the black ants climb over them, Boring their deep and mysterious holes […]...
30. Drunk Too far away, oh love, I know, To save me from this haunted road, Whose lofty roses break and blow On a night-sky bent with a load Of lights: each solitary rose, Each arc-lamp golden does expose Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows Night blenched with a thousand snows. Of hawthorn and of lilac […]...
31. Lover's Gifts XLVII: The Road Is The road is my wedded companion. She speaks to me under my feet all Day, she sings to my dreams all night. My meeting with her had no beginning, it begins endlessly at Each daybreak, renewing its summer in fresh flowers and songs, and Her every new kiss is the first kiss to me. The […]...
32. Idler's Song I sit in the twilight dim At the close of an idle day, And I list to the soft sweet hymn, That rises far away, And dies on the evening air. Oh, all day long, They sing their song, Who toil in the valley there. But never a song sing I, Sitting with folded hands, […]...
33. Last Words If the shoe fell from the other foot Who would hear? If the door Opened onto a pure darkness And it was no dream? If your life Ended the way a book ends With half a blank page and the survivors Gone off to Africa or madness? If my life ended in late spring Of […]...
34. The Pilgrims An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers, Where every beam that broke the leaden sky Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours; Some clustered graves where half our memories lie; And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh: And this was Life. Wherein we did another’s burden seek, The tired feet we helped upon the […]...
35. Day That I Have Loved Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes, And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands. The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies. I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands, Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea’s making Mist-garlanded, with all grey […]...
36. Half The People In The World Half the people in the world love the other half, half the people hate the other half. Must I because of this half and that half go wandering and changing ceaselessly like rain in its cycle, must I sleep among rocks, and grow rugged like the trunks of olive trees, And hear the moon barking […]...
37. The Sudden Light And The Trees My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog And wife beater. In bad dreams I killed him And once, in the consequential light of day, I called the Humane Society About Blue, his dog. They took her away And I readied myself, a baseball bat Inside my door. That night I hear his wife […]...
38. First Child… Second Child FIRST Be it a girl, or one of the boys, It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois, It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician Have possibly been a lobstertrician? His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory, But how’s for an infantile inventory? Here’s the prodigy, here’s the miracle! Whether its head is oval or […]...
39. Mating Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind, The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky, And see, where the budding hazels are thinned, The wild anemones lie In undulating shivers beneath the wind. Over the blue of the waters ply White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud; And, look you, floating […]...
40. For The Moment Life is simple and gay The bright sun rings with a quiet sound The sound of the bells has quieted down This morning the light hits it all The footlights of my head are lit again And the room I live in is finally bright Just one beam is enough Just one burst of laughter […]...