Distress Coils

Related poetry:

1. La dètresse s'enroule Poem by Anne-Marie Derése. Le volcan en attente au fond de nous Ronge, creuse, tremble, Soupése ses chances. La dètresse s’enroule, Se tasse comme une bНte malade. Nous sommes mèconnaissables, Uniques, Avec la certitude de notre fèrocitè....
2. Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem And hold it up to the light Like a color slide Or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem And watch him probe his way out, Or walk inside the poem’s room And feel the walls for a light switch. I […]...
3. The Morning Walk When Anne and I go out a walk, We hold each other’s hand and talk Of all the things we mean to do When Anne and I are forty-two. And when we’ve thought about a thing, Like bowling hoops or bicycling, Or falling down on Anne’s balloon, We do it in the afternoon....
4. You've given me a weapon Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. You’ve given me a weapon. You’ve flung your words Into the human herd Like stones. The wounds were Good to lick. You have woken the tiger. You’ve given as one takes....
5. Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry Relax. This won’t last long. Or if it does, or if the lines Make you sleepy or bored, Give in to sleep, turn on The T. V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand Such things. Its feelings Cannot be hurt. They exist Somewhere in the poet, And I am far away. Pick […]...
6. Niobe in Distress Apollo’s wrath to man the dreadful spring Of ills innum’rous, tuneful goddess, sing! Thou who did’st first th’ ideal pencil give, And taught’st the painter in his works to live, Inspire with glowing energy of thought, What Wilson painted, and what Ovid wrote. Muse! lend thy aid, nor let me sue in vain, Tho’ last […]...
7. Forgive Me Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. Forgive me if I have laughed In your chapels, Forgive me if I have slammed The hospital door, Forgive me for the noise, For life, For the love to which I have no right. Forgive me for not resembling you....
8. Tu m'as donnè une arme Poem by Anne-Marie Derése. Tu m’as donnè une arme Dans le troupeau humain, Tu as lancè tes mots Commes des pierres. Les blessures furent Bonnes lècher. Tu as rèveillè le feulement. Tu t’es donnè comme on prend....
9. The Artist All day with brow of anxious thought The dictionary through, Amid a million words he sought The sole one that would do. He wandered on from pub to pub Yet never ceased to seek With burning brain and pencil stub The Word Unique. Said he: ‘I’ll nail it down or die. Oh Heaven help me, […]...
10. Portrait By A Neighbour Before she has her floor swept Or her dishes done, Any day you’ll find her A-sunning in the sun! It’s long after midnight Her key’s in the lock, And you never see her chimney smoke Til past ten o’clock! She digs in her garden With a shovel and a spoon, She weeds her lazy lettuce […]...
11. I Am Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. I am the red brand On the shoulder of the condemned, The gallows and the rope, The ax and the block, The whip and the cross. I am the lion’s tooth In the flesh of the gazelle. In my veins I have The blood of the slave […]...
12. Face Stolen From a Bird Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. I don’t know who you’re hiding Behind your mask, Your face stolen from a bird, Imprisoned by red ashes. I will love you the way one dies. I will keep you For years to come, You will be so tame, So unbelievable, My strange animal, With your […]...
13. Pardon Poem by Anne-Marie Derése. Pardon si j’ai ri Dans vos chapelles, Pardon si j’ai claquè La porte de l’hЩpital, Pardon pour le bruit, Pour la vie, Pour l’amour auquel Je n’avais pas droit. Pardon de ne pas vous ressembler....
14. Worm Either Way If you live along with all the other people And are just like them, and conform, and are nice You’re just a worm And if you live with all the other people And you don’t like them and won’t be like them and won’t conform Then you’re just the worm that has turned, In either […]...
15. Je Suis Poem by Anne-Marie Derése Je suis le fer rouge Sur l’èpaule du condamnè, Le gibet et la corde, La hache et le billot, Le fouet et la croix. Je suis la dent du lion Dans la chair de la gazelle. J’ai dans mes veines Le sang de nègriers. Bourreau, J’ai mèritè la faim des loups. […]...
16. Ars Poetica A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit, Dumb As old medallions to the thumb, Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds. * A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs, Leaving, as […]...
17. Visage volè l'oiseau Poem by Anne-Marie Derése Je ne sais qui tu caches Sous ton visage inventè, Ton visage volè l’oiseau, Emprisonnè de cendre rouge. Je vais t’aimer comme on meurt. Je vais te garder Pour les annèes venir. Tu seras si apprivoisè, Si incroyable, Mon ètrange animal, Avec tes lévres ouverte Sur un sourire perdu. Je boirai […]...
18. Thesaurus It could be the name of a prehistoric beast That roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up On its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary, Or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book. It means treasury, but it is just a place Where words congregate with their relatives, A big […]...
19. Night Opens to the Storm Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. Night opens to the storm, A mauve coupling, Swollen. The sky, laden Like a merchant ship, Throws off its anchor. Danger, heavier Each instant, Exudes the mugginess Of a greenhouse. Shimmering like mercury The Valley of the Seven Muses Breathes mist Through its gray nostrils. The valley […]...
20. La nuit s'ouvre, l'orage Poem by Anne-Marie Derése La nuit s’ouvre, l’orage, Accouplement mauve, Boursouflure. Le ciel chargè Comme un bateau marchand Jette l’ancre. Le danger plus lourd Chaque instant Distille une moiteur De serre. Miroitante de mercure, La vallèe des sept Meuses Souffle la brume Par ses narines grises. La vallèe a rejoint la nuit, Deux femelles humides […]...
21. Chapel Deacon Who put that crease in your soul, Davies, ready this fine morning For the staid chapel, where the Book’s frown Sobers the sunlight? Who taught you to pray And scheme at once, your eyes turning Skyward, while your swift mind weighs Your heifer’s chances in the next town’s Fair on Thursday? Are your heart’s coals […]...
22. The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain There it was, word for word, The poem that took the place of a mountain. He breathed its oxygen, Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table. It reminded him how he had needed A place to go to in his own direction, How he had recomposed the pines, Shifted the […]...
23. Baby Picture It’s in the heart of the grape Where that smile lies. It’s in the good-bye-bow in the hair Where that smile lies. It’s in the clerical collar of the dress Where that smile lies. What smile? The smile of my seventh year, Caught here in the painted photograph. It’s peeling now, age has got it, […]...
24. Poem This poem is not addressed to you. You may come into it briefly, But no one will find you here, no one. You will have changed before the poem will. Even while you sit there, unmovable, You have begun to vanish. And it does no matter. The poem will go on without you. It has […]...
25. The Gardener The gardener does not love to talk, He makes me keep the gravel walk; And when he puts his tools away, He locks the door and takes the key. Away behind the currant row Where no one else but cook may go, Far in the plots, I see him dig Old and serious, brown and […]...
26. The Taming of the Falcon The bird sits spelled upon the lithe brown wrist Of yonder turbaned fowler, who had lamed No feather limb, but the winged spirit tamed With his compelling eye. He need not trust The silken coil, not set the thick-limed snare; He lures the wanderer with his steadfast gaze, It shrinks, it quails, it trembles yet […]...
27. In The Waiting Room In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo To keep her dentist’s appointment And sat and waited for her In the dentist’s waiting room. It was winter. It got dark Early. The waiting room Was full of grown-up people, Arctics and overcoats, Lamps and magazines. My aunt was inside What seemed like a long time […]...
28. Glass Words of a poem should be glass But glass so simple-subtle its shape Is nothing but the shape of what it holds. A glass spun for itself is empty, Brittle, at best Venetian trinket. Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence. Words should be looked through, should be windows. The best word were invisible. […]...
29. The New Poetry Handbook 1 If a man understands a poem, he shall have troubles. 2 If a man lives with a poem, he shall die lonely. 3 If a man lives with two poems, he shall be unfaithful to one. 4 If a man conceives of a poem, he shall have one less child. 5 If a man […]...
30. Lament Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats I’ll make you little jackets; I’ll make you little trousers From his old pants. There’ll be in his pockets Things he used to put there, Keys and pennies Covered with tobacco; Dan shall have the pennies To save in his bank; Anne shall have the […]...
31. The Poem Cat Sometimes the poem Doesn’t want to come; It hides from the poet Like a playful cat Who has run Under the house & lurks among slugs, Roots, spiders’ eyes, Ledge so long out of the sun That it is dank With the breath of the Troll King. Sometimes the poem Darts away Like a coy […]...
32. Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing The light along the hills in the morning Comes down slowly, naming the trees White, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate. Notice what this poem is not doing. A house, a house, a barn, the old Quarry, where the river shrugs How much of this place is yours? Notice what this poem is […]...
33. Coal I Is the total black, being spoken From the earth’s inside. There are many kinds of open How a diamond comes into a knot of flame How sound comes into a words, coloured By who pays what for speaking. Some words are open like a diamond On glass windows Singing out within the crash of […]...
34. Fragment At last I entered a long dark gallery, Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side Were the bodies of men from far and wide Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead. “The sense of waiting here strikes strong; Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me; What are you waiting for so long? What is to happen?” […]...
35. Weary Will The strongest creature for his size But least equipped for combat That dwells beneath Australian skies Is Weary Will the Wombat. He digs his homestead underground, He’s neither shrewd nor clever; For kangaroos can leap and bound But wombats dig forever. The boundary rider’s netting fence Excites his irritation; It is to his untutored sense […]...
36. Climbing You I want to understand the steep thing That climbs ladders in your throat. I can’t make sense of you. Everywhere I look you’re there A vast landmark, a volcano Poking its head through the clouds, Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput. I climb into your eyes, looking. The pupils are black painted stage flats. They can be […]...
37. On Seeing The Elgin Marbles For The First Time My spirit is too weak; mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet ’tis a gentle luxury to weep, That I have not the cloudy winds to keep Fresh for the opening […]...
38. The Man Rock A man is a rock in a garden of chairs and waits For a longtime to be over. It is easier for a rock in a garden than a man Inside his mother. He decided to be a rock when He got outside. A rock asks only what is a rock. A rock waits to […]...
39. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
40. Death Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize, Unbearable pain throughout this body’s fabric: As I in my spirit burned, see, I now burn in thee: The wood that long resisted the advancing flames Which thou kept flaring, I now am nourishinig And burn in thee. My gentle and mild being through thy ruthless fury […]...