The Vagaries of Fishes

Related poetry:

1. On The Death Of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes ‘Twas on a lofty vase’s side, Where China’s gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow, Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclined, Gazed on the lake below. Her conscious tail her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise […]...
2. To E I have remembered beauty in the night, Against black silences I waked to see A shower of sunlight over Italy And green Ravello dreaming on her height; I have remembered music in the dark, The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach’s, And running water singing on the rocks When once in English woods […]...
3. What Were They Like? Did the people of Viet Nam Use lanterns of stone? Did they hold ceremonies To reverence the opening of buds? Were they inclined to quiet laughter? Did they use bone and ivory, Jade and silver, for ornament? Had they an epic poem? Did they distinguish between speech and singing? Sir, their light hearts turned to […]...
4. On a Beautiful Landscape Beautiful landscape! I could look on thee For hours, unmindful of the storm and strife, And mingled murmurs of tumultuous life. Here, all is still as fair the stream, the tree, The wood, the sunshine on the bank: no tear No thought of time’s swift wing, or closing night Which comes to steal away the […]...
5. The Nude Swim On the southwest side of Capri We found a little unknown grotto Where no people were and we Entered it completely And let our bodies lose all Their loneliness. All the fish in us Had escaped for a minute. The real fish did not mind. We did not disturb their personal life. We calmly trailed […]...
6. Flying Fish I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself… and so I know you. I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel. I leaned so… and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now… and then under the […]...
7. The Pike In the brown water, Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine, Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds, A pike dozed. Lost among the shadows of stems He lay unnoticed. Suddenly he flicked his tail, And a green-and-copper brightness Ran under the water. Out from under the reeds Came the olive-green light, And orange […]...
8. I took one Draught of Life I took one Draught of Life I’ll tell you what I paid Precisely an existence The market price, they said. They weighed me, Dust by Dust They balanced Film with Film, Then handed me my Being’s worth A single Dram of Heaven!...
9. Flounder Here, she said, put this on your head. She handed me a hat. You ’bout as white as your dad, And you gone stay like that. Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down Around each bony ankle, And I rolled down my white knee socks Letting my thin legs dangle, Circling them just above water And […]...
10. Garden Wireless HOW many feet ran with sunlight, water, and air? What little devils shaken of laughter, cramming their little ribs with chuckles, Fixed this lone red tulip, a woman’s mouth of passion kisses, a nun’s mouth of sweet thinking, here topping a straight line of green, a pillar stem? Who hurled this bomb of red caresses?-nodding […]...
11. Gannets I am watching the white gannets Blaze down into the water With the power of blunt spears And a stunning accuracy Even though the sea is riled and boiling And gray with fog And the fish Are nowhere to be seen, They fall, they explode into the water Like white gloves, Then they vanish, Then […]...
12. Poem (You, my photographer, you, most aware) You, my photographer, you, most aware, Who climbed to the bridge when the iceberg struck, Climbed with your camera when the ship’s hull broke, And lighted your flashes and, standing passionate there, Wound the camera in the sudden burst’s flare, Shot the screaming women, and turned and took Pictures of the iceberg (as the ship’s […]...
13. Heaven Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat’ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, […]...
14. THE PARIS COMMUNE From the French of Andrй Frйnaud France was born there and it is from there she sings Of Joan of Ark and Varlin both. We must dig deep, o motherland, Beneath those heavy cobbles. Country of the Commune, so dear to me, My very own which make my blood burn And that same blood will […]...
15. Sleeping In The Forest I thought the earth remembered me, She took me back so tenderly, Arranging her dark skirts, her pockets Full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, Nothing between me and the white fire of the stars But my thoughts, and they floated light as moths Among the […]...
16. At The Window Every morning, as I walk down From my dreary lodgings, toward the town, I see at a window, near the street, The face of a woman, fair and sweet, With soft brown eyes and chestnut hair, And red lips, warm with the kisses left there. And she stands there as long as she can see […]...
17. Northern Pike All right. Try this, Then. Every body I know and care for, And every body Else is going To die in a loneliness I can’t imagine and a pain I don’t know. We had To go on living. We Untangled the net, we slit The body of this fish Open from the hinge of the […]...
18. A Leaf Somebody said, in the crowd, last eve, That you were married, or soon to be. I have not thought of you, I believe, Since last we parted. Let me see: Five long Summers have passed since then – Each has been pleasant in its own way – And you are but one of a dozen […]...
19. Between the Dusk of a Summer Night Between the dusk of a summer night And the dawn of a summer day, We caught at a mood as it passed in flight, And we bade it stoop and stay. And what with the dawn of night began With the dusk of day was done; For that is the way of woman and man, […]...
20. Dream Song 69: Love her he doesn't but the thought he puts Love her he doesn’t but the thought he puts Into that young woman Would launch a national product Complete with TV spots & skywriting Outlets in Bonn & Tokyo I mean it Let it be known that nine words have not passed Between herself and Henry; Looks, smiles. God help Henry, who deserves it all […]...
21. Silver Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps the dog; From their shadowy cote […]...
22. Epilogue UNDER THE BLESSING OF YOUR PSYCHE WINGS Though I have found you llke a snow-drop pale, On sunny days have found you weak and still, Though I have often held your girlish head Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill:- Under the blessing of your Psyche-wings I hide to-night like one small broken bird, […]...
23. 'Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch ‘Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch, That nearer, every Day, Kept narrowing its boiling Wheel Until the Agony Toyed coolly with the final inch Of your delirious Hem And you dropt, lost, When something broke And let you from a Dream As if a Goblin with a Gauge Kept measuring the Hours Until you […]...
24. Guenevere I was a queen, and I have lost my crown; A wife, and I have broken all my vows; A lover, and I ruined him I loved: There is no other havoc left to do. A little month ago I was a queen, And mothers held their babies up to see When I came riding […]...
25. Ode To Pornography If you could write down the words Moving through a man’s mind as He masturbates you’d have a quick Bonus bonk read, I used to think. But words were never adequate Or the point in the bar where the girl Is a boy the boy is a girl the two girls Exchange underpants the one […]...
26. A Bush Lawyer When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony’s lagoon The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain, The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain. But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these; The ripple of the rivulets, […]...
27. Dream Girl YOU will come one day in a waver of love, Tender as dew, impetuous as rain, The tan of the sun will be on your skin, The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech, You will pose with a hill-flower grace. You will come, with your slim, expressive arms, A poise of the head […]...
28. Casting The waters deep, the waters dark, Reflect the seekers, hide the sought, Whether in water or in air to drown. Between them curls the silver spark, Barbed, baited, waiting, of a thought Which in the world is upside down, The fish hook or the question mark?...
29. Dutch lullaby Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe, Sailed on a river of misty light Into a sea of dew. “Where are you going, and what do you wish?” The old moon asked the three. “We have come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of […]...
30. Remembered Women FOR a woman’s face remembered as a spot of quick light on the flat land of dark night, For this memory of one mouth and a forehead they go on in the gray rain and the mud, they go on among the boots and guns. The horizon ahead is a thousand fang flashes, it is […]...
31. Shack Dye The white men played all sorts of jokes on me. They took big fish off my hook And put little ones on, while I was away Getting a stringer, and made me believe I hadn’t seen aright the fish I had caught. When Burr Robbins circus came to town They got the ring master to […]...
32. Cadenza THE KNEES of this proud woman Are bone. The elbows of this proud woman Are bone. The summer-white stars and the winter-white stars Never stop circling around this proud woman. The bones of this proud woman Answer the vibrations of the stars. In summer The stars speak deep thoughts In the winter The stars repeat […]...
33. At the Aquarium of the Pacific I saw a brilliant angelfish whose tail And fins shimmered yellow until it turned And silver spread like an undercoat of fur When stroked against the nap, across its scales. Black as caviar and rimmed with gold, Its eyes, though flat as dimes, looked deep as wells. The clownfish cruising by above the shells, Its […]...
34. Medallion THE BRASS medallion profile of your face I keep always. It is not jingling with loose change in my pockets. It is not stuck up in a show place on the office wall. I carry it in a special secret pocket in the day And it is under my pillow at night. The brass came […]...
35. Faithless Sally Brown Young Ben he was a nice young man, A carpenter by trade; And he fell in love with Sally Brown, That was a lady’s maid. But as they fetch’d a walk one day, They met a press-gang crew; And Sally she did faint away, Whilst Ben he was brought to. The Boatswain swore with wicked […]...
36. Clear, with Light, Variable Winds The fountain bent and straightened itself In the night wind, Blowing like a flower. It gleamed and glittered, A tall white lily, Under the eye of the golden moon. From a stone seat, Beneath a blossoming lime, The man watched it. And the spray pattered On the dim grass at his feet. The fountain tossed […]...
37. Of Tribulation, these are They Of Tribulation, these are They, Denoted by the White The Spangled Gowns, a lesser Rank Of Victors designate All these did conquer But the ones who overcame most times Wear nothing commoner than Snow No Ornament, but Palms Surrender is a sort unknown On this superior soil Defeat an outgrown Anguish Remembered, as the Mile […]...
38. Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel. For if you were by my unkindness shaken As I by yours, y’have passed a hell of time, And I, a tyrant, have […]...
39. Pauline Barrett Almost the shell of a woman after the surgeon’s knife! And almost a year to creep back into strength, Till the dawn of our wedding decennial Found me my seeming self again. We walked the forest together, By a path of soundless moss and turf. But I could not look in your eyes, And you […]...
40. Shagbark Hickory IN the moonlight under a shag-bark hickory tree Watching the yellow shadows melt in hoof-pools, Listening to the yes and the no of a woman’s hands, I kept my guess why the night was glad. The night was lit with a woman’s eyes. The night was crossed with a woman’s hands, The night kept humming […]...