The Family

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1. Winter Song Rain and wind, and wind and rain. Will the Summer come again? Rain on houses, on the street, Wetting all the people’s feet, Though they run with might and main. Rain and wind, and wind and rain. Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow. Will the Winter never go? What do beggar children do With […]...
2. All In a Family Way My banks are all furnished with rags, So thick, even Freddy can’t thin ’em; I’ve torn up my old money-bags, Having little or nought to put in ’em. My tradesman are smashing by dozens, But this is all nothing, they say; For bankrupts, since Adam, are cousins, So, it’s all in the family way. My […]...
3. Tortoise Family Connections On he goes, the little one, Bud of the universe, Pediment of life. Setting off somewhere, apparently. Whither away, brisk egg? His mother deposited him on the soil as if he were no more than droppings, And now he scuffles tinily past her as if she were an old rusty tin. A mere obstacle, He […]...
4. Death in the Family They call it stroke. Two we loved were stunned By that same blow of cudgel Or axe to the brow. Lost on the earth They left our circle Broken. One spent five months Falling from our grasp Mute, her grace, wit, Beauty erased. Her green eyes gazed at us As if asking, as if aware, […]...
5. An Almost Made Up Poem I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny Blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny They are small, and the fountain is in France Where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. You used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper […]...
6. The Flower Shop Because I have no garden and No pence to buy, Before the flower shop I stand And sigh. The beauty of the Springtide spills In glowing posies Of voilets and daffodils And roses. And as I see that joy of bloom, Sad sighing, I think of Mother in her room, Lone lying. She babbles of […]...
7. Touched my family Even from afar came shouts of recognition Joyful voices rang across the years disdained and Faces of our childhood unforgot fit instantly familiar names; Voices still the same despite the extra grey, the extra lines, Like sacred family metaphors not blurred with passing time. Uncles greeted cousins, nieces hailed their aunts in private spaces Kept […]...
8. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
9. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
10. The Family The dark things of the wood Are coming from their caves, Flexing muscle. They browse the orchard, Nibble the sea of grasses Around our yellow rooms, Scarcely looking in To see what we are doing And if they still know us. We hear them, or think we do: The muzzle lapping moonlight, The tooth in […]...
11. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
12. The Rose Family – Song II O lesson well and wisely taught Stay with me to the last, That all my life may better be For the trial that is past. O vanity, mislead no more! Sleep, like passions, long! Wake, happy heart, and dance again To the music of my song! O summer days, flit fast away, And bring the […]...
13. The Mocking Fairy ‘Won’t you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?’ Quoth the Fairy, nidding, nodding in the garden; ‘Can’t you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?’ Quoth the Fairy, laughing softly in the garden; But the air was still, the cherry boughs were still, And the ivy-tod neath the empty sill, And never from her […]...
14. The Rose Family – Song 1 O flower at my window Why blossom you so fair, With your green and purple cup Upturned to sun and air? ‘I bloom, blithesome Bessie, To cheer your childish heart; The world is full of labor, And this shall be my part.’ Whirl, busy wheel, faster, Spin, little thread, spin; The sun shines fair without, […]...
15. The Rose Family The rose is a rose, And was always a rose. But the theory now goes That the apple’s a rose, And the pear is, and so’s The plum, I suppose. The dear only know What will next prove a rose. You, of course, are a rose But were always a rose....
16. The Family Monkey We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather Recklessly with funds carefully gathered since Grandfather’s time for the purchase of a steam monkey. We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric Or gas monkey. The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey Merchant. But the family always planned on a […]...
17. The Mother Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get, The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair, The singers and workers that never handled the air. You will never neglect or beat Them, or silence or buy with a sweet. You will never wind […]...
18. The Gentlest Lady They say He was a serious child, And quiet in His ways; They say the gentlest lady smiled To hear the neighbors’ praise. The coffers of her heart would close Upon their smaliest word. Yet did they say, “How tall He grows!” They thought she had not heard. They say upon His birthday eve She’d […]...
19. A Song Of Suicide Deeming that I were better dead, “How shall I kill myself?” I said. Thus mooning by the river Seine I sought extinction without pain, When on a bridge I saw a flash Of lingerie and heard a splash. . . So as I am a swimmer stout I plunged and pulled the poor wretch out. […]...
20. To My Wife – With A Copy Of My Poems I can write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say. For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair. And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It […]...
21. The Sewing-Girl The humble garret where I dwell Is in that Quarter called the Latin; It isn’t spacious truth to tell, There’s hardly room to swing a cat in. But what of that! It’s there I fight For food and fame, my Muse inviting, And all the day and half the night You’ll find me writing, writing, […]...
22. Two Sonnets In Memory (Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti) Executed August 23, 1927 I As men have loved their lovers in times past And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace, So have we loved sweet Justice to the last, That now lies here in an unseemly place. The child will quit the cradle and grow wise And stare […]...
23. The Three Bares Ma tried to wash her garden slacks but couldn’t get ’em clean And so she thought she’d soak ’em in a bucket o’ benzine. It worked all right. She wrung ’em out then wondered what she’d do With all that bucket load of high explosive residue. She knew that it was dangerous to scatter it […]...
24. On – On – Poet I to the open road, You to the hunchbacked street – Which of us two Shall the earlier rue That day we chanced to meet? I with a heart that’s sound, You with sick fancies of pain – Which of us two Would the earlier rue If we chanced to meet again? I jingle homely […]...
25. There was a Child Once There was a child once. He came to play in my garden; He was quite pale and silent. Only when he smiled I knew everything about him, I knew what he had in his pockets, And I knew the feel of his hands in my hands And the most intimate tones of his voice. I […]...
26. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
27. An Ode to the Queen All hail to the Empress of India, Great Britain’s Queen! Long may she live in health, happy and serene; Loved by her subjects at home and abroad; Blest may she be when lying down To sleep, and rising up, by the Eternal God; Happy may her visions be in sleep… And happy her thoughts in […]...
28. Evening Song of the Thoughtful Child Shadow children, thin and small, Now the day is left behind, You are dancing on the wall, On the curtains, on the blind. On the ceiling, children, too, Peeping round the nursery door, Let me come and play with you, As we always played before. Let’s pretend that we have wings And can really truly […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. Adam Cast Forth Was there a Garden or was the Garden a dream? Amid the fleeting light, I have slowed myself and queried, Almost for consolation, if the bygone period Over which this Adam, wretched now, once reigned supreme, Might not have been just a magical illusion Of that God I dreamed. Already it’s imprecise In my memory, […]...
31. The Waradgery Tribe Harried we were, and spent, Broken and falling, Ere as the cranes we went, Crying and calling. Summer shall see the bird Backward returning; Never shall there be heard Those, who went yearning. Emptied of us the land; Ghostly our going; Fallen like spears the hand Dropped in the throwing. We are the lost who […]...
32. Love Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Where that comes in that shall not go again; Love sells the proud heart’s citadel to Fate. They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then, When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking, And agony’s forgot, and hushed the crying Of credulous hearts, […]...
33. 152. Extempore in the Court of Session LORD ADVOCATEHE clenched his pamphlet in his fist, He quoted and he hinted, Till, in a declamation-mist, His argument he tint it: He gapèd for’t, he grapèd for’t, He fand it was awa, man; But what his common sense came short, He eked out wi’ law, man. MR. ERSKINECollected, Harry stood awee, Then open’d out […]...
34. The Flower of Liberty WHAT flower is this that greets the morn, Its hues from Heaven so freshly born? With burning star and flaming band It kindles all the sunset land: Oh tell us what its name may be, Is this the Flower of Liberty? It is the banner of the free, The starry Flower of Liberty! In savage […]...
35. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
36. Should Lanterns Shine Should lanterns shine, the holy face, Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light, Would wither up, an any boy of love Look twice before he fell from grace. The features in their private dark Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come And from her lips the faded pigments fall, The mummy cloths […]...
37. Cassandra The mad girl with the staring eyes and long white fingers Hooked in the stones of the wall, The storm-wrack hair and screeching mouth: does it matter, Cassandra, Whether the people believe Your bitter fountain? Truly men hate the truth, they’d liefer Meet a tiger on the road. Therefore the poets honey their truth with […]...
38. The Death of the Old Mendicant There was a rich old gentleman Lived on a lonely moor in Switzerland, And he was very hard to the wandering poor, ‘Tis said he never lodged nor served them at his door. ‘Twas on a stormy night, and Boreas blew a bitter blast, And the snowflakes they fell thick and fast, When a poor […]...
39. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
40. 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 […]...