To Various Persons Talked To All At Once

Related poetry:

1. Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV, To Richard Boyle Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures: Et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe jocoso, Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetae, Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque Extenuantis eas consulto. (Horace, Satires, I, x, 17-22) ‘Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ To gain those riches he can ne’er […]...
2. We talked with each other about each other We talked with each other about each other Though neither of us spoke We were listening to the seconds’ Races And the Hoofs of the Clock Pausing in Front of our Palsied Faces Time compassion took Arks of Reprieve he offered to us Ararats we took...
3. We talked as Girls do We talked as Girls do Fond, and late We speculated fair, on every subject, but the Grave Of ours, none affair We handled Destinies, as cool As we Disposers be And God, a Quiet Party To our Authority But fondest, dwelt upon Ourself As we eventual be When Girls to Women, softly raised We occupy […]...
4. To Some I Have Talked With By The Fire While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes, My heart would brim with dreams about the times When we bent down above the fading coals And talked of the dark folk who live in souls Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees; And of the wayward twilight companies Who sigh with mingled sorrow […]...
5. Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu’d, I said, Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead. The dog-star rages! nay ’tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, […]...
6. To a Lady with an Unruly and Ill-mannered Dog Who Bit several Persons of Importance Your dog is not a dog of grace; He does not wag the tail or beg; He bit Miss Dickson in the face; He bit a Bailie in the leg. What tragic choices such a dog Presents to visitor or friend! Outside there is the Glasgow fog; Within, a hydrophobic end. Yet some relief even […]...
7. The Bridge In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones. Before crossing he writes a letter to his mother: Dear mother, Guess what? the ape accidentally bit off one of his hands while Eating a banana. Just now I am at the foot of a bone bridge. I Shall be crossing it shortly. […]...
8. The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay! With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array And your central girders, which seem to the eye To be almost towering to the sky. The greatest wonder of the day, And a great beautification to the River Tay, Most beautiful to be seen, Near by Dundee […]...
9. Nothing grows except the grass Nothing grows except the grass. Nothing leaps into sight except some stone And what the stone contains and protects. Here, far from the beach, Far from the place where the water Returns every so often Rusted metal, mouldy wood, The corpse of a dolphin or a turtle. The wind does not blow with the force […]...
10. The Tay Bridge Disaster Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay! Alas! I am very sorry to say That ninety lives have been taken away On the last Sabbath day of 1879, Which will be remember’d for a very long time. ‘Twas about seven o’clock at night, And the wind it blew with all its might, And the rain […]...
11. On Prayer You ask me how to pray to someone who is not. All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard, Above landscapes the color of ripe gold Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun. That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal Where […]...
12. While Someone Telephones Wasted, wasted minutes that couldn’t be worse, Minutes of a barbaric condescension. Stare out the bathroom window at the fir-trees, At their dark needles, accretions to no purpose Woodenly crystallized, and where two fireflies Are only lost. Hear nothing but a train that goes by, must go by, like tension; Nothing. And wait: Maybe even […]...
13. Naming The Stars This present tragedy will eventually Turn into myth, and in the mist Of that later telling the bell tolling Now will be a symbol, or, at least, A sign of something long since lost. This will be another one of those Loose changes, the rearrangement of Hearts, just parts of old lives Patched together, gathered […]...
14. September We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold: No clock counts this. When kisses are repeated and the arms hold There is no telling where time is. It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still: Behind the eye a star, Under the silk of the wrist a sea, tell Time is nowhere. We stand; […]...
15. Crater Face is what we called her. The story was That her father had thrown Drano at her Which was probably true, given the way she slouched Through fifth grade, afraid of the world, recess Especially. She had acne scars Before she had acne-poxs and dips And bright red patches. I don’t remember Any report in the […]...
16. Dear Deborah They tell me that your heart Has been found in Iowa, Pumping along Interstate 35. Do you want it back? When the cold comes on This fast, it’s Iowa again- Where pollen disperses Evenly on the dented Fords, Where white houses sag By the town’s corn silos, Where people in the houses Sicken on corn […]...
17. Metaphors Of A Magnifico Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges, Into twenty villages, Or one man Crossing a single bridge into a village. This is old song That will not declare itself. . . Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are Twenty men crossing a bridge Into a village. […]...
18. An Excursion Steamer Sunk in the Tay ‘Twas in the year of 1888, and on July the 14th day, That an alarming accident occurred in the River Tay. Which resulted in the sinking of the Tay Ferries’ Steamer “Dundee,” Which was a most painful and sickening sight to see. The Steamer was engaged by the Independent Order of Rechabites, And all were […]...
19. Hamlet Off-Stage: Hambeau Heartbroke Horny Ophelia claims we’re dead and gives me back All my Frank Zappa and the Mothers albums. I nearly claw out of my shell and say, “You can’t,” but for a moment I’ve nothing To quote. I’m rot, mortis of broken heart. Hog wash! Lovers don’t die of broken hearts. Lovebirds perish because of broken heads, […]...
20. The Egg and the Machine He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. From far away there came an answering tick And then another tick. He knew the code: His hate had roused an engine up the road. He wished when he had had the track alone He had attacked it with a club or stone And bent some rail […]...
21. Overheard Through The Walls Of The Invisible City . . . telling those who swarm around him his desire Is that an appendage from each of them Fill, invade each of his orifices,- Repeating, chanting, Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Until, as if in darkness he craved the sun, at last he reached Consummation. -Until telling those who […]...
22. Faith is the Pierless Bridge Faith is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what We see Unto the Scene that We do not Too slender for the eye It bears the Soul as bold As it were rocked in Steel With Arms of Steel at either side It joins behind the Veil To what, could We presume The Bridge would cease to […]...
23. To A Friend Concerning Several Ladies You know there is not much That I desire, a few chrysanthemums Half lying on the grass, yellow And brown and white, the Talk of a few people, the trees, An expanse of dried leaves perhaps With ditches among them. But there comes Between me and these things A letter Or even a look-well placed, […]...
24. For Bartleby The Scrivener “Every time we get a big gale around here some people just refuse to batten down.” We estimate that Ice skating into a sixty Mile an hour wind, fully exerting The legs and swinging arms You will be pushed backward An inch every twenty minutes. In a few days, depending on The size of the […]...
25. The Deluge Though giant rains put out the sun, Here stand I for a sign. Though earth be filled with waters dark, My cup is filled with wine. Tell to the trembling priests that here Under the deluge rod, One nameless, tattered, broken man Stood up, and drank to God. Sun has been where the rain is […]...
26. THE BRIDGE I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o’er the city, Behind the dark church-tower. I saw her bright reflection In the waters under me, Like a golden goblet falling And sinking into the sea. And far in the hazy distance Of that lovely night […]...
27. Timber Wings THERE was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley’s timber. Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on the walnuts and the hazel. There was a wild pigeon. There was a summer came year by year to Hinkley’s timber. Rainy months and sunny and pigeons calling and one pigeon best of all who came. […]...
28. The River of Leith As I stood upon the Dean Bridge and viewed the beautiful scenery, I felt fascinated and my heart was full of glee, And I exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight, In all my travels I never saw such a sight. The scenery is so enchanting to look upon That all tourists will say, “Dull care, […]...
29. An Address to the New Tay Bridge Beautiful new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay, With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array, And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye Strong enough all windy storms to defy. And as I gaze upon thee my heart feels gay, Because thou are the greatest railway bridge of the […]...
30. Mercian Hymns I King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates: Saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the Friend of Charlemagne. ‘I […]...
31. Wet City Night Light drunkenly reels into shadow; Blurs, slurs uneasily; Slides off the eyeballs: The segments shatter. Tree-branches cut arc-light in ragged Fluttering wet strips. The cup of the sky-sign is filled too full; It slushes wine over. The street-lamps dance a tarentella And zigzag down the street: They lift and fly away In a wind of […]...
32. Cliff Klingenhagen Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine With him one day; and after soup and meat, And all the other things there were to eat, Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign For me to choose at all, he took the draught Of bitterness himself, […]...
33. 135. Epigram on Rough Roads I’M now arrived-thanks to the gods!- Thro’ pathways rough and muddy, A certain sign that makin roads Is no this people’s study: Altho’ Im not wi’ Scripture cram’d, I’m sure the Bible says That heedless sinners shall be damn’d, Unless they mend their ways....
34. 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, […]...
35. The Phoenix and the Turtle Let the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou, shrieking harbinger, Foul pre-currer of the fiend, Augur of the fever’s end, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, […]...
36. Puritans Sidling upon the river, the white boat Has volleyed with its cannon all the morning, Shaken the shore towns like a Judgment warning, Telling the palsied water its demand That the crime come to the top again, and float, That the sunk murder rise to the light and land. Blam! In the noon’s perfected brilliance […]...
37. Vaudeville Dancer ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville. The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to The Livery Stable Blues. It is long ago, Elsie Flimmerwon, I saw your mother over a washtub in a grape arbor when your father came with the locomotor […]...
38. Mirabeau Bridge Under Mirabeau Bridge runs the Seine And our loves Must I remember them Joy came always after pain Let arriving night explain Days fade I remain Arm in arm let us stay face to face While below The bridge at our hands passes With eternal regards the wave so slow Let arriving night explain Days […]...
39. The Bridge of Lodi I When of tender mind and body I was moved by minstrelsy, And that strain “The Bridge of Lodi” Brought a strange delight to me. II In the battle-breathing jingle Of its forward-footing tune I could see the armies mingle, And the columns cleft and hewn III On that far-famed spot by Lodi Where Napoleon […]...
40. The Grammar Lesson A noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does. An adjective is what describes the noun. In “The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz” Of and with are prepositions. The’s An article, a can’s a noun, A noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does. A can can roll – or […]...