The Concert

Related poetry:

1. Room 5: The Concert Singer I’m one of these haphazard chaps Who sit in cafes drinking; A most improper taste, perhaps, Yet pleasant, to my thinking. For, oh, I hate discord and strife; I’m sadly, weakly human; And I do think the best of life Is wine and song and woman. Now, there’s that youngster on my right Who thinks […]...
2. Band Concert BAND concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues. Cowboy rags and nigger rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summer-white […]...
3. O-Jazz-O Where the string At Some point, Was umbilical jazz, Or perhaps, In memory, A long lost bloody cross, Buried in some steel cavalry. In what time For whom do we bleed, Lost notes, from some jazzman’s Broken needle. Musical tears from lost Eyes. Broken drumsticks, why? Pitter patter, boom dropping Bombs in the middle Of […]...
4. Ballad of Broken Flutes In dreams I crossed a barren land, A land of ruin, far away; Around me hung on every hand A deathful stillness of decay; And silent, as in bleak dismay That song should thus forsaken be, On that forgotten ground there lay The broken flutes of Arcady. The forest that was all so grand When […]...
5. The Concert No, I will go alone. I will come back when it’s over. Yes, of course I love you. No, it will not be long. Why may you not come with me?- You are too much my lover. You would put yourself Between me and song. If I go alone, Quiet and suavely clothed, My body […]...
6. Concert Party (EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) They are gathering round…. Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound – The jangle and throb of a piano… tum-ti-tum… Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. O sing us the […]...
7. Plymouth Rock Joe Why are you running so fast hither and thither Chasing midges or butterflies? Some of you are standing solemnly scratching for grubs; Some of you are waiting for corn to be scattered. This is life, is it? Cock-a-doodle-do! Very well, Thomas Rhodes, You are cock of the walk, no doubt. But here comes Elliott Hawkins, […]...
8. 452. Epigram pinned to Mrs. Riddell's carriage IF you rattle along like your Mistress’ tongue, Your speed will outrival the dart; But a fly for your load, you’ll break down on the road, If your stuff be as rotten’s her heart....
9. Her face was in a bed of hair Her face was in a bed of hair, Like flowers in a plot Her hand was whiter than the sperm That feeds the sacred light. Her tongue more tender than the tune That totters in the leaves Who hears may be incredulous, Who witnesses, believes....
10. Saturday's Child Some are teethed on a silver spoon, With the stars strung for a rattle; I cut my teeth as the black racoon For implements of battle. Some are swaddled in silk and down, And heralded by a star; They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown On a night that was black as tar. For […]...
11. That Day This is the desk I sit at And this is the desk where I love you too much And this is the typewriter that sits before me Where yesterday only your body sat before me With its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus, With its tongue like a king making up rules as he […]...
12. Dorcas Gustine I was not beloved of the villagers, But all because I spoke my mind, And met those who transgressed against me With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing Nor secret griefs nor grudges. That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised, Who hid the wolf under his cloak, Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly. It is […]...
13. The Dance In Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess, The dancers go round, they go round and Around, the squeal and the blare and the Tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles Tipping their bellies, (round as the thick- Sided glasses whose wash they impound) Their hips and their bellies off balance To turn them. Kicking and rolling […]...
14. A Supplication Awake, awake, my Lyre! And tell thy silent master’s humble tale In sounds that may prevail; Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire: Though so exalted she And I so lowly be Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony. Hark, how the strings awake! And, though the moving hand approach not near, Themselves with awful […]...
15. The Song Of Shadows “Sweep thy faint strings, Musician, With thy long lean hand; Downward the starry tapers burn, Sinks soft the waning sand; The old hound whimpers couched in sleep, The embers smoulder low; Across the walls the shadows Come, and go. Sweep softly thy strings, Musician, The minutes mount to hours; Frost on the windless casement weaves […]...
16. The Grave Of The Kitchen Mouse The stone says “Coors” The gay carpet says “Camels” Spears of dried grass The little sticks the children gathered The leaves the wind gathered The cat did not kill him The dog did not, not the trap Or lightning, or the rain’s anger The tree’s claws The black teeth of the moon The sun drilled […]...
17. This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful THIS moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful; It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy, France, Spain-or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or India-talking other dialects; And it seems to me if […]...
18. Adolescence He stared up into my eyes with a look I can almost see now. He had that look in his eyes That bore right into mine. I could sense that he knew I was Envious of what he was doing-; and knew that I’d Always wish I had known at the time What he was […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. The Doves The house where I was born, Where I was young and gay, Grows old amid its corn, Amid its scented hay. Moan of the cushat dove, In silence rich and deep; The old head I love Nods to its quiet sleep. Where once were nine and ten Now two keep house together; The doves moan […]...
21. I’m A Fool To Love You Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman, Some type of supernatural creature. My mother would tell you, if she could, About her life with my father, A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman. She would tell you about the choices A young black woman faces. Is falling in love with some man A […]...
22. Thistles Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men Thistles spike the summer air And crackle open under a blue-black pressure. Every one a revengeful burst Of resurrection, a grasphed fistful Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up From the underground stain of a decayed Viking. They are like pale hair […]...
23. A Goodnight Go to sleep-though of course you will not – To tideless waves thundering slantwise against Strong embankments, rattle and swish of spray Dashed thirty feet high, caught by the lake wind, Scattered and strewn broadcast in over the steady Car rails! Sleep, sleep! Gulls’ cries in a wind-gust Broken by the wind; calculating wings set […]...
24. Wake Not for the World-Heard Thunder Wake not for the world-heard thunder, Nor the chimes that earthquakes toll; Stars may plot in heaven with planet, Lightning rive the rock of granite, Tempest tread the oakwood under, Fear not you for flesh or soul; Marching, fighting, victory past, Stretch your limbs in peace at last. Stir not for the soldier’s drilling, Nor […]...
25. The Rosary Not on the lute, nor harp of many strings Shall all men praise the Master of all song. Our life is brief, one saith, and art is long; And skilled must be the laureates of kings. Silent, O lips that utter foolish things! Rest, awkward fingers striking all notes wrong! How from your toil shall […]...
26. Strings in the Earth and Air Strings in the earth and air Make music sweet; Strings by the river where The willows meet. There’s music along the river For Love wanders there, Pale flowers on his mantle, Dark leaves on his hair. All softly playing, With head to the music bent, And fingers straying Upon an instrument....
27. 486. Song-Inconstancy in love LET not Woman e’er complain Of inconstancy in love; Let not Woman e’er complain Fickle Man is apt to rove: Look abroad thro’ Nature’s range, Nature’s mighty Law is change, Ladies, would it not seem strange Man should then a monster prove! Mark the winds, and mark the skies, Ocean’s ebb, and ocean’s flow, Sun […]...
28. Dandelions ‘and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence’ George Eliot, Middlemarch Dead dandelions, bald as drumsticks, Swaying by the roadside Like Hare Krishna pilgrims Bowing to the Juggernaut. They have given up everything. Gold gone and their silver gone, Humbled with dust, hollow, Their milky bodies tan To […]...
29. Trench Duty Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake, Out in the trench with three hours’ watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. Hark! There’s the big bombardment on our right Rumbling and bumping; and the dark’s a […]...
30. On A Gentlewoman That Had Had The Small Poxe Hi There! I see you’re enjoying the site, and just wanted to extend an invitiation to register for our free site. The members of oldpoetry strive to make this a fun place to learn and share – hope you join us! – Kevin...
31. Hymn 133 Love and charity. 1 Cor. 13:2-7, 13. Let Pharisees of high esteem Their faith and zeal declare, All their religion is a dream, If love be wanting there. Love suffers long with patient eye, Nor is provoked in haste; She lets the present injury die, And long forgets the past. [Malice and rage, those fires […]...
32. The Reckoning All profits disappear: the gain Of ease, the hoarded, secret sum; And now grim digits of old pain Return to litter up our home. We hunt the cause of ruin, add, Subtract, and put ourselves in pawn; For all our scratching on the pad, We cannot trace the error down. What we are seeking is […]...
33. The Moon Maiden's Song Sleep! Cast thy canopy Over this sleeper’s brain, Dim grow his memory, When he wake again. Love stays a summer night, Till lights of morning come; Then takes her winged flight Back to her starry home. Sleep! Yet thy days are mine; Love’s seal is over thee: Far though my ways from thine, Dim though […]...
34. Baby Charley He’s fast asleep. See how, O Wife, Night’s finger on the lip of life Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife, Of busy Baby Charley. One arm stretched backward round his head, Five little toes from out the bed Just showing, like five rosebuds red, So slumbers Baby Charley. Heaven-lights, I know, are beaming through Those […]...
35. The New Ergonomics The new ergonomics were delivered Just before lunchtime So we ignored them. Without revealing the particulars Let me just say that Lunch was most satisfying. Jack and Roberta went with The corned beef for a change. Jack believes in alien abduction And Roberta does not, Although she has had Several lost weekends lately And one […]...
36. Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision. The channel of the dust who once achieves Invalidates the balm of that religion That doubts as fervently as it believes....
37. The Old Guitar Neglected now is the old guitar And moldering into decay; Fretted with many a rift and scar That the dull dust hides away, While the spider spins a silver star In its silent lips to-day. The keys hold only nerveless strings The sinews of brave old airs Are pulseless now; and the scarf that clings […]...
38. The most pathetic thing I do The most pathetic thing I do Is play I hear from you I make believe until my Heart Almost believes it too But when I break it with the news You knew it was not true I wish I had not broken it Goliah so would you...
39. Elegy I: Jealousy Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die, And yet complain’st of his great jealousy; If swol’n with poison, he lay in his last bed, His body with a sere-bark covered, Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can The nimblest crocheting musician, Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew His soul out of one […]...
40. He who in Himself believes He who in Himself believes Fraud cannot presume Faith is Constancy’s Result And assumes from Home Cannot perish, though it fail Every second time But defaced Vicariously For Some Other Shame...