Portrait

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1. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
2. Portrait (For S. A.)TO write one book in five years Or five books in one year, To be the painter and the thing painted, … where are we, bo? Wait-get his number. The barber shop handling is here And the tweeds, the cheviot, the Scotch Mist, And the flame orange scarf. Yet there is more-he sleeps […]...
3. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
4. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
5. The Portrait My mother never forgave my father For killing himself, Especially at such an awkward time And in a public park, That spring When I was waiting to be born. She locked his name In her deepest cabinet And would not let him out, Though I could hear him thumping. When I came down from the […]...
6. On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People A Brother and Sister O I admire and sorrow! The heart’s eye grieves Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years. A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves, And beauty’s dearest veriest vein is tears. Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast: Not that, but thus far, all with frailty, blest In one fair […]...
7. Self-Portrait, 1969 He’s still young ; thirty, but looks younger Or does he?… In the eyes and cheeks, tonight, Turning in the mirror, he saw his mother, Puffy; angry; bewildered… Many nights, Now, when he stares there, he gets angry: Something unfulfilled there, something dead To what he once thought he surely could be Now, just the […]...
8. Before Her Portrait In Youth As lovers, banished from their lady’s face And hopeless of her grace, Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place, Fondly adore Some stealth-won cast attire she wore, A kerchief or a glove: And at the lover’s beck Into the glove there fleets the hand, Or at impetuous command Up from the kerchief floats the virgin […]...
9. Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts, That all sin is divided into two parts. One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important, And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant, And the other kind of […]...
10. A Portrait Because my love is quick to come and go- A little here, and then a little there- What use are any words of mine to swear My heart is stubborn, and my spirit slow Of weathering the drip and drive of woe? What is my oath, when you have but to bare My little, easy […]...
11. The Portrait The portrait there above my bed They tell me is a work of art; My Wife, since twenty years she’s dead: Her going nearly broke my heart. Alas! No little ones we had To light our hearth with joy and glee; Yet as I linger lone and sad I know she’s waiting me. The picture? […]...
12. Portrait of a Lady Thou hast committed- Fornication: but that was in another country, And besides, the wench is dead. The Jew of Malta. I AMONG the smoke and fog of a December afternoon You have the scene arrange itself-as it will seem to do- With “I have saved this afternoon for you”; And four wax candles in the […]...
13. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
14. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
15. Charlene-n-Booker 4ever And the old men, supervising grown grandsons, nephews, Any man a boy given this chance of making A new sidewalk outside the apartment building where Some of them live, three old men and their wives, The aging unmarrying children, and the child Who is a cousin, whose mother has sent her here Because she doesn’t […]...
16. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 03: Palimpsest: A Deceitful Portrait Well, as you say, we live for small horizons: We move in crowds, we flow and talk together, Seeing so many eyes and hands and faces, So many mouths, and all with secret meanings,- Yet know so little of them; only seeing The small bright circle of our consciousness, Beyond which lies the dark. Some […]...
17. Self-Portrait At 28 I know it’s a bad title But I’m giving it to myself as a gift On a day nearly canceled by sunlight When the entire hill is approaching The ideal of Virginia Brochured with goldenrod and loblolly And I think “at least I have not woken up With a bloody knife in my hand” By […]...
18. A Nativity 1914-18 The Babe was laid in the Manger Between the gentle kine All safe from cold and danger “But it was not so with mine, (With mine! With mine!) “Is it well with the child, is it well?” The waiting mother prayed. “For I know not how he fell, And I know not where he […]...
19. Sestina September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother Sits in the kitchen with the child Beside the Little Marvel Stove, Reading the jokes from the almanac, Laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears And the rain that beats on the roof of the house […]...
20. Maya Through an ascending emptiness of night, Leaving the flesh and complacent mind Together in their suffciency behind, The soul of man went up to a far height; And where those others would have had no sight Or sense of else than terror for the blind, Soul met the Will, and was again consigned To the […]...
21. THE WALKING BELL A CHILD refused to go betimes To church like other people; He roam’d abroad, when rang the chimes On Sundays from the steeple. His mother said: “Loud rings the bell, Its voice ne’er think of scorning; Unless thou wilt behave thee well, ‘Twill fetch thee without warning.” The child then thought: “High over head The […]...
22. Baby's Way If baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment. It is not for nothing that he does not leave us. He loves to rest his head on mother’s bosom, and cannot ever Bear to lose sight of her. Baby know all manner of wise words, though few on earth can Understand […]...
23. The Gift of the Sea The dead child lay in the shroud, And the widow watched beside; And her mother slept, and the Channel swept The gale in the teeth of the tide. But the mother laughed at all. “I have lost my man in the sea, And the child is dead. Be still,” she said, “What more can ye […]...
24. My Mother Would Be a Falconress My mother would be a falconress, And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist, Would fly to bring back From the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize, Where I dream in my little hood with many bells Jangling when I’d turn my head. My mother would be a falconress, And she sends […]...
25. The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence Moored to the same ring: The hour, the darkness and I, Our compasses hooded like falcons. Now the memory of you comes aching in With a wash of broken bits which never left port In which once we planned voyages, They come knocking like hearts asking: What departures on this tide? Breath of land, warm […]...
26. Fog Portrait RINGS of iron gray smoke; a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Funnels of an ocean liner negotiating a fog night; pouring a taffy mass down the wind; layers of soot on the top deck; a taffrail… and a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Cliffs challenge humped; sudden arcs form on a gull’s wing in the […]...
27. Portrait Because life’s passing show Is little to his mind, There is a man I know Indrawn from human kind. His dearest friends are books; Yet oh how glad he talks To birds and trees and brooks On lonely walks. He takes the same still way By grove and hill and sea; He lives that each […]...
28. Self-Portrait The steadfastness of generations of nobility Shows in the curving lines that form the eyebrows. And the blue eyes still show traces of childhood fears And of humility here and there, not of a servant’s, Yet of one who serves obediantly, and of a woman. The mouth formed as a mouth, large and accurate, Not […]...
29. Portrait She has no need to fear the fall Of harvest from the laddered reach Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing From the steep beach. Nor hold to pain’s effrontery Her body’s bulwark, stern and savage, Nor be a glass, where to forsee Another’s ravage. What she has gathered, and what lost, She will not […]...
30. Portrait of a Boy After the whipping he crawled into bed, Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping. How funny uncle’s hat had looked striped red! He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping A black, frayed rag of tattered cloud before In scorning; very pure and pale she seemed, Flooding his bed with radiance. On the floor Fat […]...
31. Portrait of the Artist Oh, lead me to a quiet cell Where never footfall rankles, And bar the window passing well, And gyve my wrists and ankles. Oh, wrap my eyes with linen fair, With hempen cord go bind me, And, of your mercy, leave me there, Nor tell them where to find me. Oh, lock the portal as […]...
32. You know that Portrait in the Moon You know that Portrait in the Moon So tell me who ’tis like The very Brow the stooping eyes A fog for Say Whose Sake? The very Pattern of the Cheek It varies in the Chin But Ishmael since we met ’tis long And fashions intervene When Moon’s at full ‘Tis Thou I say My […]...
33. A Portrait in Georgia Hair-braided chestnut, Coiled like a lyncher’s rope, Eyes-fagots, Lips-old scars, or the first red blisters, Breath-the last sweet scent of cane, And her slim body, white as the ash Of black flesh after flame....
34. Portrait of a Baby He lay within a warm, soft world Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, Wave upon wave that broke and whirled To vanish in the grey-green gloom, Perspectiveless and shadowy. A bulging world that had no walls, A flowing world, most like the sea, Compassing all infinity Within a shapeless, ebbing […]...
35. Portrait Of A Lady Your thighs are appletrees Whose blossoms touch the sky. Which sky? The sky Where Watteau hung a lady’s Slipper. Your knees Are a southern breeze-or A gust of snow. Agh! what Sort of man was Fragonard? -As if that answered Anything.-Ah, yes. Below The knees, since the tune Drops that way, it is One of […]...
36. Interior Portrait You don’t survive in me Because of memories; Nor are you mine because Of a lovely longing’s strength. What does make you present Is the ardent detour That a slow tenderness Traces in my blood. I do not need To see you appear; Being born sufficed for me To lose you a little less....
37. On A Portrait Of Wordsworth WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind, Then break against the rock, and show behind The lowland valleys floating up to crowd The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined Before the sovran thought of his own mind, And very meek with inspirations proud, Takes […]...
38. On a Portrait of a Deaf Man The kind old face, the egg-shaped head, The tie, discreetly loud, The loosely fitting shooting clothes, A closely fitting shroud. He liked old city dining rooms, Potatoes in their skin, But now his mouth is wide to let The London clay come in. He took me on long silent walks In country lanes when young. […]...
39. Portrait and Reality If on the closed curtain of my sight My fancy paints thy portrait far away, I see thee still the same, by night or day; Crossing the crowded street, or moving bright ‘Mid festal throngs, or reading by the light Of shaded lamp some friendly poet’s lay, Or shepherding the children at their play, The […]...
40. Portrait d'Une Femme Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea, London has swept about you this score years And bright ships left you this or that in fee: Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things, Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. Great minds have sought you – lacking someone else. You have been second […]...