Saints

Related poetry:

1. Widows My mother’s playing cards with my aunt, Spite and Malice, the family pastime, the game My grandmother taught all her daughters. Midsummer: too hot to go out. Today, my aunt’s ahead; she’s getting the good cards. My mother’s dragging, having trouble with her concentration. She can’t get used to her own bed this summer. She […]...
2. The Idea of Ancestry Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black Faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand- Fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, Cousins (1st and 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare Across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know Their dark eyes, they know mine. I know […]...
3. Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer This is a song to celebrate banks, Because they are full of money and you go into them and all You hear is clinks and clanks, Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills, Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills. Most bankers dwell in marble halls, Which […]...
4. Like her the Saints retire Like her the Saints retire, In their Chapeaux of fire, Martial as she! Like her the Evenings steal Purple and Cochineal After the Day! “Departed” both they say! I. e. gathered away, Not found, Argues the Aster still Reasons the Daffodil Profound!...
5. Saints Have Adored the Lofty Soul of You Saints have adored the lofty soul of you. Poets have whitened at your high renown. We stand among the many millions who Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down. You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried To live as of your presence unaware. But now in every road on every side We see […]...
6. Rita Matlock Gruenberg Grandmother! You who sang to green valleys, And passed to a sweet repose at ninety-six, Here is your little Rita at last Grown old, grown forty-nine; Here stretched on your grave under the winter stars, With the rustle of oak leaves over my head; Piecing together strength for the act, Last thoughts, memories, asking how […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. In Childhood things don’t die or remain damaged But return: stumps grow back hands, A head reconnects to a neck, A whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic. Later this vision is not True: The grandmother remains dead Not hibernating in a wolf’s belly. Or the blue parakeet does not return From the little grave in the […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. Aunt Jane When Aunt Jane died we hunted round, And money everywhere we found. How much I do not care to say, But no death duties will we pay, And Aunt Jane will be well content We bilked the bloody Government. While others spent she loved to save, But couldn’t take it to her grave. While others […]...
11. Aunt Leaf Needing one, I invented her – The great-great-aunt dark as hickory Called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud Or The-Beauty-of-the-Night. Dear aunt, I’d call into the leaves, And she’d rise up, like an old log in a pool, And whisper in a language only the two of us knew The word that meant follow, And we’d travel Cheerful […]...
12. Barney Hainsfeather If the excursion train to Peoria Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with my life Certainly I should have escaped this place. But as it was burned as well, they mistook me For John Allen who was sent to the Hebrew Cemetery At Chicago, And John for me, so I lie here. It […]...
13. Sonnet 08 Oh, love of woman, you are known to be A passion sent to plague the hearts of men; For every one you bring felicity Bringing rebuffs and wretchedness to ten. I have been oft where human life sold cheap And seen men’s brains spilled out about their ears And yet that never cost me any […]...
14. What Can We Do? at their best, there is gentleness in Humanity. Some understanding and, at times, acts of Courage But all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn’t Have too much. It is like a large animal deep in sleep and Almost nothing can awaken it. When activated it’s best at brutality, Selfishness, unjust judgments, […]...
15. Butterfly Laughter In the middle of our porridge plates There was a blue butterfly painted And each morning we tried who should reach the Butterfly first. Then the Grandmother said: “Do not eat the poor Butterfly.” That made us laugh. Always she said it and always it started us laughing. It seemed such a sweet little joke. […]...
16. Exchanging Hats Unfunny uncles who insist In trying on a lady’s hat, oh, even if the joke falls flat, We share your slight transvestite twist In spite of our embarrassment. Costume and custom are complex. The headgear of the other sex Inspires us to experiment. Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach With paper plates upon your laps, […]...
17. Are You Content? I call on those that call me son, Grandson, or great-grandson, On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts, To judge what I have done. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent? Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content. He that in Sligo at Drumcliff […]...
18. A Pastoral Just as the sun was setting Back of the Western hills Grandfather stood by the window Eating the last of his pills. And Grandmother, by the cupboard, Knitting, heard him say: “I ought to have went to the village To fetch some more pills today.” Then Grandmother snuffled a teardrop And said. “It is jest […]...
19. Infelice Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess, He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand, He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming, Leaving my alone with a private meaning, He loves me so much, my heart is singing. Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening They said: […]...
20. A Letter To My Aunt A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach To Modern Poetry To you, my aunt, who would explore The literary Chankley Bore, The paths are hard, for you are not A literary Hottentot But just a kind and cultured dame Who knows not Eliot (to her shame). Fie on you, aunt, that you should […]...
21. In The Waiting Room In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo To keep her dentist’s appointment And sat and waited for her In the dentist’s waiting room. It was winter. It got dark Early. The waiting room Was full of grown-up people, Arctics and overcoats, Lamps and magazines. My aunt was inside What seemed like a long time […]...
22. Love's Deity I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost, Who died before the God of Love was born: I cannot think that he, who then loved most, Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn. But since this god produced a destiny, And that vice-nature, Custom, lets it be, I must love her […]...
23. Lotus Hurt by the Cold How many times, like lotus lilies risen Upon the surface of a river, there Have risen floating on my blood the rare Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison. So I am clothed all over with the light And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion; Till naked for her in the finest fashion The flowers […]...
24. My Great Great Etc. Uncle Patrick Henry There’s a fortune to be made in just about everything In this country, somebody’s father had to invent Everything baby food, tractors, rat poisoning. My family’s obviously done nothing since the beginning Of time. They invented poverty and bad taste And getting by and taking it from the boss. O my mother goes around chewing […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Sweet Dancer The girl goes dancing there On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth Grass plot of the garden; Escaped from bitter youth, Escaped out of her crowd, Or out of her black cloud. Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer! If strange men come from the house To lead her away, do not say That she is happy being crazy; […]...
27. The Pobble Who Has No Toes The Pobble who has no toes Had once as many as we; When they said “Some day you may lose them all;” He replied “Fish, fiddle-de-dee!” And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink Lavender water tinged with pink, For she said “The World in general knows There’s nothing so good for a Pobble’s toes!” The […]...
28. Request to a Year If the year is meditating a suitable gift, I should like it to be the attitude Of my great – great – grandmother, Legendary devotee of the arts, Who having eight children And little opportunity for painting pictures, Sat one day on a high rock Beside a river in Switzerland And from a difficult distance […]...
29. A MEETING WITH THE PRINCESS Just a family get-together in a terrace house in Bradford High tea with a few stuffy aunts I hadn’t seen for years Their husbands in tow like lost dogs sniffing round for food But she came all the same, ushered in politely as a friend Of a friend or somebody’s cousin twice removed though Everybody […]...
30. Song of Myself I was a Poet! But I did not know it, Neither did my Mother, Nor my Sister nor my Brother. The Rich were not aware of it; The Poor took no care of it. The Reverend Mr. Drewitt Never knew it. The High did not suspect it; The Low could not detect it. Aunt Sue […]...
31. Deceptions “Of course I was drugged, and so heavily I did not regain Consciousness until the next morning. I was horrified to Discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable, And cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt.” Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor […]...
32. Animals Are Passing From Our Lives It’s wonderful how I jog On four honed-down ivory toes My massive buttocks slipping Like oiled parts with each light step. I’m to market. I can smell The sour, grooved block, I can smell The blade that opens the hole And the pudgy white fingers That shake out the intestines Like a hankie. In my […]...
33. Dedication For A Plot Of Ground This plot of ground Facing the waters of this inlet Is dedicated to the living presence of Emily Dickinson Wellcome Who was born in England; married; Lost her husband and with Her five year old son Sailed for New York in a two-master; Was driven to the Azores; Ran adrift on Fire Island shoal, Met […]...
34. Despair's advantage is achieved Despair’s advantage is achieved By suffering Despair To be assisted of Reverse One must Reverse have bore The Worthiness of Suffering like The Worthiness of Death Is ascertained by tasting As can no other Mouth Of Savors make us conscious As did ourselves partake Affliction feels impalpable Until Ourselves are struck...
35. Going to Him! Happy letter! Going to Him! Happy letter! Tell Him Tell Him the page I didn’t write Tell Him I only said the Syntax And left the Verb and the pronoun out Tell Him just how the fingers hurried Then how they waded slow slow And then you wished you had eyes in your pages So you could […]...
36. Almost Beyond Endurance I ain’t a-goin’ to cry no more, no more! I’m got ear-ache, an’ Ma can’t make It quit a-tall; An’ Carlo bite my rubber-ball An’ puncture it; an’ Sis she take An’ poke’ my knife down through the stable-floor An’ loozed it – blame it all! But I ain’t goin’ to cry no more, no […]...
37. Mercian Hymns XXV Brooding on the eightieth letter of Fors Clavigera, I speak this in Memory of my grandmother, whose childhood and prime womanhood were spent In the nailer’s darg. The nailshop stood back of the cottage, by the fold. It reeked stale Mineral sweat. Sparks had furred its low roof. In dawn-light the Troughed water floated a […]...
38. The Song Of The Strange Ascetic If I had been a Heathen, I’d have praised the purple vine, My slaves should dig the vineyards, And I would drink the wine. But Higgins is a Heathen, And his slaves grow lean and grey, That he may drink some tepid milk Exactly twice a day. If I had been a Heathen, I’d have […]...
39. The Lion The Lion is a kingly beast. He likes a Hindu for a feast. And if no Hindu he can get, The lion-family is upset. He cuffs his wife and bites her ears Till she is nearly moved to tears. Then some explorer finds the den And all is family peace again....
40. Hannah Armstrong I wrote him a letter asking him for old times’ sake To discharge my sick boy from the army; But maybe he couldn’t read it. Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter. But maybe that was lost in the mails. So I traveled all the way […]...