Passport

Related poetry:

1. My Soviet Passport I’d tear like a wolf at bureaucracy. For mandates my respect’s but the slightest. To the devil himself I’d chuck without mercy Every red-taped paper. But this… Down the long front of coupés and cabins File the officials politely. They gather up passports and I give in My own vermilion booklet. For one kind of […]...
2. Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
3. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
4. SPROUT It could be Valley Oak or Snap-bean, Elderberry, or Cattail rising out of the creek; All began the same, a spark of life inside, The need to be coaxing their will into action. Seed and pod, nut and bulb, cajoled awake, called By the warmth of the sun, moisture in the soil, Swelling them, filling […]...
5. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
6. Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
7. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
8. Song of the Son Pour O pour that parting soul in song O pour it in the sawdust glow of night Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight, And let the valley carry it along. And let the valley carry it along. O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, So scant of grass, so proligate of pines, Now […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances OF the terrible doubt of appearances, Of the uncertainty after all-that we may be deluded, That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, May-be the things I perceive-the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, The skies of day and night-colors, […]...
11. Freedoms Plow When a man starts out with nothing, When a man starts out with his hands Empty, but clean, When a man starts to build a world, He starts first with himself And the faith that is in his heart- The strength there, The will there to build. First in the heart is the dream- Then […]...
12. Approach Of Winter The half-stripped trees Struck by a wind together, Bending all, The leaves flutter drily And refuse to let go Or driven like hail Stream bitterly out to one side And fall Where the salvias, hard carmine- Like no leaf that ever was – Edge the bare garden....
13. Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward Child, the current of your breath is six days long. You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed; Lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong At my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed With love. At first hunger is not wrong. The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded Down […]...
14. Scenic Route For Lucy, who called them “ghost houses.” Someone was always leaving And never coming back. The wooden houses wait like old wives Along this road; they are everywhere, Abandoned, leaning, turning gray. Someone always traded The lonely beauty Of hemlock and stony lakeshore For survival, packed up his life And drove off to the city. […]...
15. Oh! That We Two Were Maying 1 Oh! that we two were Maying 2 Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; 3 Like children with violets playing 4 In the shade of the whispering trees. 5 Oh! that we two sat dreaming 6 On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down, 7 Watching the white mist steaming 8 Over river and […]...
16. Hymn To Life The hair falling on your forehead suddenly lifted. Suddenly something stirred on the ground. The trees are whispering in the dark. Your bare arms will be cold. Far off where we can’t see, the moon must be rising. It hasn’t reached us yet, slipping through the leaves to light up your shoulder. But I know […]...
17. The Enemy My youth was nothing but a black storm Crossed now and then by brilliant suns. The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores Nothing’s left of the fruit my garden held once. I should employ the rake and the plow, Having reached the autumn of ideas, To restore this inundated ground Where the deep […]...
18. The Lady feeds Her little Bird The Lady feeds Her little Bird At rarer intervals The little Bird would not dissent But meekly recognize The Gulf between the Hand and Her And crumbless and afar And fainting, on Her yellow Knee Fall softly, and adore...
19. Germs FORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts, The ones known, and the ones unknown-the ones on the stars, The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped, Wonders as of those countries-the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants, whatever they may be, Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and effects; Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Empty my Heart, of Thee Empty my Heart, of Thee Its single Artery Begin, and leave Thee out Simply Extinction’s Date Much Billow hath the Sea One Baltic They Subtract Thyself, in play, And not enough of me Is left to put away “Myself” meanth Thee Erase the Root no Tree Thee then no me The Heavens stripped Eternity’s vast […]...
22. TO DAISY ABEY In sleep I dream the gratitude I know I cannot say Now you are in a latitude where palm trees hold the sway There are always things between us that keep getting in the way And stop me from expressing the things I mean to say In a night of wind and weathers love will […]...
23. Stony Grey Soil O stony grey soil of Monaghan The laugh from my love you thieved; You took the gay child of my passion And gave me your clod-conceived. You clogged the feet of my boyhood And I believed that my stumble Had the poise and stride of Apollo And his voice my thick tongued mumble. You told […]...
24. Valentine To The Girl In Black In hand I take this pen of mine To write you, sweet, a valentine; I’d take your dainty hand instead, But-you’re a drawing-I am wed- And that is why, you understand, I only take my pen in hand....
25. The Forerunners The harbingers are come. See, see their mark; White is their colour, and behold my head. But must they have my brain? must they dispark Those sparkling notions, which therein were bred? Must dulnesse turn me to a clod? Yet have they left me, Thou art still my God. Good men ye be, to leave […]...
26. Calvin Campbell Ye who are kicking against Fate, Tell me how it is that on this hill-side, Running down to the river, Which fronts the sun and the south-wind, This plant draws from the air and soil Poison and becomes poison ivy? And this plant draws from the same air and soil Sweet elixirs and colors and […]...
27. Postcards I’m thinking about you. What else can I say? The palm trees on the reverse Are a delusion; so is the pink sand. What we have are the usual Fractured coke bottles and the smell Of backed-up drains, too sweet, Like a mango on the verge Of rot, which we have also. The air clear […]...
28. That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73) That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by […]...
29. The Sudden Light And The Trees My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog And wife beater. In bad dreams I killed him And once, in the consequential light of day, I called the Humane Society About Blue, his dog. They took her away And I readied myself, a baseball bat Inside my door. That night I hear his wife […]...
30. My Indian In-laws I remember India: Palm trees, monkey families, Fresh lime juice in the streets, The sensual inundation Of sights and smells And excess in everything. I was exotic and believable there. I was walking through dirt In my sari, To temples of the deities Following the lead Of my Indian in-laws. I was scooping up fire […]...
31. Aftermath I learnt to write to you in happier days, And every letter was a piece I chipped From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays, Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise. To make a pavement for your feet I stripped My soul for […]...
32. The look of thee, what is it like The look of thee, what is it like Hast thou a hand or Foot Or Mansion of Identity And what is thy Pursuit? Thy fellows are they realms or Themes Hast thou Delight or Fear Or Longing and is that for us Or values more severe? Let change transfuse all other Traits Enact all other […]...
33. The Song Of The Blindman I am blind, you out there that is a curse, Against one’s will, a contradiction, A heavy daily burden. I lay my hand on the arm of my wife, My grey hand upon her greyer grey, As she guides me through empty spaces. You move about and stir, and imagine Your sounds differing from stone […]...
34. Men At Forty Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to. At rest on a stair landing, They feel it Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship, Though the swell is gentle. And deep in mirrors They rediscover The face of the boy as he […]...
35. The Bards Of Olden Time Say, where is now that glorious race, where now are the singers Who, with the accents of life, listening nations enthralled, Sung down from heaven the gods, and sung mankind up to heaven, And who the spirit bore up high on the pinions of song? Ah! the singers still live; the actions only are wanting, […]...
36. The Shepherd's Tree Huge elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred, Like to a warrior’s destiny! I love To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward, And hear the laugh of summer leaves above; Or on thy buttressed roots to sit, and lean In careless attitude, and there reflect On times and deeds and darings that have […]...
37. Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by […]...
38. Sex With A Famous Poet I had sex with a famous poet last night And when I rolled over and found myself beside him I shuddered Because I was married to someone else, Because I wasn’t supposed to have been drinking, Because I was in fancy hotel room I didn’t recognize. I would have told you Right off this was […]...
39. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 11: Conversation: Undertones What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai? You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me; You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by. I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees. . . Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees. ‘These lines-converging, they suggest such distance! The […]...
40. When the new year when the new year Came out of nowhere And peeped into rooms It was so flattered to find All the tv’s drinking its health Praising its innocent appearance It responded with its warm Dark smile and went round Filling people’s dry hearts With joy Over the coming weeks though Those same tv’s attacked it Criticising […]...