Bored

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1. The Traveller They pointed me out on the highway, and they said ‘That man has a curious way of holding his head.’ They pointed me out on the beach; they said ‘That man Will never become as we are, try as he can.’ They pointed me out at the station, and the guard Looked at me twice, […]...
2. An Old Man Looking upon this tree with its quaint pretension Of holding the earth, a leveret, in its claws, Or marking the texture of its living bark, A grey sea wrinkled by the winds of years, I understand whence this man’s body comes, In veins and fibres, the bare boughs of bone, The trellised thicket, where the […]...
3. Once there came a man Once there came a man Who said, “Range me all men of the world in rows.” And instantly There was terrific clamour among the people Against being ranged in rows. There was a loud quarrel, world-wide. It endured for ages; And blood was shed By those who would not stand in rows, And by those […]...
4. Scholfield Huxley God! ask me not to record your wonders, I admit the stars and the suns And the countless worlds. But I have measured their distances And weighed them and discovered their substances. I have devised wings for the air, And keels for water, And horses of iron for the earth. I have lengthened the vision […]...
5. THE ROCK OF RUBIES, AND THE QUARRY OFPEARLS Some ask’d me where the Rubies grew: And nothing I did say, But with my finger pointed to The lips of Julia. Some ask’d how Pearls did grow, and where: Then spoke I to my girl, To part her lips, and shew me there The quarrelets of Pearl....
6. No way of going back It was my life in fast review, initially at double speed Until I learned which functions scrolled the images On screen. I could pause, freeze frame advance, Endlessly replay and alter sound although the thing Would not allow fast forward beyond the here and now; But I could live with that. For hours I was […]...
7. Old And New Long have the poets vaunted, in their lays, Old times, old loves, old friendships, and old wine Why should the old monopolise all praise? Then let the new claim mine. Give me strong new friends, when the old prove weak, Or fail me in my darkest hour of need; Why perish with the ship that […]...
8. On Being A Woman Why is it, when I am in Rome, I’d give an eye to be at home, But when on native earth I be, My soul is sick for Italy? And why with you, my love, my lord, Am I spectacularly bored, Yet do you up and leave me – then I scream to have you […]...
9. Maternity There once was a Square, such a square little Square, And he loved a trim Triangle; But she was a flirt and around her skirt Vainly she made him dangle. Oh he wanted to wed and he had no dread Of domestic woes and wrangles; For he thought that his fate was to procreate Cute […]...
10. Dream Song 14: Life, friends, is boring Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, We ourselves flash and yearn, And moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored Means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no Inner resources, because I am […]...
11. Wash of Cold River Wash of cold river In a glacial land, Ionian water, Chill, snow-ribbed sand, Drift of rare flowers, Clear, with delicate shell – Like leaf enclosing Frozen lily-leaf, Camellia texture, Colder than a rose; Wind-flower That keeps the breath Of the north-wind These and none other; Intimate thoughts and kind Reach out to share The treasure […]...
12. Prayers of Steel LAY me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift and loosen old foundations. Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike. Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together. Take […]...
13. A Black Man Talks of Reaping I have sown beside all waters in my day. I planted deep, within my heart the fear That wind or fowl would take the grain away. I planted safe against this stark, lean year. I scattered seed enough to plant the land In rows from Canada to Mexico But for my reaping only what the […]...
14. A Grain Of Sand If starry space no limit knows And sun succeeds to sun, There is no reason to suppose Our earth the only one. ‘Mid countless constellations cast A million worlds may be, With each a God to bless or blast And steer to destiny. Just think! A million gods or so To guide each vital stream, […]...
15. The Wedding Ring Dance I dance in circles holding The moth of the marriage, Thin, sticky, fluttering Its skirts, its webs. The moth oozing a tear, Or is it a drop of urine? The moth, grinning like a pear, Or is it teeth Clamping the iron maiden shut? The moth, Who is my mother, Who is my father, Who […]...
16. In Hardwood Groves The same leaves over and over again! They fall from giving shade above To make one texture of faded brown And fit the earth like a leather glove. Before the leaves can mount again To fill the trees with another shade, They must go down past things coming up. They must go down into the […]...
17. Sand Dabs, Five What men build, in the name of security, is built of straw. * Does the grain of sand know it is a grain of sand? * My dog Ben a mouth like a tabernacle. * You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, Serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but […]...
18. Rusty Crimson (Chirstmas Day, 1917)THE FIVE O’CLOCK prairie sunset is a strong man going to sleep after a long day in a cornfield. The red dust of a rusty crimson is fixed with two fingers of lavender. A hook of smoke, a woman’s nose in charcoal and… nothing. The timberline turns in a cover of purple. A […]...
19. Beginners HOW they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals;) How dear and dreadful they are to the earth; How they inure to themselves as much as to any-What a paradox appears their age; How people respond to them, yet know them not; How there is something relentless in their fate, all times; How […]...
20. Twenty-First. Night. Monday Twenty-first. Night. Monday. Silhouette of the capitol in darkness. Some good-for-nothing who knows why Made up the tale that love exists on earth. People believe it, maybe from laziness Or boredom, and live accordingly: They wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting, And when they sing, they sing about love. But the secret reveals itself to […]...
21. A Koi To recall nothing past And expect nothing yet to pass To never suffer from boredom Or give in to fiefdom To need not be brave nor coy Sometimes, I wish I were a koi...
22. LOVE AS A LANDSCAPE PAINTER ON a rocky peak once sat I early, Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving; Stretch’d out like a pall of greyish texture, All things round, and all above it cover’d. Suddenly a boy appear’d beside me, Saying “Friend, what meanest thou by gazing On the vacant pall with such composure? Hast thou lost for […]...
23. Mowing There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound And that was why it whispered and did […]...
24. Less Time Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I’ve taken account of everything, There you have it. I’ve made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and some Others; I’ve distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to accept […]...
25. Picture Dealer There were twin artists A. and B. Who painted pictures two, And hung them in my galley For everyone to view; The one exhibited by A. The name “A Sphere” did bear, While strangely brother B’s display Was catalogued: “A Square”. Now although A. (and this is queer) Could squeeze a pretty tube, The picture […]...
26. Ode To Maize America, from a grain Of maize you grew To crown With spacious lands The ocean foam. A grain of maize was your geography. From the grain A green lance rose, Was covered with gold, To grace the heights Of Peru with its yellow tassels. But, poet, let History rest in its shroud; Praise with your […]...
27. The Garden En robe de parade. Samain Like a skien of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anaemia. And round about there is a rabble Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They […]...
28. Less Time Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I’ve taken account Of everything, there you have it. I’ve made a census of the stones, they are as numerous As my fingers and some others; I’ve distributed some pamphelts to the plants, but not all Were willing to accpet […]...
29. Moonrise I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle, Or paring of paradisaical fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless, Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa […]...
30. The Benefactors Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred? And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme When Nature in her nakedness Defeats us every time? It is not learning, grace nor gear, Nor easy meat and drink, But bitter pinch […]...
31. Between Games Nobody rests This one constantly shifts his eyes Hangs them on his head And whether he wants it or not starts walking backwards He puts them on the soles of his feet And whether he wants it or not returns walking on his head This one turns into an ear He hears all that won’t […]...
32. Hooray Say The Roses hooray say the roses, today is blamesday And we are red as blood. Hooray say the roses, today is Wednesday And we bloom wher soldiers fell And lovers too, And the snake at the word. Hooray say the roses, darkness comes All at once, like lights gone out, The sun leaves dark continents And rows […]...
33. If It Is True What the Prophets Write If it is true, what the Prophets write, That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones, Shall we, for the sake of being polite, Feed them with the juice of our marrow-bones? And if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew What the finger of God pointed to their view, Shall we suffer the Roman and Grecian […]...
34. To A Friend Going Blind Today, because I couldn’t find the shortcut through, I had to walk this town’s entire inner Perimeter to find Where the medieval walls break open In an eighteenth century Arch. The yellow valley flickered on and off Through cracks and the gaps For guns. Bruna is teaching me To cut a pattern. Saturdays we buy […]...
35. There Was an Old Man in a Tree There was an Old Man in a tree, Who was horribly bored by a bee. When they said “Does it buzz?” He replied “Yes, it does! It’s a regular brute of a bee!”...
36. Wild Oats About twenty years ago Two girls came in where I worked – A bosomy English rose And her friend in specs I could talk to. Faces in those days sparked The whole shooting-match off, and I doubt If ever one had like hers: But it was the friend I took out, And in seven years […]...
37. The Reaper and the Flowers There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between. “Shall I have naught that is fair?” saith he; “Have naught but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give […]...
38. My Mother I Reg wished me to go with him to the field, I paused because I did not want to go; But in her quiet way she made me yield Reluctantly, for she was breathing low. Her hand she slowly lifted from her lap And, smiling sadly in the old sweet way, She pointed to the […]...
39. Matt's Manifesto The Renaissance men are aging now, Having survived Industrialization’s Original Sin And the Information Age flood; The need for specialization Drives wrinkles of obsolescence Through their shriveling faces That have seen too much popular culture, Folk wisdom, colloquialisms, and fads born of boredom To have much patience left For the exaltation of yet another Generation […]...
40. Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me Last night The rain Spoke to me Slowly, saying, What joy To come falling Out of the brisk cloud, To be happy again In a new way On the earth! That’s what it said As it dropped, Smelling of iron, And vanished Like a dream of the ocean Into the branches And the grass below. […]...