Postcards

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. House TWO Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs, and an old soldier, Uncle Joe. Two Swede boys go upstairs and see Joe. His wife is dead, his only son is dead, and his two daughters in Missouri and Texas don’t want him around. The boys and Uncle Joe crack walnuts with a hammer […]...
3. The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me “the withness of the body” Whitehead The heavy bear who goes with me, A manifold honey to smear his face, Clumsy and lumbering here and there, The central ton of every place, The hungry beating brutish one In love with candy, anger, and sleep, Crazy factotum, dishevelling all, Climbs the building, kicks the football, Boxes […]...
4. A Valentine For Hands names, silence-quietest minutes (building like rain or returning like seas) Since they have touched me, your warm hands have sown Gentlest sounds, touches and hours (or, building like rain, turning, like seas) (building like rain, or returning like seas) Ripples and springs-the shiniest rivers- Since they have known me your warm hands have gathered Smallest, […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. JOHANNA SEBUS [To the memory of an excellent and beautiful Girl of 17, belonging to the village of Brienen, who perished on The 13th of January, 1809, whilst giving help on the occasion of The breaking up of the ice on the Rhine, and the bursting of the Dam of Cleverham.] THE DAM BREAKS DOWN, THE ICE-PLAIN […]...
9. The Buyers Father drank himself to death, Quite enjoyed it. Urged to draw a sober breath He’d avoid it. ‘Save your sympathy,’ said Dad; ‘Never sought it. Hob-nail liver, gay and glad, Sure, I bought it.’ Uncle made a heap of dough, Ponies playing. ‘Easy come and easy go,’ Was his saying. Though he died in poverty […]...
10. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
11. This Window is This window is confidence, Documenting proceedings, Capturing moments, Cleansing views Challenging sentiment. This window is nourishment Filling the eyes With strong drink, And acidly piercing Over-elaborate structures. This window is furniture Re-hung like a picture, Recording new outlooks When the old pleases No more. This window is doorway To feelings, Good feelings and bad, All […]...
12. May Morning I lie stretched out upon the window-seat And doze, and read a page or two, and doze, And feel the air like water on me close, Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat With a small noise, monotonous and sweet, Against the window and the scent of cool, Frail flowers by some brown […]...
13. Hornet A red-hot needle Hangs out of him, he steers by it As if it were a rudder, he Would get in the house any way he could And then he would bounce from window To ceiling, buzzing and looking for you. Do not sleep for he is there wrapped in the curtain. Do not sleep […]...
14. Those Annual Bills These annual bills! these annual bills! How many a song their discord trills Of “truck” consumed, enjoyed, forgot, Since I was skinned by last year’s lot! Those joyous beans are passed away; Those onions blithe, O where are they? Once loved, lost, mourned now vexing ILLS Your shades troop back in annual bills! And so […]...
15. Under Cover of Night To slip into your shadow under cover of night. To follow your footsteps, your shadow at the window. That shadow at the window is you and no one else; It’s you. Do not open that window behind whose curtains you’re moving. Shut your eyes. I’d like to shut them with my lips. But the window […]...
16. A Chaucerian Paraphrase of Horace Syn that you, Chloe, to your moder sticken, Maketh all ye yonge bacheloures full sicken; Like as a lyttel deere you ben y-hiding Whenas come lovers with theyre pityse chiding; Sothly it ben faire to give up your moder For to beare swete company with some oder; Your moder ben well enow so farre shee […]...
17. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
18. Immrama I, too, have trailed my father’s spirit From the mud-walled cabin behind the mountain Where he was born and bred, TB and scarletina, The farm where he was first hired out, To Wigan, to Crewe junction, A building-site from which he disappeared And took passage, almost, for Argentina. The mountain is coming down with hazel, […]...
19. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
20. Cahoots PLAY it across the table. What if we steal this city blind? If they want any thing let ’em nail it down. Harness bulls, dicks, front office men, And the high goats up on the bench, Ain’t they all in cahoots? Ain’t it fifty-fifty all down the line, Petemen, dips, boosters, stick-ups and guns-what’s to […]...
21. SWISS SONG Up in th’ mountain I was a-sitting, With the bird there As my guest, Blithely singing, Blithely springing, And building His nest. In the garden I was a-standing, And the bee there Saw as well, Buzzing, humming, Going, coming, And building His cell. O’er the meadow I was a-going, And there saw the Butterflies, Sipping, […]...
22. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
23. Mr. Brain Mr Brain was a hermit dwarf who liked to eat shellfish off The moon. He liked to go into a tree then because there is a Little height to see a little further, which may reveal now the Stone, a pebble it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon that You can make […]...
24. Private Eye To find clues where there are none, That’s my job now, I said to the Dictionary on my desk. The world beyond My window has grown illegible, And so has the clock on the wall. I may strike a match to orient myself In the meantime, there’s the heart Stopping hush as the building Empties, […]...
25. Ye Carpette Knyghte I have a horse – a ryghte good horse – Ne doe Y envye those Who scoure ye playne yn headye course Tyll soddayne on theyre nose They lyghte wyth unexpected force Yt ys – a horse of clothes. I have a saddel – “Say’st thou soe? Wyth styrruppes, Knyghte, to boote?” I sayde not […]...
26. Poem (Old man in the crystal morning after snow) Old man in the crystal morning after snow, Your throat swathed in a muffler, your bent Figure building the snow man which is meant For the grandchild’s target, do you know This fat cartoon, his eyes pocked in with coal Nears you each time your breath smokes the air, Lewdly grinning out of a private […]...
27. Sonnet LXXX O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might, To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame! But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, My saucy bark […]...
28. Sonnet 80: O, how I faint when I of you do write O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame. But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, My saucy bark, […]...
29. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
30. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
31. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
32. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
33. After the Sea-Ship AFTER the Sea-Ship-after the whistling winds; After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes, Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship: Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying, Waves, undulating waves-liquid, uneven, emulous waves, Toward that whirling current, […]...
34. A Week Later A week later, I said to a friend: I don’t Think I could ever write about it. Maybe in a year I could write something. There is something in me maybe someday To be written; now it is folded, and folded, And folded, like a note in school. And in my dream Someone was playing […]...
35. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
36. The Great Figure Among the rain And lights I saw the figure 5 In gold On a red Firetruck Moving Tense Unheeded To gong clangs Siren howls And wheels rumbling Through the dark city....
37. 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 […]...
38. Old Ironsides Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon’s roar; The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more. Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood, […]...
39. A Radio With Guts it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street I used to get drunk And throw the radio through the window While it was playing, and, of course, It would break the glass in the window And the radio would sit there on the roof Still playing And I’d tell my woman, “Ah, what a […]...
40. 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 […]...