Home ⇒ 📌Margaret Atwood ⇒ You Take My Hand
You Take My Hand
You take my hand and
I’m suddenly in a bad movie,
It goes on and on and
Why am I fascinated
We waltz in slow motion
Through an air stale with aphrodisms
We meet behind the endless ptted palms
You climb through the wrong windows
Other people are leaving
But I always stay till the end
I paid my money, I
Want to see what happens.
In chance bathtubs I have to
Peel you off me
In the form of smoke and melted
Celluloid
Have to face it I’m
Finally an addict,
The smell of popcorn and worn plush
Lingers for weeks
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- A Leaf for Hand in Hand A LEAF for hand in hand! You natural persons old and young! You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi! You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs! You twain! And all processions moving along the streets! I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for […]...
- Historion No man hath dared to write this thing as yet, And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great At times pass athrough us, And we are melted into them, and are not Save reflexions of their souls. Thus am I Dante for a space and am One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and […]...
- Sonnet 6: Then let not winter's ragged hand deface Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled. Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed. That use is not forbidden usury Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That’s for thyself to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, […]...
- Grif, of the Bloody Hand In an immense wood in the south of Kent, There lived a band of robbers which caused the people discontent; And the place they infested was called the Weald, Where they robbed wayside travellers and left them dead on the field. Their leader was called Grif, of the Bloody Hand, And so well skilled in […]...
- The Hand That Signed The Paper The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death. The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder, The finger joints are cramped with chalk; A goose’s quill has put an end to […]...
- Government THE Government I heard about the Government and I went out to find it. I said I would look closely at It when I saw it. Then I saw a policeman dragging a drunken man to The callaboose. It was the Government in action. I saw a ward alderman slip into an office one morning […]...
- Smoke Smoke, it is all smoke In the throat of eternity. . . . For centuries, the air was full of witches Whistling up chimneys On their spiky brooms Cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe, As they flew over rooftops Blessing & cursing their Kind. We banished & burned them Making them smoke in the […]...
- Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
- The Hand Throughout my life I see A guiding hand; The pitfalls set for me Were grimly planned. But always when and where They opened wide, Someone who seemed to care Stood by my side. When up the pathway dark I stumbled on, Afar, ahead a spark Of guidance shone. When forked the tragic trail And sad […]...
- Testament I GIVE the undertakers permission to haul my body To the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, the Feet, the hands, all: I know there is something left Over they can not put away. Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shanty People eat the clover over my grave and […]...
- The Sense Of The Sleight-Of-Hand Man One’s grand flights, one’s Sunday baths, One’s tootings at the weddings of the soul Occur as they occur. So bluish clouds Occurred above the empty house and the leaves Of the rhododendrons rattled their gold, As if someone lived there. Such floods of white Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind Threw its contorted […]...
- The Merciful Hand Written to Miss Alice L. F. Fitzgerald, Edith Cavell memorial nurse, going to the front. Your fine white hand is Heaven’s gift To cure the wide world, stricken sore, Bleeding at the breast and head, Tearing at its wounds once more. Your white hand is a prophecy, A living hope that Christ shall come And […]...
- Sonnet 20: A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, […]...
- 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 […]...
- A Diamond on the Hand A Diamond on the Hand To Custom Common grown Subsides from its significance The Gem were best unknown Within a Seller’s Shrine How many sight and sigh And cannot, but are mad for fear That any other buy....
- I took my power in my hand I took my power in my hand And went AGAINST the world ‘Twas not so much as David had But I was twice as bold I aimed by pebble, but myself Was ALL the one that fell Was it Goliath was too large Or was myself too small?...
- Money When I had money, money, O! I knew no joy till I went poor; For many a false man as a friend Came knocking all day at my door. Then felt I like a child that holds A trumpet that he must not blow Because a man is dead; I dared Not speak to let […]...
- Enoch Dunlap How many times, during the twenty years I was your leader, friends of Spoon River, Did you neglect the convention and caucus, And leave the burden on my hands Of guarding and saving the people’s cause? Sometimes because you were ill; Or your grandmother was ill; Or you drank too much and fell asleep; Or […]...
- This Living Hand This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calmed […]...
- THE BLEEDING HAND; OR THE SPRIG OF EGLANTINE GIVEN TO A MAID From this bleeding hand of mine, Take this sprig of Eglantine: Which, though sweet unto your smell, Yet the fretful briar will tell, He who plucks the sweets, shall prove Many thorns to be in love....
- What think You I take my Pen in Hand? WHAT think you I take my pen in hand to record? The battle-ship, perfect-model’d, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-day under full sail? The splendors of the past day? Or the splendor of the night that envelopes me? Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?-No; But I […]...
- Whoever You are, Holding Me now in Hand WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand, Without one thing, all will be useless, I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different. Who is he that would become my follower? Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? The way is suspicious-the […]...
- On Fields O'er Which the Reaper's Hand has Passed On fields o’er which the reaper’s hand has pass’d Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun, My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind And of such fineness as October airs, There after harvest could I glean my life A richer harvest reaping without toil, And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will In subtler […]...
- Sonnet 145: Those lips that Love's own hand did make Those lips that Love’s own hand did make Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate” To me that languished for her sake; But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet Was used in giving gentle doom, And taught it thus anew to […]...
- Brother of All, with Generous Hand 1 BROTHER of all, with generous hand, Of thee, pondering on thee, as o’er thy tomb, I and my Soul, A thought to launch in memory of thee, A burial verse for thee. What may we chant, O thou within this tomb? What tablets, pictures, hang for thee, O millionaire? -The life thou lived’st we […]...
- XIII. O Time! Who Know'st a Lenient Hand to Lay O TIME! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence, (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) Stealest the long-forgotten pang away; On Thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul held […]...
- Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing […]...
- Sonnet LXIV: When I Have Seen by Time's Fell Hand Defac'd When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras’d And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main, […]...
- Weekend Glory Some clichty folks Don’t know the facts, Posin’ and preenin’ And puttin’ on acts, Stretchin’ their backs. They move into condos Up over the ranks, Pawn their souls To the local banks. Buying big cars They can’t afford, Ridin’ around town Actin’ bored. If they want to learn how to live life right They ought […]...
- More About People When people aren’t asking questions They’re making suggestions And when they’re not doing one of those They’re either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes And then as if that weren’t enough to annoy you They employ you. Anybody at leisure Incurs everybody’s displeasure. It seems to be very irking To people at […]...
- Curse of a Rich Polish Peasant on His Sister Who Ran Away With a Wild Man FELIKSOWA has gone again from our house and this time for good, I hope. She and her husband took with them the cow father gave them, and they sold it. She went like a swine, because she called neither on me, her brother, nor on her father, before leaving for those forests. That is where […]...
- 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 […]...
- Reconstruction So, the bank has bust it’s boiler! And in six or seven year It will pay me all my money back of course! But the horse will perish waiting while the grass is germinating, And I reckon I’ll be something like the horse. There’s the ploughing to be finished and the ploughmen want their pay, […]...
- Robert Southey Burke I spent my money trying to elect you Mayor A. D. Blood. I lavished my admiration upon you, You were to my mind the almost perfect man. You devoured my personality, And the idealism of my youth, And the strength of a high-souled fealty. And all my hopes for the world, And all my beliefs […]...
- Soiled Dove Let us be honest; the lady was not a harlot until she married a corporation lawyer who picked her from a Ziegfeld chorus. Before then she never took anybody’s money and paid for her silk stockings out of what she earned singing and dancing. She loved one man and he loved six women and the […]...
- A Hand-Mirror HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?) Outside fair costume-within ashes and filth, No more a flashing eye-no more a sonorous voice or springy step; Now some slave’s eye, voice, hands, step, A drunkard’s breath, unwholesome eater’s face, venerealee’s flesh, Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and […]...
- The Receptionist France is the fairest land on earth, Lovely to heart’s desire, And twice a year I span its girth, Its beauty to admire. But when a pub I seek each night, To my profound vexation On form they hand me I’ve to write My occupation. So once in a derisive mood My pen I nibbled; […]...
- The Last Bargain “Come and hire me,” I cried, while in the morning I was walking on the stone-paved road. Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot. He held my hand and said, “I will hire you with my power.” But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot. In the heat […]...
- The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
- Albert Einstein To Archibald Macleish I should have been a plumber fixing drains. And mending pure white bathtubs for the great Diogenes (who scorned all lies, all liars, and all tyrannies), And then, perhaps, he would bestow on me majesty! (O modesty aside, forgive my fallen pride, O hidden majesty, The lamp, the lantern, the lucid light he sought for […]...
« At Baia