My Father’s Hats

Related poetry:

1. 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, […]...
2. The List of Famous Hats Napoleon’s hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous Hat, but that’s not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for Show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all hon- Esty wasn’t much different than the one any jerk might buy at a Corner […]...
3. My Fathers, The Baltic Along the strand stones, Busted shells, wood scraps, Bottle tops, dimpled And stainless beer cans. Something began here A century ago, A nameless disaster, Perhaps a voyage To the lost continent Where I was born. Now the cold winds Of March dimple The gray, incoming Waves. I kneel On the wet earth Looking for a […]...
4. Santa Decca The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves! Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves, And in the noon the careless shepherds sing, For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning By secret glade and devious haunt is o’er: Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more; Great […]...
5. Sunday Afternoons I sit at home At my desk alone As I used to do On many sunday afternoons When you came back to me, Your arms ached for me, And your arms would close me in Though they smelled of other women. I think of you On Sunday afternoons. Your sweet head would bow, Like a […]...
6. The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods, against a stormy sky, Their giant branches tost; And the heavy night hung dark The hills and water o’er, When a band of exiles moored their bark On the wild New England shore. Not as the conqueror comes, They, the true-hearted, […]...
7. The Fathers Our fathers all were poor, Poorer our fathers’ fathers; Beyond, we dare not look. We, the sons, keep store Of tarnished gold that gathers Around us from the night, Record it in this book That, when the line is drawn, Credit and creditor gone, Column and figure flown, Will open into light. Archaic fevers shake […]...
8. Morning Song Of Senlin from Senlin: A Biography It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning When the light drips through the shutters like the dew, I arise, I face the sunrise, And do the things my fathers learned to do. Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die, […]...
9. Alabaster LIKE this alabaster box whose art Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart, Carven with delicate dreams and wrought With many a subtle and exquisite thought. Therein I treasure the spice and scent Of rich and passionate memories blent Like odours of cinnamon, sandal and clove, Of song and sorrow and life and love....
10. Hats HATS, where do you belong? what is under you? On the rim of a skyscraper’s forehead I looked down and saw: hats: fifty thousand hats: Swarming with a noise of bees and sheep, cattle and waterfalls, Stopping with a silence of sea grass, a silence of prairie corn. Hats: tell me your high hopes....
11. The Rat's Tight Schedule A man stumbled on some rat droppings. Hey, who put those there? That’s dangerous, he said. His wife said, those are pieces of a rat. Wait, he’s coming apart, he’s all over the floor, said the Husband. He can’t help it; you don’t think he wants to drop pieces of Himself all over the floor, […]...
12. No Return I like divorce. I love to compose Letters of resignation; now and then I send one in and leave in a lemon- Hued Huff or a Snit with four on the floor. Do you like the scent of a hollyhock? To each his own. I love a burning bridge. I like to watch the small […]...
13. Our Fathers Also “Below the Mill Dam” Traffics and Discoveries Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Peoples, Kings, Are changing ‘neath our hand. Our fathers also see these things But they do not understand. By they are by with mirth and tears, Wit or the works of Desire- Cushioned about on the kindly years Between the wall and the fire. The […]...
14. The Fathers Snug at the club two fathers sat, Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. One of them said: ‘My eldest lad Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. But Arthur’s getting all the fun At Arras with his nine-inch gun.’ ‘Yes,’ wheezed the other, ‘that’s the luck! My boy’s quite broken-hearted, stuck In England training all this year. […]...
15. September We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold: No clock counts this. When kisses are repeated and the arms hold There is no telling where time is. It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still: Behind the eye a star, Under the silk of the wrist a sea, tell Time is nowhere. We stand; […]...
16. Sleeping in Blue I lean into you, We bury down In the dunes The breeze holds Like a whisper You stroke my brown knees Your fingers Are my unspoken thoughts The silence is sensuous, Suffuses like Scent of sandalwood I watch The sea Your hands The waves Seep into my bones The sky descends We sleep in blue....
17. Floorless Room, The I Wish that my Room had a Floor! I don’t so Much Care for a Door, But this Crawling Around Without Touching the Ground Is Getting to be Quite a Bore!...
18. A Pause They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves, And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay; While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way. I did not hear the birds about the eaves, Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves: Only my soul kept watch from day to day, My thirsty […]...
19. Everything Lately the wind burns The last leaves and evening Comes too late to be Of use, lately I learned That the year has turned Its face to winter And nothing I say or do Can change anything. So I sleep late and waken Long after the sun has risen In an empty house and walk […]...
20. All Night All night the knot in the shoelace Waits for its liberation, And the match on the table packs its head With anticipation of light. The faucet sweats out a bead of water, Which gathers strength for the free fall, While the lettuce in the refrigerator Succumbs to its brown killer. And in the novel I […]...
21. Fisherfolk I like to look at fishermen And oftentimes I wish One would be lucky now and then And catch a little fish. I watch them statuesquely stand, And at the water look; But if they pull their float to land It’s just to bait a hook. I ponder the psychology That roots them in their […]...
22. The Ballet Of The Fifth Year Where the sea gulls sleep or indeed where they fly Is a place of different traffic. Although I Consider the fishing bay (where I see them dip and curve And purely glide) a place that weakens the nerve Of will, and closes my eyes, as they should not be (They should burn like the street-light […]...
23. At The Door All actors look for them-the defining moments When what a character does is what he is. The script may say, He goes to the door And exits or She goes out the door stage left. But you see your fingers touching the doorknob, Closing around it, turning it As if by themselves. The latch slides […]...
24. Traveling Through The Dark Traveling through the dark I found a deer Dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: That road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead. By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car And stood by the heap, a doe, […]...
25. The End It is time for me to go, mother; I am going. When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out Your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not Here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall […]...
26. Exiles Her brown falcon perches above the sink As steaming water forks over my hands. Below the wrists they shrivel and turn pink. I am in exile in my own land. Her half-grown cats scuffle across the floor Trailing a slime of blood from where they fed. I lock the door. They claw under the door. […]...
27. Sometimes The Sky's Too Bright Sometimes the sky’s too bright, Or has too many clouds or birds, And far away’s too sharp a sun To nourish thinking of him. Why is my hand too blunt To cut in front of me My horrid images for me, Of over-fruitful smiles, The weightless touching of the lip I wish to know I […]...
28. Admonitions To A Special Person Watch out for power, For its avalanche can bury you, Snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain. Watch out for hate, It can open its mouth and you’ll fling yourself out To eat off your leg, an instant leper. Watch out for friends, Because when you betray them, As you will, They will bury their heads […]...
29. The Ball Poem What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over-there it is in the water! No use to say ‘O there are other balls’: An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, […]...
30. Any Time How long ago the day is When at last I look at it With the time it has taken To be there still in it Now in the transparent light With the flight in the voices The beginning in the leaves Everything I remember And before it before me Present at the speed of light […]...
31. The Floor The floor is something we must fight against. Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human Stance, it is that place that men fall to. I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse; The pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face. But should I go dizzy I crash down into the […]...
32. As You Leave Me Shiny record albums scattered over The living room floor, reflecting light From the lamp, sharp reflections that hurt My eyes as I watch you, squatting among the platters, The beer foam making mustaches on your lips. And, too, The shadows on your cheeks from your long lashes Fascinate me almost as much as the dimples […]...
33. Six Significant Landscapes I An old man sits In the shadow of a pine tree In China. He sees larkspur, Blue and white, At the edge of the shadow, Move in the wind. His beard moves in the wind. The pine tree moves in the wind. Thus water flows Over weeds. II The night is of the colour […]...
34. Variation On The Word Sleep I would like to watch you sleeping, Which may not happen. I would like to watch you, Sleeping. I would like to sleep With you, to enter Your sleep as its smooth dark wave Slides over my head And walk with you through that lucent Wavering forest of bluegreen leaves With its watery sun & […]...
35. The Word There are so many things I have forgot, That once were much to me, or that were not, All lost, as is a childless woman’s child And its child’s children, in the undefiled Abyss of what can never be again. I have forgot, too, names of the mighty men That fought and lost or won […]...
36. Moccasin Flowers All my life, So far, I have loved More than one thing, Including the mossy hooves Of dreams, including’ The spongy litter Under the tall trees. In spring The moccasin flowers Reach for the crackling Lick of the sun And burn down. Sometimes, In the shadows, I see the hazy eyes, The lamb-lips Of oblivion, […]...
37. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
38. The Song of Quoodle They haven’t got no noses, The fallen sons of Eve; Even the smell of roses Is not what they supposes; But more than mind discloses And more than men believe. They haven’t got no noses, They cannot even tell When door and darkness closes The park a Jew encloses, Where even the law of Moses […]...
39. On Building With Stone To be an ape in little of the mountain-making mother Like swarthy Cheops, but my own hands For only slaves, is a far sweeter toil than to cut Passions in verse for a sick people. I’d liefer bed one boulder in the house-wall than be the time’s Archilochus: we name not Homer: who now Can […]...
40. "Shouting" for a Camel It was over at Coolgardie that a mining speculator, Who was going down the township just to make a bit o’ chink, Went off to hire a camel from a camel propagator, And the Afghan said he’d lend it if he’d stand the beast a drink. Yes, the only price he asked him was to […]...