After Long Drought

Related poetry:

1. Castile Orange blossoms blowing over Castile Children begging for coins I met my love under an orange tree Or was it an acacia tree Or was he not my love? I read this, then I dreamed this: Can waking take back what happened to me? Bells of San Miguel Ringing in the distance His hair in […]...
2. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
3. Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding Love is enough: it grew up without heeding In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure, And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding, As the morning and evening passed over its treasure. And what do ye say […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. An Evangelist's Wife “Why am I not myself these many days, You ask? And have you nothing more to ask? I do you wrong? I do not hear your praise To God for giving you me to share your task? “Jealous-of Her? Because her cheeks are pink, And she has eyes? No, not if she had seven. If […]...
6. Growing Old What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not for this alone. Is it to feel our strength – Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow […]...
7. A Hymn To Christ At The Author's Last Going Into Germany In what torn ship soever I embark, That ship shall be my emblem of thy Ark; What sea soever swallow me, that flood Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood; Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, Which, though they turn away […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. Old David Smail He dreamed away his hours in school; He sat with such an absent air, The master reckoned him a fool, And gave him up in dull despair. When other lads were making hay You’d find him loafing by the stream; He’d take a book and slip away, And just pretend to fish. . . and […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. A Dream In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed- But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past? That holy dream – that […]...
13. The Flour Bin By Lawson’s Hill, near Mudgee, On old Eurunderee – The place they called “New Pipeclay”, Where the diggers used to be – On a dreary old selection, Where times were dry and thin, In a slab and shingle kitchen There stood a flour bin. ‘Twas “ploorer” with the cattle, ‘Twas rust and smut in wheat, […]...
14. The Rose A ROSE, as fair as ever saw the North, Grew in a little garden all alone; A sweeter flower did Nature ne’er put forth, Nor fairer garden yet was never known: The maidens danced about it morn and noon, And learned bards of it their ditties made; The nimble fairies by the pale-faced moon Water’d […]...
15. The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of […]...
16. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
17. The Symptom of the Gale The Symptom of the Gale The Second of Dismay Between its Rumor and its Face Is almost Revelry The Houses firmer root The Heavens cannot be found The Upper Surfaces of things Take covert in the Ground The Mem’ry of the Sun Not Any can recall Although by Nature’s sterling Watch So scant an interval […]...
18. The Shearers No church-bell rings them from the Track, No pulpit lights theirblindness ‘Tis hardship, drought, and homelessness That teach those Bushmen kindness: The mateship born, in barren lands, Of toil and thirst and danger, The camp-fare for the wanderer set, The first place to the stranger. They do the best they can to-day Take no thought […]...
19. Interior It sheds a shy solemnity, This lamp in our poor room. O grey and gold amenity, Silence and gentle gloom! Wide from the world, a stolen hour We claim, and none may know How love blooms like a tardy flower Here in the day’s after-glow. And even should the world break in With jealous threat […]...
20. Careers Father is quite the greatest poet That ever lived anywhere. You say you’re going to write great music – I chose that first: it’s unfair. Besides, now I can’t be the greatest painter and do Christ and angels, or lovely pears and apples and grapes on a green dish, or storms at sea, or anything […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. The house where I was born (10) And then life; and once again A house where I was born. Around us The granary above what once had been a church, The gentle play of shadow from the dawn clouds, And in us that smell of the dry straw That had seemed to be waiting for us From the moment the last sack, […]...
23. He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs, For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood; And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes: I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay Their heads […]...
24. Another barbeque tonight It rained throughout the night, a truly welcome sound That eases sleep although we barely slept – we were Distressed by other things. Today the kitchen’s centre ring, The kitchen of Anita’s dreams. It’s had a long gestation, Twenty years it’s taken just to reach this actual day (that’s in This iteration, there’s been some […]...
25. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
26. Love's Gleaning Tide Draw not away thy hands, my love, With wind alone the branches move, And though the leaves be scant above The Autumn shall not shame us. Say; Let the world wax cold and drear, What is the worst of all the year But life, and what can hurt us, dear, Or death, and who shall […]...
27. At Dawn In the night I dreamed of you; All the place was filled With your presence; in my heart The strife was stilled. All night I have dreamed of you; Now the morn is grey. How shall I arise and face The empty day?...
28. "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 […]...
29. The Clerks I did not think that I should find them there When I came back again; but there they stood, As in the days they dreamed of when young blood Was in their cheeks and women called them fair. Be sure, they met me with an ancient air,- And yes, there was a shop-worn brotherhood About […]...
30. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness; Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d, Sandals more interwoven and complete To fit the naked foot of poesy; Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Of every chord, and […]...
31. 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...
32. Rose Leaves When they shall close my careless eyes And look their last upon my face, I fear that some will say: “her lies A man of deep disgrace; His thoughts were bare, his words were brittle, He dreamed so much, he did so little. When they shall seal y coffin lid And this worn mask I […]...
33. Poems to Mulgrave and Scroope Deare Friend. I heare this Towne does soe abound, With sawcy Censurers, that faults are found, With what of late wee (in Poetique Rage) Bestowing, threw away on the dull Age; But (howsoe’re Envy, their Spleen may raise, To Robb my Brow, of the deserved Bays) Their thanks at least I merit since through me, […]...
34. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. 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...
37. The Only Son She dropped the bar, she shot the bolt, she fed the fire anew For she heard a whimper under the sill and a great grey paw came through. The fresh flame comforted the hut and shone on the roof-beam, And the Only Son lay down again and dreamed that he dreamed a dream. The last […]...
38. I Have Dreamed of You so Much I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real. Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make Your dear voice come alive again? I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my Chest as […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. 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!...