At Blackwater Pond

Related poetry:

1. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
2. Walking To Oak-Head Pond, And Thinking Of The Ponds I Will Visit In The Next Days And Weeks What is so utterly invisible As tomorrow? Not love, Not the wind, Not the inside of a stone. Not anything. And yet, how often I’m fooled I’m wading along In the sunlight And I’m sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining Days ahead I can see the light spilling Like a shower […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond So heavy Is the long-necked, long-bodied heron, Always it is a surprise When her smoke-colored wings Open And she turns From the thick water, From the black sticks Of the summer pond, And slowly Rises into the air And is gone. Then, not for the first or the last time, I take the deep breath […]...
5. Clapp's Pond Three miles through the woods Clapp’s Pond sprawls stone gray Among oaks and pines, The late winter fields Where a pheasant blazes up Lifting his yellow legs Under bronze feathers, opening Bronze wings; And one doe, dimpling the ground as she touches Its dampness sharply, flares Out of the brush and gallops away. * By […]...
6. At Great Pond At Great Pond The sun, rising, Scrapes his orange breast On the thick pines, And down tumble A few orange feathers into The dark water. On the far shore A white bird is standing Like a white candle – Or a man, in the distance, In the clasp of some meditation – While all around […]...
7. The Craftsmen Of The Little Box Don’t open the little box Heaven’s hat will fall out of her Don’t close her for any reason She’ll bite the trouser-leg of eternity Don’t drop her on the earth The sun’s eggs will break inside her Don’t throw her in the air Earth’s bones will break inside her Don’t hold her in your hands […]...
8. The old pond Following are several translations Of the ‘Old Pond’ poem, which may be The most famous of all haiku: Furuike ya Kawazu tobikomu Mizu no oto Basho Literal Translation Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, Ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) Mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound) The old pond A frog jumps in, sound of water. Translated by […]...
9. The Pond Night covers the pond with its wing. Under the ringed moon I can make out Your face swimming among minnows and the small Echoing stars. In the night air The surface of the pond is metal. Within, your eyes are open. They contain A memory I recognize, as though We had been children together. Our […]...
10. Nearly A Valediction You happened to me. I was happened to Like an abandoned building by a bull- Dozer, like the van that missed my skull Happened a two-inch gash across my chin. You were as deep down as I’ve ever been. You were inside me like my pulse. A new- Born flailing toward maternal heartbeat through The […]...
11. Round-Pond Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breaks Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. The shining of the sun upon the water Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals In a long wavering irregular flight. The water is cold to the eye As the wind to the cheek. […]...
12. Dream Song 76: Henry's Confession Nothin very bad happen to me lately. How you explain that? —I explain that, Mr Bones, Terms o’ your bafflin odd sobriety. Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones, What could happen bad to Mr Bones? €”If life is a handkerchief sandwich, In a modesty of death I join my father Who dared […]...
13. An Afternoon In The Stacks Closing the book, I find I have left my head Inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open Their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound, Words adjusting themselves to their meaning. Long passages open at successive pages. An echo, Continuous from the title onward, hums Behind me. From in here, the world […]...
14. Why We Tell Stories For Linda Foster I Because we used to have leaves And on damp days Our muscles feel a tug, Painful now, from when roots Pulled us into the ground And because our children believe They can fly, an instinct retained From when the bones in our arms Were shaped like zithers and broke Neatly under […]...
15. On the desert On the desert A silence from the moon’s deepest valley. Fire rays fall athwart the robes Of hooded men, squat and dumb. Before them, a woman Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles And distant thunder of drums, While mystic things, sinuous, dull with terrible colour, Sleepily fondle her body Or move at her will, […]...
16. Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit snow doesn’t land At your feet but keeps falling below You): single-cell-plant chains, shreds Of zooplankton’s mucus food traps, Fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts, Sand grains, pollen….And inside These jagged falling islands Live more microlives, […]...
17. Indian Boyhood What happened to the boy I was? Why did he run away? And leave me old and thinking, like There’d been no yesterday? What happened then? Was I that boy? Who laughed and swam in the bund* I there no going back? No recompense? Is there nothing? No refund?...
18. The Mad Yak I am watching them churn the last milk they’ll ever get From me. They are waiting for me to die; They want to make buttons out of my bones. Where are my sisters and brothers? That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap. And that idiot student of his I never […]...
19. Loch Ness Beautiful Loch Ness, The truth to express, Your landscapes are lovely and gay, Along each side of your waters, to Fort Augustus all the way, Your scenery is romantic… With rocks and hills gigantic… Enough to make one frantic, As they view thy beautiful heathery hills, And their clear crystal rills, And the beautiful woodlands […]...
20. Balmoral Castle Beautiful Balmoral Castle, Most handsome to be seen, Highland home of the Empress of India, Great Britain’s Queen. Your woods and waters and Mountains high are most Beautiful to see, Near by Balmoral Castle And the dark river Dee. Then there’s the hill of Cairngorm To be seen from afar, And the beautiful heathery hills […]...
21. Two thursdays when the doctor came on a monday He looked at my mother and said There’s something seriously wrong here – She’s had a stroke – she’s almost dead It must have happened on thursday Why wasn’t i told before The busy rest home shook its head We thought she was drowsy – nothing more She […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. The Deer Lay Down Their Bones I followed the narrow cliffside trail half way up the mountain Above the deep river-canyon. There was a little cataract crossed the path, flinging itself Over tree roots and rocks, shaking the jeweled fern-fronds, bright bubbling water Pure from the mountain, but a bad smell came up. Wondering at it I clam- bered down the […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
27. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
28. The Beautiful Poem I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking About you. Pissing a few moments ago I looked down at my penis Affectionately. Knowing it has been inside You twice today makes me Feel beautiful. 3 A. M. January 15, 1967...
29. Flophouse you haven’t lived Until you’ve been in a Flophouse With nothing but one Light bulb And 56 men Squeezed together On cots With everybody Snoring At once And some of those Snores So Deep and Gross and Unbelievable- Dark Snotty Gross Subhuman Wheezings From hell Itself. Your mind Almost breaks Under those Death-like Sounds And […]...
30. The Old General Little Annabelle to please, (Lacking grace, I grant), Grandpa down on hands and knees Plays the elephant. Annabelle shrieks with delight, Bouncing up and down, On his back and holding tight To his dressing gown. As they roll and bowl along, Round and round the room, There is sunshine and a song ‘Spite December gloom. […]...
31. Lost Love His eyes are quickened so with grief, He can watch a grass or leaf Every instant grow; he can Clearly through a flint wall see, Or watch the startled spirit flee From the throat of a dead man. Across two counties he can hear And catch your words before you speak. The woodlouse or the […]...
32. Shocked the cupboard was done up On the outside In the brightest of colours The house it was part of Was filled each day With its loud exclamations The sun looked in gladly One morning and Fled (incredibly) dazzled Puzzled the people stared Up at the sun Nursing cursing its blindness And many rumours spread….. A […]...
33. The Cat in the Kitchen (For Donald Hall) Have you heard about the boy who walked by The black water? I won’t say much more. Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered. Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand Reaches out and pulls him in. There was no Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, […]...
34. 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...
35. Nothing But Death There are cemeteries that are lonely, Graves full of bones that do not make a sound, The heart moving through a tunnel, In it darkness, darkness, darkness, Like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, As though we were drowning inside our hearts, As though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. […]...
36. Things What happened is, we grew lonely Living among the things, So we gave the clock a face, The chair a back, The table four stout legs Which will never suffer fatigue. We fitted our shoes with tongues As smooth as our own And hung tongues inside bells So we could listen To their emotional language, […]...
37. The Sonnets To Orpheus: I A tree ascended there. Oh pure transendence! Oh Orpheus sings! Oh tall tree in the ear! And all things hushed. Yet even in that silence A new beginning, beckoning, change appeared. Creatures of stillness crowded from the bright Unbound forest, out of their lairs and nests; And it was not from any dullness, not From […]...
38. Snow SNOW took us away from the smoke valleys into white mountains, we saw velvet blue cows eating a vermillion grass and they gave us a pink milk. Snow changes our bones into fog streamers caught by the wind and spelled into many dances. Six bits for a sniff of snow in the old days bought […]...
39. Nightclub You are so beautiful and I am a fool To be in love with you Is a theme that keeps coming up In songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful And you are a fool to be in love with me, […]...
40. 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...