Gannets

Related poetry:

1. When Death Comes When death comes Like the hungry bear in autumn; When death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse To buy me, and snaps the purse shut; When death comes Like the measle-pox When death comes Like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, […]...
2. The Fish The first fish I ever caught Would not lie down Quiet in the pail But flailed and sucked At the burning Amazement of the air And died In the slow pouring off Of rainbows. Later I opened his body and separated The flesh from the bones And ate him. Now the sea Is in me: […]...
3. Birth-Dues Joy is a trick in the air; pleasure is merely contemptible, the dangled Carrot the ass follows to market or precipice; But limitary pain the rock under the tower and the hewn coping That takes thunder at the head of the turret- Terrible and real. Therefore a mindless dervish carving himself With knives will seem […]...
4. Prospice Fear death?-to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man […]...
5. The Nude Swim On the southwest side of Capri We found a little unknown grotto Where no people were and we Entered it completely And let our bodies lose all Their loneliness. All the fish in us Had escaped for a minute. The real fish did not mind. We did not disturb their personal life. We calmly trailed […]...
6. The Fury Of Overshoes They sit in a row Outside the kindergarten, Black, red, brown, all With those brass buckles. Remember when you couldn’t Buckle your own Overshoe Or tie your own Overshoe Or tie your own shoe Or cut your own meat And the tears Running down like mud Because you fell off your Tricycle? Remember, big fish, […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. I AM NOT A NATIVE OF THIS PLACE I am not a native of this palce.(Yosimasu G.) Nor yet a stranger. With the rst of you I hunt for shade My boots half off To let the air through. My head is on my shoulders & is real. I plant cucumbers Twice a year & count the bounty. Often I read The papers […]...
9. Heaven Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat’ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, […]...
10. Dogfish Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing Kept flickering in with the tide And looking around. Black as a fisherman’s boot, With a white belly. If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile Under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin, Which was rough As a thousand sharpened nails. […]...
11. The True Encounter “Wolf!” cried my cunning heart At every sheep it spied, And roused the countryside. “Wolf! Wolf!”-and up would start Good neighbours, bringing spade And pitchfork to my aid. At length my cry was known: Therein lay my release. I met the wolf alone And was devoured in peace....
12. The Lifeguard In a stable of boats I lie still, From all sleeping children hidden. The leap of a fish from its shadow Makes the whole lake instantly tremble. With my foot on the water, I feel The moon outside Take on the utmost of its power. I rise and go our through the boats. I set […]...
13. A Sunset of the City Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love. My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls, Are gone from the house. My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite And night is night. It is a real chill out, The genuine thing. I am not deceived, I […]...
14. The Kingfisher The kingfisher rises out of the black wave Like a blue flower, in his beak He carries a silver leaf. I think this is The prettiest world so long as you don’t mind A little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life That doesn’t have its splash of happiness? There are […]...
15. Children Selecting Books In A Library With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright. The child’s head, bent to the book-colored shelves, Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering, Moving in blind grace… yet from the mural, Care The grey-eyed one, fishing the morning mist, Seizes the baby hero by the hair And whispers, in the tongue of gods and children, […]...
16. Bear In There There’s a Polar Bear In our Frigidaire He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there. With his seat in the meat And his face in the fish And his big hairy paws In the buttery dish, He’s nibbling the noodles, He’s munching the rice, He’s slurping the soda, He’s licking the ice. And he lets […]...
17. Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord Will Provide (Genesis, xxii.14) The saints should never be dismay’d, Nor sink in hopeless fear; For when they least expect His aid, The Saviour will appear. This Abraham found: he raised the knife; God saw, and said, “Forbear! Yon ram shall yield his meaner life; Behold the victim there.” Once David seem’d Saul’s certain prey; But hark! […]...
18. Womanly Qualms When I go rowing on the lake, I long to be a man; I’ll give my Sunday frock to have A callous heart like Dan. I love the ripple of the waves When gliding o’er the deep, But when I see the cruel ours, I close my eyes and weep; For there are cat-fish in […]...
19. Music At The Villa Marina FOR some abiding central source of power, Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flow And, flowing, carry virtue. Far below, The vain tumultuous passions of the hour Fleet fast and disappear; and as the sun Shines on the wake of tempests, there is cast O’er all the shattered ruins of my past A strong contentment […]...
20. Poet As Fisherman I fish for words To say what I fish for, Half-catch sometimes. I have caught little pan fish flashing sunlight (yellow perch, crappies, blue-gills), Lighthearted reeled them in, Filed them on stringers on the shore. A nice mess, we called them, And ate with our fingers, laughing. Once, dreaming of fish in far-off waters, I […]...
21. Joy-notes when the time comes Yield To the forces outside you Images simply Of your inner compulsions When the time comes Invite Your enemies inside you Inversions simply Of your face on the world When the time comes Die From the fears that hold you The action simply Of seceding old skins When the time comes […]...
22. The Womb Up from the evil day Of wattle and of woad, Along man’s weary way Dark Pain has been the goad. Back from the age of stone, Within his brutish brain, What pleasure he has known Is ease from Pain. Behold in Pain the force That haled Man from the Pit, And set him such a […]...
23. JOY AND SORROW As a fisher-boy I fared To the black rock in the sea, And, while false gifts I prepared. Listen’d and sang merrily, Down descended the decoy, Soon a fish attack’d the bait; One exultant shout of joy, And the fish was captured straight. Ah! on shore, and to the wood Past the cliffs, o’er stock […]...
24. Lake Maidenly lake, fathomless lake, Stay as you were once, overgrown with rushes, Idling with a reflected cloud, for my sake Whom your shore no longer touches. Your girl was always real to me. Her bones lie in a city by the sea. Everything occurs too normally. A unique love simply wears away. Girl, hey, girl, […]...
25. Neighbors As often as we thought of her, We thought of a gray life That made a quaint economist Of a wolf-haunted wife; We made the best of all she bore That was not ours to bear, And honored her for wearing things That were not things to wear. There was a distance in her look […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. Dorcas Gustine I was not beloved of the villagers, But all because I spoke my mind, And met those who transgressed against me With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing Nor secret griefs nor grudges. That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised, Who hid the wolf under his cloak, Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly. It is […]...
28. To Imagination When weary with the long day’s care, And earthly change from pain to pain, And lost and ready to despair, Thy kind voice calls me back again: Oh, my true friend! I am not lone, While thou canst speak with such a tone! So hopeless is the world without; The world within I doubly prize; […]...
29. 90 North At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe, I clambered to bed; up the globe’s impossible sides I sailed all night-till at last, with my black beard, My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole. There in the childish night my companions lay frozen, The stiff fur knocked […]...
30. In My Own Shire, If I Was Sad In my own shire, if I was sad, Homely comforters I had: The earth, because my heart was sore, Sorrowed for the son she bore; And standing hills, long to remain, Shared their short-lived comrade’s pain. And bound for the same bourn as I, On every road I wandered by, Trod beside me, close and […]...
31. Scented Herbage of My Breast SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death, Perennial roots, tall leaves-O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves, Every year shall you bloom again-out from where you retired, you shall emerge again; O I do not […]...
32. For Death or rather For Death or rather For the Things ‘twould buy This put away Life’s Opportunity The Things that Death will buy Are Room Escape from Circumstances And a Name With Gifts of Life How Death’s Gifts may compare We know not For the Rates lie Here...
33. Aperotos Eros Strong as death, and cruel as the grave, Clothed with cloud and tempest’s blackening breath, Known of death’s dread self, whom none outbrave, Strong as death, Love, brow-bound with anguish for a wreath, Fierce with pain, a tyrant-hearted slave, Burns above a world that groans beneath. Hath not pity power on thee to save, Love? […]...
34. Northern Pike All right. Try this, Then. Every body I know and care for, And every body Else is going To die in a loneliness I can’t imagine and a pain I don’t know. We had To go on living. We Untangled the net, we slit The body of this fish Open from the hinge of the […]...
35. It Takes a While to Disappear The city purrs, it hums along, the morning hardly risen. A well-dressed drunk smears her finger across a doorman’s lips and whispers. Someone stumbles. Someone curses. Someone hoses down the pavement. We must have made a mess of things again, all fuzzy black and white And greenish at the corners. Some final thing That put […]...
36. Water Lily My whole life is mine, but whoever says so Will deprive me, for it is infinite. The ripple of water, the shade of the sky Are mine; it is still the same, my life. No desire opens me: I am full, I never close myself with refusal- In the rythm of my daily soul I […]...
37. Boy at the Window Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a God-forsaken stare As outcast Adam […]...
38. Of Three Or Four In The Room Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at the window. Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns, The fires on the hills. And people who left whole Are brought home in the evening, like small change. Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at […]...
39. Spring And All By the road to the contagious hospital Under the surge of the blue Mottled clouds driven from the Northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the Waste of broad, muddy fields Brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen Patches of standing water The scattering of tall trees All along the road the reddish Purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy Stuff […]...
40. Privacy Oh you who are shy of the popular eye, (Though most of us seek to survive it) Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die Because she could never be private. There are pebbles and reeds for aquarium needs Of eel and of pike who are bold fish; But who gives a thought to […]...