At Wilfred Owen's Grave

Related poetry:

1. The Locker All the dull hollow clamor has died And what was contained, Removed, Reproved Adulation or sentiment, Left with the pungent darkness As remembered as the sudden light. Originally published by The Raintown Review...
2. The House Of Dust: Introduction THE HOUSE OF DUST A Symphony BY CONRAD AIKEN To Jessie NOTE . . . Parts of this poem have been printed in “The North American Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review”. . . . I am Indebted to Lafcadio Hearn for the episode called “The Screen Maiden” In Part II. This text […]...
3. Water and Gold You came to me as rain breaks on the desert When every flower springs to life at once, But joy is an illusion to the expert: The Bedouin has learned how not to want. You came to me as riches to a miser When all is gold, or so his heart believes, Until he dies […]...
4. Memory A black ringlet Curls to lie At the nape of her neck, Glistening with sweat In the evaporate moonlight… This is what I remember Now that I cannot forget. And tonight, If I have forgotten her name, I remember: Rigid wire and white lace Half-impressed in her flesh… Our soft cries, like regret, … the […]...
5. The Forge To at last be indestructible, a poem Must first glow, almost flammable, upon A thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone, Then bend this way and that, and slowly cool At arms-length, something irreducible Drawn out with caution, toughened in a pool Of water so contrary just a hiss Escapes it-water instantly a mist. […]...
6. Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget,” Dove-white on her car’s window, and the wren, Because her heart is tender, might regret It called the sun to wake her. As I slept, She heard lost names recounted, one by one. She wrote in sidewalk chalk: “Never Forget,” And kept her heart’s own counsel. No […]...
7. A monument in words And so I had a glaring revelation, I couldn’t find the poet in the man although I read his life composed by writers true disposed To tell it with veracity. They built a monument in words And deeds, a shrine of writers’ reeds inlaid with refined And proper quotes. Those motes were hardly real; I […]...
8. Discrimination The meter I had sought to find, perplexed, Was ripped from books of “verse” that read like prose. I found it in sheet music, in long rows Of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks Of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed Half-centuries by archivists, unscanned. I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed- Why should their tattered artistry be banned? […]...
9. Poetry And Religion Religions are poems. They concert Our daylight and dreaming mind, our Emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture Into the only whole thinking: poetry. Nothing’s said till it’s dreamed out in words And nothing’s true that figures in words only. A poem, compared with an arrayed religion, May be like a soldier’s one short marriage night […]...
10. THE DEATH OF ART “Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.” -critic Harold Bloom, who first called slam poetry “the death of art.” I am not a poet. I want to be rich and buy things for my family. Besides, I am sort of popular and can honestly say I’ve had a great […]...
11. Fahr an' Ice, Apologies to Robert Frost From what I know of death, I’ll side with those Who’d like to have a say in how it goes: Just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker), And real fahr off, instead of quicker. Originally published by Light Quarterly...
12. The Grave Of Keats Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain, He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue: Taken from life when life and love were new The youngest of the martyrs here is lain, Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain. No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew, But gentle violets weeping with the […]...
13. She Gathered Lilacs, for Beth She gathered lilacs And arrayed them in her hair; Tonight, she taught the wind to be free. She kept her secrets In a silver locket; Her companions were starlight and mystery. She danced all night To the beat of her heart; With her tears she imbued the sea. She hid her despair In a crystal […]...
14. Pan … Among the shadows of the groaning elms, Amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves… … Once there were paths that led to coracles That clung to piers like loosening barnacles… … where we cannot return, because we lost The pebbles and the playthings, and the moss… … hangs weeping gently downward, maidens’ hair Who […]...
15. Tremble Her predatory eye, The single feral iris, Scans. Her raptor beak, All jagged sharp-edged thrust, Juts. Her hard talon, Clenched in pinched expectation, Waits. Her clipped wings, Preened against reality, Tremble. Originally published by The Lyric...
16. Charon 2004 I, too, have stood paralyzed at the helm Watching onrushing, inevitable disaster. I too have felt sweat (or ecstatic tears) plaster Damp hair to my eyes, as a slug’s dense film Becomes mucous-insulate. Always, thereafter Living in darkness, bright things overwhelm. Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea...
17. Epistle to Neruda Superb, Like a seasoned lion, Neruda buys bread in the shop. He asks for it to be wrapped in paper And solemly puts it under his arm: “Let someone at least think That at some time I bought a book…” Waving his hand in farewell, Like a Roman rather dreamily royal, In the air scented […]...
18. Will There Be Starlight Will there be starlight Tonight While she gathers Damask And lilac And sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, Or will she find thorns Guarding the petals Of roses unborn? Will there be starlight Tonight While she gathers Seashells And mussels And albatross feathers? And will she find treasure Or will she find pain At […]...
19. Preface This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, dominion or power, except War. Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry. The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry […]...
20. The Watch Moonlight spills down vacant sills, Illuminates an empty bed. Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates Wan silver circles, left unread By its companion unmoved now By anything that lies ahead. I watch the minutes test the limits Of ornamental movement here, Where once another hand would hover. Each circuit incomplete. So dear, So precious, […]...
21. Fountainhead I did not delight in love so much As in a kiss like linnets’ wings, The flutterings of a pulse so soft The heart remembers, as it sings: To bathe there was its transport, brushed By marble lips, or porcelain,– One liquid kiss, one cool outburst From pale rosettes. What did it mean… To float […]...
22. Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? “Ah, are you digging on my grave, My loved one? planting rue?” “No: yesterday he went to wed One of the brightest wealth has bred. ‘It cannot hurt her now,’ he said, ‘That I should not be true.'” “Then who is digging on my grave, My nearest dearest kin?” “Ah, no: they sit and think, […]...
23. A True Story, for Jeremy Jeremy hit the ball today, Over the fence and far away. So very, very far away A neighbor had to toss it back. (She thought it was an air attack!) Jeremy hit the ball so hard It flew across his neighbor’s yard. So very hard across her yard The bat that boomed a mighty “THWACK!” […]...
24. The Royal Review All hail to the Empress of India, Great Britain’s Queen Long may she live in health, happy and serene That came from London, far away, To review the Scottish Volunteers in grand array: Most magnificent to be seen, Near by Salisbury Crags and its pastures green, Which will long be remembered by our gracious Queen […]...
25. Mother’s Smile For my wife, Elizabeth Harris Burch, and my mother, Christine Ena Burch There never was a fonder smile Than mother’s smile, no softer touch Than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile And know she loves you more than “much. ” So more than “much, ” much more than “all. ” Though tender words, these do not […]...
26. The Folly of Wisdom She is wise in the way that children are wise, Looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, So I smile, and I follow… And the years are dark […]...
27. The Octopi Jars Long-vacant eyes Now lodged in clear glass, A-swim with pale arms As delicate as angels’ … You are beyond all hope Of salvage now… And yet I would pause, No fear!, To once touch Your arcane beaks… I, more alien than you To this imprismed world, Notice, most of all, The scratches on the inside […]...
28. In Flight Convergence Serene, almost angelic, The lights of the city attend Upon lumbering behemoths Shrilly screeching displeasure; they say That nothing is certain, That nothing man dreams or ordains Long endures his command. Here the streetlights that flicker And those burning steady Seem one, From a distance. Descend, They abruptly part ways, So that nothing is one […]...
29. Auschwitz Rose There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar, A rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name. The world forgot her, and is not the same. I love her and would not forget desire, But keep her memory exalted flame To justify the thistles and the nettles. On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles; They […]...
30. She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful She was very strange, and beautiful, as the violet mist upon the hills before night falls when the hoot owl calls and the cricket trills And the envapored moon hangs low and full. She was very strange, in a pleasant way, as the hummingbird flies madly still… so I drank my fill of her every […]...
31. In Praise of Meter The earth is full of rhythms so precise The octave of the crystal can produce A trillion oscillations, yet not lose A second’s beat. The ear needs no device To hear the unsprung rhythms of the couch Drown out the mouth’s; the lips can be debauched By kisses, should the heart put back its watch […]...
32. Healed of My Hurt Healed of my hurt, I laud the inhuman Sea Yea, bless the Angels Four that there convene; For healed I am even by the pitiless breath Distilled in wholesome dew named rosmarine....
33. Rainbow (II) You made us hopeful, LORD; where is your Hope When every lovely Rainbow bright and chill Reflects your Will? You made us artful, LORD; where is your Art, As we connive our way to easeful death: Sad waste of Breath! You made us needful, LORD; what is your Need, When all desire lies in imperfection? […]...
34. See See how her hair has thinned: it does not seem / Like hair at all, but like the airy moult / Of emus who outraced the wind and left / Soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes / Are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs, / And deepens on itself, as though […]...
35. The Poet in the Nursery The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling In a dim library, just behind the chair From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling A song about some Lovers at a Fair, Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling That rhymes were beastly things and never there. And as I groped, the whole time I […]...
36. Excerpts from "Poetry&quot Poetry, I found you Where at last they chained and bound you; With devices all around you To torture and confound you, I found you-shivering, bare. They had shorn your raven hair And taken both your eyes Which, once cerulean as the skies, Had leapt at dawn to wild surmise Of what was waiting there. […]...
37. Churchill's Grave I stood beside the grave of him who blazed The comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and asked […]...
38. The Desk, for Jeremy There is a child I used to know Who sat, perhaps, at this same desk Where you sit now, and made a mess Of things sometimes. I wonder how He learned at all… He saw T-Rexes down the hall And dreamed of trains and cars and wrecks. He dribbled phantom basketballs, Shot spitwads at his […]...
39. The Peripheries of Love Through waning afternoons we glide The watery peripheries of love. A silence, a quietude falls. Above us–the sagging pavilions of clouds. Below us–rough pebbles slowly worn smooth Grate in the gentle turbulence Of yesterday’s forgotten rains. Later, the moon like a virgin Lifts her stricken white face And the waters rise Toward some unfathomable shore. […]...
40. The City Is A Garment A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,- The city is a garment stretched so thin Her festive colors bleed into the night, And everywhere bright seams, unraveling, Now spill their brilliant contents out like coins On motorways and esplanades; bead cars Come tumbling down long highways; at her groin A railtrack like a zipper […]...