Elizabeth

Related poetry:

1. The Moss Of His Skin “Young girls in old Arabia were often buried alive next To their fathers, apparently as sacrifice to the goddesses Of the tribes…” Harold Feldman, “Children of the Desert” Psychoanalysis And Psychoanalytic Review, Fall 1958 It was only important To smile and hold still, To lie down beside him And to rest awhile, To be folded […]...
2. Elizabeth Childers Dust of my dust, And dust with my dust, O, child who died as you entered the world, Dead with my death! Not knowing breath, though you tried so hard, With a heart that beat when you lived with me, And stopped when you left me for Life. It is well, my child. For you […]...
3. Elizabeth Gone 1. You lay in the nest of your real death, Beyond the print of my nervous fingers Where they touched your moving head; Your old skin puckering, your lungs’ breath Grown baby short as you looked up last At my face swinging over the human bed, And somewhere you cried, let me go let me […]...
4. To the Snake Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck And stroked your cold, pulsing throat As you hissed to me, glinting Arrowy gold scales, and I felt The weight of you on my shoulders, And the whispering silver of your dryness Sounded close at my ears Green Snake I swore to my companions that certainly […]...
5. Queen Elizabeth Speaks My hands were stained with blood, my heart was Proud and cold, My soul is black with shame. . . but I gave Shakespeare gold. So after aeons of flame, I may, by grace of God, Rise up to kiss the dust that Shakespeare’s feet have trod....
6. Arms And The Boy Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh. Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads. Or give him cartridges of fine […]...
7. Cockroach Roach, foulest of creatures, Who attacks with yellow teeth And an army of cousins big as shoes, You are lumps of coal that are mechanized And when I turn on the light you scuttle Into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land. Yet I know you are only the common angel Turned […]...
8. A Boy Named Sue Well, my daddy left home when I was three, And he didn’t leave much to Ma and me, Just this old guitar and a bottle of booze. Now I don’t blame him because he run and hid, But the meanest thing that he ever did was Before he left he went and named me Sue. […]...
9. "Daddy" Warbucks In Memoriam What’s missing is the eyeballs In each of us, but it doesn’t matter Because you’ve got the bucks, the bucks, the bucks. You let me touch them, fondle the green faces Lick at their numbers and it lets you be My “Daddy!” “Daddy!” and though I fought all alone With molesters and crooks, […]...
10. Sackcloth I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of drunkards. Psalm 102 I made sackcloth my garment once, by cutting Arm and neck holes into a burlap bag. A croker sack they called it. Sackdragger They […]...
11. Elizabeth Elizabeth, it surely is most fit [Logic and common usage so commanding] In thy own book that first thy name be writ, Zeno and other sages notwithstanding; And I have other reasons for so doing Besides my innate love of contradiction; Each poet – if a poet – in pursuing The muses thro’ their bowers […]...
12. In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen ELIZABETH Proem. 1.1 Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie, 1.2 Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky 1.3 Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime, 1.4 And so has vow’d, whilst there is world or time. 1.5 So great’s thy glory, and thine excellence, 1.6 The sound thereof raps every human sense […]...
13. EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE Desks are straining on all fours, flanks Heaving to hurl the hunched riders Down crack and cranny, buck Finger-snapping lids, consume Scrap and scribble between tongue and teeth. The blackboard is cleaning itself behind me, Making my neck prick as it scatters dust Like seed, empties its clogged pores of clichй, Anoints its carved channels […]...
14. Teeth English Teeth, English Teeth! Shining in the sun A part of British heritage Aye, each and every one. English Teeth, Happy Teeth! Always having fun Clamping down on bits of fish And sausages half done. English Teeth! HEROES’ Teeth! Hear them click! and clack! Let’s sing a song of praise to them – Three Cheers […]...
15. To A Small Boy Standing On My Shoes While I Am Wearing Them Let’s straighten this out, my little man, And reach an agreement if we can. I entered your door as an honored guest. My shoes are shined and my trousers are pressed, And I won’t stretch out and read you the funnies And I won’t pretend that we’re Easter bunnies. If you must get somebody down […]...
16. On Elizabeth L. H Epitaphs i WOULDST thou hear what Man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much Beauty as could die: Which in life did harbour give To more Virtue than doth live. If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, The […]...
17. The missing the way loss seeps Into neck hollows And curls at temples Sits between front teeth Cavity Empty and waiting For mourning to open The way mourning stays Forever shadowing vision Shaping lives with memory A drawer won’t close Sleep elusive Smile illusive The only real is grief Forever counting the days Minutes missing without knowing […]...
18. Epitaph On Elizabeth Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which in life did harbor give To more virture than doth live. If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, Th’ other let […]...
19. Elizabeth Leaves A Letter For Dr. Frankenstein Whether the clouds had abandoned Geneva that evening No one can say now, but what I remember are roses Bruised at their edges, and china cups yellowed with age. “I am too sick of interior vapors,” I told you, “Find us a corner of sunlight, and hammer it down… Tell me again I’m so lovely […]...
20. Elizabeth told Essex Elizabeth told Essex That she could not forgive The clemency of Deity However might survive That secondary succor We trust that she partook When suing like her Essex For a reprieving Look...
21. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sat gossiping with Robert. (She was really a raving beauty in her day. With Mary Pickford curls in clouds and whirls.) She was trying to think of something nice to say, So she pointed to a page by her fellow star and sage, And said: “I wish that I could write that […]...
22. To Elizabeth Ward Perkins Dear Bessie, would my tired rhyme Had force to rise from apathy, And shaking off its lethargy Ring word-tones like a Christmas chime. But in my soul’s high belfry, chill The bitter wind of doubt has blown, The summer swallows all have flown, The bells are frost-bound, mute and still. Upon the crumbling boards the […]...
23. Yvonne Of Brittany In your mother’s apple-orchard, Just a year ago, last spring: Do you remember, Yvonne! The dear trees lavishing Rain of their starry blossoms To make you a coronet? Do you ever remember, Yvonne, As I remember yet? In your mother’s apple-orchard, When the world was left behind: You were shy, so shy, Yvonne! But your […]...
24. An Epitaph On A Child Of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel Weep with me, all you that read This little story; And know, for whom a tear you shed Death’s self is sorry. ‘Twas a child that so did thrive In grace and feature, As heaven and nature seemed to strive Which owned the creature. Years he numbered scarce thirteen When fates turned cruel, Yet three […]...
25. The Record Fearing that she might go one day With some fine fellow of her choice, I called her from her childish play, And made a record of her voice. And now that she is truly gone, I hear it sweet and crystal clear From out my wheezy gramophone: “I love you, Daddy dear.” Indeed it’s true […]...
26. The Trifler Death’s the lover that I’d be taking; Wild and fickle and fierce is he. Small’s his care if my heart be breaking- Gay young Death would have none of me. Hear them clack of my haste to greet him! No one other my mouth had kissed. I had dressed me in silk to meet him- […]...
27. TO DAISY ABEY In sleep I dream the gratitude I know I cannot say Now you are in a latitude where palm trees hold the sway There are always things between us that keep getting in the way And stop me from expressing the things I mean to say In a night of wind and weathers love will […]...
28. The Unlucky Apple ‘Twas the apple that in Eden Caused our father’s primal fall; And the Trojan War, remember ‘Twas an apple caused it all. So for weeks I’ve hesitated, You can guess the reason why, For I want to tell my darling She’s the apple of my eye....
29. Sweet is the swamp with its secrets Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, Until we meet a snake; ‘Tis then we sigh for houses, And our departure take At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is summer’s treason, And guile is where it goes....
30. To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Triumph Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wintgs on, Testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade, And think of that first flawless moment over the lawn Of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made! There below are the trees, as awkward as camels; And here are the shocked starlings pumping past And think of […]...
31. A Sort Of A Song Let the snake wait under His weed And the writing Be of words, slow and quick, sharp To strike, quiet to wait, Sleepless. -through metaphor to reconcile The people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas But in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits The rocks....
32. A Portrait Because my love is quick to come and go- A little here, and then a little there- What use are any words of mine to swear My heart is stubborn, and my spirit slow Of weathering the drip and drive of woe? What is my oath, when you have but to bare My little, easy […]...
33. A Case Of Murder They should not have left him there alone, Alone that is except for the cat. He was only nine, not old enough To be left alone in a basement flat, Alone, that is, except for the cat. A dog would have been a different thing, A big gruff dog with slashing jaws, But a cat […]...
34. The Marriage of Edward Herbert Esquire, and Mrs. Elizabeth Herbert CUPID one day ask’d his Mother, When she meant that he shou’d Wed? You’re too Young, my Boy, she said: Nor has Nature made another Fit to match with Cupid’s Bed. Cupid then her Sight directed To a lately Wedded Pair; Where Himself the Match effected; They as Youthful, they as Fair. Having by Example […]...
35. As far as your Rifles Cover Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride, You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that’s new and wide? When you’ve scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over, You will hold the land – ay, you’ll […]...
36. Snow White, to the Prince after Susan Thomas Truth is, my life was no fairytale, That afternoon, I lay, a smiling corpse Under a glass sky, a rotten apple Lodged in my throat like a black lump Of cancer, your sloppy kiss dying on my lips. Did you really believe a kiss could cure The poison galloping through my veins, […]...
37. Eating and Drinking chapter VI Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, “Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.” And he said: Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother’s […]...
38. The Zeppelin Guns! far and near Quick, sudden, angry, They startle the still street, Upturned faces appear, Doors open on darkness, There is a hurrying of feet, And whirled athwart gloom White fingers of alarm Point at last there Where illumined and dumb A shape suspended Hovers, a demon of the starry air! Strange and cold as […]...
39. Dream Song 176: All that hair flashing over All that hair flashing over the Atlantic, Henry’s girl’s gone. She’ll find Paris a sweet place As many times he did. She’s there now, having left yesterday. I held Her cousin’s hand, all innocence, on the climb to the tower. Her cousin is if possible more beautiful than she is. All over the world grades […]...
40. I Do Not Love Thee For That Fair I do not love thee for that fair Rich fan of thy most curious hair; Though the wires thereof be drawn Finer than threads of lawn, And are softer than the leaves On which the subtle spider weaves. I do not love thee for those flowers Growing on thy cheeks, love’s bowers; Though such cunning […]...