Domestic Work, 1937

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1. Cambridge, Spring 1937 At last the air fragrant, the bird’s bubbling whistle Succinct in the unknown unsettled trees: O little Charles, beside the Georgian colleges And milltown New England; at last the wind soft, The sky unmoving, and the dead look Of factory windows separate, at last, From windows gray and wet: for now the sunlight Thrashes its […]...
2. Nantucket Flowers through the window Lavender and yellow Changed by white curtains- Smell of cleanliness- Sunshine of late afternoon- On the glass tray A glass pitcher, the tumbler Turned down, by which A key is lying – And the Immaculate white bed...
3. Domestic Scene The meal was o’er, the lamp was lit, The family sat in its glow; The Mother never ceased to knit, The Daughter never slacked to sew; The Father read his evening news, The Son was playing solitaire: If peace a happy home could choose I’m sure you’d swear that it was there. BUT The Mother: […]...
4. Monday Night May 11th 1846 / Domestic Peace Why should such gloomy silence reign; And why is all the house so drear, When neither danger, sickness, pain, Nor death, nor want have entered here? We are as many as we were That other night, when all were gay, And full of hope, and free from care; Yet, is there something gone away. The […]...
5. Work I caught rumours of some internal hearing Then you appeared with tears squeezing your eyes, Hands scrunched up like a child’s, rice paper skin. That work mates complained was a big surprise As you were office sunshine, shafted no-one, And turned your quick mind to the broadest cause. But there you were, a whisper finished…gone, […]...
6. Last Week Oh, the new-chum went to the backblock run, But he should have gone there last week. He tramped ten miles with a loaded gun, But of turkey of duck saw never a one, For he should have been there last week, They said, There were flocks of ’em there last week. He wended his way […]...
7. Woman Work I’ve got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I’ve got shirts to press The tots to dress The can to be cut I gotta clean up this […]...
8. Work When twenty-one I loved to dream, And was to loafing well inclined; Somehow I couldn’t get up steam To welcome work of any kind. While students burned the midnight lamp, With dour ambition as their goad, I longed to be a gayful tramp And greet adventure on the road. But now that sixty years have […]...
9. A Domestic Tragedy Clorinda met me on the way As I came from the train; Her face was anything but gay, In fact, suggested pain. “Oh hubby, hubby dear!” she cried, “I’ve awful news to tell. . . .” “What is it, darling?” I replied; “Your mother is she well?” “Oh no! oh no! it is not that, […]...
10. I dwell in Possibility I dwell in Possibility A fairer House than Prose More numerous of Windows Superior for Doors Of Chambers as the Cedars Impregnable of Eye And for an Everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky Of Visitors the fairest For Occupation This The spreading wide of narrow Hands To gather Paradise...
11. 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 […]...
12. Never Suddenly, desperately I thought, “No, never In millions of minutes Can I for one second Calm-leaving my own self Like clothes on a chair-back And quietly opening The door of one house (No, not one of all millions) Of blood, flesh and brain, Climb the nerve-stair and look From the tower, from the windows Of […]...
13. A House upon the Height A House upon the Height That Wagon never reached No Dead, were ever carried down No Peddler’s Cart approached Whose Chimney never smoked Whose Windows Night and Morn Caught Sunrise first and Sunset last Then held an Empty Pane Whose fate Conjecture knew No other neighbor did And what it was we never lisped Because […]...
14. The Need of Being Versed in Country Things The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, Like a pistil after the petals go. The barn opposed across the way, That would have joined the house in flame Had it been the will of the wind, was left […]...
15. Clean Curtains NEW neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets. The look of their clean white curtains was the same as the rim of a nun’s bonnet. One way was an oyster pail factory, one way they made candy, one way paper boxes, strawboard cartons. The warehouse trucks shook the dust of the […]...
16. Sad Steps Groping back to bed after a piss I part the thick curtains, and am startled by The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness. Four o’clock: wedge-shaped gardens lie Under a cavernous, a wind-pierced sky. There’s something laughable about this, The way the moon dashes through the clouds that blow Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart (Stone-coloured […]...
17. Work chapter VII Then a ploughman said, “Speak to us of Work.” And he answered, saying: You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission […]...
18. The Deserted House Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide. Careless tenants they! All within is dark as night: In the windows is no light; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. Close the door; the shutters close; Or through the windows we shall see The […]...
19. Do You Want Affidavits? THERE’S a hole in the bottom of the sea. Do you want affidavits? There’s a man in the moon with money for you. Do you want affidavits? There are ten dancing girls in a sea-chamber off Nantucket waiting for you. There are tall candles in Timbuctoo burning penance for you. There are-anything else? Speak now-for […]...
20. Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I have found the closer your relationship The closer the fit; The unsettling bit is the fear Of not fitting the role, or where Your forbear made a name or leashed A reputation, which by imputation […]...
21. Halls grew darker Halls grew darker and somehow faded. Grates of windows drowned in black. Every knight, every beautiful lady Knew the tiding: “The Queen’s deadly sick.” And the king, very silent and frowned, Passed the doors, lost of pages and slaves… Every word, that by chance cast around, Proved the truth of the closing grave. By the […]...
22. On A Wedding Anniversary The sky is torn across This ragged anniversary of two Who moved for three years in tune Down the long walks of their vows. Now their love lies a loss And Love and his patients roar on a chain; From every tune or crater Carrying cloud, Death strikes their house. Too late in the wrong […]...
23. Behavior BEHAVIOR-fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself, Nature and the Soul expressed-America and freedom expressed-In it the finest art, In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance, In it physique, intellect, faith-in it just as much as to manage an army or a city, or to write a book-perhaps more, The youth, […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down… – from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air Of late afternoon Is now the colour of tea. […]...
26. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
27. Chicken's claw by a dank and ancient coffin In the gaunt and gloomy hall Alone and sighing deeply Crouched the sorriest crone of all Her worn hands clutched a feather Her eyes were sore with tears Her lips were mumbling slowly Through the burdens of her fears Her clothes were drab and tattered Her body drooped and […]...
28. The Liars (March, 1919)A LIAR goes in fine clothes. A liar goes in rags. A liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes. A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies. And the stonecutters earn a living-with lies-on the tombs of liars. Aliar looks ’em in […]...
29. Name His name has been ghosted over the fence, Leaving an alias, burn, prison clothes. I’m half the man, he says, not my sentence, Waiting on time that other people chose. From their windows men sing out numbers, names, Hands to the grille light for the come-back call, But words get lost, change allegiance, and blame’s […]...
30. Work Let me but do my work from day to day, In field or forest, at the desk or loom, In roaring market-place or tranquil room; Let me but find it in my heart to say, When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, “This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; “Of all who live, I […]...
31. The Day's Work We now, held in captivity, Spring to our bondage nor grieve See now, how it is blesseder, Brothers, to give than receive! Keep trust, wherefore we were made, Paying the debt that we owe; For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade, Will carry us where would go. The Ship that Found Herself. […]...
32. The Grave Of The Kitchen Mouse The stone says “Coors” The gay carpet says “Camels” Spears of dried grass The little sticks the children gathered The leaves the wind gathered The cat did not kill him The dog did not, not the trap Or lightning, or the rain’s anger The tree’s claws The black teeth of the moon The sun drilled […]...
33. What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is if you’re Old enough to read this you know what Work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, Shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain […]...
34. Circles of Doors I LOVE him, I love him, ran the patter of her lips And she formed his name on her tongue and sang And she sent him word she loved him so much, So much, and death was nothing; work, art, home, All was nothing if her love for him was not first Of all; the […]...
35. Work And Joy Each day I live I thank the Lord I do the work I love; And in it find a rich reward, All price and praise above. For few may do the work they love, The fond unique employ, That fits them as a hand a glove, And gives them joy. Oh gentlefolk, do you and […]...
36. Work And Contemplation The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel Is full, and artfully her fingers feel With quick adjustment, provident control, The lines too subtly twisted to unroll Out to a perfect thread. I […]...
37. On No Work Of Words On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft: To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to […]...
38. Work Gangs BOX cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack. Maybe their chatter goes: I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line. I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered […]...
39. A Work Of Artifice The bonsai tree In the attractive pot Could have grown eighty feet tall On the side of a mountain Till split by lightning. But a gardener Carefully pruned it. It is nine inches high. Every day as he Whittles back the branches The gardener croons, It is your nature To be small and cozy, Domestic […]...
40. Work and Play The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer, A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage, A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air. But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust In shimmering exhaust Searching to slake Its fever in ocean Will play and be idle or else it will bust. The swallow […]...