A Spring Piece Left In The Middle
Taut, thick fingers punch
The teeth of my typewriter.
Three words are down on paper
in capitals:
SPRING
SPRING
SPRING…
And me poet, proofreader,
The man who’s forced to read
Two thousand bad lines
every day
for two liras
Why,
since spring
has come, am I
still sitting here
like a ragged
black chair?
My head puts on its cap by itself,
I fly out of the printer’s,
I’m on the street.
The lead dirt of the composing room
on my face,
Seventy-five cents in my pocket.
SPRING IN THE AIR…
In the barbershops
they’re powdering
the sallow cheeks
of the pariah of Publishers Row.
And in the store windows
three-color bookcovers
flash like sunstruck mirrors.
But me,
I don’t have even a book of ABC’s
That lives on this street
And carries my name on
But what the hell…
I don’t look back,
The lead dirt of the composing room
on my face,
Seventy-five cents in my pocket,
SPRING IN THE AIR…
*
The piece got left in the middle.
It rained and swamped the lines.
But oh! what I would have written…
The starving writer sitting on his three-thousand-page
three-volume manuscript
Wouldn’t stare at the window of the kebab joint
But with his shining eyes would take
The Armenian bookseller’s dark plump daughter by storm…
The sea would start smelling sweet.
Spring would rear up
like a sweating red mare
And, leaping onto its bare back,
I’d ride it
into the water.
Then
my typewriter would follow me
every step of the way.
I’d say:
“Oh, don’t do it!
Leave
Then
My head-my hair failing out
would shout into the distance:
“I AM IN LOVE…”
*
I’m twenty-seven,
She’s seventeen.
“Blind Cupid,
Lame Cupid,
Both blind and lame Cupid
Said, Love this girl,”
I was going to write;
I couldn’t say it
but still can!
But if
it rained,
If the lines I wrote got swamped,
If I have twenty-five cents left in my pocket,
what the hell…
Hey, spring is here spring is here spring
spring is here!
My blood is budding inside me!
20 and 21 April 1929
Related poetry:
- The Right to Grief To Certain Poets About to Die TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow, Over the dead child of a millionaire, And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank Which the millionaire might order his secretary to Scratch off And get cashed. Very well, You for your grief and I for mine. […]...
- Imitated From The Japanese A most astonishing thing Seventy years have I lived; (Hurrah for the flowers of Spring, For Spring is here again.) Seventy years have I lived No ragged beggar-man, Seventy years have I lived, Seventy years man and boy, And never have I danced for joy....
- Outbid When Cupid held an auction sale, I hastened to his mart, For I had heard that he would sell The blue-eyed Dora’s heart. I brought a wealth of truest love, The most that I could proffer, Because, forsooth, of stocks or bonds I had not one to offer. When Cupid offered Dora’s heart, I bid […]...
- Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
- To A New England Poet Though skilled in Latin and in Greek, And earning fifty cents a week, Such knowledge, and the income, too, Should teach you better what to do: The meanest drudges, kept in pay, Can pocket fifty cents a day. Why stay in such a tasteless land, Where all must on a level stand, (Excepting people, at […]...
- Spring Rain I thought I had forgotten, But it all came back again To-night with the first spring thunder In a rush of rain. I remembered a darkened doorway Where we stood while the storm swept by, Thunder gripping the earth And lightning scrawled on the sky. The passing motor busses swayed, For the street was a […]...
- Villanelle Of Spring Bells Bells in the town alight with spring Converse, with a concordance of new airs Make clear the fresh and ancient sound they sing. People emerge from winter to hear them ring, Children glitter with mischief and the blind man hears Bells in the town alight with spring. Even he on his eyes feels the caressing […]...
- Middle Passage I Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy: Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, Sharks following the moans the fever and the dying; Horror the corposant and compass rose. Middle Passage: Voyage through death To life upon these shores. “10 April 1800 Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says Their moaning is a prayer for death, Our […]...
- Flower God, God Of The Spring FLOWER god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful, Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles, Here I wander in April Cold, grey-headed; and still to my Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer, Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant; Spring, flower-planter in meadows, Child-conductor in willowy Fields deep dotted with bloom, daisies […]...
- Tom Beatty I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard, For I tried the rights of property, Although by lamp-light, for thirty years, In that poker room in the opera house. And I say to you that Life’s a gambler Head and shoulders above us all. No mayor alive can close the […]...
- The Winter's Spring The winter comes; I walk alone, I want no bird to sing; To those who keep their hearts their own The winter is the spring. No flowers to please-no bees to hum- The coming spring’s already come. I never want the Christmas rose To come before its time; The seasons, each as God bestows, Are […]...
- These, I, Singing in Spring THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers, (For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy? And who but I should be the poet of comrades?) Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world-but soon I pass the gates, Now along the pond-side-now wading in a little, fearing not the wet, […]...
- Night-piece what’s that i’m awake A bang like a door or a foot Knocking a chair who’s there Tense i lie in my bed my face Stretching out on the black air My ears strain……a creak this time Like a cat on the stair – but we have no cat If the door-handle turned and a…. […]...
- Madam Life's a Piece in Bloom Madam Life’s a piece in bloom Death goes dogging everywhere: She’s the tenant of the room, He’s the ruffian on the stair. You shall see her as a friend, You shall bilk him once or twice; But he’ll trap you in the end, And he’ll stick you for her price. With his kneebones at your […]...
- 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 […]...
- A Piece Of The Storm For Sharon Horvath From the shadow of domes in the city of domes, A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That’s all There was to it. No more than […]...
- Night Piece Climb, claim your shelf-room, far Packed from inquisitive moon And cold contagious stars. Lean out, but look no longer, No further, than to stir Night with extended finger. Now fill the box with light, Flood full the shining block, Masonry against night. Let window, curtain, blind Soft-sieve and sift and shred The impertinence of sound. […]...
- The Spring And The Fall In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year, I walked the road beside my dear. The trees were black where the bark was wet. I see them yet, in the spring of the year. He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach That was out of the way and hard […]...
- Nocturne Of Remembered Spring I. Moonlight silvers the tops of trees, Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall And through the evening fall, Clearly, as if through enchanted seas, Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away, In another world and another day. Moonlight turns the purple lilacs blue, Moonlight leaves the fountain hoar and old, And the boughs of elms grow […]...
- The Meadows In Spring ‘Tis a dull sight To see the year dying, When winter winds Set the yellow wood sighing: Sighing, oh! sighing. When such a time cometh, I do retire Into and old room Beside a bright fire: Oh, pile a bright fire! And there I sit Reading old things, Of knights and lorn damsels, While the […]...
- The Cold Clear Spring At Nanyang A pity it is evening, yet I do love the water of this spring Seeing how clear it is, how clean; Rays of sunset gleam on it, Lighting up its ripples, making it One with those who travel The roads; I turn and face The moon; sing it a song, then Listen to the sound […]...
- The Enkindled Spring This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes. I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze […]...
- Spring Greeting From the German of Herder. All faintly through my soul to-day, As from a bell that far away Is tinkled by some frolic fay, Floateth a lovely chiming. Thou magic bell, to many a fell And many a winter-saddened dell Thy tongue a tale of Spring doth tell, Too passionate-sweet for rhyming. Chime out, thou […]...
- End, Middle, Beginning There was an unwanted child. Aborted by three modern methods She hung on to the womb, Hooked onto I Building her house into it And it was to no avail, To black her out. At her birth She did not cry, Spanked indeed, But did not yell Instead snow fell out of her mouth. As […]...
- Sonnet 104 – A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece, Diminutive, but room enough. . like clay To finger eager on some torrid day. . Who’d throw her black hair back, and hang, and tease. Never, not once in all one’s horny lease To’have had a demi-lay, a pretty, gay, Snug, slim and supple-breasted girl for play. […]...
- Song To A Fair Young Lady Going Out Of Town In The Spring Ask not the cause why sullen spring So long delays her flow’rs to bear; Why warbling birds forget to sing, And winter storms invert the year? Chloris is gone; and Fate provides To make it spring where she resides. Chloris is gone, the cruel fair; She cast not back a pitying eye: But left her […]...
- Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in […]...
- Spring Song THE air was full of sun and birds, The fresh air sparkled clearly. Remembrance wakened in my heart And I knew I loved her dearly. The fallows and the leafless trees And all my spirit tingled. My earliest thought of love, and Spring’s First puff of perfume mingled. In my still heart the thoughts awoke, […]...
- UPON LOVE A crystal vial Cupid brought, Which had a juice in it: Of which who drank, he said, no thought Of Love he should admit. I, greedy of the prize, did drink, And emptied soon the glass; Which burnt me so, that I do think The fire of hell it was. Give me my earthen cups […]...
- Poem 91 I Saw in secret to my Dame, How little Cupid humbly came: And sayd to her All hayle my mother. But when he saw me laugh, for shame: His face with bashfull blood did flame, Not knowing Venus from the other, Then neuer blush Cupid (quoth I) For many haue err’d in this beauty....
- Late Spring I Ah, who will tell me, in these leaden days, Why the sweet Spring delays, And where she hides, the dear desire Of every heart that longs For bloom, and fragrance, and the ruby fire Of maple-buds along the misty hills, And that immortal call which fills The waiting wood with songs? The snow-drops came […]...
- The arrival of spring (cathe waller) on the last day of winter i went to bed Harsh winds rainstorms beating my head Houses trees with a sucked-out look New year flaked from the old one’s hook Then overnight such a change of heart Spring come home with her confectionery cart Hundreds-and-thousands strewn in the breeze Houses sampling them as well as […]...
- Night-Piece Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan, Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still; For now the moon through heaven sails alone, Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill. The faun from out his dim and secret place Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream Half-wakens, seeing there his sylvan face Reflected, […]...
- AUTOBIOGRAPHY (POLISH IT LIKE A PIECE OF SILVER) I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas. What did Judy say? “God-forsaken is beautiful, too.” A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes Care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a Manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver. An old dog stands […]...
- While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry And blackening east that so embitters March, Well-housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch, And driven dust and withering snowflake fly; Already in glimpses of the tarnish’d sky The sun is warm and beckons to the larch, And where the covert hazels interarch Their […]...
- Spring Day Bath The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is A smell of tulips and narcissus In the air. The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and Bores through the water In the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It Cleaves the water Into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright […]...
- By the Spring, at Sunset Sometimes we remember kisses, Remember the dear heart-leap when they came: Not always, but sometimes we remember The kindness, the dumbness, the good flame Of laughter and farewell. Beside the road Afar from those who said “Good-by” I write, Far from my city task, my lawful load. Sun in my face, wind beside my shoulder, […]...
- I have a Bird in spring I have a Bird in spring Which for myself doth sing The spring decoys. And as the summer nears And as the Rose appears, Robin is gone. Yet do I not repine Knowing that Bird of mine Though flown Learneth beyond the sea Melody new for me And will return. Fast is a safer hand […]...
- Picture Puzzle Piece One picture puzzle piece Lyin’ on the sidewalk, One picture puzzle piece Soakin’ in the rain. It might be a button of blue On the coat of the woman Who lived in a shoe. It might be a magical bean, Or a fold in the red Velvet robe of a queen. It might be the […]...
- Spring in Town The country ever has a lagging Spring, Waiting for May to call its violets forth, And June its roses showers and sunshine bring, Slowly, the deepening verdure o’er the earth; To put their foliage out, the woods are slack, And one by one the singing-birds come back. Within the city’s bounds the time of flowers […]...