The Centipede

Related poetry:

1. March 1 I could stare for hours At her, the woman stepping Out of her bath, breasts Bare, towel around her waist, Before I knew she was you In that one-bedroom in The Village sunny and cold That Friday we woke up Slowly & our breakfast table Arranged itself into A still life with irises In a […]...
2. Hanging Fire I am fourteen And my skin has betrayed me The boy I cannot live without Still sucks his tumb In secret How come my knees are Always so ashy What if I die Before the morning comes And momma’s in the bedroom With the door closed. I have to learn how to dance In time […]...
3. The Gardener XVIII: When Two Sisters When the two sisters go to fetch Water, they come to this spot and They smile. They must be aware of somebody Who stands behind the trees when- Ever they go to fetch water. The two sisters whisper to each Other when they pass this spot. They must have guessed the secret Of that somebody […]...
4. We like March We like March. His Shoes are Purple He is new and high Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler. Makes he Forests dry. Knows the Adder Tongue his coming And presents her Spot Stands the Sun so close and mighty That our Minds are hot. News is he of all the others Bold it were […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. Poem 96 SHe tooke him streight full pitiously lamenting, And wrapt him in her smock: She wrapt him softly, all the while repenting, That he the fly did mock. She drest his wound and it embaulmed wel With salue of soueraigne might: And then she bath’d him in a dainty well The well of deare delight. Who […]...
7. "To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage&quot “It is the future generation that presses into being by means of these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours.” Schopenhauer “The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open. Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen. My hopped up husband drops his home disputes, And hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes, […]...
8. Sonnet CLIII Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep: A maid of Dian’s this advantage found, And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground; Which borrow’d from this holy fire of Love A dateless lively heat, still to endure, And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove Against strange […]...
9. Sonnet 153: Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep, A maid of Dian’s this advantage found, And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground; Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love A dateless lively heat still to endure, And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove Against strange […]...
10. Emotional Idiot Liner Notes – (From Love Is A Dog From Hell) Emotional Idiocy is obviously A theme close to my heart since I seem to use the phrase in novels and CDs alike. My friend and mentor of sorts, Andrew Vachss, upon hearing me Read a rendition of this poem, stated that it ought to be […]...
11. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. Death Of A Cockroach I opened wide the bath-room door, And all at once switched on the light, When moving swift across the floor I saw a streak of ebon bright: Then quick, with slipper in my hand, Before it could escape, I slammed. I missed it once, I missed it twice, But got it ere it gained its […]...
14. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
15. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
16. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
17. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
18. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
19. A Subaltern's Love Song Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun, What strenuous singles we played after tea, We in the tournament – you against me! Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy, The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy, With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won, I am weak from […]...
20. 366. Song-The weary Pund o' Tow Chorus.-The weary pund, the weary pund, The weary pund o’ tow; I think my wife will end her life, Before she spin her tow. I BOUGHT my wife a stane o’ lint, As gude as e’er did grow, And a’ that she has made o’ that Is ae puir pund o’ tow. The weary pund, […]...
21. The Fury Of Sundays Moist, moist, The heat leaking through the hinges, Sun baking the roof like a pie And I and thou and she Eating, working, sweating, Droned up on the heat. The sun as read as the cop car siren. The sun as red as the algebra marks. The sun as red as two electric eyeballs. She […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. Call To Account! The drum of war thunders and thunders. It calls: thrust iron into the living. From every country Slave after slave Are thrown onto bayonet steel. For the sake of what? The earth shivers Hungry And stripped. Mankind is vapourised in a blood bath Only so Someone Somewhere Can get hold of Albania. Human gangs bound […]...
24. The People Upstairs The people upstairs all practise ballet Their living room is a bowling alley Their bedroom is full of conducted tours. Their radio is louder than yours, They celebrate week-ends all the week. When they take a shower, your ceilings leak. They try to get their parties to mix By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks, […]...
25. Resignation I’d hate to be centipede (of legs I’ve only two), For if new trousers I should need (as oftentimes I do), The bill would come to such a lot ‘twould tax an Astorbilt, Or else I’d have to turn a Scot and caper in a kilt. I’m jolly glad I haven’t got a neck like […]...
26. The New Knighthood Who gives him the Bath? “I,” said the wet, Rank-Jungle-sweat, “I’ll give him the Bath!” Who’ll sing the psalms? “We,” said the Palms. “Ere the hot wind becalms, “We’ll sing the psalms.” Who lays on the sword? “I,” said the Sun, Before he has done, “I’ll lay on the sword.” “Who fastens his belt? “I,” […]...
27. Waking In March Last night, again, I dreamed My children were back at home, Small boys huddled in their separate beds, And I went from one to the other Listening to their breathing regular, Almost soundless until a white light Hardened against the bedroom wall, The light of Los Angeles burning south Of here, going at last as […]...
28. TO A GOLDEN HEART THAT HE WORE ROUND HIS NECK [Addressed, during the Swiss tour already mentioned, To a present Lily had given him, during the time of their happy Connection, which was then about to be terminated for ever.] OH thou token loved of joys now perish’d That I still wear from my neck suspended, Art thou stronger than our spirit-bond so cherish’d? Or […]...
29. The watchers against their beliefs a blue spot came slowly Out of the green Nobody expected such a thing to occur On a thursday The watchers switched over from their electronic Eye to their notes The evidence undeniably placed thursday as the day Of the pink circle They recorded having seen another pink circle In a strange […]...
30. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
31. "Arcturus" is his other name “Arcturus” is his other name I’d rather call him “Star.” It’s very mean of Science To go and interfere! I slew a worm the other day A “Savant” passing by Murmured “Resurgam” “Centipede”! “Oh Lord how frail are we”! I pull a flower from the woods A monster with a glass Computes the stamens in […]...
32. Lover's Gifts XVI: She Dwelt Here by the Pool She dwelt here by the pool with its landing-stairs in ruins. Many An evening she had watched the moon made dizzy by the shaking of Bamboo leaves, and on many a rainy day the smell of the wet earth Had come to her over the young shoots of rice. Her pet name is known here […]...
33. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
34. The Alchemist in the City My window shews the travelling clouds, Leaves spent, new seasons, alter’d sky, The making and the melting crowds: The whole world passes; I stand by. They do not waste their meted hours, But men and masters plan and build: I see the crowning of their towers, And happy promises fulfill’d. And I – perhaps if […]...
35. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
36. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
37. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
38. A British-Roman Song (A. D. 406) “A Centurion of the Thirtieth” Puck of Pook’s Hill My father’s father saw it not, And I, belike, shall never come To look on that so-holly spot That very Rome Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might, The equal work of Gods and Man, City beneath whose oldest height The Race […]...
39. By The Sea Why does the sea moan evermore? Shut out from heaven it makes its moan, It frets against the boundary shore; All earth’s full rivers cannot fill The sea, that drinking thirsteth still. Sheer miracles of loveliness Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed: Anemones, salt, passionless, Blow flower-like; just enough alive To blow and multiply and […]...
40. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...