The People Upstairs

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1. Upstairs I TOO have a garret of old playthings. I have tin soldiers with broken arms upstairs. I have a wagon and the wheels gone upstairs. I have guns and a drum, a jumping-jack and a magic lantern. And dust is on them and I never look at them upstairs. I too have a garret of […]...
2. Baby Vamps BABY vamps, is it harder work than it used to be? Are the new soda parlors worse than the old time saloons? Baby vamps, do you have jobs in the day time or is this all you do? do you come out only at night? In the winter at the skating rinks, in the summer […]...
3. The Upstairs Room It must have been in March the rug wore through. Now the day passes and I stare At warped pine boards my father’s father nailed, At the twisted grain. Exposed, where emptiness allows, Are the wormholes of eighty years; four generations’ shoes Stumble and scrape and fall To the floor my father stained, The new […]...
4. More About People When people aren’t asking questions They’re making suggestions And when they’re not doing one of those They’re either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes And then as if that weren’t enough to annoy you They employ you. Anybody at leisure Incurs everybody’s displeasure. It seems to be very irking To people at […]...
5. The People ‘What have I earned for all that work,’ I said, ‘For all that I have done at my own charge? The daily spite of this unmannerly town, Where who has served the most is most defaned, The reputation of his lifetime lost Between the night and morning. I might have lived, And you know well […]...
6. For Bartleby The Scrivener “Every time we get a big gale around here some people just refuse to batten down.” We estimate that Ice skating into a sixty Mile an hour wind, fully exerting The legs and swinging arms You will be pushed backward An inch every twenty minutes. In a few days, depending on The size of the […]...
7. Half The People In The World Half the people in the world love the other half, half the people hate the other half. Must I because of this half and that half go wandering and changing ceaselessly like rain in its cycle, must I sleep among rocks, and grow rugged like the trunks of olive trees, And hear the moon barking […]...
8. Sandhill People I TOOK away three pictures. One was a white gull forming a half-mile arch from the pines toward Waukegan. One was a whistle in the little sandhills, a bird crying either to the sunset gone or the dusk come. One was three spotted waterbirds, zigzagging, cutting scrolls and jags, writing a bird Sanscrit of wing […]...
9. I Am The People, The Mob I AM the people the mob the crowd the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is Done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the World’s food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons Come from me and the Lincolns. They […]...
10. Sing All Ye People! Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor, For the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever, And the Dark Tower is thrown down. Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard, For your watch hath not been in vain, And the Black Gate is broken, And your King hath passed through, […]...
11. The Icecream People the lady has me temporarily off the bottle And now the pecker stands up Better. However, things change overnight Instead of listening to Shostakovich and Mozart through a smeared haze of smoke The nights change, new Complexities: We drive to Baskin-Robbins, 31 flavors: Rocky Road, Bubble Gum, Apricot Ice, Strawberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Mint… We park […]...
12. Some People some people never go crazy. Me, sometimes I’ll lie down behind the couch For 3 or 4 days. They’ll find me there. It’s Cherub, they’ll say, and They pour wine down my throat Rub my chest Sprinkle me with oils. Then, I’ll rise with a roar, Rant, rage – Curse them and the universe As […]...
13. People Who Must I PAINTED on the roof of a skyscraper. I painted a long while and called it a day’s work. The people on a corner swarmed and the traffic cop’s whistle never let up all afternoon. They were the same as bugs, many bugs on their way- Those people on the go or at a standstill; […]...
14. People To those fixed on white, White is white, To those fixed on black, It is the same, And red is red, Yellow, yellow- Surely there are such sights In the many colored world, Or in the mind. The strange thing is that These people never see themselves Or you, or me. Are they not in […]...
15. To The One Upstairs Boss of all bosses of the universe. Mr. know-it-all, wheeler-dealer, wire-puller, And whatever else you’re good at. Go ahead, shuffle your zeros tonight. Dip in ink the comets’ tails. Staple the night with starlight. You’d be better off reading coffee dregs, Thumbing the pages of the Farmer’s Almanac. But no! You love to put on […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Hamlet Off-Stage: Laertes Cool Laertes has groupies, proof he has taste, Has cool. Wears skate-board clothes: elephant pants, The crotch snagging his knees, tent-size tee-shirt. He wants the play staged at a roller rink: Him, Fortinbras, and me wearing in-lines, The rest in quads. And instead of a duel, We throw ourselves a roller-derby brawl. Why not? Do something […]...
18. I know of people in the Grave I know of people in the Grave Who would be very glad To know the news I know tonight If they the chance had had. ‘Tis this expands the least event And swells the scantest deed My right to walk upon the Earth If they this moment had....
19. O Poor People Let us invoke a healthy heart-breaking Towards the horrible world: Let us say 0 poor people How can they help being so absurd, Misguided, abused, misled? With unsifted saving graces jostling about On a mucky medley of needs, Like love-lit shit, Year after cyclic year The unidentifiable flying god is missed. Emotions sit in their […]...
20. The Burning of the People's Variety Theatre, Aberdeen ‘Twas in the year of 1896, and on the 30th of September, Which many people in Aberdeen will long remember; The burning of the People’s Variety Theatre, in Bridge Place Because the fire spread like lightning at a rapid pace. The fire broke out on the stage, about eight o’clock, Which gave to the audience […]...
21. I noticed People disappeared I noticed People disappeared When but a little child Supposed they visited remote Or settled Regions wild But did because they died A Fact withheld the little child...
22. The Secret People Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget; For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet. There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully, There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we. There are no folk in the whole […]...
23. Attack of the Squash People And thus the people every year In the valley of humid July Did sacrifice themselves To the long green phallic god And eat and eat and eat. They’re coming, they’re on us, The long striped gourds, the silky Babies, the hairy adolescents, The lumpy vast adults Like the trunks of green elephants. Recite fifty zucchini […]...
24. People With Proud Chins I TELL them where the wind comes from, Where the music goes when the fiddle is in the box. Kids-I saw one with a proud chin, a sleepyhead, And the moonline creeping white on her pillow. I have seen their heads in the starlight And their proud chins marching in a mist of stars. They […]...
25. People Who Live People who live by the sea Understand eternity. They copy the curves of the waves, Their hearts beat with the tides, & the saltiness of their blood Corresponds with the sea. They know that the house of flesh Is only a sandcastle Built on the shore, That skin breaks Under the waves Like sand under […]...
26. Do People moulder equally Do People moulder equally, They bury, in the Grave? I do believe a Species As positively live As I, who testify it Deny that I am dead And fill my Lungs, for Witness From Tanks above my Head I say to you, said Jesus That there be standing here A Sort, that shall not taste […]...
27. Those fair fictitious People Those fair fictitious People The Women plucked away From our familiar Lifetime The Men of Ivory Those Boys and Girls, in Canvas Who stay upon the Wall In Everlasting Keepsake Can Anybody tell? We trust in places perfecter Inheriting Delight Beyond our faint Conjecture Our dizzy Estimate Remembering ourselves, we trust Yet Blesseder than We […]...
28. There Pass the Careless People There pass the careless people That call their souls their own: Here by the road I loiter, How idle and alone. Ah, past the plunge of plummet, In seas I cannot sound, My heart and soul and senses, World without end, are drowned. His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives […]...
29. Every Time I laugh Aloud (An Ode to Short People) Every time I laugh aloud, who springs to mind but Johnnie Howard? Cathartic laughter eases stress which Johnnie causes in excess, So when I hum acerbic lines of Randy Newman’s quirky song ‘don’t want no short people ’round here’, I am reminded there are valid grounds for jeering men With little minds. Newman claim’s ‘they’re […]...
30. Metamorphosis a girlfriend came in Built me a bed Scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor Scrubbed the walls Vacuumed Cleaned the toilet The bathtub Scrubbed the bathroom floor And cut my toenails and My hair. Then All on the same day The plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet And the toilet And the gas man […]...
31. Baby Picture It’s in the heart of the grape Where that smile lies. It’s in the good-bye-bow in the hair Where that smile lies. It’s in the clerical collar of the dress Where that smile lies. What smile? The smile of my seventh year, Caught here in the painted photograph. It’s peeling now, age has got it, […]...
32. The feet of people walking home The feet of people walking home With gayer sandals go The Crocus til she rises The Vassal of the snow The lips at Hallelujah Long years of practise bore Til bye and bye these Bargemen Walked singing on the shore. Pearls are the Diver’s farthings Extorted from the Sea Pinions the Seraph’s wagon Pedestrian once […]...
33. When a people reach the top of a hill When a people reach the top of a hill, Then does God lean toward them, Shortens tongues and lengthens arms. A vision of their dead comes to the weak. The moon shall not be too old Before the new battalions rise, Blue battalions. The moon shall not be too old When the children of change […]...
34. Dream Song 21: Some good people, daring & subtle voices Some good people, daring & subtle voices And their tense faces, as I think of it I see sank underground. I see. My radar digs. I do not dig. Cool their flushing blood, them eyes is shut— Eyes? Appalled: by all the dead: Henry brooded. Without exception! All. ALL. The senior population waits. Come down! […]...
35. Mowgli's Song Against People I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines! The roofs shall fade before it, The house-beams shall fall; And the Karela,. the bitter Karela, Shall cover it all! In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing. In the doors of […]...
36. If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine, If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign, If you’re proud because of fortune or the clever things you do Then I’ll play no second fiddle: I’m a prouder man than you! If you think that your profession […]...
37. What the People Said (June 21st, 1887) By the well, where the bullocks go Silent and blind and slow By the field where the young corn dies In the face of the sultry skies, They have heard, as the dull Earth hears The voice of the wind of an hour, The sound of the Great Queen’s voice: “My God […]...
38. Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry Relax. This won’t last long. Or if it does, or if the lines Make you sleepy or bored, Give in to sleep, turn on The T. V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand Such things. Its feelings Cannot be hurt. They exist Somewhere in the poet, And I am far away. Pick […]...
39. At Bessemer 19 years old and going nowhere, I got a ride to Bessemer and walked The night road toward Birmingham Passing dark groups of men cursing The end of a week like every week. Out of town I found a small grove Of trees, high narrow pines, and I Sat back against the trunk of one […]...
40. The History Of One Tough Motherfucker he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and Terrorized A white cross-eyed tailless cat I took him in and fed him and he stayed Grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway And ran him over I took what was left to a vet who said,”not much Chance…give him […]...