Old Ironsides

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1. 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 […]...
2. The Mountaineer OH, at the eagle’s height To lie i’ the sweet of the sun, While veil after veil takes flight And God and the world are one. Oh, the night on the steep! All that his eyes saw dim Grows light in the dusky deep, And God is alone with him....
3. Flower Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it Droop and drop into the dust. I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of Pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am Aware, and the time […]...
4. THE SHEPHERD'S LAMENT ON yonder lofty mountain A thousand times I stand, And on my staff reclining, Look down on the smiling land. My grazing flocks then I follow, My dog protecting them well; I find myself in the valley, But how, I scarcely can tell. The whole of the meadow is cover’d With flowers of beauty rare; […]...
5. "It Might Have Been&quot We will be what we could be. Do not say, “It might have been, had not this, or that, or this.” No fate can keep us from the chosen way; He only might who is. We will do what we could do. Do not dream Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve. I hold, […]...
6. Modern Love XXVI: Love Ere He Bleeds Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave The fatal web below while far he flies. But when the arrow strikes him, there’s a change. He moves but in the track of his spent pain, Whose red […]...
7. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. Finale Here is this vale of sweet abiding, My ultimate and dulcet home, That gently dreams above the chiding Of restless and impatient foam; Beyond the hazards of hell weather, The harceling of wind and sea, With timbers morticed tight together My old hulk havens happily. The dawn exultantly discloses My lawn lit with mimosa gold; […]...
10. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
11. Time of Roses It was not in the Winter Our loving lot was cast; It was the time of roses – We pluck’d them as we pass’d! That churlish season never frown’d On early lovers yet: O no-the world was newly crown’d With flowers when first we met! ‘Twas twilight, and I bade you go, But still you […]...
12. 'Tis my first night beneath the Sun ‘Tis my first night beneath the Sun If I should spend it here Above him is too low a height For his Barometer Who Airs of expectation breathes And takes the Wind at prime But Distance his Delights confides To those who visit him...
13. 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...
14. To His Two Children In the land of Wu the mulberry leaves are green, And thrice the silkworms have gone to sleep. In East Luh where my family stay, I wonder who is sowing those fields of ours. I cannot be back in time for the spring doings, Yet I can help nothing, traveling on the river. The south […]...
15. 391. A Tippling Ballad-When Princes and Prelates, etc WHEN Princes and Prelates, And hot-headed zealots, A’ Europe had set in a low, a low, The poor man lies down, Nor envies a crown, And comforts himself as he dow, as he dow, And comforts himself as he dow. The black-headed eagle, As keen as a beagle, He hunted o’er height and o’er howe, […]...
16. Why do you strive for greatness, fool? Why do you strive for greatness, fool? Go pluck a bough and wear it. It is as sufficing. My Lord, there are certain barbarians Who tilt their noses As if the stars were flowers, And Thy servant is lost among their shoe-buckles. Fain would I have mine eyes even with their eyes. Fool, go pluck […]...
17. 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...
18. 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 […]...
19. Keats The young Endymion sleeps Endymion’s sleep; The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told! The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep; It is midsummer, but the air is cold; Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold A […]...
20. 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!...
21. 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...
22. 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 […]...
23. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
24. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
25. A Daughter Of Eve A fool I was to sleep at noon, And wake when night is chilly Beneath the comfortless cold moon; A fool to pluck my rose too soon, A fool to snap my lily. My garden-plot I have not kept; Faded and all-forsaken, I weep as I have never wept: Oh it was summer when I […]...
26. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
27. A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight They mouth love’s language. Gnash The thirteen teeth Your lean jaws grin with. Lash Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh. Love’s breath in you is stale, worded or sung, As sour as cat’s breath, Harsh of tongue. This grey that stares Lies not, stark skin and bone. Leave greasy lips their kissing. […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. The Blossom ON a day alack the day! Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind All unseen ‘gan passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; Air, would I might […]...
30. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
31. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. The Allies August 14th, 1914 Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself. The Zigzagging cry Of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the Head Of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching Men. Men weighed down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war. The cry jars […]...
34. Love's Emblems NOW the lusty spring is seen; Golden yellow, gaudy blue, Daintily invite the view: Everywhere on every green Roses blushing as they blow, And enticing men to pull, Lilies whiter than the snow, Woodbines of sweet honey full: All love’s emblems, and all cry, ‘Ladies, if not pluck’d, we die.’ Yet the lusty spring hath […]...
35. Seascape With Sun And Eagle Freer Than most birds An eagle flies up Over San Francisco Freer than most places Soars high up Floats and glides high up In the still Open spaces Flown from the mountains Floated down Far over ocean Where the sunset has begun A mirror of itself He sails high over Turning and turning Where seaplanes […]...
36. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
37. When The Lamp Is Shattered When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow’s glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart’s […]...
38. 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...
39. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
40. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...