Ode To a Large Tuna in the Market

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1. Market Square I had a penny, A bright new penny, I took my penny To the market square. I wanted a rabbit, A little brown rabbit, And I looked for a rabbit ‘Most everywhere. For I went to the stall where they sold sweet lavender (“Only a penny for a bunch of lavender!”). “Have you got a […]...
2. The Maori Pig Market In distant New Zealand, whose tresses of gold The billows are ceaselessly combing, Away in a village all tranquil and old I came on a market where porkers were sold A market for pigs in the gloaming. And Maoris in plenty in picturesque rig The lands of their forefathers roaming, Were weighing their swine, whether […]...
3. Far Within Us #2 Look here’s that uninvited Alien presence look it’s here A shudder on the ocean of tea in the cup Rust taking hold On the edges of our laughter A snake coiled in the depths of the mirror Will I be able to hide you From your face in mine Look it’s the third shadow On […]...
4. Market days Mondays, way before dawn, Before even the first hint of blue in the windows, We’d hear it start, off the road past our place, Over on the highway nearby, In a clatter of market-bound traffic. Riding the rigs packed with fruit and crated live fowl, Or on foot, with cattle hitched to tailgates slowing the […]...
5. Large Bad Picture Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or Some northerly harbor of Labrador, Before he became a schoolteacher A great-uncle painted a big picture. Receding for miles on either side Into a flushed, still sky Are overhanging pale blue cliffs Hundreds of feet high, Their bases fretted by little arches, The entrances to caves Running in […]...
6. A Large Number Four billion people on this earth, But my imagination is the way it’s always been: Bad with large numbers. It is still moved by particularity. It flits about the darkness like a flashlight beam, Disclosing only random faces, While the rest go blindly by, Unthought of, unpitied. Not even a Dante could have stopped that. […]...
7. Goblin Market MORNING and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: “Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries- Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries All ripe together In summer weather Morns that pass by, Fair eves that […]...
8. So large my Will So large my Will The little that I may Embarrasses Like gentle infamy Affront to Him For whom the Whole were small Affront to me Who know His Meed of all. Earth at the best Is but a scanty Toy Bought, carried Home To Immortality. It looks so small We chiefly wonder then At our […]...
9. THE WITNESSES In Ocean’s wide domains, Half buried in the sands, Lie skeletons in chains, With shackled feet and hands. Beyond the fall of dews, Deeper than plummet lies, Float ships, with all their crews, No more to sink nor rise. There the black Slave-ship swims, Freighted with human forms, Whose fettered, fleshless limbs Are not the […]...
10. Perhaps I asked too large Perhaps I asked too large I take no less than skies For Earths, grow thick as Berries, in my native town My Basked holds just Firmaments Those dangle easy on my arm, But smaller bundles Cram....
11. Soldier, Soldier “Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Why don’t you march with my true love?” “We’re fresh from off the ship an’ ‘e’s maybe give the slip, An’ you’d best go look for a new love.” New love! True love! Best go look for a new love, The dead they cannot rise, an’ you’d better dry […]...
12. Sonnet: The Ghosts Of James And Peirce In Harvard Yard In memory of D. W. Prall The ghosts of James and Peirce in Harvard Yard At star-pierced midnight, after the chapel bell (Episcopalian! palian! the ringing soared!) Stare at me now as if they wish me well. In the waking dream amid the trees which fall, Bar and bough of shadow, by my shadow crossed, […]...
13. Ode To an Artichoke The artichoke Of delicate heart Erect In its battle-dress, builds Its minimal cupola; Keeps Stark In its scallop of Scales. Around it, Demoniac vegetables Bristle their thicknesses, Devise Tendrils and belfries, The bulb’s agitations; While under the subsoil The carrot Sleeps sound in its Rusty mustaches. Runner and filaments Bleach in the vineyards, Whereon rise […]...
14. Gentlemen lift the sea on a deformed request in a train lavatory Gentlemen lift the sea Be all of you the modern Muscular mountains Who with a scoop of biceptual crags Swoop down for an armful of ocean Leavening the dreadful pressures On the valleys of lyonnesse Gentlemen rape air with water Let the submarine nose round the moon […]...
15. To Marianne Moore If the idea of immortality is excluded, There remains dust, Grass, Water that forms puddles, The branch from which the bird sings, A certain mystery that reason Supposes a fleeting shadow. There remains, in the end, life, The room where a woman pulls on her stockings, The other room, perhaps adjoining, Where a couple undress […]...
16. Poem Without A Title I say to the lead Why did you let yourself Be cast into a bullet? Have you forgotten the alchemists? Have you given up hope In turning into gold? Nobody answers. Lead. Bullet. With names Such as these The sleep is deep and long....
17. Conviction (iii) The shadow was so black, I thought it was a cat, But once in to it I knew it No more black Than a shadow’s back. Illusion is a freak Of mind; The cat’s to seek....
18. Jabberers I RISE out of my depths with my language. You rise out of your depths with your language. Two tongues from the depths, Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike, Fling their staccato tantalizations Into a wildcat jabber Over a gossamer web of unanswerables. The second and the third silence, […]...
19. Let Love Go, If Go She Will LET love go, if go she will. Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay. Of all she gives and takes away The best remains behind her still. The best remains behind; in vain Joy she may give and take again, Joy she may take and leave us pain, If yet she leave behind […]...
20. On The Wire O God, take the sun from the sky! It’s burning me, scorching me up. God, can’t You hear my cry? Water! A poor, little cup! It’s laughing, the cursed sun! See how it swells and swells Fierce as a hundred hells! God, will it never have done? It’s searing the flesh on my bones; It’s […]...
21. Genesis In the outer world that was before this earth, That was before all shape or space was born, Before the blind first hour of time had birth, Before night knew the moonlight or the morn; Yea, before any world had any light, Or anything called God or man drew breath, Slowly the strong sides of […]...
22. In the shadow of a broken house In the shadow of a broken house, Down a deserted street, Propt walls, cold hearths, and phantom stairs, And the silence of dead feet – Locked wildly in one another’s arms I saw two lovers meet. And over that hearthless house aghast Rose from the mind’s abyss Lost stars and ruined, peering moons, Worlds overshadowing […]...
23. From The Graveyard By The Sea (After Valery) This hushed surface where the doves parade Amid the pines vibrates, amid the graves; Here the noon’s justice unites all fires when The sea aspires forever to begin again and again. O what a gratification comes after long meditation O satisfaction, after long meditation or ratiocination Upon the calm of the gods Upon […]...
24. The Wreck Of The 'Derry Castle&#039 Day of ending for beginnings! Ocean hath another innings, Ocean hath another score; And the surges sing his winnings, And the surges shout his winnings, And the surges shriek his winnings, All along the sullen shore. Sing another dirge in wailing, For another vessel sailing With the shadow-ships at sea; Shadow-ships for ever sinking Shadow-ships […]...
25. The Seed I was a seed that fell In silver dew; And nobody could tell, For no one knew; No one could tell my fate, As I grew tall; None visioned me with hate, No, none at all. A sapling I became, Blest by the sun; No rumour of my shame Had any one. Oh I was […]...
26. The Settler 1903 (South African War ended, May, 1902) Here, where my fresh-turned furrows run, And the deep soil glistens red, I will repair the wrong that was done To the living and the dead. Here, where the senseless bullet fell, And the barren shrapnel burst, I will plant a tree, I will dig a well, Against […]...
27. Far Within Us #1 We raise our arms The street climbs into the sky We lower our eyes The roofs go down into the earth From every pain We do not mention Grows a chestnut tree That stays mysterious behind us From every hope We cherish Sprouts a star That moves unreachable before us Can you hear a bullet […]...
28. Shadow March All around the house is the jet-black night; It stares through the window-pane; It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light, And it moves with the moving flame. Now my little heart goes a beating like a drum, With the breath of the Bogies in my hair; And all around the candle and the […]...
29. The Black Unicorn The black unicorn is greedy. The black unicorn is impatient. ‘The black unicorn was mistaken For a shadow or symbol And taken Through a cold country Where mist painted mockeries Of my fury. It is not on her lap where the horn rests But deep in her moonpit Growing. The black unicorn is restless The […]...
30. Logos Out of the night forth flamed a star – mine own! Now seventy light-years nearer as I urge Constant my heart through the abyss unknown, Its glory my sole guide while space surge About me. Seventy light-yaers! As I near That gate of light that men call death, its cold Pale gleam begins to pulse, […]...
31. Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring Seven stars in the still water, And seven in the sky; Seven sins on the King’s daughter, Deep in her soul to lie. Red roses are at her feet, (Roses are red in her red-gold hair) And O where her bosom and girdle meet Red roses are hidden there. Fair is the knight who lieth […]...
32. Refrain The air is dark, the night is sad, I lie sleepless and I groan. Nobody cares when a man goes mad: He is sorry, God is glad. Shadow changes into bone. Every shadow has a name; When I think of mine I moan, I hear rumors of such fame. Not for pride, but only shame, […]...
33. Prelude to Space An Epithaliamium So Man, grown vigorous now, Holds himself ripe to breed, Daily devises how To ejaculate his seed And boldly fertilize The black womb of the unconsenting skies. Some now alive expect (I am told) to see the large, Steel member grow erect, Turgid with the fierce charge Of our whole planet’s skill, Courage, […]...
34. To a Waterfowl Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler’s eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek’st thou the plashy brink Of […]...
35. 1991-II The ewes crowd to the mangers; Their bellies widen, sag; Their udders tighten. Soon The little voices cry In morning cold. Soon now The garden must be worked, Laid off in rows, the seed Of life to come brought down Into the dark to rest, Abide awhile alone, And rise. Soon, soon again The cropland […]...
36. Mare Liberum You dare to say with perjured lips, “We fight to make the ocean free”? You, whose black trail of butchered ships Bestrews the bed of every sea Where German submarines have wrought Their horrors! Have you never thought, What you call freedom, men call piracy! Unnumbered ghosts that haunt the wave Where you have murdered, […]...
37. Before The Game Shut one eye then the other Peek into every corner of yourself See that there are no nails no thieves See that there are no cuckoo’s eggs Shut then the other eye Squat and jump Jump high high high On top of yourself Fall then with all your weight Fall for days on end deep […]...
38. SONGS SONGS are like painted window-panes! In darkness wrapp’d the church remains, If from the market-place we view it; Thus sees the ignoramus through it. No wonder that he deems it tame, And all his life ’twill be the same. But let us now inside repair, And greet the holy Chapel there! At once the whole […]...
39. Waiting Afield at dusk What things for dream there are when specter-like, Moving amond tall haycocks lightly piled, I enter alone upon the stubbled filed, From which the laborers’ voices late have died, And in the antiphony of afterglow And rising full moon, sit me down Upon the full moon’s side of the first haycock And […]...
40. Reservations Confirmed The ticket settles on my desk: a paper tongue Pronouncing “Go away;” a flattened seed From which a thousand-mile leap through the air can grow. It’s pure potential: a vacation-to-be The way an apple is a pie-to-be, A bullet is a death-to-be. Or is the future Pressed into it inalterably-woven between The slick fibers like […]...