The Avenue

Related poetry:

1. Third Avenue In Sunlight Third Avenue in sunlight. Nature’s error. Already the bars are filled and John is there. Beneath a plentiful lady over the mirror He tilts his glass in the mild mahogany air. I think of him when he first got out of college, Serious, thin, unlikely to succeed; For several months he hung around the Village, […]...
2. Encounter In The Chestnut Avenue He felt the entrance’s green darkness Wrapped cooly round him like a silken cloak That he was still accepting and arranging; When at the opposite transparent end, far off, Through green sunlight, as through green window panes, Whitely a solitary shape Flared up, long remaining distant And then finally, the downdriving light Boiling over it […]...
3. Eleventh Avenue Racket THERE is something terrible About a hurdy-gurdy, A gipsy man and woman, And a monkey in red flannel All stopping in front of a big house With a sign “For Rent” on the door And the blinds hanging loose And nobody home. I never saw this. I hope to God I never will. Whoop-de-doodle-de-doo. Hoodle-de-harr-de-hum. […]...
4. Snail and spiral i take my property with me says the snail Slow-moving (yes) but packed with sublime thought The house upon its back some kind of grail Vulnerable to brute boot – and wisdom bought By barely making it through life’s dull crawl The pace of it denies technology’s demand That speed be safety (that getting there […]...
5. Hamlet Off-Stage: Snail Peels Off For quick mental hygiene, the snail’s my white Mobile clinic, Dr. Hoodoo inside. Seriously. The snail’s my man. He’s shy, Shows speedy patience and plays safe, keeps his Hard hat on should a curve come on too fast. And paves his road in case he must return. That’s not timid. That’s prudently Roman....
6. The Lobster Quadrille “Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail, “There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle will you come and join the dance? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. The Flower of Mending (To Eudora, after I had had certain dire adventures.) When Dragon-fly would fix his wings, When Snail would patch his house, When moths have marred the overcoat Of tender Mister Mouse, The pretty creatures go with haste To the sunlit blue-grass hills Where the Flower of Mending yields the wax And webs to help their […]...
9. Considering The Snail The snail pushes through a green Night, for the grass is heavy With water and meets over The bright path he makes, where rain Has darkened the earth’s dark. He Moves in a wood of desire, Pale antlers barely stirring As he hunts. I cannot tell What power is at work, drenched there With purpose, […]...
10. Pippa's Song The year’s at the spring, And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in His heaven All’s right with the world!...
11. The Year's At The Spring The year’s at the spring, And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hill-side’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in his Heaven – All’s right with the world!...
12. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
13. L'Escargot D'Or O Tavern of the Golden Snail! Ten sous have I, so I’ll regale; Ten sous your amber brew to sip (Eight for the bock and two the tip), And so I’ll sit the evening long, And smoke my pipe and watch the throng, The giddy crowd that drains and drinks, I’ll watch it quiet as […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. Earthfast Architects plant their imagination, weld their poems on rock, Clamp them to the skidding rim of the world and anchor them down to its core; Leave more than the painter’s or poet’s snail-bright trail on a friable leaf; Can build their chrysalis round them – stand in their sculpture’s belly. They see through stone, they […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. ENGLAND’S OPENERS A blackbird lands A good beer-barrel A man sits in a cave knitting A theatre in Copenhagen Abask the sea-wall Alice was demure and O All the way to Bury Amid the heather Among the lupins And after little suzie And it was his grief that kept him travelling And the baby miscarried And the […]...
18. Evening ‘Tis evening; the black snail has got on his track, And gone to its nest is the wren, And the packman snail, too, with his home on his back, Clings to the bowed bents like a wen. The shepherd has made a rude mark with his foot Where his shadow reached when he first came, […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. 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...
22. 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...
23. 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 […]...
24. 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!...
25. You Begin You begin this way: This is your hand, This is your eye, This is a fish, blue and flat On the paper, almost The shape of an eye This is your mouth, this is an O Or a moon, whichever You like. This is yellow. Outside the window Is the rain, green Because it is […]...
26. 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...
27. Discovery The petals of the vagina unfold Like Christofer Columbus Taking off his shoes. Is there anything more beautiful Than the bow of a ship Touching a new world?...
28. A Sleepless Night April, and the last of the plum blossoms Scatters on the black grass Before dawn. The sycamore, the lime, The struck pine inhale The first pale hints of sky. An iron day, I think, yet it will come Dazzling, the light Rise from the belly of leaves and pour Burning from the cups Of poppies. […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. GENIAL IMPULSE THUS roll I, never taking ease, My tub, like Saint Diogenes, Now serious am, now seek to please; Now love and hate in turn one sees; The motives now are those, now these; Now nothings, now realities. Thus roll I, never taking ease, My tub, like Saint Diogenes. 1810....
31. Oh Who Is That Young Sinner Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they’re taking him to prison for the color of his hair. ‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head […]...
32. The Epic Stars The heroic stars spending themselves, Coining their very flesh into bullets for the lost battle, They must burn out at length like used candles; And Mother Night will weep in her triumph, taking home her heroes. There is the stuff for an epic poem This magnificent raid at the heart of darkness, this lost battle […]...
33. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. 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...
36. Come down, O Maid COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; And come, for Love […]...
37. Amateurs of Heaven Two lovers to a midnight meadow came High in the hills, to lie there hand and hand Like effigies and look up at the stars, The never-setting ones set in the North To circle the Pole in idiot majesty, And wonder what was given them to wonder. Being amateurs, they knew some of the names […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. 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. […]...
40. 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, […]...