A Theory Of Prosody

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1. Theory Into love and out again, Thus I went, and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen- Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Some one dropped me on my head?...
2. The Theory The big one went to sleep as to die and dreamed he Became a tiny one. So tiny as to have lost all substance. To have Become as theoretical as a point. Then someone said, get up, big one, you’re not doing Yourself any good. You puddle and stagnate in your weight. Best to be […]...
3. Theory Of Recruiting Sons of bitches Were born With hearts of stone, Cherishing this stone All their life. Children of Sons of bitches Were born With hearts of grenade, In order to Blow to pieces Everything, And to leave as a message for their descendants – Entrails (still smoking entrails) Of sons of bitches....
4. Her News You paused for a moment and I heard you smoking On the other end of the line. I pictured your expression, One eye screwed shut against the smoke As you waited for my reaction. I was waiting for it myself, a list of my own news Gone suddenly cold in my hand. Supposing my wife […]...
5. Now I sit here on the 2nd floor Hunched over in yellow Pajamas Still pretending to be A writer. Some damned gall, At 71, My brain cells eaten Away by Life. Rows of books Behind me, I scratch my thinning Hair And search for the Word. For decades now I have infuriated the Ladies, The critics, […]...
6. Lines Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance Between the lines is fine but don’t Turn corners, cross, cut in, go over Or out, between two points of no Return’s a line of flight, between Two points of view’s a line of vision. But a line of thought […]...
7. The Song of the Borderguard The man with his lion under the shed of wars Sheds his belief as if he shed tears. The sound of words waits – A barbarian host at the borderline of sense. The enamord guards desert their posts Harkening to the lion-smell of a poem That rings in their ears. -Dreams, a certain guard said […]...
8. John Rouat the Fisherman Margaret Simpson was the daughter of humble parents in the county of Ayr, With a comely figure, and face of beauty rare, And just in the full bloom of her womanhood, Was united to John Rouat, a fisherman good. John’s fortune consisted of his coble, three oars, and his fishing-gear, Besides his two stout boys, […]...
9. The Surface It has a hole in it. Not only where I concentrate. The river still ribboning, twisting up, into its re- Arrangements, chill enlightenments, tight-knotted quickenings And loosenings whispered messages dissolving the messengers The river still glinting-up into its handfuls, heapings. glassy Forgettings under the river of My attention And the river of my attention laying […]...
10. To a Dead Man Over the dead line we have called to you To come across with a word to us, Some beaten whisper of what happens Where you are over the dead line Deaf to our calls and voiceless. The flickering shadows have not answered Nor your lips sent a signal Whether love talks and roses grow And […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. The Pain of Earth DOES the earth grow grey with grief For her hero darling fled? Though her vales let fall no leaf, In our hearts her tears are shed. Still the stars laugh on above: Not to them her grief is said; Mourning for her hero love In our hearts the tears are shed. We her children mourn […]...
13. APPARENT DEATH WEEP, maiden, weep here o’er the tomb of Love; He died of nothing by mere chance was slain. But is he really dead? oh, that I cannot prove: A nothing, a mere chance, oft gives him life again. 1767-9....
14. Corn Grinders O little mouse, why dost thou cry While merry stars laugh in the sky? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In the rich farmer’s granary shed; They caught him in a baited snare, And slew my lover unaware: Alas! alas! my lord […]...
15. Shearing With a Hoe The track that led to Carmody’s is choked and overgrown, The suckers of the stringybark have made the place their own; The mountain rains have cut the track that once we used to know When first we rode to Carmody’s, a score of years ago. The shearing shed at Carmody’s was slab and stringybark, The […]...
16. On the March So the time seems come at last, And the drums go rolling past, And above them in the sunlight Labour’s banners float and flow; They are marching with the sun, But I look in vain for one Of the men who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago. They were men who did the […]...
17. Our Thrones Decay I SAID my pleasure shall not move; It is not fixed in things apart: Seeking not love-but yet to love- I put my trust in mine own heart. I knew the fountain of the deep Wells up with living joy, unfed: Such joys the lonely heart may keep, And love grow rich with love unwed. […]...
18. The Secret Two girls discover The secret of life In a sudden line of Poetry. I who don’t know the Secret wrote The line. They Told me (through a third person) They had found it But not what it was Not even What line it was. No doubt By now, more than a week Later, they have […]...
19. The Two Devines It was shearing time at the Myall Lake, And then rose the sound through the livelong day Of the constant clash that the shear-blades make When the fastest shearers are making play; But there wasn’t a man in the shearers’ lines That could shear a sheep with the two Devines. They had rung the sheds […]...
20. Indifference When I am dead I will not care Forever more, If sky be radiantly fair Or tempest roar. If my life-hoard in sin be spent, My wife re-wed, I’ll be so damned indifferent When I am dead. When I meet up with dusty doom What if I rest In common ditch or marble tomb, If […]...
21. Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife, Our chance to live depends on such a sign While others talk and The Pentagon from the moon Is bouncing exact commands: “Forget your faith; Be ready for whatever […]...
22. To Any Dead Officer Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say, Because I’d like to know that you’re all right. Tell me, have you found everlasting day, Or been sucked in by everlasting night? For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; I hear you make some cheery old remark – I can rebuild […]...
23. THE CRUEL MAID AND, cruel maid, because I see You scornful of my love, and me, I’ll trouble you no more, but go My way, where you shall never know What is become of me; there I Will find me out a path to die, Or learn some way how to forget You and your name for ever; […]...
24. September 1913 What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone? For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Yet they […]...
25. Dream Song 105: As a kid I believed in democracy: I As a kid I believed in democracy: I ‘saw no alternative’—teaching at The Big Place I ah Put it in practice: We’d time for one long novel: to a vote— Gone with the Wind they voted: I crunched ‘No’ And we sat down with War & Peace. As a man I believed in democracy (nobody […]...
26. June 6 No two are identical though They begin from the same Point in time the same point in The dream when the radio shuts Itself off in the middle of “Just in Time” (Sinatra version) The curtains are blowing in And the driver of the hearse Outside looks up and says “Room For one more” and […]...
27. A Poet at Twenty Images leap with him from branch to branch. His eyes Brighten, his head cocks, he pauses under a green bough, Alert. And when I see him I want to hide him somewhere. The other wood is past the hill. But he will enter it, and find the particular maple. He will walk through the door […]...
28. Discord Unreconciled by life’s fleet years, that fled With changeful clang of pinions wide and wild, Though two great spirits had lived, and hence had sped Unreconciled; Though time and change, harsh time’s imperious child, That wed strange hands together, might not wed High hearts by hope’s misprision once beguiled; Faith, by the light from either’s […]...
29. In Black Despair In grayish doubt and black despair, I drafted hymns to the earth and the air, Pretending to joy, although I lacked it. The age had made lament redundant. So here’s the question who can answer it Was he a brave man or a hypocrite?...
30. Nettles My son aged three fell in the nettle bed. ‘Bed’ seemed a curious name for those green spears, That regiment of spite behind the shed: It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears The boy came seeking comfort and I saw White blisters beaded on his tender skin. We soothed him till his […]...
31. By Circumstances Fed By circumstances fed Which divide attention Among the living and the dead, Under the blooms of the blossoming sun, The gaze which is a tower towers Day and night, hour by hour, Critical of all and of one, Dissatisfied with every flower With all that’s been done or undone, Converting every feature Into its own […]...
32. Each Second is the last Each Second is the last Perhaps, recalls the Man Just measuring unconsciousness The Sea and Spar between. To fail within a Chance How terribler a thing Than perish from the Chance’s list Before the Perishing!...
33. Crying to be written Dawn has reached the ridges to the north and a thin Line of light chased the night west; it is the best Time of day for me – a cup of coffee, Benson & Scud Pretending to sleep in their baskets at my feet, I am seated, ready to write knowing the lounge fire Is […]...
34. Learning the Trees Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn The language of the trees. That’s done indoors, Out of a book, which now you think of it Is one of the transformations of a tree. The words themselves are a delight to learn, You might be in a foreign land of terms Like samara, […]...
35. Stylised tulips stylised tulips – this is what the card says And they have that nineteen-twenties’ feel Of those bright young things a decade before us Who had a way of walking with their legs Bent back and their pelvis forward as if Inviting a kind of sexual depravity With the no touch signs fervently displayed Stylised […]...
36. Oh, Banquet Not Oh, banquet not in those shining bowers, Where Youth resorts, but come to me, For mine’s a garden of faded flowers, More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee. And there we shall have our feast of tears, And many a cup in silence pour; Our guests, the shades of former years, Our toasts, to […]...
37. A Suggestion As I go and shop, sir! If a car I stop, sir! Where you chance to sit, And you want to read, sir! Never mind or heed, sir! I’ll not care a bit. For it’s now aesthetic To be quite athletic. That’s our fad, you know. I can hold the strap, sir! And keep off […]...
38. TO HIS PECULIAR FRIEND, MR JOHN WICKS Since shed or cottage I have none, I sing the more, that thou hast one; To whose glad threshold, and free door I may a Poet come, though poor; And eat with thee a savoury bit, Paying but common thanks for it. Yet should I chance, my Wicks, to see An over-leaven look in thee, […]...
39. An Answer To The Rebus, By The Author Of These Poems The poet asks, and Phillis can’t refuse To show th’ obedience of the Infant muse. She knows the Quail of most inviting taste Fed Israel’s army in the dreary waste; And what’s on Britain’s royal standard borne, But the tall, graceful, rampant Unicorn? The Emerald with a vivid verdure glows Among the gems which regal […]...
40. John Ballard In the lust of my strength I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me: I might as well have cursed the stars. In my last sickness I was in agony, but I was resolute And I cursed God for my suffering; Still He paid no attention to me; He left me alone, as […]...