Holding On

Related poetry:

1. Song of the Builders On a summer morning I sat down On a hillside To think about God – A worthy pastime. Near me, I saw A single cricket; It was moving the grains of the hillside This way and that way. How great was its energy, How humble its effort. Let us hope It will always be like […]...
2. Whoever You are, Holding Me now in Hand WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand, Without one thing, all will be useless, I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different. Who is he that would become my follower? Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? The way is suspicious-the […]...
3. The Violent Space (Or When Your Sister Sleeps Around For Money) Exchange in greed the ungraceful signs. Thrust The thick notes between green apple breasts. Then the shadow of the devil descends, The violent space cries and angel eyes, Large and dark, retreat in innocence and in ice. (Run sister run-the Bugga man comes!) The violent space cries silently, Like you cried wide years ago In […]...
4. The Woods Entry So old is the wood, so old, Old as Fear. Wrinkled roots; great stems; hushed leaves; No sound near. Shadows retreat into shadow, Deepening, crossed. Burning light singles a low leaf, a bough, Far within, lost....
5. Sonnet 144: Two loves I have, of comfort and despair Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman coloured ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a […]...
6. Sonnet CXLIV Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a […]...
7. The Plough Of Time Night closed my windows and The sky became a crystal house The crystal windows glowed The moon Shown through them Through the whole house of crystal A single star beamed down Its crystal cable And drew a plough through the earth Unearthing bodies clasped together Couples embracing Around the earth They clung together everywhere Emitting […]...
8. In this World The hill pasture, an open place among the trees, Tilts into the valley. The clovers and tall grasses Are in bloom. Along the foot of the hill Dark floodwater moves down the river. The sun sets. Ahead of nightfall the birds sing. I have climbed up to water the horses And now sit and rest, […]...
9. I Am There I come from there and remember, I was born like everyone is born, I have a mother And a house with many windows, I have brothers, friends and a prison. I have a wave that sea-gulls snatched away. I have a view of my own and an extra blade of grass. I have a moon […]...
10. The Black Virgin One in thy thousand statues we salute thee On all thy thousand thrones acclaim and claim Who walk in forest of thy forms and faces Walk in a forest calling on one name And, most of all, how this thing may be so Who know thee not are mystified to know That one cries “Here […]...
11. Absinthe and stained glass (i) Absinthe makes the hurt grow fonder The green fairy burbles what’s this ‘ere When vincent (sozzled) knifes his lug off All spirits then succumb to fear Depression takes the gloss off wonder And people (lost) tell god to bug off The twentieth century drowns in sheer Excuse that life is comic blunder Temporality dons […]...
12. Soap Suds This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child. […]...
13. Litany to the Holy Spirit IN the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When I lie within my bed, Sick in heart and sick in head, And with doubts discomforted, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When the house doth sigh and weep, And the world is drown’d in sleep, […]...
14. The Lobster Here at the Super Duper, in a glass tank Supplied by a rill of cold fresh water Running down a glass washboard at one end And siphoned off at the other, and so Perpetually renewed, a herd of lobster Is made available to the customer Who may choose whichever one he wants To carry home […]...
15. His Litany to the Holy Spirit In the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit comfort me! When I lie within my bed, Sick in heart, and sick in head, And with doubts discomforted, Sweet Spirit comfort me! When the house doth sigh and weep, And the world is drown’d in sleep, […]...
16. The Burning-Glass A SHAFT of fire that falls like dew, And melts and maddens all my blood, From out thy spirit flashes through The burning-glass of womanhood. Only so far; here must I stay: Nearer I miss the light, the fire; I must endure the torturing ray, And with all beauty, all desire. Ah, time long must […]...
17. A Song On The Baths What Angel stirrs this happy Well, Some Muse from thence come shew’t me, One of those naked Graces tell That Angels are for beauty: The Lame themselves that enter here Come Angels out againe, And Bodies turne to Soules all cleere, All made for joy, noe payne. Heate never was so sweetely mett With moist […]...
18. Blighters The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; ‘We’re sure the Kaiser loves our dear old Tanks!’ I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls, Lurching to rag-time tunes, or ‘Home, sweet Home’, And there’d be […]...
19. A Letter from Home She sends me news of blue jays, frost, Of stars and now the harvest moon That rides above the stricken hills. Lightly, she speaks of cold, of pain, And lists what is already lost. Here where my life seems hard and slow, I read of glowing melons piled Beside the door, and baskets filled With […]...
20. The Idea Of Order At Key West She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. […]...
21. Her Voice The wild bee reels from bough to bough With his furry coat and his gauzy wing, Now in a lily-cup, and now Setting a jacinth bell a-swing, In his wandering; Sit closer love: it was here I trow I made that vow, Swore that two lives should be like one As long as the sea-gull […]...
22. The West Wind IT’S a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills. And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils. It’s a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine, […]...
23. Only a Curl I. FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land Unvisited over the sea, Who tell me how lonely you stand With a single gold curl in the hand Held up to be looked at by me, II. While you ask me to ponder and say What a father and mother can do, With the bright fellow-locks […]...
24. I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament […]...
25. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 01: Clairvoyant ‘This envelope you say has something in it Which once belonged to your dead son-or something He knew, was fond of? Something he remembers?- The soul flies far, and we can only call it By things like these. . . a photograph, a letter, Ribbon, or charm, or watch. . . ‘ . . . […]...
26. The Gift of the Sea The dead child lay in the shroud, And the widow watched beside; And her mother slept, and the Channel swept The gale in the teeth of the tide. But the mother laughed at all. “I have lost my man in the sea, And the child is dead. Be still,” she said, “What more can ye […]...
27. Lines Inscribed on The Wall of a Dungeon in The Southern P of I Though not a breath can enter here, I know the wind blows fresh and free; I know the sun is shining clear, Though not a gleam can visit me. They thought while I in darkness lay, ‘Twere pity that I should not know How all the earth is smiling gay; How fresh the vernal breezes […]...
28. I Won, You Lost The last of day gathers In the yellow parlor And drifts like fine dust Across the face of The gilt-framed mirror I ofien prayed to. An old man’s room Without him, a room I Came back to again And again to steal Cigarettes and loose change, To open cans of sardines, To break open crackers […]...
29. Man Alone It is yourself you seek In a long rage, Scanning through light and darkness Mirrors, the page, Where should reflected be Those eyes and that thick hair, That passionate look, that laughter. You should appear Within the book, or doubled, Freed, in the silvered glass; Into all other bodies Yourself should pass. The glass does […]...
30. Sea Song I will think no more of the sea! Of the big green waves And the hollowed Shore, Of the brown rock caves No more, no more Of the swell and the weed And the bubbling foam. Memory dwells in my far away home, She has nothing To do with me. She is old and bent […]...
31. Song For The Severed Head In 'The King Of The Great Clock Tower&#039 Saddle and ride, I heard a man say, Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea, What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower? All those tragic characters ride But turn from Rosses’ crawling tide, The meet’s upon the mountain-side. A slow low note and an iron bell. What brought them there so far from their […]...
32. Neither Out Far Nor In Deep The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day. As long as it takes to pass A ship keeps raising its hull; The wetter ground like glass Reflects a standing gull The land may vary more; But wherever the […]...
33. A GRIEF Rivers, tow paths, caravan parks From Kirkstall to Keighley The track’s ribbon flaps Like Margaret’s whirling and twirling At ten with her pink-tied hair And blue-check patterned frock O my lost beloved Mills fall like doomed fortresses Their domes topple, stopped clocks Chime midnight forever and ever Amen to the lost hegemony of mill girls […]...
34. MacGregor's Gathering The moon’s on the lake, and the mist’s on the brae, And the Clan has a name that is nameless by day; Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach! Gather, gather, gather, &c. Our signal for fight, that from monarchs we drew, Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo! Then haloo, Grigalach! haloo, Grigalach! […]...
35. The Little Garden A little garden on a bleak hillside Where deep the heavy, dazzling mountain snow Lies far into the spring. The sun’s pale glow Is scarcely able to melt patches wide About the single rose bush. All denied Of nature’s tender ministries. But no, For wonder-working faith has made it blow With flowers many hued and […]...
36. Train Ride For Horace Gregory After rain, through afterglow, the unfolding fan Of railway landscape sidled onthe pivot Of a larger arc into the green of evening; I remembered that noon I saw a gradual bud Still white; though dead in its warm bloom; Always the enemy is the foe at home. And I wondered what surgery […]...
37. The beekeeper the population controller Slips into disguise His charming suit His veil of words Conceals his gaze He has laid out the fields And filled them with blossoms And counted the money jars In his SimCity slim city Androgyn sharp Bodies are worry perfect Slicked back souped up Cool as drones The neutered ones Will dance […]...
38. Train Ride After rain, through afterglow, the unfolding fan Of railway landscape sidled onthe pivot Of a larger arc into the green of evening; I remembered that noon I saw a gradual bud Still white; though dead in its warm bloom; Always the enemy is the foe at home. And I wondered what surgery could recover Our […]...
39. The Olive Garden (Rainer Maria Rilke) He went up under the gray leaves All gray and lost in the olive lands And laid his forehead, gray with dust, Deep in the dustiness of his hot hands. After everything this. And this was the end. Now I must go, as I am going blind. And why is it Thy […]...
40. The Other Under my bowels, yellow with smoke, It waits. Under my eyes, those milk bunnies, It waits. It is waiting. It is waiting. Mr. Doppelganger. My brother. My spouse. Mr. Doppelganger. My enemy. My lover. When truth comes spilling out like peas It hangs up the phone. When the child is soothed and resting on the […]...