Night Words

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1. Words, Wide Night Somewhere on the other side of this wide night And the distance between us, I am thinking of you. The room is turning slowly away from the moon. This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say It is sad? In one of the tenses I singing An impossible song of desire that […]...
2. Last Words If the shoe fell from the other foot Who would hear? If the door Opened onto a pure darkness And it was no dream? If your life Ended the way a book ends With half a blank page and the survivors Gone off to Africa or madness? If my life ended in late spring Of […]...
3. Chiang Chin Chiu See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven, Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again! See at the mirror In the High Hall Aged men bewailing white locks – In the morning, threads of silk, In the evening flakes of snow. Snatch the joys Of life as they come […]...
4. The Dying Words Of Stonewall Jackson “Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle.” “Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train.” “Let us cross the river and rest in the shade.” The stars of Night contain the glittering Day And rain his glory down with sweeter grace Upon the dark World’s grand, enchanted face All loth to turn away. And […]...
5. Night Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day. Each rules a half of earth with different sway, Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway. Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine, The sun half sinks i’ the brimming, rosy brine: The wild Night drinks all up: how her eyes shine! Now the swift […]...
6. Last Night As I Was Sleeping Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt-marvelous error!- That a spring was breaking Out in my heart. I said: Along which secret aqueduct, Oh water, are you coming to me, Water of a new life That I have never drunk? Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt-marvelous error!- That I had a beehive […]...
7. Your thoughts don't have words every day Your thoughts don’t have words every day They come a single time Like signal esoteric sips Of the communion Wine Which while you taste so native seems So easy so to be You cannot comprehend its price Nor its infrequency...
8. Pretty Words Poets make pets of pretty, docile words: I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish Which circle slowly with a silken swish, And tender ones, like downy-feathred birds: Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds, Come to my hand, and playful if I wish, Or purring softly at a silver dish, Blue Persian kittens fed […]...
9. Words Words are like days: Coloring books or pickpockets, Signposts or scratching posts, Fakirs over hot coals. Certain words must be earned Just as emotions are suffered Before they can be uttered – clean as a kept promise. Words as witnesses Testifying their truths Squalid or rarefied Inevitable, irrefutable. But, words must not carry More than […]...
10. A March Snow Let the old snow be covered with the new: The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden. Let it be hidden wholly from our view By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden. When Winter dies, low at the sweet Spring’s feet Let him be mantled in a clean, white sheet. Let the old […]...
11. In soothing, sweetened words No, she said, I never knew it was your first. It doesn’t Matter anyway. I always had an inkling that we’d find A way. And then we did. I’m glad about it just for that. Whether it was good or bad, or would have happened Had we made a pact or that it should have […]...
12. Big Night On The Town drunk on the dark streets of some city, It’s night, you’re lost, where’s your Room? You enter a bar to find yourself, Order scotch and water. Damned bar’s sloppy wet, it soaks Part of one of your shirt Sleeves. It’s a clip joint-the scotch is weak. You order a bottle of beer. Madame Death walks […]...
13. Words Be careful of words, Even the miraculous ones. For the miraculous we do our best, Sometimes they swarm like insects And leave not a sting but a kiss. They can be as good as fingers. They can be as trusty as the rock You stick your bottom on. But they can be both daisies and […]...
14. Night I love the silent hour of night, For blissful dreams may then arise, Revealing to my charmed sight What may not bless my waking eyes! And then a voice may meet my ear That death has silenced long ago; And hope and rapture may appear Instead of solitude and woe. Cold in the grave for […]...
15. Words I had this thought a while ago, ‘My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land.’ And I grew weary of the sun Until my thoughts cleared up again, Remembering that the best I have done Was done to make it plain; That every year I have […]...
16. To Whom Words Are Mightier 1/ To whom words are mightier than swords Be warned, for woes may thee betide After our pride, land, offsprings and lives What more of us can be deprived? Virtuousness and compliance Are being ridiculed by this persecution Avarice rules the world, conscience Eclipsed by Darwinian aggression Peace is a piece of cake offered at […]...
17. Voices Of the Night PRELUDE. Pleasant it was, when woods were green, And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene, Where, the long drooping boughs between Shadows dark and sunlight sheen Alternate come and go; Or where the denser grove receives No sunlight from above But the dark foliage interweaves In one unbroken roof of […]...
18. Little Words When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf, Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds; And I can only stare, and shape my grief In little words. I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown The bitter woe that racks my cords apart. The weary pen that sets my sorrow down Feeds at my […]...
19. Night Thoughts Over A Sick Child Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep, I keep night watch. Looking for Signs to quiet fear, I creep Closer to his bed and hear His breath come and go, holding My own as if my own were All I paid. Nothing I bring, Say, or do has meaning here. Outside, ice crusts on river And […]...
20. A few kind words A few kind words, what can be bought with that? In essence just a clique of tidy prose, A verb, a noun, perhaps an adjectival phrase Offered in the form of venal praise – and be surprised at what it buys. Like a fleeting smile it’s currency outweighs The simple form, a hint of urbane […]...
21. Words Out of us all That make rhymes Will you choose Sometimes – As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through – Choose me, You English words? I know you: You are light as dreams, Tough as oak, Precious as gold, As poppies and […]...
22. The Words Of Belief Three words will I name thee around and about, From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee; But they had not their birth in the being without, And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be! And all worth in the man shall forever be o’er When in those three words […]...
23. He Knows All There Is To Know. Now He Is Acquainted With The Day And Night (Robert Frost, 1875-1963) Whose wood this is I think I know: He made it sacred long ago: He will expect me, far or near To watch that wood immense with snow. That famous horse must feel great fear Now that his noble rider’s no longer here: He gives his harness bells to rhyme Perhaps he […]...
24. Words If on isle of the sea I have to tarry, With one book, let it be A Dictionary. For though I love life’s scene, It seems absurd, My greatest joy has been The printed word. Though painter with delight May colours blend, They are but in his sight Means to an end. Yet while I […]...
25. Sonnet XXI: Your Words, My Friend Your words, my friend, (right healthful caustics) blame My young mind marr’d, whom Love doth windlass so, That mine own writings like bad servants show My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame; That Plato I read for nought, but if he tame Such doltish gyres; that to my birth I owe Nobler desires, […]...
26. Carol of Words 1 EARTH, round, rolling, compact-suns, moons, animals-all these are words to be said; Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances-beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, Behold! these are vast words to be said. Were you thinking that those were the words-those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots? No, those are not the words-the substantial words are in the […]...
27. The Words Of Error Three errors there are, that forever are found On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best; But empty their meaning and hollow their sound And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast. The fruits of existence escape from the clasp Of the seeker who strives but those shadows to […]...
28. Russian Sonia I, born in Weimar Of a mother who was French And German father, a most learned professor, Orphaned at fourteen years, Became a dancer, known as Russian Sonia, All up and down the boulevards of Paris, Mistress betimes of sundry dukes and counts, And later of poor artists and of poets. At forty years, passée, […]...
29. Rotgut The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Psalm 121 On a hillside scattered with temples broken Under the dogday sun, my friend and I drank Local wine at nightfall and ate grapeleaves In goat-yogurt glaze. The living grape vines Bore fruit overhead. Beyond our balcony, Beyond the Turkish rooftops, […]...
30. Blizzard Snow falls: Years of anger following Hours that float idly down- The blizzard Drifts its weight Deeper and deeper for three days Or sixty years, eh? Then The sun! a clutter of Yellow and blue flakes- Hairy looking trees stand out In long alleys Over a wild solitude. The man turns and there- His solitary […]...
31. Night Poem There is nothing to be afraid of, It is only the wind Changing to the east, it is only Your father the thunder Your mother the rain In this country of water With its beige moon damp as a mushroom, Its drowned stumps and long birds That swim, where the moss grows On all sides […]...
32. A monument in words And so I had a glaring revelation, I couldn’t find the poet in the man although I read his life composed by writers true disposed To tell it with veracity. They built a monument in words And deeds, a shrine of writers’ reeds inlaid with refined And proper quotes. Those motes were hardly real; I […]...
33. To Tu Fu from Shantung You ask how I spend my time I nestle against a treetrunk And listen to autumn winds In the pines all night and day. Shantung wine can’t get me drunk. The local poets bore me. My thoughts remain with you, Like the Wen River, endlessly flowing....
34. I found the words to every thought I found the words to every thought I ever had but One And that defies me As a Hand did try to chalk the Sun To Races nurtured in the Dark How would your own begin? Can Blaze be shown in Cochineal Or Noon in Mazarin?...
35. IMPOSSIBILITIES: TO HIS FRIEND My faithful friend, if you can see The fruit to grow up, or the tree; If you can see the colour come Into the blushing pear or plum; If you can see the water grow To cakes of ice, or flakes of snow; If you can see that drop of rain Lost in the wild […]...
36. Madam, Withouten Many Words Madam, withouten many words Once I am sure ye will or no… And if ye will, then leave your bourds And use your wit and show it so, And with a beck ye shall me call; And if of one that burneth alway Ye have any pity at all, Answer him fair with & {.} […]...
37. Rapids at Night Here at the roots of the mountains, Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks, The rapids charge the ravine: A little light, cast by foam under starlight, Wavers about the shimmering stems of the birches: Here rise up the clangorous sounds of battle, Immense and mournful. Far above curves the great dome of darkness […]...
38. To the Recluse, Wei Pa Often in this life of ours we resemble, in our failure to meet, the Shen and Shang constellations, one of which rises as the other one sets. What lucky Chance is it, then, that brings us together this evening under the light of This same lamp? Youth and vigor last but a little time. – […]...
39. What Needeth These Threat'ning Words What needeth these threnning words and wasted wind? All this cannot make me restore my prey. To rob your good, iwis, is not my mind, Nor causeless your fair hand did I display. Let love be judge or else whom next we meet That may both hear what you and I can say: She took […]...
40. He ate and drank the precious Words He ate and drank the precious Words His Spirit grew robust He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was Dust He danced along the dingy Days And this Bequest of Wings Was but a Book What Liberty A loosened spirit brings...