Small Game
In borrowed boots which don’t fit
And an old olive greatcoat,
I hunt the corn-fed rabbit,
Game fowl, squirrel, starved bobcat,
Anything small. I bring down
Young deer wandered from the doe’s
Gaze, and reload, and move on
Leaving flesh to inform crows.
At dusk they seem to suspect
Me, burrowed in a corn field
Verging their stream. The unpecked
Stalks call them. Nervous, they yield
To what they must: hunger, thirst,
Habit. Closer and closer
Comes the scratching which at first
Sounds like sheaves clicked together.
I know them better than they
Themselves, so I win. At night
The darkness is against me.
I can’t see enough to sight
My weapon, which becomes freight
To be endured or at best
A crutch to ease swollen feet
That demand but don’t get rest
Unless I invade your barn,
Which I do. Under my dark
Coat, monstrous and vague, I turn
Down your lane, float through the yard,
And roost. Or so I appear
To you who call me spirit
Or devil, though I’m neither.
What’s more, under all, I’m white
And soft, more like yourself than
You ever would have guessed before
You claimed your barn with shot gun,
Torch, and hounds. Why am I here?
What do I want? Who am I?
You demand from the blank mask
Which amuses the dogs. Leave me!
I do your work so why ask?
Related poetry:
- Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
- A Game of Fives Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One: Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun. Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six: Sitting down to lessons – no more time for tricks. Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven: Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven! Five winsome girls, […]...
- To win a game How do you win a football game? Not by skill alone or clever plays, In modern days the game has changed and subterfuge and actors Ways will pave the path to glory. Fitness pays a fair reward to keep A fleetness in the feet, a clearness in the head, and special food And clever drinks […]...
- The Night Game Some of us believe We would have conceived romantic Love out of our own passions With no precedents, Without songs and poetry Or have invented poetry and music As a comb of cells for the honey. Shaped by ignorance, A succession of new worlds, Congruities improvised by Immigrants or children. I once thought most people […]...
- Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
- Roofs (For Amelia Josephine Burr) The road is wide and the stars are out And the breath of the night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet. But I’m glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my Face, And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors […]...
- The Negro Boy Paupertas onus visa est grave. Cold blows the wind, and while the tear Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes, The rain’s big drop, quick meets it there, And on my naked bosom flies! O pity, all ye sons of Joy, The little wand’ring Negro-boy. These tatter’d clothes, this ice-cold breast By Winter harden’d into steel, […]...
- Tickets to the game I asked my Dad about the War when I was very young, He said it happened a long, long time ago And a long, long way away, he seemed a little vague On the subject so I relented, I thought he hadn’t attended. I never knew he got sent tickets to go and only went […]...
- Being old in the game It was a half-life that seemed like a genuine world Wielding hard symbolism over those who ruled it; we Lived vaguely in teen-easy ambivalence whilst our peers Took their chances in ordered existence, wearing Their office with pride and esteem. The guises we Wore were a mask, a dream in denial of their system, Its […]...
- 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 […]...
- The Crowd At The Ball Game The crowd at the ball game Is moved uniformly By a spirit of uselessness Which delights them – All the exciting detail Of the chase And the escape, the error The flash of genius – All to no end save beauty The eternal – So in detail they, the crowd, Are beautiful For this To […]...
- ANSWERS IN A GAME OF QUESTIONS THE LADY. IN the small and great world too, What most charms a woman’s heart? It is doubtless what is new, For its blossoms joy impart; Nobler far is what is true, For fresh blossoms it can shoot Even in the time of fruit. THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN. With the Nymphs in wood and cave Paris […]...
- The Puzzled Game-Birds They are not those who used to feed us When we were young they cannot be – These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? They are not those who used to feed us, – For would they not fair terms concede us? – If hearts can house such treachery They are not those who […]...
- Love Compared To A Game Of Tables Love is a game at tables where the dye Of mayds affections doth by fancie fly: If once you catch their fancie in a blott It’s tenne to one if then you enter not: You being a gamester then may boldly venter, And if you finde the point lye open enter: But marke them well, […]...
- Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
- The Simple Truth I bought a dollar and a half’s worth of small red potatoes, Took them home, boiled them in their jackets And ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt. Then I walked through the dried fields On the edge of town. In middle June the light Hung on in the dark furrows at […]...
- Aunt Leaf Needing one, I invented her – The great-great-aunt dark as hickory Called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud Or The-Beauty-of-the-Night. Dear aunt, I’d call into the leaves, And she’d rise up, like an old log in a pool, And whisper in a language only the two of us knew The word that meant follow, And we’d travel Cheerful […]...
- Prairie-Grass Dividing, The THE prairie-grass dividing-its special odor breathing, I demand of it the spiritual corresponding, Demand the most copious and close companionship of men, Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings, Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious, Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command-leading, not following, Those […]...
- Harlem Shadows I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire’s call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street! Through the long night until […]...
- Three Pieces on the Smoke of Autumn SMOKE of autumn is on it all. The streamers loosen and travel. The red west is stopped with a gray haze. They fill the ash trees, they wrap the oaks, They make a long-tailed rider In the pocket of the first, the earliest evening star.. . . Three muskrats swim west on the Desplaines River. […]...
- The Apparitions Because there is safety in derision I talked about an apparition, I took no trouble to convince, Or seem plausible to a man of sense. Distrustful of thar popular eye Whether it be bold or sly. Fifteen apparitions have I seen; The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger. I have found nothing half so good […]...
- The Little Old Log Cabin When a man gits on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town, An’ he ain’t got nothin’ comin’ an’ he can’t afford ter eat, An’ he’s in a fix for lodgin’ an’ he wanders up an’ down, An’ you’d fancy he’d been boozin’, he’s so locoed ’bout the feet; When he’s feelin’ sneakin’ sorry […]...
- God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop The summer and autumn had been so wet, That in winter the corn was growing yet, ‘Twas a piteous sight to see all around The grain lie rotting on the ground. Every day the starving poor Crowded around Bishop Hatto’s door, For he had a plentiful last-year’s store, And all the neighbourhood could tell His […]...
- Come, Walk With Me Come, walk with me, There’s only thee To bless my spirit now – We used to love on winter nights To wander through the snow; Can we not woo back old delights? The clouds rush dark and wild They fleck with shade our mountain heights The same as long ago And on the horizon rest […]...
- Snowbanks North of the House Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six Feet from the house… Thoughts that go so far. The boy gets out of high school and reads no more Books; The son stops calling home. The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no More bread. And the wife looks at her husband one […]...
- 5.7 I don’t care if you are you and I am I. I am not some exotic flower. Whatever coat you have on, I will put it on to warm me… and the shoes however small… I will walk in them to balance our height difference. You don’t need to convert for me; I have already […]...
- A Smuggler's Song If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the […]...
- Farmer, Dying for Hank and Nancy Seven thousand acres of grass have faded yellow From his cough. These limp days, his anger, Legend forty years from moon to Stevensville, Lives on, just barely, in a Great Falls whore. Cruel times, he cries, cruel winds. His geese roam Unattended in the meadow. The gold last leaves Of cottonwoods […]...
- I cautious, scanned my little life I cautious, scanned my little life I winnowed what would fade From what would last till Heads like mine Should be a-dreaming laid. I put the latter in a Barn The former, blew away. I went one winter morning And lo – my priceless Hay Was not upon the “Scaffold” Was not upon the “Beam” […]...
- SCARECROW CRIMES In Hayfield I imagine Not just the nuts and bolts of split cockpits But a Spitfire’s sunk fuselage Has smoked out its entirety unseen From one century to the next. At Edale Cross, Birch Vale or Kinder, In rock, field or peat bog More than machinery beds down and is lost, It’s true But here […]...
- Laughing Corn THERE was a high majestic fooling Day before yesterday in the yellow corn. And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn There will be high majestic fooling. The ears ripen in late summer And come on with a conquering laughter, Come on with a high and conquering laughter. The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse. One of […]...
- Women's Suffrage Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise? When they pay the same taxes as you and me, I consider they ought to have the same liberty. And I consider if they are not allowed the same liberty, From taxation every one of […]...
- Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple Leaping like Leopards to the Sky Then at the feet of the old Horizon Laying her spotted Face to die Stooping as low as the Otter’s Window Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow And the Juggler of Day is gone...
- Songs For A Colored Singer I A washing hangs upon the line, but it’s not mine. None of the things that I can see belong to me. The neighbors got a radio with an aerial; we got a little portable. They got a lot of closet space; we got a suitcase. I say, “Le Roy, just how much are we […]...
- Quantum Est Quod Desit ‘Twas a new feeling – something more Than we had dar’d to own before, Which then we hid not; We saw it in each other’s eye, And wish’d in every broken sigh To speak, but did not! She felt my lips’ impassion’d touch; ‘Twas the first time I dar’d so much, And yet, she chid […]...
- Hiram Scates I tried to win the nomination For president of the County-board And I made speeches all over the County Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival, As an enemy of the people, In league with the master-foes of man. Young idealists, broken warriors, Hobbling on one crutch of hope, Souls that stake their all on the truth, […]...
- Opposition Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain no more; for these, O heart, Direct the random of the will As rhymes direct the rage of art. The lute’s fixt fret, that runs athwart The strain and purpose of the string, For governance and nice consort Doth bar his wilful wavering. The dark hath […]...
- Summer Dawn Pray but one prayer for me ‘twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars. The summer night waneth, the morning light slips, Faint and grey ‘twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars That are patiently waiting there for the dawn: Patient and colourless, though Heaven’s gold Waits […]...
- In Snow O English mother, in the ruddy glow Hugging your baby closer when outside You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow Falling again, and think what ills betide Unshelter’d creatures, your sad thoughts may go Where War and Winter now, two spectre-wolves, Hunt in the freezing vapour that involves Those Asian peaks of ice and […]...
- Dream Land Where sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charmed sleep: Awake her not. Led by a single star, She came from very far To seek where shadows are Her pleasant lot. She left the rosy morn, She left the fields of corn, For twilight cold and lorn And water springs. Through […]...