In A Bed Of Baked Beans (Part Two)

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1. The beans were exciting I tried cooking in my new Quicksilver jacket, just An affectation I assure you – no, not the coat Or the cooking but me in the wearing of it, A form of warped appreciation, and when I think Of it the gag was truly fitting; it wasn’t new, A barely used waterproof surfers’ jacket bought […]...
2. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
3. Without this there is nought Without this there is nought All other Riches be As is the Twitter of a Bird Heard opposite the Sea I could not care to gain A lesser than the Whole For did not this include themself As Seams include the Ball? I wished a way might be My Heart to subdivide ‘Twould magnify the […]...
4. Bag Of Mice I dreamt your suicide note Was scrawled in pencil on a brown paperbag, & in the bag were six baby mice. The bag Opened into darkness, Smoldering From the top down. The mice, Huddled at the bottom, scurried the bag Across a shorn field. I stood over it & as the burning reached each carbon […]...
5. Child Margaret THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 […]...
6. Here's to the Mice! (Written with the hope that the socialists might yet dethrone Kaiser and Czar.) Here’s to the mice that scare the lions, Creeping into their cages. Here’s to the fairy mice that bite The elephants fat and wise: Hidden in the hay-pile while the elephant thunder rages. Here’s to the scurrying, timid mice Through whom the […]...
7. To Mrs Reynolds' Cat Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric, How many mice and rats hast in thy days Destroy’d? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze With those bright languid segments green, and prick Those velvet ears – but pr’ythee do not stick Thy latent talons in me – and upraise Thy gentle mew – and tell me […]...
8. When the Great Ark When the Great Ark, in Vigo Bay, Rode stately through the half-manned fleet, From every ship about her way She heard the mariners entreat Before we take the seas again Let down your boats and send us men! “We have no lack of victual here With work God knows! enough for all, To hand and […]...
9. Milkweed Remember how unimportant They seemed, growing loosely In the open fields we crossed On the way to school. We Would carve wooden swords And slash at the luscious trunks Until the white milk started And then flowed. Then we’d Go on to the long day After day of the History of History Or the tables […]...
10. His Legacy This is a true poem about a very special boy whose short life brought so much love and beauty to the world. It is dedicated to all the special children who bless our lives for only a short time but whose priceless gifts last forever. At an early age he started to Create beauty. The […]...
11. My Great Great Etc. Uncle Patrick Henry There’s a fortune to be made in just about everything In this country, somebody’s father had to invent Everything baby food, tractors, rat poisoning. My family’s obviously done nothing since the beginning Of time. They invented poverty and bad taste And getting by and taking it from the boss. O my mother goes around chewing […]...
12. Bring me the sunset in a cup Bring me the sunset in a cup, Reckon the morning’s flagons up And say how many Dew, Tell me how far the morning leaps Tell me what time the weaver sleeps Who spun the breadth of blue! Write me how many notes there be In the new Robin’s ecstasy Among astonished boughs How many trips […]...
13. THE MUSAGETES IN the deepest nights of Winter To the Muses kind oft cried I: “Not a ray of morn is gleaming, Not a sign of daylight breaking; Bring, then, at the fitting moment, Bring the lamp’s soft glimm’ring lustre, ‘Stead of Phoebus and Aurora, To enliven my still labours!” Yet they left me in my slumbers, […]...
14. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
15. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
16. White Ash THERE is a woman on Michigan Boulevard keeps a parrot and goldfish and two white mice. She used to keep a houseful of girls in kimonos and three pushbuttons on the front door. Now she is alone with a parrot and goldfish and two white mice… but these are some of her thoughts: The love […]...
17. Time Stands Still over Govandi Station A kite flutters, On a high tension wire – Against a stark blue sky. Beggar and old mother huddle On Govandi Railway Station – The dirtiest station in the universe. He shows her a plastic watch, Smiles, “See I have time,” She, old, gnarled, wrinkled, Looks through beady eyes, “I have no need for time.” […]...
18. The Gardener XLVI: You Left Me You left me and went on your way. I thought I should mourn for you And set your solitary image in my Heart wrought in a golden song. But ah, my evil fortune, time is Short. Youth wanes year after year; the Spring days are fugitive; the frail Flowers die for nothing, and the wise […]...
19. An Epicure Should you preserve white mice in honey Don’t use imported ones from China, For though they cost you less in money You’ll find the Japanese ones finer. But if Chinese, stuff them with spice, Which certainly improves their savour, And though the Canton mice are nice, The Pekinese have finer flavour. If you should pickle […]...
20. Variations on ‘The short night Below are eleven Buson haiku Beginning with the phrase ‘The short night ‘ The short night On the hairy caterpillar Beads of dew. The short night Patrolmen Washing in the river. The short night Bubbles of crab froth Among the river reeds. The short night A broom thrown away On the beach. The short night […]...
21. Sonnet 38: How can my Muse want subject to invent How can my Muse want subject to invent While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgar paper to rehearse? O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight, For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou […]...
22. Poem 14 NOw al is done; bring home the bride againe, Bring home the triumph of our victory, Bring home with you the glory of her gaine, With ioyance bring her and with iollity. Neuer had man more ioyfull day then this, Whom heauen would heape with blis. Make feast therefore now all this liue long day, […]...
23. Aladdin and the Jinn “Bring me soft song,” said Aladdin. “This tailor-shop sings not at all. Chant me a word of the twilight, Of roses that mourn in the fall. Bring me a song like hashish That will comfort the stale and the sad, For I would be mending my spirit, Forgetting these days that are bad, Forgetting companions […]...
24. Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts: If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
25. Sonnet XVII Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill’d with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
26. Magrady Graham Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor? For when the returns began to come in And Cleveland was sweeping the East, It was too much for you, poor old heart, Who had striven for democracy In the long, long years of defeat. And like a watch that is worn I felt you growing slower until you […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Fearful Women Arms and the girl I sing – O rare Arms that are braceleted and white and bare Arms that were lovely Helen’s, in whose name Greek slaughtered Trojan. Helen was to blame. Scape-nanny call her; wars for turf And profit don’t sound glamorous enough. Mythologize your women! None escape. Europe was named from an act […]...
29. Contained in this short Life Contained in this short Life Are magical extents The soul returning soft at night To steal securer thence As Children strictest kept Turn soonest to the sea Whose nameless Fathoms slink away Beside infinity...
30. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION I have taken advantage of the publication of a Second Edition Of my translation of the Poems of Goethe (originally published in 1853), to add to the Collection a version of the much admired classical Poem of Hermann and Dorothea, which was previously omitted by me In consequence of its length. Its universal popularity, however, […]...
31. A Song Of Sixty-Five Brave Thackeray has trolled of days when he was twenty-one, And bounded up five flights of stairs, a gallant garreteer; And yet again in mellow vein when youth was gaily run, Has dipped his nose in Gascon wine, and told of Forty Year. But if I worthy were to sing a richer, rarer time, I’d […]...
32. We miss Her, not because We see We miss Her, not because We see The Absence of an Eye Except its Mind accompany Abridge Society As slightly as the Routes of Stars Ourselves asleep below We know that their superior Eyes Include Us as they go...
33. Theme with Variations I never loved a dear Gazelle Nor anything that cost me much: High prices profit those who sell, But why should I be fond of such? To glad me with his soft black eye My son comes trotting home from school; He’s had a fight but can’t tell why He always was a little fool! […]...
34. To The Memory Of Mr Oldham Farewell, too little and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own; For sure our souls were near allied, and thine Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike. To the same goal did both […]...
35. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
36. Admire their style I’m reading fellow poets’ blogs today, A sustaining source of entertainment; I admire their style without exciting comment Or resorting to an unkind eye, simple though It is to sigh about uneasy affirmation. I hope when they read me (if they ever do) They rest as easy on my lack of finished form, The hazy, […]...
37. To An Old Mate Old Mate! In the gusty old weather, When our hopes and our troubles were new, In the years spent in wearing out leather, I found you unselfish and true I have gathered these verses together For the sake of our friendship and you. You may think for awhile, and with reason, Though still with a […]...
38. To flee from memory To flee from memory Had we the Wings Many would fly Inured to slower things Birds with surprise Would scan the cowering Van Of men escaping From the mind of man...
39. Oh Sumptuous moment Oh Sumptuous moment Slower go That I may gloat on thee ‘Twill never be the same to starve Now I abundance see Which was to famish, then or now The difference of Day Ask him unto the Gallows led With morning in the sky...
40. Except the smaller size Except the smaller size No lives are round These hurry to a sphere And show and end The larger slower grow And later hang The Summers of Hesperides Are long....