Twelve O'Clock

Related poetry:

1. With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate Saying: “Once more, good youth, I stand and wait.” Saying: “I bring you my fair Law of Peace And from your withering passion full release; Release from that white hand that stabbed you so. The road is calling. With the wind you go, Forgetting her imperious disdain […]...
2. The Twelve Dancing Princesses If you danced from midnight To six A. M. who would understand? The runaway boy Who chucks it all To live on the Boston Common On speed and saltines, Pissing in the duck pond, Rapping with the street priest, Trading talk like blows, Another missing person, Would understand. The paralytic’s wife Who takes her love […]...
3. The old pond Following are several translations Of the ‘Old Pond’ poem, which may be The most famous of all haiku: Furuike ya Kawazu tobikomu Mizu no oto Basho Literal Translation Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, Ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) Mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound) The old pond A frog jumps in, sound of water. Translated by […]...
4. The Banyan Tree O you shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond, Have you forgotten the little chile, like the birds that have Nested in your branches and left you? Do you not remember how he sat at the window and wondered at The tangle of your roots and plunged underground? The women would come […]...
5. The Cat in the Kitchen (For Donald Hall) Have you heard about the boy who walked by The black water? I won’t say much more. Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered. Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand Reaches out and pulls him in. There was no Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, […]...
6. On why it is necessary to talk kindly to frogs i met a frog in my garden today Lurking under a stone – it said There used to be a pond here I know i said i had to dig it up Pity said the frog and looked at me As if i was the thickest mortal A garden without water it croaked Is worse […]...
7. Twelve Months After Hullo! here’s my platoon, the lot I had last year. ‘The war’ll be over soon.’ ‘What ‘opes?’ ‘No bloody fear!’ Then, ‘Number Seven, ‘shun! All present and correct.’ They’re standing in the sun, impassive and erect. Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired and white; Jordan, who’s out to win a D. C. M. […]...
8. The Twelve-Forty-Five (For Edward J. Wheeler) Within the Jersey City shed The engine coughs and shakes its head, The smoke, a plume of red and white, Waves madly in the face of night. And now the grave incurious stars Gleam on the groaning hurrying cars. Against the kind and awful reign Of darkness, this our angry train, […]...
9. At Great Pond At Great Pond The sun, rising, Scrapes his orange breast On the thick pines, And down tumble A few orange feathers into The dark water. On the far shore A white bird is standing Like a white candle – Or a man, in the distance, In the clasp of some meditation – While all around […]...
10. Landing Under Water, I See Roots All the things we hide in water Hoping we won’t see them go- (forests growing under water Press against the ones we know)- And they might have gone on growing And they might now breathe above Everything I speak of sowing (everything I try to love)....
11. The Pond Night covers the pond with its wing. Under the ringed moon I can make out Your face swimming among minnows and the small Echoing stars. In the night air The surface of the pond is metal. Within, your eyes are open. They contain A memory I recognize, as though We had been children together. Our […]...
12. Chemin De Fer Alone on the railroad track I walked with pounding heart. The ties were too close together or maybe too far apart. The scenery was impoverished: scrub-pine and oak; beyond Its mingled gray-green foliage I saw the little pond Where the dirty old hermit lives, lie like an old tear Holding onto its injuries lucidly year […]...
13. Atavism I was always afraid of Somes’s Pond: Not the little pond, by which the willow stands, Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond. There, where the frost makes all the birches burn Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines Like a polished shell between black […]...
14. The Twelve III Our sons have gone To serve the Reds To serve the Reds To risk their heads! O bitter, bitter pain, Sweet living! A torn overcoat An Austrian gun! -To get the bourgeosie We’ll start a fire A worldwide fire, and drench it In blood – The good Lord bless us! -O you bitter bitterness, […]...
15. Twelve Years The line That remained, that Became true: . . . your House in Paris become The alterpiece of your hands. Breathed through thrice, Shone through thrice. ………………. It’s turning dumb, turning deaf Behind our eyes. I see the poison flower In all manner of words and shapes. Go. Come. Love blots out its name: to […]...
16. Hobo A father’s pride I used to know, A mother’s love was mine; For swinish husks I let them go, And bedded with the swine. Since then I’ve come on evil days And most of life is hell; But even swine have winsome ways When once you know them well. One time I guessed I’d cease […]...
17. Beautiful Monikie Beautiful Monikie! with your trees and shrubberies green And your beautiful walks, most charming to be seen: ‘Tis a beautiful place for pleasure-seekers to resort, Because there they can have innocent sport, Taking a leisure walk all round about, And see the ang1ers fishing in the pand for trout. Besides, there’s lovely white swans swimming […]...
18. Farewell and adieu 1914-18 Farewell and adieu to you, Harwich Ladies, Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore! For we’ve received orders to work to the eastward Where we hope in a short time to strafe ’em some more. We’ll duck and we’ll dive like little tin turtles, We’ll duck and we’ll dive underneath the North Seas, Until […]...
19. The Black Unicorn The black unicorn is greedy. The black unicorn is impatient. ‘The black unicorn was mistaken For a shadow or symbol And taken Through a cold country Where mist painted mockeries Of my fury. It is not on her lap where the horn rests But deep in her moonpit Growing. The black unicorn is restless The […]...
20. White Cockatoos Now the autumn maize is growing, Now the corn-cob fills, Where the Little River flowing Winds among the hills. Over mountain peaks outlying Clear against the blue Comes a scout in silence flying, One white cockatoo. Back he goes to where the meeting Waits among the trees. Says, “The corn is fit for eating; Hurry, […]...
21. A Man Young And Old: VIII. Summer And Spring We sat under an old thorn-tree And talked away the night, Told all that had been said or done Since first we saw the light, And when we talked of growing up Knew that we’d halved a soul And fell the one in t’other’s arms That we might make it whole; Then peter had a […]...
22. Bonehead Bill I wonder ‘oo and wot ‘e was, That ‘Un I got so slick. I couldn’t see ‘is face because The night was ‘ideous thick. I just made out among the black A blinkin’ wedge o’ white; Then biff! I guess I got ‘im crack The man I killed last night. I wonder if account o’ […]...
23. The Gardener LXIV: I Spent My Day I spent my day on the scorching Hot dust of the road. Now, in the cool of the evening, I Knock at the door of the inn. It is Deserted and in ruins. A grim ashath tree spreads its Hungry clutching roots through the Gaping fissures of the walls. Days have been when wayfarers Came […]...
24. Neutral Tones WE stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod, They had fallen from an ash, and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles solved years ago; And some words played […]...
25. Ducks and wisdom [from a motif by Jean Dunand (1877-1942)] Seven lacqueur ducks on a silver pond Their rippling held in a moveless frieze Nothing now can help them swim beyond The stoned edges (invent a new-age breeze) Eternity is water starved of trees Their fixture is our own – for all we fidget History puts us down […]...
26. The Métier of Blossoming Fully occupied with growing that’s The amaryllis. Growing especially At night: it would take Only a bit more patience than I’ve got To sit keeping watch with it till daylight; The naked eye could register every hour’s Increase in height. Like a child against a barn door, Proudly topping each year’s achievement, Steadily up Goes […]...
27. Clapp's Pond Three miles through the woods Clapp’s Pond sprawls stone gray Among oaks and pines, The late winter fields Where a pheasant blazes up Lifting his yellow legs Under bronze feathers, opening Bronze wings; And one doe, dimpling the ground as she touches Its dampness sharply, flares Out of the brush and gallops away. * By […]...
28. Black On Black Serrations of chimneys Stone-black perforate Velvet-black dark. A tree coils in core of darkness. My swinging Hands Incise the night. A man slips into a doorway, Black hole in blackness, and drowns there. A second man passing traces The diagram of his steps On invisible pavement. Rain Draws black parallel threads Through the hollow of […]...
29. The Moss Of His Skin “Young girls in old Arabia were often buried alive next To their fathers, apparently as sacrifice to the goddesses Of the tribes…” Harold Feldman, “Children of the Desert” Psychoanalysis And Psychoanalytic Review, Fall 1958 It was only important To smile and hold still, To lie down beside him And to rest awhile, To be folded […]...
30. Binsey Poplars felled 1879 My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, All felled, felled, are all felled; Of a fresh and following folded rank Not spared, not one That dandled a sandalled Shadow that swam or sank On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank. O if we but […]...
31. The Gardener XIII: I Asked Nothing I asked nothing, only stood at the Edge of the wood behind the tree. Languor was still upon the eyes Of the dawn, and the dew in the air. The lazy smell of the damp grass Hung in the thin mist above the earth. Under the banyan tree you were Milking the cow with your […]...
32. Song of the Little White Girl Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter? Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter? Because it is just a white baby you see, And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree? Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellow With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow. Wouldn’t you like to […]...
33. Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond So heavy Is the long-necked, long-bodied heron, Always it is a surprise When her smoke-colored wings Open And she turns From the thick water, From the black sticks Of the summer pond, And slowly Rises into the air And is gone. Then, not for the first or the last time, I take the deep breath […]...
34. From Far, From Eve and Morning From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither: here am I. Now for a breath I tarry Nor yet disperse apart Take my hand quick and tell me, What have you in your heart. Speak now, and I will answer; How shall I help […]...
35. The Little Black Boy My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white. White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav’d of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day. She took me on her […]...
36. Fergus Falling He climbed to the top Of one of those million white pines Set out across the emptying pastures Of the fifties – some program to enrich the rich And rebuke the forefathers Who cleared it all at once with ox and axe – Climbed to the top, probably to get out Of the shadow Not […]...
37. An Old Story (Retold in Rhyme) They threw him in a prison cell; He moaned upon his bed. And when he crept from coils of hell: “Last night you killed,” they said. “last night in drunken rage you slew A being brave with breath; A radiant soul, because of you Lies dark in death.” “last night I killed,” […]...
38. Music I tied together A few slender reeds, cut Notches to breathe across and made Such music you stood Shock still and then Followed as I wandered growing Moment by moment Slant-eyes and shaggy, my feet Slamming over the rocks, growing Hard as horn, and there You were behind me, drowning In the music, letting The […]...
39. History Of The Night Throughout the course of the generations Men constructed the night. At first she was blindness; Thorns raking bare feet, Fear of wolves. We shall never know who forged the word For the interval of shadow Dividing the two twilights; We shall never know in what age it came to mean The starry hours. Others created […]...
40. The Crescent Moon Slipping softly through the sky Little horned, happy moon, Can you hear me up so high? Will you come down soon? On my nursery window-sill Will you stay your steady flight? And then float away with me Through the summer night? Brushing over tops of trees, Playing hide and seek with stars, Peeping up through […]...