It Takes a While to Disappear

Related poetry:

1. To disappear enhances To disappear enhances The Man that runs away Is tinctured for an instant With Immortality But yesterday a Vagrant Today in Memory lain With superstitious value We tamper with “Again” But “Never” far as Honor Withdraws the Worthless thing And impotent to cherish We hasten to adorn Of Death the sternest function That just as […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. To die takes just a little while To die takes just a little while They say it doesn’t hurt It’s only fainter by degrees And then it’s out of sight A darker Ribbon for a Day A Crape upon the Hat And then the pretty sunshine comes And helps us to forget The absent mystic creature That but for love of us […]...
4. The Red Shirt “…his poems that no one reads anymore become dust, wind, nothing, Like the insolent colored shirt he bought to die in.” -Vargas Llosa If I gave 5 birds Each 4 eyes I would be blind Unto the 3rd Generation, if I Gave no one a word For a day And let the day Grow into […]...
5. Your Voices Joined Is All It Takes They came in masted wooden ships across An unindentured sea and cast their lot in ocean Swells to chance at history, and Sovereign power Commanded thus they rot in purgatory. Petty crime or deeds they did in torrid Times from anxious needs which bid them cheat And lie to live; condemned and badly done by […]...
6. Heaven Haven: A Nun Takes The Veil I have desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail And a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea....
7. The Slums That should be obvious Of course it won’t Any fool knows that. Even in the winter. Consider for a moment. What? Consider what! They never have. Why now? Certainly it means nothing. It’s all a lie. What else could it be? That’s right. Sure. Any way you look at it. A silk hat. A fat […]...
8. Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite, Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, Or any of these all, or all, or more, Entitled in thy parts, do crownèd […]...
9. Wisdom of Hafiz: the Philosopher Takes to Racing My son, if you go to the races to battle with Ikey and Mo, Remember, it’s seldom the pigeon can pick out the eye of the crow; Remember, they live by the business; remember, my son, and go slow. If ever an owner should tell you, “Back mine” don’t you be such a flat. He […]...
10. Flag of the Southern Cross Sons of Australia, be loyal and true to her – Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross! Sing a loud song to be joyous and new to her – Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross! Stain’d with the blood of the diggers who died by it, Fling out the flag to the […]...
11. The Little Boy Lost Nought loves another as itself Nor venerates another so. Nor is it possible to Thought A greater than itself to know: And Father, how can I love you, Or any of my brothers more? I love you like the little bird That picks up crumbs around the door. The Priest sat by and heard the […]...
12. Delicate Cluster DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life! Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining! Flag of death! (how I watch’d you through the smoke of battle pressing! How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!) Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dappled! Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and […]...
13. Elegy The page opens to snow on a field: boot-holed month, black hour The bottle in your coat half voda half winter light. To what and to whom does one say yes? If God were the uncertain, would you cling to him? Beneath a tattoo of stars the gate open, so silent so like a tomb. […]...
14. The Dependencies This morning, between two branches of a tree Beside the door, epeira once again Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap. I test his early-warning system and It works, he scrambles forth in sable with The yellow hieroglyph that no one knows The meaning of. And I remember now How yesterday at dusk the […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. No conscience in escape Should you be allowed sole privilege Of unconscionable martyrdom? This affliction is self-pity brought by suffering As penitent to unrequited lust. Private sexuality has you bound In bonds no-one devised, In silent bondage languishing, Abject, victimised and anguishing, Yet victor in the sum. None but the coarsest heart could feign To feel in simple kind […]...
17. Song for All Seas, All Ships 1 TO-DAY a rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal; Of unnamed heroes in the ships-Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach; Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing; And out of these a chant, for the sailors of all nations, […]...
18. A Red Wheelbarrow Rest and look at this goddamned wheelbarrow. Whatever It is. Dogs and crocodiles, sunlamps. Not For their significance. For their significant. For being human The signs escape you. You, who aren’t very bright Are a signal for them. Not, I mean, the dogs and crocodiles, sunlamps. Not Their significance....
19. Shirt I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering shirt of you in the wind. Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff. And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the singing voice of […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Harry Wilmans I was just turned twenty-one, And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent, Made a speech in Bindle’s Opera House. “The honor of the flag must be upheld,” he said, “Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs Or the greatest power in Europe.” And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. The Dandelion's pallid tube The Dandelion’s pallid tube Astonishes the Grass, And Winter instantly becomes An infinite Alas The tube uplifts a signal Bud And then a shouting Flower, The Proclamation of the Suns That sepulture is o’er....
24. Sailing To Byzantium I That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing […]...
25. Dyspeptic Clerk I think I’ll buy a little field, Though scant am I of pelf, And hold the hope that it may yield A living for myself; For I have toiled ten thousand days With ledger and with pen, And I am sick of city ways And soured with city men. So I will plant my little […]...
26. Poor Peter Blind Peter Piper used to play All up and down the city; I’d often meet him on my way, And throw a coin for pity. But all amid his sparkling tones His ear was quick as any To catch upon the cobble-stones The jingle of my penny. And as upon a day that shone He […]...
27. The Tortoise In Keystone Heights When I knew, it was raining. Winter in decline. I was tired. You in your soaked shirt diffused Into the western sky bulging with clouds, Speeding cars a few feet away- Why would they not slow down? Though afternoon, a slip of moon Busied itself with rising, And it had to mean something. If only […]...
28. Fallen Leaves Why should I be the first to fall Of all the leaves on this old tree? Though sadly soon I know that all Will lose their hold and follow me. While my birth-brothers bravely blow, Why should I be first to go? Why should I be the last to cling Of all the leaves on […]...
29. Cold A cold February wind Crawls up my leg And rattles my knees A preacher fumbles Over the verses That I know by heart Why doesn’t he know them? Quaking, I sit Watching two unknown Men folding the flag Each turn means something; I forget The coffin is a beautiful wood I wonder whose grave This […]...
30. Nightfall In The City Of Hyderabad SEE how the speckled sky burns like a pigeon’s throat, Jewelled with embers of opal and peridote. See the white river that flashes and scintillates, Curved like a tusk from the mouth of the city-gates. Hark, from the minaret, how the muezzin’s call Floats like a battle-flag over the city wall. From trellised balconies, languid […]...
31. Thick-Sprinkled Bunting THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars! Long yet your road, fateful flag!-long yet your road, and lined with bloody death! For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner! -Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest born, to flaunt unrival’d? […]...
32. Hawker, the Standard Bearer The grey gull sat on a floating whale, On a floating whale sat he, And he told his tale of the storm and the gale, And the ships that he saw with steam and sail, As he flew by the Northern Sea. “I have seen a sign that is strange and new, That I never […]...
33. City Trees The trees along this city street, Save for the traffic and the trains, Would make a sound as thin and sweet As trees in country lanes. And people standing in their shade Out of a shower, undoubtedly Would hear such music as is made Upon a country tree. Oh, little leaves that are so dumb […]...
34. Bathed in War's Perfume BATHED in war’s perfume-delicate flag! (Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,) O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman! O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they arm with joy! O to see you leap and beckon from […]...
35. Picture Of A 23-Year-Old Youth Painted By His Friend Of The Same Age, An Amature He finished the painting yesterday noon. Now He studies it in detail. He has painted him in a Gray unbuttoned coat, a deep gray; without Any vest or any tie. With a rose-colored shirt; Open at the collar, so something might be seen Also of the beauty of his chest, of his neck. The right […]...
36. January 24 I was about to be mugged by a man With a chain so angry he growled At the Lincoln Center subway station When out of nowhere appeared a tall Chubby-faced Hasidic Jew with peyot And a black hat a black coat white shirt With prayer-shawl fringes showing We walked together out of the station And […]...
37. Gannets I am watching the white gannets Blaze down into the water With the power of blunt spears And a stunning accuracy Even though the sea is riled and boiling And gray with fog And the fish Are nowhere to be seen, They fall, they explode into the water Like white gloves, Then they vanish, Then […]...
38. Korean Mums beside me in this garden Are huge and daisy-like (why not? are not Oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?), Shrubby and thick-stalked, The leaves pointing up The stems from which The flowers burst in Sunbursts. I love This garden in all its moods, Even under its winter coat Of salt hay, or now, In October, more than […]...
39. Under Cover of Night To slip into your shadow under cover of night. To follow your footsteps, your shadow at the window. That shadow at the window is you and no one else; It’s you. Do not open that window behind whose curtains you’re moving. Shut your eyes. I’d like to shut them with my lips. But the window […]...
40. Louse Hunting Nudes stark and glistening, Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces And raging limbs Whirl over the floor one fire. For a shirt verminously busy Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice. And soon the shirt was aflare Over the candle he’d lit while we lay. Then […]...