The Refugees

Related poetry:

1. We Wear the Mask We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while […]...
2. The Orient Express One looks from the train Almost as one looked as a child. In the sunlight What I see still seems to me plain, I am safe; but at evening As the lands darken, a questioning Precariousness comes over everything. Once after a day of rain I lay longing to be cold; after a while I […]...
3. Assurances I NEED no assurances-I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul; I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of-calm and actual faces; I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of […]...
4. Cut While Shaving It’s never quite right, he said, the way people look, The way the music sounds, the way the words are Written. It’s never quite right, he said, all the things we are Taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we Die, all the lives we live, They are never quite right, They are […]...
5. I'm Your Man If you want a lover I’ll do anything you ask me to And if you want another kind of love I’ll wear a mask for you If you want a partner Take my hand Or if you want to strike me down in anger Here I stand I’m your man If you want a boxer […]...
6. Sonnet 77: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste; These vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear, And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste. The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory, Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst […]...
7. Sonnet LXXVII Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste; The vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear, And of this book this learning mayst thou taste. The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show Of mouthed graves will give thee memory; Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst […]...
8. Invention Tonight the moon is a cracker, With a bite out of it Floating in the night, And in a week or so According to the calendar It will probably look Like a silver football, And nine, maybe ten days ago It reminded me of a thin bright claw. But eventually By the end of the […]...
9. Liebestod When I was bold, when I was bold- And that’s a hundred years!- Oh, never I thought my breast could hold The terrible weight of tears. I said: “Now some be dolorous; I hear them wail and sigh, And if it be Love that play them thus, Then never a love will I.” I said: […]...
10. Warning When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandles, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up […]...
11. Father Death Blues (Don't Grow Old, Part V) Hey Father Death, I’m flying home Hey poor man, you’re all alone Hey old daddy, I know where I’m going Father Death, Don’t cry any more Mama’s there, underneath the floor Brother Death, please mind the store Old Aunty Death Don’t hide your bones Old Uncle Death I hear your groans O Sister Death how […]...
12. Haroun Al Raschid One day, Haroun Al Raschid read A book wherein the poet said: “Where are the kings, and where the rest Of those who once the world possessed? “They’re gone with all their pomp and show, They’re gone the way that thou shalt go. “O thou who choosest for thy share The world, and what the […]...
13. Again and Again and Again You said the anger would come back Just as the love did. I have a black look I do not Like. It is a mask I try on. I migrate toward it and its frog Sits on my lips and defecates. It is old. It is also a pauper. I have tried to keep it […]...
14. Humdrum IF I had a million lives to live and a million deaths to die in a million humdrum worlds, I’d like to change my name and have a new house number to go by each and every time I died and started life all over again. I wouldn’t want the same name every time and […]...
15. Group From Tartarus Hark! like the sea in wrath the heavens assailing, Or like a brook through rocky basin wailing, Comes from below, in groaning agony, A heavy, vacant torment-breathing sigh! Their faces marks of bitter torture wear, While from their lips burst curses of despair; Their eyes are hollow, and full of woe, And their looks with […]...
16. Sunset on the Spire All that I dream By day or night Lives in that stream Of lovely light. Here is the earth, And there is the spire; This is my hearth, And that is my fire. From the sun’s dome I am shouted proof That this is my home, And that is my roof. Here is my food, […]...
17. The same embrace We talked with family last night, not mine or yours Specifically but ours, the ones we love familiarly. When Little Jake (though not so little now) was heard to say, “Goodbye, I gotta go,” it was like our hearts were breaking; He’ll always be our baby too – as each of you are perfect Children […]...
18. Etesia Absent Love, the world’s life! What a sad death Thy absence is to lose our breath At once and die, is but to live Enlarged, without the scant reprieve Of pulse and air: whose dull returns And narrow circles the soul mourns. But to be dead alive, and still To wish, but never have our will: […]...
19. Joy Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands And take it when it runs by, As the Apache dancer Clutches his woman. I have seen them Live long and laugh loud, Sent on singing, singing, Smashed to the heart Under the ribs With a terrible love. Joy always, Joy everywhere Let joy kill you! […]...
20. In an Old Farmhouse Outside the afterlight’s lucent rose Is smiting the hills and brimming the valleys, And shadows are stealing across the snows; From the mystic gloom of the pineland alleys. Glamour of mingled night and day Over the wide, white world has sway, And through their prisoning azure bars, Gaze the calm, cold eyes of the early […]...
21. The Ad-Dressing Of Cats You’ve read of several kinds of Cat, And my opinion now is that You should need no interpreter To understand their character. You now have learned enough to see That Cats are much like you and me And other people whom we find Possessed of various types of mind. For some are same and some […]...
22. The Helmet All the way On the road to Gary He could see Where the sky shone Just out of reach And smell the rich Smell of work As strong as money, But when he got there The night was over. People were going To work and back, The sidewalks were lakes No one walked on, The […]...
23. THE DAYS GO BY for Daniel Weissbort Some poems meant only for my eyes About a grief I can’t let go But I want to, want to throw It away like an old worn-out cloak Or screw up like a ball of over-written Trash and toss into the corner bin. I said it must come up or out I […]...
24. The Traveller They pointed me out on the highway, and they said ‘That man has a curious way of holding his head.’ They pointed me out on the beach; they said ‘That man Will never become as we are, try as he can.’ They pointed me out at the station, and the guard Looked at me twice, […]...
25. Prayer In Bad Weather by God, I don’t know what to Do. They’re so nice to have around. They have a way of playing with The balls And looking at the cock very Seriously Turning it Tweeking it Examining each part As their long hair falls on Your belly. It’s not the fucking and sucking Alone that reaches into […]...
26. Elizabeth Childers Dust of my dust, And dust with my dust, O, child who died as you entered the world, Dead with my death! Not knowing breath, though you tried so hard, With a heart that beat when you lived with me, And stopped when you left me for Life. It is well, my child. For you […]...
27. Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa O THOU undaunted daughter of desires! By all thy dower of lights and fires; By all the eagle in thee, all the dove; By all thy lives and deaths of love; By thy large draughts of intellectual day, And by thy thirsts of love more large than they; By all thy brim-fill’d bowls of fierce […]...
28. Safe-home don’t be so lazy maisie maisie Don’t be so lazy please I know it’s snowing And a hard wind’s blowing But nobody knows At the rate we’re going What time we’ll get home tonight Keep to the path for me timothy timothy Keep to the path for me please My legs are aching And my […]...
29. Raccoon Coon, why did you come to this dance With a mask on? Why not the tin man And his rainbow girl? Why not Racine, His hair marcelled down to his chest? Why not come as a stomach digesting Its worms? Why you little fellow With your ears at attention and your Nose poking up like […]...
30. The North Ship Legend I saw three ships go sailing by, Over the sea, the lifting sea, And the wind rose in the morning sky, And one was rigged for a long journey. The first ship turned towards the west, Over the sea, the running sea, And by the wind was all possessed And carried to a rich […]...
31. Hamlet Off-Stage: Mona Gator Our mascot lives low, a baby alligator. She’s our happy-and-sad mask all at once, Mona Lisa her name. She’s my ideal, Her wrap-around grin both a smile and snarl....
32. What We Are What we are? We say we want to become What we are or what we have an intent to be. We read the possibilities, or try. We get to some. We think we know how to read. We recognize a word, here and there, A syllable: male, it says perhaps, Or female, talent look what […]...
33. Train Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train. Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train’s whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with […]...
34. To the Bartholdi Statue O Liberty, God-gifted Young and immortal maid In your high hand uplifted, The torch declares your trade. Its crimson menace, flaming Upon the sea and shore, Is, trumpet-like, proclaiming That Law shall be no more. Austere incendiary, We’re blinking in the light; Where is your customary Grenade of dynamite? Where are your staves and switches […]...
35. Death Snips Proud Men DEATH is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t. Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of dice and says: Read ’em and weep. Death sends […]...
36. Jangling Memory Heavens above! here’s an old tie of your Sea-green dragons stamped on a golden ground. Ha! Ha! Ha! What children we were in those days. Do you love me enough to wear it now? Have you the courage of your pristine glories? Ha! Ha! Ha! You laugh and shrug your shoulders. Those were the days […]...
37. A Recantation 1917 (To Lyde of the Music Halls) What boots it on the Gods to call? Since, answered or unheard, We perish with the Gods and all Things made except the Word. Ere certain Fate had touched a heart By fifty years made cold, I judged thee, Lyde, and thy art O’erblown and over-bold. But he […]...
38. Anxiety The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun, The crisping steam of a train Melts in the air, while two black birds Sweep past the window again. Along the vacant road, a red Bicycle approaches; I wait In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy To leap down at our gate. He has passed us by; but […]...
39. Immortality I bowed my head in anguish sore When Life made Death his bride; “Soul, we are lost forever more!” Unto my soul I cried. “Nay, waste in wailing not thy breath,” My soul replied to me, “Behold! The child of Life and Death Is Immortality!”...
40. As It Was Written Earth, earth, Riding your merry-go-round Toward extinction, Right to the roots, Thickening the oceans like gravy, Festering in your caves, You are becoming a latrine. Your trees are twisted chairs. Your flowers moan at their mirrors, And cry for a sun that doesn’t wear a mask. Your clouds wear white, Trying to become nuns And […]...