Convolvulus-age

Related poetry:

1. The room you know how it is with the room The door is frequently locked As i pass a white sigh Is pushed out from under As i bend to retrieve it The wood quivers with a woman’s breath There is a ruffle of crying Through the keyhole i am able To glimpse a red dress Clawing […]...
2. After Apple-Picking My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I […]...
3. Sweet safe Houses Sweet safe Houses Glad gay Houses Sealed so stately tight Lids of Steel on Lids of Marble Locking Bare feet out Brooks of Plush in Banks of Satin Not so softly fall As the laughter and the whisper From their People Pearl No Bald Death affront their Parlors No Bold Sickness come To deface their […]...
4. The Lamplighter My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky. It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by; For every night at teatime and before you take your seat, With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street. Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to […]...
5. THE CONSECRATED SPOT WHEN in the dance of the Nymphs, in the moonlight so holy assembled, Mingle the Graces, down from Olympus in secret descending, Here doth the minstrel hide, and list to their numbers enthralling, Here doth he watch their silent dances’ mysterious measure. All that is glorious in Heaven, and all that the earth in her […]...
6. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
7. RECIPROCAL INVITATION TO THE DANCE THE INDIFFERENT. COME to the dance with me, come with me, fair one! Dances a feast-day like this may well crown. If thou my sweetheart art not, thou canst be so, But if thou wilt not, we still will dance on. Come to the dance with me, come with me, fair one! Dances a feast-day […]...
8. Mating Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind, The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky, And see, where the budding hazels are thinned, The wild anemones lie In undulating shivers beneath the wind. Over the blue of the waters ply White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud; And, look you, floating […]...
9. To the seaside to the seaside To the seaside To the change and peace of mind To the easy la- Zy holiday The leave-it-all-behind To the seaside To the sunshine To the body-littered sands To the deckchairs And the funfairs And the burst-your-ears brass bands To the ice-cream To the wasp-stings To the sand-in-every-meal To the castles And […]...
10. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
11. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
12. THE YELPERS OUR rides in all directions bend, For business or for pleasure, Yet yelpings on our steps attend, And barkings without measure. The dog that in our stable dwells, After our heels is striding, And all the while his noisy yells But show that we are riding. 1815.*...
13. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
14. Light Light, my light, the world-filling light, The eye-kissing light, Heart-sweetening light! Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life; The light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; The sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth. The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. […]...
15. Samuel Gardner I who kept the greenhouse, Lover of trees and flowers, Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm, Measuring its generous branches with my eye, And listened to its rejoicing leaves Lovingly patting each other With sweet aeolian whispers. And well they might: For the roots had grown so wide and deep That the soil of […]...
16. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
17. How In All Wonder How in all wonder Columbus got over, That is a marvel to me, I protest, Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover, Frobisher, Dampier, Drake and the rest. Bad enough all the same, For them that after came, But, in great Heaven’s name, How he should ever think That on the other brink Of this […]...
18. The Life that tied too tight escapes The Life that tied too tight escapes Will ever after run With a prudential look behind And spectres of the Rein The Horse that scents the living Grass And sees the Pastures smile Will be retaken with a shot If he is caught at all...
19. Silas Dement It was moon-light, and the earth sparkled With new-fallen frost. It was midnight and not a soul abroad. Out of the chimney of the court-house A gray-hound of smoke leapt and chased The northwest wind. I carried a ladder to the landing of the stairs And leaned it against the frame of the trap-door In […]...
20. Bitterness Here in February, the fine Dark branches of the almond Begin to sprout tiny clusters Of leaves, sticky to the touch. Not far off, about the length Of my morning shadow, the grass Is littered with the petals Of the plum that less than A week ago blazed, a living Candle in the hand of […]...
21. Women Women have no wilderness in them, They are provident instead, Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts To eat dusty bread. They do not see cattle cropping red winter grass, They do not hear Snow water going down under culverts Shallow and clear. They wait, when they should turn to journeys, They stiffen, […]...
22. Strip Teaser My precious grand-child, aged two, Is eager to unlace one shoe, And then the other; Her cotton socks she’ll deftly doff Despite the mild reproaches of Her mother. Around the house she loves to fare, And with her rosy tootsies bare, Pit-pat the floor; And though remonstrances we make She presently decides to take Off […]...
23. The Sky is an Immortal Tent Built by the Sons of Los (from The sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los: And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe: And on its verge the sun rises and sets, the clouds […]...
24. My wheel is in the dark! My wheel is in the dark! I cannot see a spoke Yet know its dripping feet Go round and round. My foot is on the Tide! An unfrequented road Yet have all roads A clearing at the end Some have resigned the Loom Some in the busy tomb Find quaint employ Some with new stately […]...
25. The Folly of Wisdom She is wise in the way that children are wise, Looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, So I smile, and I follow… And the years are dark […]...
26. Out of White Lips OUT of white lips a question: Shall seven million dead ask for their blood a little land for the living wives and children, a little land for the living brothers and sisters? Out of white lips:-Shall they have only air that sweeps round the earth for breath of their nostrils and no footing on the […]...
27. Sea Sorcery Oh how I love the laughing sea, Sun lances splintering; Or with a virile harmony In salty caves to sing; Or mumbling pebbles on the shore, Or roused to monster might: By day I love the sea, but more I love it in the night. High over ocean hangs my home And when the moon […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. Return A little too abstract, a little too wise, It is time for us to kiss the earth again, It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies, Let the rich life run to the roots again. I will go to the lovely Sur Rivers And dip my arms in them up to the […]...
30. Visits To St. Elizabeths This is the house of Bedlam. This is the man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is the time Of the tragic man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a wristwatch Telling the time Of the talkative man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a sailor Wearing […]...
31. The Young Ones, Flip Side In tight pants, tight skirts, Stretched or squeezed, Youth hurts, Crammed in, bursting out, Flesh will sing And hide its doubt In nervous hips, hopping glance, Usurping rouge, Provoking stance. Put off, or put on, Youth hurts. And then It’s gone....
32. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
33. Dedication for Moremi, 1963 Earth will not share the rafter’s envy; dung floors Break, not the gecko’s slight skin, but its fall Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs As roots of baobab, as the […]...
34. Fall Song Another year gone, leaving everywhere Its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves, The uneaten fruits crumbling damply In the shadows, unmattering back From the particular island Of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere Except underfoot, moldering In that black subterranean castle Of unobservable mysteries – roots and sealed seeds And the wanderings of water. […]...
35. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
36. Drinking Alone I take my wine jug out among the flowers To drink alone, without friends. I raise my cup to entice the moon. That, and my shadow, makes us three. But the moon doesn’t drink, And my shadow silently follows. I will travel with moon and shadow, Happy to the end of spring. When I sing, […]...
37. A Tree Telling of Orpheus White dawn. Stillness. When the rippling began I took it for sea-wind, coming to our valley with rumors of salt, of treeless horizons. But the white fog Didn’t stir; the leaves of my brothers remained outstretched, unmoving. Yet the rippling drew nearer – and then my own outermost branches began to tingle, almost as if […]...
38. Hymn 82 God far above creatures. Job 4:17-21. Shall the vile race of flesh and blood Contend with their Creator God? Shall mortal worms presume to be More holy, wise, or just than he? Behold, he puts his trust in none Of all the spirits round his throne: Their natures, when compared with his, Are neither holy, […]...
39. Goodbye To The Poetry Of Calcium Dark cypresses The world is uneasily happy; It will all be forgotten. Theodore Storm Mother of roots, you have not seeded The tall ashes of loneliness For me. Therefore, Now I go. If I knew the name, Your name, all trellises of vineyards and old fire Would quicken to shake terribly my Earth, mother of […]...
40. Me Born screaming small into this world- Living I am. Occupational therapy twixt birth and death- What was I before? What will I be next? What am I now? Cruel answer carried in the jesting mind Of a careless God I will not bend and grovel When I die. If He says my sins are myriad […]...