Elusive wisdom

Related poetry:

1. Wisdom (Proverbs, viii. 22-31) “Ere God had built the mountains, Or raised the fruitful hills; Before he fill’d the fountains That feed the running rills; In me from everlasting, The wonderful I am, Found pleasures never wasting, And Wisdom is my name. “When, like a tent to dwell in, He spread the skies abroad, And swathed […]...
2. Fortune And Wisdom Enraged against a quondam friend, To Wisdom once proud Fortune said “I’ll give thee treasures without end, If thou wilt be my friend instead.” “My choicest gifts to him I gave, And ever blest him with my smile; And yet he ceases not to crave, And calls me niggard all the while.” “Come, sister, let […]...
3. Wisdom And Prudence Wouldst thou, my friend, mount up to the highest summit of wisdom, Be not deterred by the fear, prudence thy course may deride That shortsighted one sees but the bank that from thee is flying, Not the one which ere long thou wilt attain with bold flight....
4. 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 […]...
5. Wisdom When Wisdom tells me that the world’s a speck Lost on the shoreless blue of God’s To-Day… I smile, and think, ‘For every man his way: The world’s my ship, and I’m alone on deck!’ And when he tells me that the world’s a spark Lit in the whistling gloom of God’s To-Night… I look […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom Men loved wholly beyond wisdom Have the staff without the banner. Like a fire in a dry thicket Rising within women’s eyes Is the love men must return. Heart, so subtle now, and trembling, What a marvel to be wise., To love never in this manner! To be quiet in the fern Like a thing […]...
8. There's Wisdom In Women “Oh love is fair, and love is rare;” my dear one she said, “But love goes lightly over.” I bowed her foolish head, And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she; So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly. But there’s wisdom in women, of […]...
9. Wisdom The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary. Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeller; Swept the Sawdust from the floor Of that working-carpenter. Miracle had its playtime where In damask clothed and on a seat Chryselephantine, cedar-boarded, His majestic Mother sat Stitching at a purple hoarded That He might […]...
10. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
11. Legs rivers and age with landbound legs a wish For the easy flow of a river – not The clambering up crags to seek More favour from the sun (or long-haired moon) harped for Since those sparks of who am i First clicked through consciousness How the river sidles round Rocks blocking the painful straight Seems to brush aside […]...
12. The Evil Eye It comes oozing Out of flowers at night, It comes out of the rain If a snake looks skyward, It comes out of chairs and tables If you don’t point at them and say their names. It comes into your mouth while you sleep, Pressing in like a washcloth. Beware. Beware. If you meet a […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. The Lockless Door It went many years, But at last came a knock, And I though of the door With no lock to lock. I blew out the light, I tip-toed the floor, And raised both hands In prayer to the door. But the knock came again. My window was wide; I climbed on the sill And descended […]...
15. Weird-Bird Birds are flyin’ south for winter. Here’s the Weird-Bird headin’ north, Wings a-flappin’, beak a-chatterin’, Cold head bobbin’ back ‘n’ forth. He says, “It’s not that I like ice Or freezin’ winds and snowy ground. It’s just sometimes it’s kind of nice To be the only bird in town.”...
16. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
17. Blue dress i can see through the blue Dress when you stand In the doorway – the light Come indoors softly like A cat between your legs When you walk and The dress flows Over the curved pebble Of your belly into The blue pool my eye Is already there Waiting for the ripple I have the […]...
18. A Form Of Women I have come far enough From where I was not before To have seen the things Looking in at me from through the open door And have walked tonight By myself To see the moonlight And see it as trees And shapes more fearful Because I feared What I did not know But have wanted […]...
19. Wisdom This I say, and this I know: Love has seen the last of me. Love’s a trodden lane to woe, Love’s a path to misery. This I know, and knew before, This I tell you, of my years: Hide your heart, and lock your door. Hell’s afloat in lovers’ tears. Give your heart, and toss […]...
20. Tenuous And Precarious Tenuous and Precarious Were my guardians, Precarious and Tenuous, Two Romans. My father was Hazardous, Hazardous Dear old man, Three Romans. There was my brother Spurious, Spurious Posthumous, Spurious was Spurious, Was four Romans. My husband was Perfidious, He was Perfidious Five Romans. Surreptitious, our son, Was Surreptitious, He was six Romans. Our cat Tedious […]...
21. The Coming Of Wisdom With Time Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth....
22. Dream Song 20: The Secret of the Wisdom When worst got things, how was you? Steady on? Wheedling, or shockt her & You have been bad to your friend, Whom not you writing to. You have not listened. A pelican of lies You loosed: where are you? Down weeks of evenings of longing By hours, NOW, a stoned bell, You did somebody: others […]...
23. Thread the sky is shattered Its debris Clutters the world’s streets Where the light came from Is a question Charred beyond recognition Heads hang out of walls Limbs unattached Rigid in their will to crawl away But there’s a bird (black In the jagged sky) With a twig still stuck in its beak Is it falling […]...
24. Adventure just as the dusk comes hooting Down through the shivering black leaves Of the swinging trees we (the brave ones Swaggering like marshalls through a lynch-mob) Crash-bang our way to the door Of the so-called haunted house Knock knock – kick in a pane of glass And the dusk hoots louder in our ears And […]...
25. Silence of reading i like the silence of reading Flat on my stomach on the woollen floor My legs waving upwards like the fronds of ferns And in my mind Gigantic screaming monsters Or the mystery ship Scuttling crablike to the shore I am lost to the spell of words The enchantment of sea in the silent shell […]...
26. Tar and Feathers Oh! the circus swooped down On the Narrabri town, For the Narrabri populace moneyed are; And the showman he smiled At the folk he beguiled To come all the distance from Gunnedah. But a juvenile smart, Who objected to “part”, Went in on the nod, and to do it he Crawled in through a crack […]...
27. Baby Tortoise You know what it is to be born alone, Baby tortoise! The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell, Not yet awake, And remain lapsed on earth, Not quite alive. A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean. To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open, Like some […]...
28. Glycine's Song A sunny shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted: And poised therein a bird so bold Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted! He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he troll’d Within that shaft of sunny mist; His eyes of fire, his beak of gold, All else of amethyst! And thus he sang: ‘Adieu! […]...
29. Owl power they say in the local sanctuary Owls are the stupidest creatures All this wisdom business is The mythological media at work But the shortest nosing into books Tells you even the mythic world Is bamboozled by the creature – no Two cultures being able to agree The bird was cherished by minerva Hebrews loathed it […]...
30. A Memory Of Youth The moments passed as at a play; I had the wisdom love brings forth; I had my share of mother-wit, And yet for all that I could say, And though I had her praise for it, A cloud blown from the cut-throat North Suddenly hid Love’s moon away. Believing every word I said, I praised […]...
31. The Meehoo with an Exactlywatt Knock knock! Who’s there? Me! Me who? That’s right! What’s right? Meehoo! That’s what I want to know! What’s what you want to know? Me, WHO? Yes, exactly! Exactly what? Yes, I have an Exactlywatt on a chain! Exactly what on a chain? Yes! Yes what? No, Exactlywatt! That’s what I want to know! I […]...
32. Good Old Moon When I was a boy I called the moon a White plate of jade, sometimes it looked Like a great mirror hanging in the sky, First came the two legs of the fairy And the cassia tree, but for whom the rabbit Kept on pounding medical herbs, I Just could not guess. Now the moon […]...
33. The man the gun and the dog yesterday the man was pleased The sun sat in the tree and all Upon the land held to the harmony His coming then expected his gun in his arm his dog at his heels A blackbird sang on a high branch A white horse ambled by the hedge A brindled cow munched grass – the […]...
34. The Slow Nature (an Incident of Froom Valley) “THY husband poor, poor Heart! is dead Dead, out by Moreford Rise; A bull escaped the barton-shed, Gored him, and there he lies!” “Ha, ha go away! ‘Tis a tale, methink, Thou joker Kit!” laughed she. “I’ve known thee many a year, Kit Twink, And ever hast thou fooled me!” […]...
35. Camouflage Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds, “I’ve got a letter here,” he said, “that no one’s understood, Addressed as follows: ‘To the bird that’s like a piece of wood.’ “The soldier bird got very cross it wasn’t meant for her; […]...
36. The Bird of Paradise Here comes Kate Summers, who, for gold, Takes any man to bed: “You knew my friend, Nell Barnes,” she said; “You knew Nell Barnes she’s dead. “Nell Barnes was bad on all you men, Unclean, a thief as well; Yet all my life I have not found A better friend than Nell. “So I sat […]...
37. Bird of fire – a caution the dream of the white bird flying Offers a freedom as tasty as nectar How our lips purse to the goddess’s pap At the want of such swoops through the air To be rid of the drag on our legs The sloshing through drudgery and mire The daily entangling with bramble The hurt of our […]...
38. The Falcon Why should my sleepy heart be taught To whistle mocking-bird replies? This is another bird you’ve caught, Soft-feathered, with a falcon’s eyes. The bird Imagination, That flies so far, that dies so soon; Her wings are coloured like the sun, Her breast is coloured like the moon. Weave her a chain of silver twist, And […]...
39. Bayonet What can I do with this bayonet? Make a rose bush of it? Poke it into the moon? Shave my legs with its silver? Spear a goldfish? No. No. It was made In my dream For you. My eyes were closed. I was curled fetally And yet I held a bayonet That was for the […]...
40. Sang from the Heart, Sire Sang from the Heart, Sire, Dipped my Beak in it, If the Tune drip too much Have a tint too Red Pardon the Cochineal Suffer the Vermillion Death is the Wealth Of the Poorest Bird. Bear with the Ballad Awkward faltering Death twists the strings ‘Twasn’t my blame Pause in your Liturgies Wait your Chorals […]...