(i) the inkman

Related poetry:

1. Song in the Manner of Housman O woe, woe, People are born and die, We also shall be dead pretty soon Therefore let us act as if we were Dead already. The bird sits on the hawthorn tree But he dies also, presently. Some lads get hung, and some get shot. Woeful is this human lot. Woe! woe, etcetera. . . […]...
2. How a Little Girl Danced DEDICATED TO LUCY BATES (Being a reminiscence of certain private theatricals.) Oh, cabaret dancer, I know a dancer, Whose eyes have not looked on the feasts that are vain. I know a dancer, I know a dancer, Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain: Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer, With […]...
3. Sweet Dancer The girl goes dancing there On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth Grass plot of the garden; Escaped from bitter youth, Escaped out of her crowd, Or out of her black cloud. Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer! If strange men come from the house To lead her away, do not say That she is happy being crazy; […]...
4. Dancer THE LADY in red, she in the chile con carne red, Brilliant as the shine of a pepper crimson in the summer sun, She behind a false-face, the much sought-after dancer, the most sought-after dancer of all in this masquerade, The lady in red sox and red hat, ankles of willow, crimson arrow amidst the […]...
5. He Wonders Whether to Praise or Blame Her I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over, But if to praise or blame you, cannot say. For, who decries the loved, decries the lover; Yet what man lauds the thing he’s thrown away? Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught, The more fool I, so great a fool to […]...
6. A Daughter Of Eve A fool I was to sleep at noon, And wake when night is chilly Beneath the comfortless cold moon; A fool to pluck my rose too soon, A fool to snap my lily. My garden-plot I have not kept; Faded and all-forsaken, I weep as I have never wept: Oh it was summer when I […]...
7. The Vampire A fool there was and he mad his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her the woman who did not care), But the fool he called her his lady fair (Even as you and I!) Oh the years we waste and the […]...
8. Cirque D'Hiver Across the floor flits the mechanical toy, Fit for a king of several centuries back. A little circus horse with real white hair. His eyes are glossy black. He bears a little dancer on his back. She stands upon her toes and turns and turns. A slanting spray of artificial roses Is stitched across her […]...
9. COPTIC SONG LEAVE we the pedants to quarrel and strive, Rigid and cautious the teachers to be! All of the wisest men e’er seen alive Smile, nod, and join in the chorus with me: “Vain ’tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly! Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly, Children of wisdom, remember the […]...
10. What Curious Dresses All Men Wear What curious dresses all men wear! The walker you met in a brown study, The President smug in rotogravure, The mannequin, the bathing beauty. The bubble-dancer, the deep-sea diver, The bureaucrat, the adulterer, Hide private parts which I disclose To those who know what a poem knows....
11. Symbols A storm-beaten old watch-tower, A blind hermit rings the hour. All-destroying sword-blade still Carried by the wandering fool. Gold-sewn silk on the sword-blade, Beauty and fool together laid....
12. 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! […]...
13. The Trusting Heart Oh, I’d been better dying, Oh, I was slow and sad; A fool I was, a-crying About a cruel lad! But there was one that found me, That wept to see me weep, And had his arm around me, And gave me words to keep. And I’d be better dying, And I am slow and […]...
14. Bird With Two Right Wings And now our government A bird with two right wings Flies on from zone to zone While we go on having our little fun & games At each election As if it really mattered who the pilot is Of Air Force One (They’re interchangeable, stupid!) While this bird with two right wings Flies right on […]...
15. A Fool For Evergreen A little bit of fool in me Hides behind my inmost tree And pops into the narrow path I walk blindfolded by my wrath Or shrunken by some twist of pain, Some hope that will not wind again. He ogles with his antic eyes And somersaults a you’re-not-wise Until the patches in his pants Go […]...
16. As far from pity, as complaint As far from pity, as complaint As cool to speech as stone As numb to Revelation As if my Trade were Bone As far from time as History As near yourself Today As Children, to the Rainbow’s scarf Or Sunset’s Yellow play To eyelids in the Sepulchre How dumb the Dancer lies While Color’s Revelations […]...
17. Account of a Visit From ST. Nicholas “Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads, […]...
18. Why do you strive for greatness, fool? Why do you strive for greatness, fool? Go pluck a bough and wear it. It is as sufficing. My Lord, there are certain barbarians Who tilt their noses As if the stars were flowers, And Thy servant is lost among their shoe-buckles. Fain would I have mine eyes even with their eyes. Fool, go pluck […]...
19. The Wind didn't come from the Orchard today The Wind didn’t come from the Orchard today Further than that Nor stop to play with the Hay Nor joggle a Hat He’s a transitive fellow very Rely on that If He leave a Bur at the door We know He has climbed a Fir But the Fir is Where Declare Were you ever there? […]...
20. Not Youth Pertains to Me NOT youth pertains to me, Nor delicatesse-I cannot beguile the time with talk; Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant; In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain’d and still-for learning. inures not to me; Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me-yet there are two or three things inure to me; I have nourish’d the wounded, […]...
21. The Sunken Crown Nothing will hold him longer-let him go; Let him go down where others have gone down; Little he cares whether we smile or frown, Or if we know, or if we think we know. The call is on him for his overthrow, Say we; so let him rise, or let him drown. Poor fool! He […]...
22. The Lost Dancer Spatial depths of being survive The birth to death recurrences Of feet dancing on earth of sand; Vibrations of the dance survive The sand; the sand, elect, survives The dancer. He can find no source Of magic adequate to bind The sand upon his feet, his feet Upon his dance, his dance upon The diamond […]...
23. Museum Piece The good gray guardians of art Patrol the halls on spongy shoes, Impartially protective, though Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse. Here dozes one against the wall, Disposed upon a funeral chair. A Degas dancer pirouettes Upon the parting of his hair. See how she spins! The grace is there, But strain as well is plain to […]...
24. The Fool By The Roadside (version of The Hero, The Girl And The Fool) When all works that have From cradle run to grave From grave to cradle run instead; When thoughts that a fool Has wound upon a spool Are but loose thread, are but loose thread; When cradle and spool are past And I mere shade at last […]...
25. I stood musing in a black world I stood musing in a black world, Not knowing where to direct my feet. And I saw the quick stream of men Pouring ceaselessly, Filled with eager faces, A torrent of desire. I called to them, “Where do you go? What do you see?” A thousand voices called to me. A thousand fingers pointed. “Look! […]...
26. The Fool “But it isn’t playing the game,” he said, And he slammed his books away; “The Latin and Greek I’ve got in my head Will do for a duller day.” “Rubbish!” I cried; “The bugle’s call Isn’t for lads from school.” D’ye think he’d listen? Oh, not at all: So I called him a fool, a […]...
27. Nightclub You are so beautiful and I am a fool To be in love with you Is a theme that keeps coming up In songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful And you are a fool to be in love with me, […]...
28. Mask Fling your red scarf faster and faster, dancer. It is summer and the sun loves a million green leaves, masses of green. Your red scarf flashes across them calling and a-calling. The silk and flare of it is a great soprano leading a chorus Carried along in a rouse of voices reaching for the heart […]...
29. Gone Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town. Far off Everybody loved her. So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold On a dream she wants. Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went. Nobody knows why she packed her trunk. . a few old things And is gone, Gone with her little chin Thrust […]...
30. HOPE Do you believe, in what you see Do you believe in reality Do you believe in the sun that’s bright Do you believe in the stars in the night Do you believe in the birds that fly Do you believe in clouds and the sky Do you believe in wind that flows Do you believe […]...
31. Account Of A Visit From St. Nicholas ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads, […]...
32. THE WRANGLER ONE day a shameless and impudent wight Went into a shop full of steel wares bright, Arranged with art upon ev’ry shelf. He fancied they were all meant for himself; And so, while the patient owner stood by, The shining goods needs must handle and try, And valued, for how should a fool better know? […]...
33. A Drunken Man's Praise Of Sobriety Come swish around, my pretty punk, And keep me dancing still That I may stay a sober man Although I drink my fill. Sobriety is a jewel That I do much adore; And therefore keep me dancing Though drunkards lie and snore. O mind your feet, O mind your feet, Keep dancing like a wave, […]...
34. Magrady Graham Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor? For when the returns began to come in And Cleveland was sweeping the East, It was too much for you, poor old heart, Who had striven for democracy In the long, long years of defeat. And like a watch that is worn I felt you growing slower until you […]...
35. The Countess Cathleen In Paradise All the heavy days are over; Leave the body’s coloured pride Underneath the grass and clover, With the feet laid side by side. Bathed in flaming founts of duty She’ll not ask a haughty dress; Carry all that mournful beauty To the scented oaken press. Did the kiss of Mother Mary Put that music in […]...
36. The Sonnets To Orpheus: XXV But you now, dear girl, whom I loved like a flower whose name I didn’t know, you who so early were taken away: I will once more call up your image and show it to them, Beautiful companion of the unsubduable cry. Dancer whose body filled with your hesitant fate, Pausing, as though your young […]...
37. Lover's Gifts LIV: In the Beginning of Time In the beginning of time, there rose from the churning of God’s Dream two women. One is the dancer at the court of paradise, the Desired of men, she who laughs and plucks the minds of the wise From their cold meditations and of fools from their emptiness; and Scatters them like seeds with careless […]...
38. The Old Women They pass upon their old, tremulous feet, Creeping with little satchels down the street, And they remember, many years ago, Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow And solitary, through the city ways, And they alone remember those old days Men have forgotten. In their shaking heads A dancer of old carnivals yet treads […]...
39. The Fool Errant The Fool Errant sat by the highway of life And his gaze wandered up and his gaze wandered down, A vigorous youth, but with no wish to walk, Yet his longing was great for the distant town. He whistled a little frivolous tune Which he felt to be pulsing with ecstasy, For he thought that […]...
40. Child Development As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs And sauntered off the beaches into forests Working up some irregular verbs for their First conversation, so three-year-old children Enter the phase of name-calling. Every day a new one arrives and is added To the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead, You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor (a kind of Navaho […]...