Shocked

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. A Case Of Murder They should not have left him there alone, Alone that is except for the cat. He was only nine, not old enough To be left alone in a basement flat, Alone, that is, except for the cat. A dog would have been a different thing, A big gruff dog with slashing jaws, But a cat […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. Pardoned Out I’m pardoned out. Again the stars Shine on me with their myriad eyes. So long I’ve peered ‘twixt iron bars, I’m awed by this expanse of skies. The world is wider than I thought, And yet ‘tis not so wide, I know, But into its remotest spot My tale of shame can go. I’m pardoned […]...
5. Wind This house has been far out at sea all night, The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills, Winds stampeding the fields under the window Floundering black astride and blinding wet Till day rose; then under an orange sky The hills had new places, and wind wielded Blade-light, luminous black and emerald, Flexing like the […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. A Martian Sends A Postcard Home Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings And some are treasured for their markings They cause the eyes to melt Or the body to shriek without pain. I have never seen one fly, but Sometimes they perch on the hand. Mist is when the sky is tired of flight And rests its soft machine on […]...
8. I Go Back To The House For A Book I turn around on the gravel And go back to the house for a book, Something to read at the doctor’s office, And while I am inside, running the finger Of inquisition along a shelf, Another me that did not bother To go back to the house for a book Heads out on his own, […]...
9. Just wasn't right You lift the lid in awe, a seat and lid Upon an inside stall where you can go, Quite unlike the outside loo at home, But oh the smell, the hellish smell So rank and raw – you see some objects In there clearly, disbelieving things you Really shouldn’t see; it is a step too […]...
10. The Craftsmen Of The Little Box Don’t open the little box Heaven’s hat will fall out of her Don’t close her for any reason She’ll bite the trouser-leg of eternity Don’t drop her on the earth The sun’s eggs will break inside her Don’t throw her in the air Earth’s bones will break inside her Don’t hold her in your hands […]...
11. The Hill Wife I. LONELINESS Her Word One ought not to have to care So much as you and I Care when the birds come round the house To seem to say good-bye; Or care so much when they come back With whatever it is they sing; The truth being we are as much Too glad for the […]...
12. The Song of Quoodle They haven’t got no noses, The fallen sons of Eve; Even the smell of roses Is not what they supposes; But more than mind discloses And more than men believe. They haven’t got no noses, They cannot even tell When door and darkness closes The park a Jew encloses, Where even the law of Moses […]...
13. The Fury Of Sunrises Darkness As black as your eyelid, Poketricks of stars, The yellow mouth, The smell of a stranger, Dawn coming up, Dark blue, No stars, The smell of a love, Warmer now As authenic as soap, Wave after wave Of lightness And the birds in their chains Going mad with throat noises, The birds in their […]...
14. The Tenants Of The Little Box Throw into the little box A stone You’ll take out a bird Throw in your shadow You’ll take out the shirt of happiness Throw in your father’s root You’ll take out the axle of the universe The little box works for you Throw into the little box A mouse You’ll take out a quaking hill […]...
15. My period had come for Prayer My period had come for Prayer No other Art would do My Tactics missed a rudiment Creator Was it you? God grows above so those who pray Horizons must ascend And so I stepped upon the North To see this Curious Friend His House was not no sign had He By Chimney nor by Door […]...
16. Solidarity Song Peoples of the world, together Join to serve the common cause! So it feeds us all for ever See to it that it’s now yours. Forward, without forgetting Where our strength can be seen now to be! When starving or when eating Forward, not forgetting Our solidarity! Black or white or brown or yellow Leave […]...
17. In Vision I Roamed IN vision I roamed the flashing Firmament, So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan, As though with an awed sense of such ostent; And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky, To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome, Where stars the brightest […]...
18. Where We Live Now 1 We live here because the houses Are clean, the lawns run Right to the street And the streets run away. No one walks here. No one wakens at night or dies. The cars sit open-eyed In the driveways. The lights are on all day. 2 At home forever, she has removed Her long foreign […]...
19. Prayer You talk o’ prayer an’ such – Well, I jest don’t know how; I guess I got as much Religion as a cow. I fight an’ drink an’ swear; Red hell I often raise, But never said a prayer In all my days. I’m honest, right enough; Don’t take no stock in crimes; I’m jest […]...
20. The House with Nobody in It Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black. I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for A minute And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in It. I never have seen […]...
21. The Mowed Hollow When yellow leaves the sky They pipe it to the houses To go on making red And warm and floral and brown But gradually people tire of it, Return it inside metal, and go To be dark and breathe water colours. Some yellow hangs on outside Forlornly tethered to posts. Cars chase their own supply. […]...
22. Locked Doors For the angels who inhabit this town, Although their shape constantly changes, Each night we leave some cold potatoes And a bowl of milk on the windowsill. Usually they inhabit heaven where, By the way, no tears are allowed. They push the moon around like A boiled yam. The Milky Way is their hen With […]...
23. Gates and Doors (For Richardson Little Wright) There was a gentle hostler (And blessed be his name!) He opened up the stable The night Our Lady came. Our Lady and Saint Joseph, He gave them food and bed, And Jesus Christ has given him A glory round his head. So let the gate swing open However poor the […]...
24. How the Land was Won The future was dark and the past was dead As they gazed on the sea once more – But a nation was born when the immigrants said “Good-bye!” as they stepped ashore! In their loneliness they were parted thus Because of the work to do, A wild wide land to be won for us By […]...
25. Colours in lamplight Colours in lamplight are previews, Scarcely eschewed as wave-length turbulence Tuned to closeness and friendship. Colours in firelight are skin-warmed Glowings, harbouring contentment, Revealing intuitive insight. Colours in moonlight are barely shown Shy smiles recalled with eidetic Intensity from reservoirs of sight. Colours in candlelight are filigree Reflections, decorative shimmers Of sympathetic enchantment. But in […]...
26. I threw my arms about those shoulders I threw my arms about those shoulders, glancing At what emerged behind that back, And saw a chair pushed slightly forward, Merging now with the lighted wall. The lamp glared too bright to show The shabby furniture to some advantage, And that is why sofa of brown leather Shone a sort of yellow in a […]...
27. Houses (For Aline) When you shall die and to the sky Serenely, delicately go, Saint Peter, when he sees you there, Will clash his keys and say: “Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! And hurry, Michelangelo! She wants to play at building, And you’ve got to help her play!” Every architect will help erect A palace […]...
28. The Song of the Beasts (Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.) Come away! Come away! Ye are sober and dull through the common day, But now it is night! It is shameful night, and God is asleep! (Have you not felt the quick fires that creep Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight, And […]...
29. The Deserted House Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide. Careless tenants they! All within is dark as night: In the windows is no light; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. Close the door; the shutters close; Or through the windows we shall see The […]...
30. The Road That Runs Beside The River follows the river as it bends Along the valley floor, Going the way it must. Where water goes, so goes the road, If there’s room (not in a ravine, Gorge), the river On your right or left. Left is better: when you’re driving, It’s over your elbow across The road. You see the current, which […]...
31. Soap Suds This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child. […]...
32. Stylised tulips stylised tulips – this is what the card says And they have that nineteen-twenties’ feel Of those bright young things a decade before us Who had a way of walking with their legs Bent back and their pelvis forward as if Inviting a kind of sexual depravity With the no touch signs fervently displayed Stylised […]...
33. Your tiger (in china it is symbolic Of darkness and the new moon) In your night’s hollow The tiger stalks Black grasses have licked It into nothingness Hooked by moon I hover on your hollow’s lip I feel the smell of fire The leap of a bright cat-fur My eye is dumb Asking to be devoured I […]...
34. Today If ever there were a spring day so perfect, So uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze That it made you want to throw Open all the windows in the house And unlatch the door to the canary’s cage, Indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, A day when the cool brick paths And the […]...
35. Love In A Life I Room after room, I hunt the house through We inhabit together. Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her, Next time, herself!-not the trouble behind her Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume! As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,- Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather. II Yet the […]...
36. 45 Mercy Street In my dream, Drilling into the marrow Of my entire bone, My real dream, I’m walking up and down Beacon Hill Searching for a street sign Namely MERCY STREET. Not there. I try the Back Bay. Not there. Not there. And yet I know the number. 45 Mercy Street. I know the stained-glass window Of […]...
37. Teddy Bear O Teddy Bear! with your head awry And your comical twisted smile, You rub your eyes do you wonder why You’ve slept such a long, long while? As you lay so still in the cupboard dim, And you heard on the roof the rain, Were you thinking. . . what has become of him? And […]...
38. Night-Music At one the wind rose, And with it the noise Of the black poplars. Long since had the living By a thin twine Been led into their dreams Where lanterns shine Under a still veil Of falling streams; Long since had the dead Become untroubled In the light soil. There were no mouths To drink […]...
39. The Wife “Tell Annie I’ll be home in time To help her with her Christmas-tree.” That’s what he wrote, and hark! the chime Of Christmas bells, and where is he? And how the house is dark and sad, And Annie’s sobbing on my knee! The page beside the candle-flame With cruel type was overfilled; I read and […]...
40. Temporary Poem Of My Time Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west, Latin writing, from west to east. Languages are like cats: You must not stroke their hair the wrong way. The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert, The trees bend in the wind, And stones fly from all four winds, Into […]...