Thirteeners

Related poetry:

1. One Word Is Too Often Profaned One word is too often profaned For me to profane it; One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it; One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother; And pity from thee more dear Than that from another. I can give not what men call love; But wilt thou accept not The […]...
2. Baccalaureate A year or two, and grey Euripides, And Horace and a Lydia or so, And Euclid and the brush of Angelo, Darwin on man, Vergilius on bees, The nose and Dialogues of Socrates, Don Quixote, Hudibras and Trinculo, How worlds are spawned and where the dead gods go, All shall be shard of broken memories. […]...
3. America America, you ode for reality! Give back the people you took. Let the sun shine again On the four corners of the world You thought of first but do not Own, or keep like a convenience. People are your own word, you Invented that locus and term. Here, you said and say, is Where we […]...
4. A Fantasy I’ll tell you something: every day People are dying. And that’s just the beginning. Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born, New orphans. They sit with their hands folded, Trying to decide about this new life. Then they’re in the cemetery, some of them For the first time. They’re frightened of crying, Sometimes […]...
5. Hope Hope was but a timid friend; She sat without the grated den, Watching how my fate would tend, Even as selfish-hearted men. She was cruel in her fear; Through the bars, one dreary day, I looked out to see her there, And she turned her face away! Like a false guard, false watch keeping, Still, […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. The Burning of the People's Variety Theatre, Aberdeen ‘Twas in the year of 1896, and on the 30th of September, Which many people in Aberdeen will long remember; The burning of the People’s Variety Theatre, in Bridge Place Because the fire spread like lightning at a rapid pace. The fire broke out on the stage, about eight o’clock, Which gave to the audience […]...
8. Yes According to Culture Shock: A Guide to Customs and Etiquette Of Filipinos, when my husband says yes, He could also mean one of the following: A.) I don’t know. B.) If you say so. C.) If it will please you. D.) I hope I have said yes unenthusiastically enough For you to realize I mean […]...
9. Boon Soul Behold! I’m old; my hair is white; My eighty years are in the offing, And sitting by the fire to-night I sip a grog to ease my coughing. It’s true I’m raucous as a rook, But feeling bibulously “bardy,” These lines I’m scribbling in a book: The verse complete of Thomas Hardy. Although to-day he’s […]...
10. Laughter In The Senate In the South lies a lonesome, hungry Land; He huddles his rags with a cripple’s hand; He mutters, prone on the barren sand, What time his heart is breaking. He lifts his bare head from the ground; He listens through the gloom around: The winds have brought him a strange sound Of distant merrymaking. Comes […]...
11. The Plains A land, as far as the eye can see, where the waving grasses grow Or the plains are blackened and burnt and bare, where the false mirages go Like shifting symbols of hope deferred – land where you never know. Land of the plenty or land of want, where the grey Companions dance, Feast or […]...
12. I Am The People, The Mob I AM the people the mob the crowd the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is Done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the World’s food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons Come from me and the Lincolns. They […]...
13. Dead thoughts of corpses The symbols that we use are T shirts of the dead Thoughts of corpses without heads, a rictus Without sound – open-mouthed, empty, unbound. And if you ever write those clichés which incite My approbation, fuck you, I am not amused. And if I ever do, then fuck me too. I battle with the icons […]...
14. A Mediocre Man I’m just a mediocre man Of no high-brow pretence; A comfortable life I plan With care and commonsense. I do the things most people do, I echo what they say; And through my morning paper view The problems of the day. No doubt you think I’m colourless, Profoundly commonplace; And yet I fancy, more or […]...
15. Call It a Good Marriage Call it a good marriage – For no one ever questioned Her warmth, his masculinity, Their interlocking views; Except one stray graphologist Who frowned in speculation At her h’s and her s’s, His p’s and w’s. Though few would still subscribe To the monogamic axiom That strife below the hip-bones Need not estrange the heart, […]...
16. Lines in Praise of Mr. J. Graham Henderson, Hawick Success to Mr J. Graham Henderson, who is a good man, And to gainsay it there’s few people can, I say so from my own experience, And experience is a great defence. He is a good man, I venture to say, Which I declare to the world without dismay, Because he’s given me a suit […]...
17. Theoretikos This mighty empire hath but feet of clay: Of all its ancient chivalry and might Our little island is forsaken quite: Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay, And from its hills that voice hath passed away Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it, Come out of it, my Soul, thou art […]...
18. Burning of the Exeter Theatre ‘Twas in the year of 1887, which many people will long remember, The burning of the Theatre at Exeter on the 5th of September, Alas! that ever-to-be-remembered and unlucky night, When one hundred and fifty lost their lives, a most agonising sight. The play on this night was called “Romany Rye,” And at act four, […]...
19. The Ballad of the Anti-Puritan They spoke of Progress spiring round, Of light and Mrs Humphrey Ward It is not true to say I frowned, Or ran about the room and roared; I might have simply sat and snored I rose politely in the club And said, ‘I feel a little bored; Will someone take me to a pub?’ The […]...
20. My Groupie I read last Saturday in the Redwoods outside of Santa Cruz And I was about 3/4’s finished When I heard a long high scream And a quite attractive Young girl came running toward me Long gown & divine eyes of fire And she leaped up on the stage And screamed: “I WANT YOU! I WANT […]...
21. The Great Western Plains The little voices of the prairie dogs Are tireless. . . They will give three hurrahs Alike to stage, equestrian, and pullman, And all unstingingly as to the moon. And Fifi’s bows and poodle ease Whirl by them centred on the lap Of Lottie Honeydew, movie queen, Toward lawyers and Nevada. And how much more […]...
22. The Future Give me back my broken night My mirrored room, my secret life It’s lonely here, There’s no one left to torture Give me absolute control Over every living soul And lie beside me, baby, That’s an order! Give me crack and anal sex Take the only tree that’s left And stuff it up the hole […]...
23. A Faery Song Sung by the people of Faery over Diarmuid and Grania, In their bridal sleep under a Cromlech. We who are old, old and gay, O so old! Thousands of years, thousands of years, If all were told: Give to these children, new from the world, Silence and love; And the long dew-dropping hours of the […]...
24. Christmas the delinquent i got nothing last year And i expect nothing this So i’ve got to find If i’m to be rewarded So all good people You’d better learn to give From the goodness of your heart Or at knife-point I’m a taker by trade Takers is keepers It won’t hurt you to bleed It’s a good […]...
25. The New Hieroglyphics In the World language, sometimes called Airport Road, a thinks balloon with a gondola Under it is a symbol for speculation. Thumbs down to ear and tongue: World can be written and read, even painted But not spoken. People use their own words. Latin letters are in it for names, for e. g. OK and […]...
26. The Name of France Give us a name to fill the mind With the shining thoughts that lead mankind, The glory of learning, the joy of art, A name that tells of a splendid part In the long, long toil and the strenuous fight Of the human race to win its way From the feudal darkness into the day […]...
27. Blue Bell, The The blue bell is the sweetest flower That waves in summer air; Its blossoms have the mightiest power To soothe my spirit’s care. There is a spell in purple heath Too wildly, sadly dear; The violet has a fragrant breath But fragrance will not cheer. The trees are bare, the sun is cold; And seldom, […]...
28. Love's Philosophy The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle – Why not I with thine? See the mountains kiss high Heaven And the […]...
29. Of Modern Poetry The poem of the mind in the act of finding What will suffice. It has not always had To find: the scene was set; it repeated what Was in the script. Then the theatre was changed To something else. Its past was a souvenir. It has to be living, to learn the speech of the […]...
30. Testament I GIVE the undertakers permission to haul my body To the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, the Feet, the hands, all: I know there is something left Over they can not put away. Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shanty People eat the clover over my grave and […]...
31. The Travellers' Curse after Misdirection (from the Welsh) May they stumble, stage by stage On an endless Pilgrimage Dawn and dusk, mile after mile At each and every step a stile At each and every step withal May they catch their feet and fall At each and every fall they take May a bone within them break And may the […]...
32. Old Osawatomie JOHN BROWN’S body under the morning stars. Six feet of dust under the morning stars. And a panorama of war performs itself Over the six-foot stage of circling armies. Room for Gettysburg, Wilderness, Chickamauga, On a six-foot stage of dust....
33. Sonnet LXIII: The Gossamer O’er faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze, The filmy Gossamer is lightly spread; Waving in every sighing air that stirs, As Fairy fingers had entwined the thread: A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew Spangle the texture of the fairy loom, As if soft Sylphs, lamenting as they flew, Had wept departed Summer’s transient bloom: […]...
34. Gods Ms. Sexton went out looking for the gods. She began looking in the sky -expecting a large white angel with a blue crotch. No one. She looked next in all the learned books And the print spat back at her. No one She made a pilgrimage to the great poet And he belched in her […]...
35. The Inauguration of the University College Good people of Dundee, your voices raise, And to Miss Baxter give great praise; Rejoice and sing and dance with glee, Because she has founded a College in Bonnie Dundee. Therefore loudly in her praise sing, And make Dundee with your voices ring, And give honour to whom honour is due, Because ladies like her […]...
36. Archibald Higbie I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, I was ashamed of you. I despised you As the place of my nativity. And there in Rome, among the artists, Speaking Italian, speaking French, I seemed to myself at times to be free Of every trace of my origin. I seemed to be […]...
37. Lonesome Night You brothers, who are mine, Poor people, near and far, Longing for every star, Dream of relief from pain, You, stumbling dumb At night, as pale stars break, Lift your thin hands for some Hope, and suffer, and wake, Poor muddling commonplace, You sailors who must live Unstarred by hopelessness, We share a single face. […]...
38. The Burns Statue This Statue, I must confess, is magnificent to see, And I hope will long be appreciated by the people of Dundee; It has been beautifully made by Sir John Steell, And I hope the pangs of hunger he will never feel. This statue is most elegant in its design, And I hope will defy all […]...
39. The Burial of the Reverend Gilfillan On the Gilfillan burial day, In the Hill o’ Balgay, It was a most solemn sight to see, Not fewer than thirty thousand people assembled in Dundee, All watching the funeral procession of Gilfillan that day, That death had suddenly taken away, And was going to be buried in the Hill o’ Balgay. There were […]...
40. Australian Scenery The Mountains A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below. A land where the hills keep watch and ward, silent and wide awake As those who sit […]...