Museum Piece

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1. M. Degas Teaches Art & Science At Durfee Intermediate School Detroit, 1942 He made a line on the blackboard, One bold stroke from right to left Diagonally downward and stood back To ask, looking as always at no one In particular, “What have I done?” From the back of the room Freddie Shouted, “You’ve broken a piece Of chalk.” M. Degas did not smile. “What have I […]...
2. Piazza Piece I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small And listen to an old man not at all, They want the young men’s whispering and sighing. But see the roses on your trellis dying And hear the spectral singing of the moon; For I must have […]...
3. The Prarie Battlements (To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect) HERE upon the prarie Is our ancestral hall. Agate is the dome, Cornelian the wall. Ghouls are in the cellar, But fays upon the stairs. And here lived old King Silver Dreams, Always at his prayers. Here lived gray Queen Silver Dreams, Always signing psalms, And haughty Grandma […]...
4. Poetry Is A Kind Of Lying Poetry is a kind of lying, Necessarily. To profit the poet Or beauty. But also in That truth may be told only so. Those who, admirably, refuse To falsify (as those who will not Risk pretensions) are excluded From saying even so much. Degas said he didn’t paint What he saw, but what Would enable […]...
5. Night-piece what’s that i’m awake A bang like a door or a foot Knocking a chair who’s there Tense i lie in my bed my face Stretching out on the black air My ears strain……a creak this time Like a cat on the stair – but we have no cat If the door-handle turned and a…. […]...
6. In A Museum I Here’s the mould of a musical bird long passed from light, Which over the earth before man came was winging; There’s a contralto voice I heard last night, That lodges with me still in its sweet singing. II Such a dream is Time that the coo of this ancient bird Has perished not, but […]...
7. At the British Museum I turn the page and read: “I dream of silent verses where the rhyme Glides noiseless as an oar.” The heavy musty air, the black desks, The bent heads and the rustling noises In the great dome Vanish… And The sun hangs in the cobalt-blue sky, The boat drifts over the lake shallows, The fishes […]...
8. A Spring Piece Left In The Middle Taut, thick fingers punch The teeth of my typewriter. Three words are down on paper in capitals: SPRING SPRING SPRING… And me poet, proofreader, The man who’s forced to read Two thousand bad lines every day for two liras Why, since spring has come, am I still sitting here like a ragged black chair? My […]...
9. In The Deep Museum My God, my God, what queer corner am I in? Didn’t I die, blood running down the post, Lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin Of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost? Surely my body is done? Surely I died? And yet, I know, I’m here. What place is this? Cold […]...
10. Budapest Museum of Fine Arts a Memo from the Past This is to compliment those Who have made us petrified And conjured up evidence of our sufferings Into what they call a tourist’s attraction...
11. When You Are Old When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But […]...
12. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
13. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
14. Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
15. When Night Comes To the tune of “Telling My Most Intimate Feelings” When night comes, I am so flushed with wine, I undo my hair slowly: A plum calyx is Stuck on a damaged branch. I wake dazed when smoke Breaks my spring sleep. The dream distant, So very distant; And it is quiet, so very quiet. The […]...
16. Picture Puzzle Piece One picture puzzle piece Lyin’ on the sidewalk, One picture puzzle piece Soakin’ in the rain. It might be a button of blue On the coat of the woman Who lived in a shoe. It might be a magical bean, Or a fold in the red Velvet robe of a queen. It might be the […]...
17. Night Piece Climb, claim your shelf-room, far Packed from inquisitive moon And cold contagious stars. Lean out, but look no longer, No further, than to stir Night with extended finger. Now fill the box with light, Flood full the shining block, Masonry against night. Let window, curtain, blind Soft-sieve and sift and shred The impertinence of sound. […]...
18. A Piece Of The Storm For Sharon Horvath From the shadow of domes in the city of domes, A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That’s all There was to it. No more than […]...
19. Night Piece, to Julia Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, The shooting stars attend thee, And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like sparks of fire befriend thee. No will-o’th’-wisp mislight thee; No snake or slow-worm bite thee; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there’s none to affright thee. Let not the dark […]...
20. The Night Piece, to Julia Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, The shooting stars attend thee; And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. No Will-o’-th’-Wisp mis-light thee, Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there’s none to affright thee. Let not the […]...
21. A Night-Piece By Millet Wind and sea and cloud and cloud-forsaking Mirth of moonlight where the storm leaves free Heaven awhile, for all the wrath of waking Wind and sea. Bright with glad mad rapture, fierce with glee, Laughs the moon, borne on past cloud’s o’ertaking Fast, it seems, as wind or sail can flee. One blown sail beneath […]...
22. A Flower-Piece By Fantin Heart’s ease or pansy, pleasure or thought, Which would the picture give us of these? Surely the heart that conceived it sought Heart’s ease. Surely by glad and divine degrees The heart impelling the hand that wrought Wrought comfort here for a soul’s disease. Deep flowers, with lustre and darkness fraught, From glass that gleams […]...
23. Two Sonnets In Memory (Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti) Executed August 23, 1927 I As men have loved their lovers in times past And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace, So have we loved sweet Justice to the last, That now lies here in an unseemly place. The child will quit the cradle and grow wise And stare […]...
24. Debt What do I owe to you Who loved me deep and long? You never gave my spirit wings Or gave my heart a song. But oh, to him I loved, Who loved me not at all, I owe the open gate That led through heaven’s wall....
25. Night-Piece Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan, Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still; For now the moon through heaven sails alone, Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill. The faun from out his dim and secret place Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream Half-wakens, seeing there his sylvan face Reflected, […]...
26. Madam Life's a Piece in Bloom Madam Life’s a piece in bloom Death goes dogging everywhere: She’s the tenant of the room, He’s the ruffian on the stair. You shall see her as a friend, You shall bilk him once or twice; But he’ll trap you in the end, And he’ll stick you for her price. With his kneebones at your […]...
27. Either if you are young and bright At one and twenty, go to a: If you are old and gray At one and sixty, see b: A) Scorn these lines, Forget the book Put it lofty Things that matter Are now and here: Pleasure and glory Indulge with time Wallow with energy B) Take down this […]...
28. My Cross I wrote a poem to the moon But no one noticed it; Although I hoped that late or soon Someone would praise a bit Its purity and grace forlone, Its beauty tulip-cool… But as my poem died still-born, I felt a fool. I wrote a verse of vulgar trend Spiced with an oath or two; […]...
29. AUTOBIOGRAPHY (POLISH IT LIKE A PIECE OF SILVER) I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas. What did Judy say? “God-forsaken is beautiful, too.” A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes Care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a Manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver. An old dog stands […]...
30. On Seeing A Piece Of Our Artillery Brought Into Action Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm, Great gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse; Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse Huge imprecations like a blasting charm! Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm, And beat it down before its sins grow worse; Spend our resentment, cannon, yea, disburse Our gold […]...
31. Confessions What is he buzzing in my ears? “Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears?” Ah, reverend sir, not I! What I viewed there once, what I view again Where the physic bottles stand On the table’s edge,-is a suburb lane, With a wall to my bedside […]...
32. To Miss Cornish THEY tell me, lady, that to-day On that unknown Australian strand – Some time ago, so far away – Another lady joined the band. She joined the company of those Lovelily dowered, nobly planned, Who, smiling, still forgive their foes And keep their friends in close command. She, lady, as I learn, was one Among […]...
33. The Task: Book II, The Time-Piece (excerpts) England, with all thy faults, I love thee still My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrain’d to love thee. Though thy clime Be fickle, and thy year most part deform’d With dripping rains, or wither’d by a frost, I would not yet […]...
34. Sonnet 104 – A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece, Diminutive, but room enough. . like clay To finger eager on some torrid day. . Who’d throw her black hair back, and hang, and tease. Never, not once in all one’s horny lease To’have had a demi-lay, a pretty, gay, Snug, slim and supple-breasted girl for play. […]...
35. Divinely Superfluous Beauty The storm-dances of gulls, the barking game of seals, Over and under the ocean… Divinely superfluous beauty Rules the games, presides over destinies, makes trees grow And hills tower, waves fall. The incredible beauty of joy Stars with fire the joining of lips, O let our loves too Be joined, there is not a maiden […]...
36. I Have Loved Hours At Sea I have loved hours at sea, gray cities, The fragile secret of a flower, Music, the making of a poem That gave me heaven for an hour; First stars above a snowy hill, Voices of people kindly and wise, And the great look of love, long hidden, Found at last in meeting eyes. I have […]...
37. Morning Poem #48 cold bed Gray day Memories Of “birds of prey” Talk for the sake Of words shaping Mouth moving Thoughts changing Energy moving Outside of self Talk for the sake Of a warm bed A sanny day And memories Of birds at play...
38. Seven Strophes I was but what you’d brush With your palm, what your leaning Brow would hunch to in evening’s Raven-black hush. I was but what your gaze In that dark could distinguish: A dim shape to begin with, Later – features, a face. It was you, on my right, On my left, with your heated Sighs, […]...
39. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
40. The Best Thing In The World What’s the best thing in the world? June-rose, by May-dew impearled; Sweet south-wind, that means no rain; Truth, not cruel to a friend; Pleasure, not in haste to end; Beauty, not self-decked and curled Till its pride is over-plain; Light, that never makes you wink; Memory, that gives no pain; Love, when, so, you’re loved […]...