Home ⇒ 📌Robert Francis ⇒ Catch
Catch
Two boys uncoached are tossing a poem together,
Overhand, underhand, backhand, sleight of hand, everyhand,
Teasing with attitudes, latitudes, interludes, altitudes,
High, make him fly off the ground for it, low, make him stoop,
Make him scoop it up, make him as-almost-as possible miss it,
Fast, let him sting from it, now, now fool him slowly,
Anything, everything tricky, risky, nonchalant,
Anything under the sun to outwit the prosy,
Over the tree and the long sweet cadence down,
Over his head, make him scramble to pick up the meaning,
And now, like a posy, a pretty one plump in his hands.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Roses (For Katherine Bregy) I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring, For I would make a posy, a posy for the King. I got an hundred roses, the loveliest there be, From the white rose vine and the pink rose bush and from the red Rose tree. But when I took my […]...
- Song (Go And Catch A Falling Star) Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil’s foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy’s stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be’st born to strange sights, Things […]...
- As Kingfishers Catch Fire As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves – goes itself; […]...
- Sonnet 143: Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catch Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catch One of her feathered creatures broke away, Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch In pursuit of the thing she would have stay, Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent To follow that which flies […]...
- Countrywomen These be two Countrywomen. What a size! Grand big arms And round red faces; Big substantial Sit-down-places; Great big bosoms firm as cheese Bursting through their country jackets; Wide big laps And sturdy knees; Hands outspread, Round and rosy, Hands to hold A country posy Or a baby or a lamb And such eyes! Stupid, […]...
- Fisherman jim's kids Fisherman Jim lived on the hill With his bonnie wife an’ his little boys; ‘T wuz “Blow, ye winds, as blow ye will – Naught we reck of your cold and noise!” For happy and warm were he an’ his, And he dandled his kids upon his knee To the song of the sea. Fisherman […]...
- The Hunter The hunter crouches in his blind ‘Neath camouflage of every kind And conjures up a quacking noise To lend allure to his decoys This grown-up man, with pluck and luck Is hoping to outwit a duck...
- Wild Grapes What tree may not the fig be gathered from? The grape may not be gathered from the birch? It’s all you know the grape, or know the birch. As a girl gathered from the birch myself Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn, I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of. […]...
- Washington McNeely Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, […]...
- Apples Behold the apples’ rounded worlds: Juice-green of July rain, The black polestar of flowers, the rind Mapped with its crimson stain. The russet, crab and cottage red Burn to the sun’s hot brass, Then drop like sweat from every branch And bubble in the grass. They lie as wanton as they fall, And where they […]...
- Simplicity What I seek far yet seldom find Is large simplicity of mind In fellow men; For I have sprouted from the sod, Like Bobbie Burns, my earthly god, From plough to pen. So I refuse my brain to vex With problems prosy and complex, Beyond my scope; To me simplicity is peace, So I persue […]...
- The Enigma The Sergeant of a Highland Reg- -Iment was drilling of his men; With temper notably on edge He blest them every now and then. A sweet old lady standing by, Was looking on with fascination, And then she dared this question shy, That pertubates the Celtic nation. “Oh gentle Sergeant do not scold; Please tell […]...
- I held a Jewel in my fingers I held a Jewel in my fingers And went to sleep The day was warm, and winds were prosy I said “‘Twill keep” I woke and chid my honest fingers, The Gem was gone And now, an Amethyst remembrance Is all I own...
- A Wicker Basket Comes the time when it’s later And onto your table the headwaiter Puts the bill, and very soon after Rings out the sound of lively laughter Picking up change, hands like a walrus, And a face like a barndoor’s, And a head without any apparent size, Nothing but two eyes So that’s you, man, Or […]...
- Wild May Aleta mentions in her tender letters, Among a chain of quaint and touching things, That you are feeble, weighted down with fetters, And given to strange deeds and mutterings. No longer without trace or thought of fear, Do you leap to and ride the rebel roan; But have become the victim of grim care, With […]...
- By my sweetheart Sweetheart, be my sweetheart When birds are on the wing, When bee and bud and babbling flood Bespeak the birth of spring, Come, sweetheart, be my sweetheart And wear this posy-ring! Sweetheart, be my sweetheart In the mellow golden glow Of earth aflush with the gracious blush Which the ripening fields foreshow; Dear sweetheart, be […]...
- The Girt Woak Tree The girt woak tree that’s in the dell! There’s noo tree I do love so well; Vor times an’ times when I wer young I there’ve a-climb’d, an’ there’ve a-zwung, An’ pick’d the eacorns green, a-shed In wrestlen storms from his broad head, An’ down below’s the cloty brook Where I did vish with line […]...
- The Dinkey Bird In an ocean, ‘way out yonder, (As all sapient people know) Is the land of Wonder-Wander, Whither children love to go; It’s their playing, romping, swinging, That give great joy to me While the Dinkey-Bird goes singing In the amfalula tree! There the gum-drops grow like cherries, And taffy’s thick as peas Caramels you pick […]...
- Young Bullfrogs JIMMY WIMBLETON listened a first week in June. Ditches along prairie roads of Northern Illinois Filled the arch of night with young bullfrog songs. Infinite mathematical metronomic croaks rose and spoke, Rose and sang, rose in a choir of puzzles. They made his head ache with riddles of music. They rested his head with beaten […]...
- Endless Time Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. There is none to count thy minutes. Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou knowest how to wait. Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. We have no time to lose, And having no time we must scramble for […]...
- Trees (For Mrs. Henry Mills Alden) I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest […]...
- The Booby-Trap I’m crawlin’ out in the mangolds to bury wot’s left o’ Joe Joe, my pal, and a good un (God! ‘ow it rains and rains). I’m sick o’ seein’ him lyin’ like a ‘eap o’ offal, and so I’m crawlin’ out in the beet-field to bury ‘is last remains. ‘E might ‘a bin makin’ munitions […]...
- Tree At My Window Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me. Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground, And thing next most diffuse to cloud, Not all your light tongues talking aloud Could be profound. But tree, I have seen you […]...
- A Bush Christening On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few, And men of religion are scanty, On a road never cross’d ‘cept by folk that are lost, One Michael Magee had a shanty. Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad, Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned; He was strong as the best, […]...
- Old Man Old Man, or Lads-Love, – in the name there’s nothing To one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man, The hoar green feathery herb, almost a tree, Growing with rosemary and lavender. Even to one that knows it well, the names Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: At least, what that is clings […]...
- The Pick I watched him swinging the pick in the sun, Breaking the concrete steps into chunks of rock, And the rocks into dust, And the dust into earth again. I must have sat for a very long time on the split rail fence, Just watching him. My father’s body glistened with sweat, His arms flew like […]...
- A Girl The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast – Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms. Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child – so high – you are, And all this is folly […]...
- Oysters Charming oysters I cry: My masters, come buy, So plump and so fresh, So sweet is their flesh, No Colchester oyster Is sweeter and moister: Your stomach they settle, And rouse up your mettle: They’ll make you a dad Of a lass or a lad; And madam your wife They’ll please to the life; Be […]...
- Safe in their Alabaster Chambers Safe in their Alabaster Chambers Untouched my Morning And untouched by Noon Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection Rafter of satin, And Roof of stone. Light laughs the breeze In her Castle above them Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear, Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence Ah, what sagacity perished here!...
- 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 […]...
- HYMN How I love the working-class girls of Leeds, Their mile-wide smiles, eyes bright as beads, Their young breasts bobbing as they run, Hands quick as darting fish, lithe legs Bare as they scramble over the Hollows With brown-soled feet and dimpled bums Half-covered with knickers, and short frocks Full of flowers and their delicate ears, […]...
- For Jane: With All The Love I Had, Which Was Not Enough I pick up the skirt, I pick up the sparkling beads In black, This thing that moved once Around flesh, And I call God a liar, I say anything that moved Like that Or knew My name Could never die In the common verity of dying, And I pick Up her lovely Dress, All her […]...
- The Rose Sweet serene sky-like flower, Haste to adorn her bower; From thy long cloudy bed Shoot forth thy damask head! New-startled blush of Flora, The grief of pale Aurora, Who will contest no more, Haste, haste to strew her floor! Vermilion ball that’s given From lip to lip in heaven, Love’s couch’s coverlet, Haste, haste to […]...
- An Apple-Gathering I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree And wore them all that evening in my hair: Then in due season when I went to see I found no apples there. With dangling basket all along the grass As I had come I went the selfsame track: My neighbours mocked me while they saw me […]...
- The Bible is an antique Volume The Bible is an antique Volume Written by faded men At the suggestion of Holy Spectres Subjects Bethlehem Eden the ancient Homestead Satan the Brigadier Judas the Great Defaulter David the Troubador Sin a distinguished Precipice Others must resist Boys that “believe” are very lonesome Other Boys are “lost” Had but the Tale a warbling […]...
- Slants at Buffalo, New York A FOREFINGER of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky. It says: This way! this way! Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft. They too are the dream of a sculptor. They too say: This way! this way! The street cars swing at a curve. The middle-class passengers witness […]...
- Hare Drummer Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s For cider, after school, in late September? Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin? For many times with the laughing girls and boys Played I along the road and over the hills When the sun was low and […]...
- A Bushman's Song I’M travellin’ down the Castlereagh, and I’m a station hand, I’m handy with the ropin’ pole, I’m handy with the brand, And I can ride a rowdy colt, or swing the axe all day, But there’s no demand for a station-hand along the Castlereagh. + So it’s shift, boys, shift, for there isn’t the slightest […]...
- Dumb Swede With barbwire hooch they filled him full, Till he was drunker than all hell, And then they peddled him the bull About a claim they had to sell. A thousand bucks they made him pay, Knowing that he had nothing more, And when he begged it back next day, And wept! – they kicked him […]...
- Mount Bukaroo Only one old post is standing Solid yet, but only one Where the milking, and the branding, And the slaughtering were done. Later years have brought dejection, Care, and sorrow; but we knew Happy days on that selection Underneath old Bukaroo. Then the light of day commencing Found us at the gully’s head, Splitting timber […]...
« Letter S