An Encounter

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1. 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, […]...
2. Encounter Those who have touched it or been touched by it Or brushed by something that the vine has brushed, Or burning it, have stood where the sly smoke Has touched them-Know the meaning of its name. The leaf is smooth. Its green is innocence. A clean, unblemished leaf, glossy when young. A leaf the unobserving […]...
3. Fool O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders! O beggar, to come beg at thy own door! Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all, And never look behind in regret. Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with its breath. It is unholy […]...
4. Convalescence From out the dragging vastness of the sea, Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands, He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands One moment, white and dripping, silently, Cut like a cameo in lazuli, Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands Prone in the jeering water, and his hands Clutch for support where no […]...
5. How News must feel when travelling How News must feel when travelling If News have any Heart Alighting at the Dwelling ‘Twill enter like a Dart! What News must think when pondering If News have any Thought Concerning the stupendousness Of its perceiveless freight! What News will do when every Man Shall comprehend as one And not in all the Universe […]...
6. The Encounter All the while they were talking the new morality Her eyes explored me. And when I rose to go Her fingers were like the tissue Of a Japanese paper napkin....
7. Encounter We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn. A red wing rose in the darkness. And suddenly a hare ran across the road. One of us pointed to it with his hand. That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive, Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture. […]...
8. Winding Wool She’d bring to me a skein of wool And beg me to hold out my hands; So on my pipe I cease to pull And watch her twine the shining strands Into a ball so snug and neat, Perchance a pair of socks to knit To comfort my unworthy feet, Or pullover my girth to […]...
9. Super Samson Simpson I am Super Samson Simpson, I’m superlatively strong, I like to carry elephants, I do it all day long, I pick up half a dozen And hoist them in the air, It’s really somewhat simple, For I have strength to spare. My muscles are enormous, They bulge from top to toe, And when I carry […]...
10. Last Night's Encounter a) Last night’s encounter Gave the little rat and me A terrible blow B) It’s my job therefore To make it clearly see That one of us must go...
11. The True Encounter “Wolf!” cried my cunning heart At every sheep it spied, And roused the countryside. “Wolf! Wolf!”-and up would start Good neighbours, bringing spade And pitchfork to my aid. At length my cry was known: Therein lay my release. I met the wolf alone And was devoured in peace....
12. Encounter In The Chestnut Avenue He felt the entrance’s green darkness Wrapped cooly round him like a silken cloak That he was still accepting and arranging; When at the opposite transparent end, far off, Through green sunlight, as through green window panes, Whitely a solitary shape Flared up, long remaining distant And then finally, the downdriving light Boiling over it […]...
13. Small Wire My faith Is a great weight Hung on a small wire, As doth the spider Hang her baby on a thin web, As doth the vine, Twiggy and wooden, Hold up grapes Like eyeballs, As many angels Dance on the head of a pin. God does not need Too much wire to keep Him there, […]...
14. My Bed is Covered Yellow My bed is covered yellow – Oh Sun, I sit on you Oh golden field I lay on you Oh money I dream of you More, More, cried the bed – talk to me more – Oh bed that taked the weight of the world – all the lost dreams laid on you Oh bed […]...
15. Days of the slow roll It was the days of the slow roll, Times when we dextrously dressed Our hand-rolled cigarettes With a dearth of fine-cut tobacco, Teased in frugal strands from A handsomely battered, Always near empty, 2oz tobacco tin. The thin rolls were patiently Mastered in a slow statement Of intense deliberation In a fold of rice paper […]...
16. The Position They let me in. I went right up to the nursery And climbed into the crib, and assumed the famous Fetal position. They didn’t know what to make of it. They stood By the crib looking down at me. They were young. This was their house. Instead Of an infant, a grown man is in […]...
17. Carry On It’s easy to fight when everything’s right, And you’re mad with the thrill and the glory; It’s easy to cheer when victory’s near, And wallow in fields that are gory. It’s a different song when everything’s wrong, When you’re feeling infernally mortal; When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none, Buck up, little […]...
18. A Late Walk When I go up through the mowing field, The headless aftermath, Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew, Half closes the garden path. And when I come to the garden ground, The whir of sober birds Up from the tangle of withered weeds Is sadder than any words A tree beside the wall stands bare, […]...
19. Song of the Little White Girl Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter? Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter? Because it is just a white baby you see, And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree? Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellow With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow. Wouldn’t you like to […]...
20. Throwbacks SOMEWHERE you and I remember we came. Stairways from the sea and our heads dripping. Ladders of dust and mud and our hair snarled. Rags of drenching mist and our hands clawing, climbing. You and I that snickered in the crotches and corners, in the gab of our first talking. Red dabs of dawn summer […]...
21. Hiawatha's Sailing “Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree! Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree! Growing by the rushing river, Tall and stately in the valley! I a light canoe will build me, Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, That shall float on the river, Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, Like a yellow water-lily! “Lay aside […]...
22. Embarcation Southampton Docks: October 1899 Here, where Vespasian’s legions struck the sands, And Cendric with the Saxons entered in, And Henry’s army lept afloat to win Convincing triumphs over neighboring lands, Vaster battalions press for further strands, To argue in the selfsame bloody mode Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code, Still fails […]...
23. Gravelly Run I don’t know somehow it seems sufficient To see and hear whatever coming and going is, Losing the self to the victory of stones and trees, Of bending sandpit lakes, crescent Round groves of dwarf pine: For it is not so much to know the self As to know it as it is known by […]...
24. I AM NOT A NATIVE OF THIS PLACE I am not a native of this palce.(Yosimasu G.) Nor yet a stranger. With the rst of you I hunt for shade My boots half off To let the air through. My head is on my shoulders & is real. I plant cucumbers Twice a year & count the bounty. Often I read The papers […]...
25. Shagbark Hickory IN the moonlight under a shag-bark hickory tree Watching the yellow shadows melt in hoof-pools, Listening to the yes and the no of a woman’s hands, I kept my guess why the night was glad. The night was lit with a woman’s eyes. The night was crossed with a woman’s hands, The night kept humming […]...
26. Rhythm of Life The clock is silent Nowadays clocks no longer Need to make That rhythmic sound of life. We have moved on And everything is changed I am no longer sad I don’t weep for you. In still moments I see you solitary, reflective- Running with the wind along the waterfront With your Walkman on. Radiowaves carry […]...
27. The Late Singer Here it is spring again And I still a young man! I am late at my singing. The sparrow with the black rain on his breast Has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past: What is it that is dragging at my heart? The grass by the back door Is stiff with sap. The […]...
28. On The Wire O God, take the sun from the sky! It’s burning me, scorching me up. God, can’t You hear my cry? Water! A poor, little cup! It’s laughing, the cursed sun! See how it swells and swells Fierce as a hundred hells! God, will it never have done? It’s searing the flesh on my bones; It’s […]...
29. I could die to know I could die to know ‘Tis a trifling knowledge News-Boys salute the Door Carts joggle by Morning’s bold face stares in the window Were but mine the Charter of the least Fly Houses hunch the House With their Brick Shoulders Coals from a Rolling Load rattle how near To the very Square His foot is […]...
30. Hits and Runs I REMEMBER the Chillicothe ball players grappling the Rock Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island players were a yellow smoke against the sundown. And the umpire’s voice was hoarse calling […]...
31. Hemlock and Cedar THIN sheets of blue smoke among white slabs… near the shingle mill… winter morning. Falling of a dry leaf might be heard… circular steel tears through a log. Slope of woodland… brown… soft… tinge of blue such as pansy eyes. Farther, field fires… funnel of yellow smoke… spellings of other yellow in corn stubble. Bobsled […]...
32. Stafford's Cabin Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man; And something happened here before my memory began. Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame And all we have of them is now a legend and a name. All I have to say is what an old man […]...
33. Let Me Not Forget If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life Then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight – let me not forget for a moment, Let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams And in my wakeful hours. As my days pass in the crowded market […]...
34. That Day This is the desk I sit at And this is the desk where I love you too much And this is the typewriter that sits before me Where yesterday only your body sat before me With its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus, With its tongue like a king making up rules as he […]...
35. The Assassin The correct death is written in. I will fill the need. My bow is stiff. My bow is in readiness. I am the bullet and the hook. I am cocked and held ready. In my sights I carve him Like a sculptor. I mold out His last look at everyone. I carry his eyes and […]...
36. White Cockatoos Now the autumn maize is growing, Now the corn-cob fills, Where the Little River flowing Winds among the hills. Over mountain peaks outlying Clear against the blue Comes a scout in silence flying, One white cockatoo. Back he goes to where the meeting Waits among the trees. Says, “The corn is fit for eating; Hurry, […]...
37. Poem 92 VPon a day as loue lay sweetly slumbring, All in his mothers lap: A gentle Bee with his loud trumpet murm’ring, About him flew by hap. Whereof when he was wakened with the noyse, And saw the beast so small: Whats this (quoth he) that giues so great a voyce, That wakens men withall. In […]...
38. Unlike, For Example, The Sound Of A Riptooth Saw gnawing through a shinbone, a high howl Inside of which a bloody, slashed-by-growls note Is heard, unlike that Sound, and instead, its opposite: a barely sounded Sound (put your nuclear ears On for it, your giant hearing horn, its cornucopia mouth Wide) a slippery whoosh of rain Sliding down a mirror Leaned against a windfallen […]...
39. 543. Song-News, lassies, news THERE’S news, lassies, news, Gude news I’ve to tell! There’s a boatfu’ o’ lads Come to our town to sell. Chorus.-The wean wants a cradle, And the cradle wants a cod: I’ll no gang to my bed, Until I get a nod. Father, quo’ she, Mither, quo she, Do what you can, I’ll no gang […]...
40. Half Moon in a High Wind MONEY is nothing now, even if I had it, O mooney moon, yellow half moon, Up over the green pines and gray elms, Up in the new blue. Streel, streel, White lacey mist sheets of cloud, Streel in the blowing of the wind, Streel over the blue-and-moon sky, Yellow gold half moon. It is light […]...