To the Thawing Wind

Related poetry:

1. To the dead poet of obscurity (In honor of the dead unpublished poet) Well done! You have won! You should not feel sorry. Your unpublished poems -always remember- Have not been buried, Haven’t bent Under the strength of time. Like gold Inside the soil They remain, They never melt. They may be late But they will be given To their people […]...
2. Spring Wind in London I Blow across the stagnant world, I blow across the sea, For me, the sailor’s flag unfurled, For me, the uprooted tree. My challenge to the world is hurled; The world must bow to me. I drive the clouds across the sky, I huddle them like sheep; Merciless shepherd-dog am I And shepherd-watch I keep. […]...
3. Wedding Wind The wind blew all my wedding-day, And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind; And a stable door was banging, again and again, That he must go and shut it, leaving me Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain, Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick, Yet seeing nothing. When he came back He said […]...
4. Wayward Wind My patient, Paul, wrote in a poem That he belongs to the wayward wind, A restless breed, A strange and hardy class. I’ve been with him for two years And now he is dying. “Are you in pain, Paul?” I ask. “I AM pain,” he said. But he is refusing medication Although his cancer has […]...
5. Big Hair Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie Tear, wanting to look like a moll In a Chandler novel. Dinner, consisting of three parts gin And one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair. There are, she said, poems that can be written Only when the poet is clad in black underwear. […]...
6. The Queen of Bubbles [Written for a picture] The Youth speaks: -: “Why do you seek the sun In your bubble-crown ascending? Your chariot will melt to mist. Your crown will have an ending.” The Goddess replies: – : “Nay, sun is but a bubble, Earth is a whiff of foam – To my caves on the coast of […]...
7. A prayer to the Wind Go thou gentle whispering wind, Bear this sigh; and if thou find Where my cruel fair doth rest, Cast it in her snowy breast, So, enflam’d by my desire, It may set her heart a-fire. Those sweet kisses thou shalt gain, Will reward thee for thy pain: Boldly light upon her lip, There suck odours, […]...
8. Song of the Sea-Wind When the sun sets over the long blue wave I spring from my couch of rest, And I hurtle and boom over leagues of foam That toss in the weltering west, I pipe a hymn to the headlands high, My comrades forevermore, And I chase the tricksy curls of foam O’er the glimmering sandy shore. […]...
9. Ai There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five. There’s a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice Just won the National Book Award. The name “Ai” is pronounced “I” So that whenever I talk about the poet Ai Such as I’m teaching Ai’s poems again this semester It sounds like I’m teaching […]...
10. A SIMPLE POEM I want you to continue writing Because I will not always be around With lips that will never touch mine Read your poems out loud So that the words are left engraved On the wall Make me feel your voice rush through me Like a breeze from Oyá I want to hear about Puerto Rico […]...
11. The House Of Clouds I would build a cloudy House For my thoughts to live in; When for earth too fancy-loose And too low for Heaven! Hush! I talk my dream aloud – I build it bright to see, – I build it on the moonlit cloud, To which I looked with thee. Cloud-walls of the morning’s grey, Faced […]...
12. To the Western Wind SWEET western wind, whose luck it is, Made rival with the air, To give Perenna’s lip a kiss, And fan her wanton hair: Bring me but one, I’ll promise thee, Instead of common showers, Thy wings shall be embalm’d by me, And all beset with flowers....
13. To E. T I slumbered with your poems on my breast Spread open as I dropped them half-read through Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb To see, if in a dream they brought of you, I might not have the chance I missed in life Through some delay, and call you to your face First […]...
14. During Wind And Rain They sing their dearest songs He, she, all of them yea, Treble and tenor and bass, And one to play; With the candles mooning each face…. Ah, no; the years O! How the sick leaves reel down in throngs! They clear the creeping moss Elders and juniors aye, Making the pathways neat And the garden […]...
15. The Runaway Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall, We stopped by a mountain pasture to say ‘Whose colt?’ A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall, The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt. We heard the miniature thunder […]...
16. Conscientious Objector I shall die, but That is all that I shall do for Death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor. He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, Business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning. But I will not hold the […]...
17. Here I Am drunk again at 3 a. m. at the end of my 2nd bottle Of wine, I have typed from a dozen to 15 pages of Poesy An old man Maddened for the flesh of young girls in this Dwindling twilight Liver gone Kidneys going Pancrea pooped Top-floor blood pressure While all the fear of the […]...
18. The Wind didn't come from the Orchard today The Wind didn’t come from the Orchard today Further than that Nor stop to play with the Hay Nor joggle a Hat He’s a transitive fellow very Rely on that If He leave a Bur at the door We know He has climbed a Fir But the Fir is Where Declare Were you ever there? […]...
19. Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind “The past is a bucket of ashes.” 1 THE WOMAN named To-morrow Sits with a hairpin in her teeth And takes her time And does her hair the way she wants it And fastens at last the last braid and coil And puts the hairpin where it belongs And turns and drawls: Well, what of […]...
20. The Poet Fears Failure The poet fears failure & so she says “Hold on pen What if the critics Hate me?” & with that question She blots out more lines Than any critic could. The critic is only doing his job: Keeping the poet lonely. He barks Like a dog at the door When the master comes home. It’s […]...
21. The Poet The riches of the poet are equal to his poetry His power is his left hand It is idle weak and precious His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him like Midas Because it is that laziness which is a form of impatience And this he may be destroyed by the gold […]...
22. The Lockless Door It went many years, But at last came a knock, And I though of the door With no lock to lock. I blew out the light, I tip-toed the floor, And raised both hands In prayer to the door. But the knock came again. My window was wide; I climbed on the sill And descended […]...
23. Subway Wind Far down, down through the city’s great, gaunt gut, The gray train rushing bears the weary wind; In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut, Leaving the sick and heavy air behind. And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door To give their summer jackets to the breeze; Their laugh is swallowed in the […]...
24. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
25. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
26. The Night – Wind In summer’s mellow midnight, A cloudless moon shone through Our open parlour window, And rose-trees wet with dew. I sat in silent musing; The soft wind waved my hair; It told me heaven was glorious, And sleeping earth was fair. I needed not its breathing To bring such thoughts to me; But still it whispered […]...
27. Of Love & Sex said once a friend of mine That love was just a bucket of bullshit; then I Thought about his parents Wrote once a neighbour poet That sex was a thing overrated; so I Asked for her other poems...
28. 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 […]...
29. Wind He shouts in the sails of the ships at sea, He steals the down from the honeybee, He makes the forest trees rustle and sing, He twirls my kite till it breaks its string. Laughing, dancing, sunny wind, Whistling, howling, rainy wind, North, South, East and West, Each is the wind I like the best. […]...
30. The Conspiracy You send me your poems, I’ll send you mine. Things tend to awaken Even through random communication Let us suddenly Proclaim spring. And jeer At the others, All the others. I will send a picture too If you will send me one of you....
31. 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, […]...
32. Eddi's Service Eddi, priest of St. Wilfrid In his chapel at Manhood End, Ordered a midnight service For such as cared to attend. But the Saxons were keeping Christmas, And the night was stormy as well. Nobody came to service, Though Eddi rang the bell. “‘Wicked weather for walking,” Said Eddi of Manhood End. “But I must […]...
33. Ode To The West Wind I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: 0 thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each […]...
34. Illustrious Ancestors The Rav Of Northern White Russia declined, In his youth, to learn the Language of birds, because The extraneous did not interest him; nevertheless When he grew old it was found He understood them anyway, having Listened well, and as it is said, ‘prayed With the bench and the floor.’ He used What was at […]...
35. For Once, Then, Something Others taught me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture Me myself in the summer heaven godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin […]...
36. The Melting An old woman likes to melt her husband. She puts him in A melting device, and he pours out the other end in a hot Bloody syrup, which she catches in a series of little husband Molds. What splatters on the floor the dog licks up. When they have set she has seventeen little husbands. […]...
37. Darius The poet Phernazis is composing The important part of his epic poem. How Darius, son of Hystaspes, Assumed the kingdom of the Persians. (From him Is descended our glorious king Mithridates, Dionysus and Eupator). But here Philosophy is needed; he must analyze The sentiments that Darius must have had: Maybe arrogance and drunkenness; but no […]...
38. Woe! It is true, our tribe is similar to the bees, It gathers honey of wisdom, carries it, stores it in honeycombs. I am able to roam for hours Through the labyrinth of the main library, floor to floor. But yesterday, looking for the words of masters and prophets, I wandered into high regions That are […]...
39. Days of 1986 He was believed by his peers to be an important poet, But his erotic obsession, condemned and strictly forbidden, Compromised his standing, and led to his ruin. Over sixty, and a father many times over, The objects of his attention grew younger and younger: He tried to corrupt the sons of his dearest friends; He […]...
40. Horatio His portrait hung upon the wall. Oh how at us he used to stare. Each Sunday when I made my call! And when one day it wasn’t there, Quite quick I seemed to understand The light was green to hold her hand. Her eyes were amorously lit; I knew she wouldn’t mind at all. Yet […]...