A Child's Nightmare

Related poetry:

1. The Bough of Nonsense AN IDYLL Back from the Somme two Fusiliers Limped painfully home; the elder said, S. “Robert, I’ve lived three thousand years This Summer, and I’m nine parts dead.” R. “But if that’s truly so,” I cried, “quick, now, Through these great oaks and see the famous bough “Where once a nonsense built her nest With […]...
2. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 04: Nightmare ‘Draw three cards, and I will tell your future. . . Draw three cards, and lay them down, Rest your palms upon them, stare at the crystal, And think of time. . . My father was a clown, My mother was a gypsy out of Egypt; And she was gotten with child in a strange […]...
3. Tame Cat It rests me to be among beautiful women Why should one always lie about such matters? I repeat: It rests me to converse with beautiful women Even though we talk nothing but nonsense, The purring of the invisible antennae Is both stimulating and delightful....
4. Nightmare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening After a Print by George Cruikshank It was a gusty night, With the wind booming, and swooping, Looping round corners, Sliding over the cobble-stones, Whipping and veering, And careering over the roofs Like a thousand clattering horses. Mr. Spruggins had been dining in the city, Mr. Spruggins was none too steady in his gait, And […]...
5. Nest Eggs Birds all the summer day Flutter and quarrel Here in the arbour-like Tent of the laurel. Here in the fork The brown nest is seated; For little blue eggs The mother keeps heated. While we stand watching her Staring like gabies, Safe in each egg are the Bird’s little babies. Soon the frail eggs they […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. Flat Lands FLAT lands on the end of town where real estate men are crying new subdivisions, The sunsets pour blood and fire over you hundreds and hundreds of nights, flat lands-blood and fire of sunsets thousands of years have been pouring over you. And the stars follow the sunsets. One gold star. A shower of blue […]...
8. My Favoured Fare Some poets sing of scenery; Some to fair maids make sonnets sweet. A fig for love and greenery, Be mine a song of things to eat. Let brother bards divinely dream, I’m just plain human, as you see; And choose to carol such a theme As ham and eggs and tea. Just two fried eggs […]...
9. Willow And I grew up in patterned tranquillity, In the cool nursery of the young century. And the voice of man was not dear to me, But the voice of the wind I could understand. But best of all the silver willow. And obligingly, it lived With me all my life; it’s weeping branches Fanned my […]...
10. Visits To St. Elizabeths This is the house of Bedlam. This is the man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is the time Of the tragic man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a wristwatch Telling the time Of the talkative man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a sailor Wearing […]...
11. To a Fish You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea, Gulping salt-water everlastingly, Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced, And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste; And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be, Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry, Legless, unloving, infamously chaste: O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring […]...
12. Zilpha Marsh At four o’clock in late October I sat alone in the country school-house Back from the road ‘mid stricken fields, And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane, And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove, With its open door blurring the shadows With the spectral glow of a dying fire. In an […]...
13. You Begin You begin this way: This is your hand, This is your eye, This is a fish, blue and flat On the paper, almost The shape of an eye This is your mouth, this is an O Or a moon, whichever You like. This is yellow. Outside the window Is the rain, green Because it is […]...
14. The Sea There are certain things – a spider, a ghost, The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three – That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most Is a thing they call the SEA. Pour some salt water over the floor – Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be: Suppose it extended a […]...
15. A Sea Dirge There are certain things as, a spider, a ghost, The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most Is a thing they call the Sea. Pour some salt water over the floor Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be: Suppose it extended a mile or […]...
16. Evening Song of the Thoughtful Child Shadow children, thin and small, Now the day is left behind, You are dancing on the wall, On the curtains, on the blind. On the ceiling, children, too, Peeping round the nursery door, Let me come and play with you, As we always played before. Let’s pretend that we have wings And can really truly […]...
17. Wherein Obscurely On the road with billowing poplars, In a country flat and desolate To the far-off gray horizon, wherein obscurely, A man and a woman went on foot, Each carrying a small suitcase. They were tired and had taken off Their shoes and were walking on Their toes, staring straight ahead. Every time a car passed […]...
18. 210. Song-Stay my Charmer STAY my charmer, can you leave me? Cruel, cruel to deceive me; Well you know how much you grieve me; Cruel charmer, can you go! Cruel charmer, can you go! By my love so ill-requited, By the faith you fondly plighted, By the pangs of lovers slighted, Do not, do not liave me so! Do […]...
19. Laziness Let laureates sing with rapturous swing Of the wonder and glory of work; Let pulpiteers preach and with passion impeach The indolent wretches who shirk. No doubt they are right: in the stress of the fight It’s the slackers who go to the wall; So though it’s my shame I perversely proclaim It’s fine to […]...
20. Silence of reading i like the silence of reading Flat on my stomach on the woollen floor My legs waving upwards like the fronds of ferns And in my mind Gigantic screaming monsters Or the mystery ship Scuttling crablike to the shore I am lost to the spell of words The enchantment of sea in the silent shell […]...
21. Winter When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When Blood is nipped and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When […]...
22. Spring and Winter ii WHEN icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp’d, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who! a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all […]...
23. Golden Silence I told her I loved her and begged but a word, One dear little word, that would be For me by all odds the most sweet ever heard, But never a word said she! I raged at her then, and I said she was cold; I swore she was nothing to me; I prayed her […]...
24. This self-congratulatory nonsense as the Famous gather to applaud their seeming Greatness You Wonder where The real ones are What Giant cave Hides them As The deathly talentless Bow to Accolades As The fools are Fooled Again You Wonder where The real ones are If there are Real ones. This self-congratulatory nonsense Has lasted Decades And […]...
25. An Ending Early March. The cold beach deserted. My kids Home in a bare house, bundled up And listening to rock music Pirated from England. My wife Waiting for me in a bar, alone For an hour over her sherry, and none Of us knows why I have to pace Back and forth on this flat And […]...
26. A Prayer Again! Come, give, yield all your strength to me! From far a low word breathes on the breaking brain Its cruel calm, submission’s misery, Gentling her awe as to a soul predestined. Cease, silent love! My doom! Blind me with your dark nearness, O have mercy, beloved enemy of my will! I dare not withstand […]...
27. Girl (three) and the black horse i want to hold the horse’s string Cried the girl (three) stamping her foot Told by adults she was much too young The black horse stood staring at the wall It worries us you may get hurt The adults whispered – meaning to offer Comfort to the little madam (not convinced) The black horse stood […]...
28. WINDSONG I drowse and dream in this sleeping house Fynbos the cat purring by the curtain Suriya the sun god sharing the garden Where joss sticks burn and my nostrils quiver At the echo of Japanese songs, long ago. In the breaking day I kiss your lips And taste the tongue of your waking shadow....
29. The O'Rahilly Sing of the O’Rahilly, Do not deny his right; Sing a ‘the’ before his name; Allow that he, despite All those learned historians, Established it for good; He wrote out that word himself, He christened himself with blood. How goes the weather? Sing of the O’Rahilly That had such little sense He told Pearse and […]...
30. The Paper Windmill The little boy pressed his face against the window-pane And looked out At the bright sunshiny morning. The cobble-stones of The square Glistened like mica. In the trees, a breeze danced and Pranced, And shook drops of sunlight like falling golden coins into the brown Water Of the canal. Down stream slowly drifted a long […]...
31. Music In The Flat When Tom and I were married, we took a little flat; I had a taste for singing and playing and all that. And Tom, who loved to hear me, said he hoped I would not stop All practice, like so many wives who let their Music drop. So I resolved to set apart an hour […]...
32. The Tortoise In Keystone Heights When I knew, it was raining. Winter in decline. I was tired. You in your soaked shirt diffused Into the western sky bulging with clouds, Speeding cars a few feet away- Why would they not slow down? Though afternoon, a slip of moon Busied itself with rising, And it had to mean something. If only […]...
33. Spelling My daughter plays on the floor With plastic letters, Red, blue & hard yellow, Learning how to spell, Spelling, How to make spells. * I wonder how many women Denied themselves daughters, Closed themselves in rooms, Drew the curtains So they could mainline words. * A child is not a poem, A poem is not […]...
34. All In The Golden Afternoon All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretense Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! […]...
35. Little World Children – are staring of eyes so frightful, Mischievous legs on a wooden floor, Children – is sun in the gloomy motives, Hypotheses’ of happy sciences world. Eternal disorder in the ring’s gold, Tender word’s whispers in semi-sleep, On the wall in a cozy child’s room, the dreaming Peaceful pictures of birds and sheep. Children […]...
36. The Most here comes the fishhead singing Here comes the baked potato in drag Here comes nothing to do all day long Here comes another night of no sleep Here comes the phone wringing the wrong tone Here comes a termite with a banjo Here comes a flagpole with blank eyes Here comes a a cat and […]...
37. Perseus Her sleeping head with its great gelid mass Of serpents torpidly astir Burned into the mirroring shield A scathing image dire As hated truth the mind accepts at last And festers on. I struck. The shield flashed bare. Yet even as I lifted up the head And started from that place Of gazing silences and […]...
38. The Beach Louder than gulls the little children scream Whom fathers haul into the jovial foam; But others fearlessly rush in, breast high, Laughing the salty water from their mouthes Heroes of the nursery. The horny boatman, who has seen whales And flying fishes, who has sailed as far As Demerara and the Ivory Coast, Will warn […]...
39. The Town Between the Hills The further the little girl leaped and ran, The further she longed to be; The white, white fields of jonquil flowers Danced up as high as her knee And flashed and sparkled before her eyes Until she could hardly see. So into the wood went she. It was quiet in the wood, It was solemn […]...
40. The Witch I HAVE walked a great while over the snow, And I am not tall nor strong. My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set, And the way was hard and long. I have wandered over the fruitful earth, But I never came here before. Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in […]...