Counting The Beats

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1. Counting Thinking in terms of one Is easily done- One room, one bed, one chair, One person there, Makes perfect sense; one set Of wishes can be met, One coffin filled. But counting up to two Is harder to do; For one must be denied Before it’s tried....
2. Counting Sheep A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He Wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture For them. They are like grains of rice. He wonders if it is possible to shrink something Out of existence. He wonders if the sheep are aware of their tininess, If they have any sense of […]...
3. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
4. Trickle, Drops TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, Candid, from me falling-drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, From my face-from my forehead and lips, From my breast-from within where I was conceal’d-press forth, red drops-confession drops; Stain every page-stain every song I sing, […]...
5. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
6. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
7. Love Lies Bleeding Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun’s dart clove her: Love lies bleeding. Stately shine his purple plumes, exceeding Pride of princes: nor shall maid or lover Find on earth a fairer sign worth heeding. Yet may love, sore wounded scarce recover […]...
8. The Mid-World THIS is the red, red region Your heart must journey through: Your pains will here be legion And joy be death for you. Rejoice to-day: to-morrow A turning tide shall flow Through infinite tones of sorrow To reach an equal woe. You pass by love unheeding To gain the goal you long- But my heart, […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. A Week Later A week later, I said to a friend: I don’t Think I could ever write about it. Maybe in a year I could write something. There is something in me maybe someday To be written; now it is folded, and folded, And folded, like a note in school. And in my dream Someone was playing […]...
11. Eighth Air Force If, in an odd angle of the hutment, A puppy laps the water from a can Of flowers, and the drunk sergeant shaving Whistles O Paradiso! shall I say that man Is not as men have said: a wolf to man? The other murderers troop in yawning; Three of them play Pitch, one sleeps, and […]...
12. Only Thee That I want thee, only thee – let my heart repeat without end. All desires that distract me, day and night, Are false and empty to the core. As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, Even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry -‘I want thee, only […]...
13. On A Wedding Anniversary The sky is torn across This ragged anniversary of two Who moved for three years in tune Down the long walks of their vows. Now their love lies a loss And Love and his patients roar on a chain; From every tune or crater Carrying cloud, Death strikes their house. Too late in the wrong […]...
14. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
15. The Loss of Love All through an empty place I go, And find her not in any room; The candles and the lamps I light Go down before a wind of gloom. Thick-spraddled lies the dust about, A fit, sad place to write her name Or draw her face the way she looked That legendary night she came. The […]...
16. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
17. In Memoriam A. H. H. Obiit MDCCCXXXIII: 3. O Sorrow, cruel O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip? “The stars,” she whispers, “blindly run; A web is wov’n across the sky; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun: “And all the phantom, Nature, […]...
18. We Wear the Mask We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while […]...
19. Sorrow Sorrow like a ceaseless rain Beats upon my heart. People twist and scream in pain,- Dawn will find them still again; This has neither wax nor wane, Neither stop nor start. People dress and go to town; I sit in my chair. All my thoughts are slow and brown: Standing up or sitting down Little […]...
20. The City of Sleep “The Brushwood Boy” The Day’s Work Over the edge of the purple down, Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town That is hard by the Sea of Dreams Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, And the sick may forget to weep? But we pity us! Oh, pity […]...
21. Talisman it is written The act of writing is Holy words are Sacred and your breath Brings out the God in them I write these words Quickly repeat them Softly to myself This talisman for you Fold this prayer Around your neck fortify Your back with these Whispers May you walk ever Loved and in love […]...
22. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
23. An Old-Fashioned Garden Strange, is it not? She was making her garden, Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day- Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons- Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way. Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel Grew until, angrily, she set me free- Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us,- Ordaining bachelor’s buttons for […]...
24. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
25. Heart, not so heavy as mine Heart, not so heavy as mine Wending late home As it passed my window Whistled itself a tune A careless snatch a ballad A ditty of the street Yet to my irritated Ear An Anodyne so sweet It was as if a Bobolink Sauntering this way Carolled, and paused, and carolled Then bubbled slow away! […]...
26. 437. Song-Thine am I, my faithful Fair THINE am I, my faithful Fair, Thine, my lovely Nancy; Ev’ry pulse along my veins, Ev’ry roving fancy. To thy bosom lay my heart, There to throb and languish; Tho’ despair had wrung its core, That would heal its anguish. Take away those rosy lips, Rich with balmy treasure; Turn away thine eyes of love, […]...
27. Going to Him! Happy letter! Going to Him! Happy letter! Tell Him Tell Him the page I didn’t write Tell Him I only said the Syntax And left the Verb and the pronoun out Tell Him just how the fingers hurried Then how they waded slow slow And then you wished you had eyes in your pages So you could […]...
28. Psalm 116 part 1 Recovery from sickness. I love the Lord; he heard my cries, And pitied every groan; Long as I live, when troubles rise, I’ll hasten to his throne. I love the Lord; he bowed his ear, And chased my griefs away; O let my heart no more despair, While I have breath to pray! My flesh […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. Borderland Am I waking, am I sleeping? As the first faint dawn comes creeping Thro’ the pane, I am aware Of an unseen presence hovering, Round, above, in the dusky air: A downy bird, with an odorous wing, That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume, As sweet as love, as soft as death, Drowsy-slow through the […]...
31. A Portrait Because my love is quick to come and go- A little here, and then a little there- What use are any words of mine to swear My heart is stubborn, and my spirit slow Of weathering the drip and drive of woe? What is my oath, when you have but to bare My little, easy […]...
32. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
33. Love and the Gentle Heart Love and the gentle heart are one thing, Just as the poet says in his verse, Each from the other one as well divorced As reason from the mind’s reasoning. Nature craves love, and then creates love king, And makes the heart a palace where he’ll stay, Perhaps a shorter or a longer day, Breathing […]...
34. Sympathy I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals I know […]...
35. The Presence Of Love And in Life’s noisiest hour, There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee, The heart’s Self-solace and soliloquy. You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within ; And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart Thro’ all my Being, thro’ my pulses beat ; You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light, Like the […]...
36. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
37. Where Is the Real Non-Resistant (Matthew V, 38-48.) Who can surrender to Christ, dividing his best with the stranger, Giving to each what he asks, braving the uttermost danger All for the enemy, MAN? Who can surrender till death His words and his works, his house and his lands, His eyes and his heart and his breath? Who can surrender […]...
38. 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 […]...
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. Psalm 51 part 2 Original and actual sin confessed. Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin; And born unholy and unclean; Sprung from the man whose guilty fall Corrupts the race, and taints us all. Soon as we draw our infant breath, The seeds of sin grow up for death; Thy law demands a perfect heart, But we’re defiled […]...