The Poet

Related poetry:

1. Sex With A Famous Poet I had sex with a famous poet last night And when I rolled over and found myself beside him I shuddered Because I was married to someone else, Because I wasn’t supposed to have been drinking, Because I was in fancy hotel room I didn’t recognize. I would have told you Right off this was […]...
2. Behind the Scenes The actor struts his little hour, Between the limelight and the band; The public feel the actor’s power, Yet nothing do they understand Of all the touches here and there That make or mar the actor’s part, They never see, beneath the glare, The artist striving after art. To them it seems a labour slight […]...
3. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
4. Poet's Household 1 The stout poet tiptoes On the lawn. Surprisingly limber In his thick sweater Like a middle-age burglar. Is the young robin injured? 2 She bends to feed the geese Revealing the neck’s white curve Below her curled hair. Her husband seems not to watch, But she shimmers in his poem. 3 A hush is […]...
5. DEATH OF A POET for Wendy Oliver, who knew him I am the sick animal you dream you are caring for In the long avenues of night I cannot find a name For the sickness except the despair of a poet sensing his veins Silt up like the delta of a neglected river with none of the solace Sidney […]...
6. The Seraph and the Poet THE seraph sings before the manifest God-One, and in the burning of the Seven, And with the full life of consummate Heaving beneath him like a mother’s Warm with her first-born’s slumber in that The poet sings upon the earth grave-riven, Before the naughty world, soon self-forgiven For wronging him, and in the darkness prest […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
9. The Poet And The Bird Said a people to a poet -” Go out from among us straightway! While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine. There’s a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!” The poet went out weeping – the nightingale ceased chanting; […]...
10. Shall I take thee, the Poet said Shall I take thee, the Poet said To the propounded word? Be stationed with the Candidates Till I have finer tried The Poet searched Philology And when about to ring For the suspended Candidate There came unsummoned in That portion of the Vision The Word applied to fill Not unto nomination The Cherubim reveal...
11. The Poet in the Nursery The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling In a dim library, just behind the chair From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling A song about some Lovers at a Fair, Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling That rhymes were beastly things and never there. And as I groped, the whole time I […]...
12. Chicago Poet I SALUTED a nobody. I saw him in a looking-glass. He smiled-so did I. He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning-so did I. Everything I did he did. I said, “Hello, I know you.” And I was a liar to say so. Ah, this looking-glass man! Liar, fool, dreamer, play-actor, Soldier, dusty drinker of […]...
13. This was a Poet It is That This was a Poet It is That Distills amazing sense From ordinary Meanings And Attar so immense From the familiar species That perished by the Door We wonder it was not Ourselves Arrested it before Of Pictures, the Discloser The Poet it is He Entitles Us by Contrast To ceaseless Poverty Of portion so unconscious […]...
14. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
15. The Poet VIII He is a link between this and the coming world. He is A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink. He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing Fruit which the hungry heart craves; He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed Spirit with his beautiful melodies; He is a white […]...
16. THE DEATH OF ART “Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.” -critic Harold Bloom, who first called slam poetry “the death of art.” I am not a poet. I want to be rich and buy things for my family. Besides, I am sort of popular and can honestly say I’ve had a great […]...
17. Poet And Peer They asked the Bard of Ayr to dine; The banquet hall was fit and fine, With gracing it a Lord; The poet came; his face was grim To find the place reserved for him Was at the butler’s board. So when the gentry called him in, He entered with a knavish grin And sipped a […]...
18. A Tale of the Miser and the Poet A WIT, transported with Inditing, Unpay’d, unprais’d, yet ever Writing; Who, for all Fights and Fav’rite Friends, Had Poems at his Fingers Ends; For new Events was still providing; Yet now desirous to be riding, He pack’d-up ev’ry Ode and Ditty And in Vacation left the City; So rapt with Figures, and Allusions, With secret […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. On – On – Poet I to the open road, You to the hunchbacked street – Which of us two Shall the earlier rue That day we chanced to meet? I with a heart that’s sound, You with sick fancies of pain – Which of us two Would the earlier rue If we chanced to meet again? I jingle homely […]...
21. The Proud Poet (For Shaemas O Sheel) One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed, His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime. “Why don’t you take up fancy work, or embroidery?” he said, “For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!” “You […]...
22. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
23. The Pannikin Poet There’s nothing here sublime, But just a roving rhyme, Run off to pass the time, With nought titanic in. The theme that it supports, And, though it treats of quarts, It’s bare of golden thoughts It’s just a pannikin. I think it’s rather hard That each Australian bard Each wan, poetic card With thoughts galvanic […]...
24. The Poet Only on me, the lonely one, The unending stars of the night shine, The stone fountain whispers its magic song, To me alone, to me the lonely one The colorful shadows of the wandering clouds Move like dreams over the open countryside. Neither house nor farmland, Neither forest nor hunting privilege is given to me, […]...
25. Infelice Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess, He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand, He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming, Leaving my alone with a private meaning, He loves me so much, my heart is singing. Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening They said: […]...
26. Dream Song 130: When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought This is the end of the dream, now I’ll wake up. That was more years ago Than I care to reckon, and my friend is not Dying but adhering to an élite group In California O. Why did I never wake, when covered with blood […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. The Poet And His Book Down, you mongrel, Death! Back into your kennel! I have stolen breath In a stalk of fennel! You shall scratch and you shall whine Many a night, and you shall worry Many a bone, before you bury One sweet bone of mine! When shall I be dead? When my flesh is withered, And above my […]...
29. A Poet's Death is His Life IV The dark wings of night enfolded the city upon which Nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; and men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth, while the north wind probed in contemplation of laying waste the gardens. There in the suburb stood an old hut heavily laden with snow […]...
30. Where's the Poet? Where’s the Poet? show him! show him, Muses nine! that I may know him. ‘Tis the man who with a man Is an equal, be he King, Or poorest of the beggar-clan Or any other wonderous thing A man may be ‘twixt ape and Plato; ‘Tis the man who with a bird, Wren or Eagle, […]...
31. A Minor Poet “What should such fellows as I do, Crawling between earth and heaven?” Here is the phial; here I turn the key Sharp in the lock. Click! there’s no doubt it turned. This is the third time; there is luck in threes Queen Luck, that rules the world, befriend me now And freely I’ll forgive you […]...
32. Sympathy My Muse is simple, yet it’s nice To think you don’t need to think twice On words I write. I reckon I’ve a common touch And if you say I cuss too much I answer: ‘Quite!’ I envy not the poet’s lot; He has something I haven’t got, Alas, I know. But I have something […]...
33. A Poet's Voice XV Part One The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it […]...
34. Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts: If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
35. Browning Decides To Be A Poet in these red labyrinths of London I find that I have chosen The strangest of all callings, Save that, in its way, any calling is strange. Like the alchemist Who sought the philosopher’s stone In quicksilver, I shall make everyday words The gambler’s marked cards, the common coin Give off the magic that was their […]...
36. Sonnet XVII Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill’d with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
37. Ad Quintilianum O CHIEF director of the growing race, Of Rome the glory and of Rome the grace, Me, O Quintilian, may you not forgive Before from labour I make haste to live? Some burn to gather wealth, lay hands on rule, Or with white statues fill the atrium full. The talking hearth, the rafters sweet with […]...
38. Profane Poet Oh how it would enable me To titillate my vanity If you should choose to label me A Poet of Profanity! For I’ve been known with vulgar slang To stoke the Sacred Fire, And even used a word like ‘hang’, Suggesting ire. Yea, I’ve been slyly told, although It savours of inanity, In print the […]...
39. A Letter to a Live Poet Sir, since the last Elizabethan died, Or, rather, that more Paradisal muse, Blind with much light, passed to the light more glorious Or deeper blindness, no man’s hand, as thine, Has, on the world’s most noblest chord of song, Struck certain magic strains. Ears satiate With the clamorous, timorous whisperings of to-day, Thrilled to perceive […]...
40. Death Of A Poet Laid now on his smooth bed For the last time, watching dully Through heavy eyelids the day’s colour Widow the sky, what can he say Worthy of record, the books all open, Pens ready, the faces, sad, Waiting gravely for the tired lips To move once what can he say? His tongue wrestles to force […]...