Bird Watcher

Related poetry:

1. Dream Song 103: I consider a song will be as humming-bird I consider a song will be as humming-bird Swift, down-light, missile-metal-hard, & strange As the world of anti-matter Where they are wondering: does time run backward— Which the poet thought was true; Scarlatti-supple; But can Henry write it? Wreckt, in deep danger, he shook once his head, Returning to meditation. And word had sped All […]...
2. I watcher her face to see which way I watcher her face to see which way She took the awful news Whether she died before she heard Or in protracted bruise Remained a few slow years with us Each heavier than the last A further afternoon to fail, As Flower at fall of Frost....
3. Humming-bird pie the paiute indians had the bird sussed A humming bird (loaded with seeds) set out To see beyond the sun – it aimed to be frugal Rationing itself to only one seed a day – even so It ran out long before it meant to It gave up (getting nowhere and seeing nothing) – All […]...
4. Expectation My flask of wine was ruby red And swift I ran my sweet to see; With eyes that snapped delight I said: “How mad with love a lad can be!” The moon was laughing overhead; I danced as nimbly as a flea. Thought I: In two weeks time we’ll wed; No more a lonesome widow […]...
5. The Bird With The Dark Plumes The bird with the dark plumes in my blood, That never for one moment however I patched my truces Consented to make peace with the people, It is pitiful now to watch her pleasure In a breath of tempest Breaking the sad promise of spring. Are these that morose hawk’s wings, vaulting, a mere mad […]...
6. A Bird came down the Walk A Bird came down the Walk He did not know I saw He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw, And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around They […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Gargoyle I SAW a mouth jeering. A smile of melted red iron ran over it. Its laugh was full of nails rattling. It was a child’s dream of a mouth. A fist hit the mouth: knuckles of gun-metal driven by an electric wrist and shoulder. It was a child’s dream of an arm. The fist hit […]...
9. The Wind that Shakes the Barley There’s music in my heart all day, I hear it late and early, It comes from fields are far away, The wind that shakes the barley. Above the uplands drenched with dew The sky hangs soft and pearly, An emerald world is listening to The wind that shakes the barley. Above the bluest mountain crest […]...
10. Bird Sanctuary Between the cliff-rise and the beach A slip of emerald I own; With fig and olive, almond, peach, Cherry and plum-tree overgrown; Glad-watered by a crystal spring That carols through the silver night, And populous with birds who sing Gay madrigals for my delight. Some merchants fain would buy my land To build a stately […]...
11. The Boola-Boola Maid In the wilds of Madagascar, Dwelt a Boola-boola maid; For her hand young men would ask her, But she always was afraid. Oh that Boola-boola maid She was living in the shade Of a spreading Yum-yum tree; And – when the day was done At the setting of the sun, She would make this melodee: […]...
12. Symptom Recital I do not like my state of mind; I’m bitter, querulous, unkind. I hate my legs, I hate my hands, I do not yearn for lovelier lands. I dread the dawn’s recurrent light; I hate to go to bed at night. I snoot at simple, earnest folk. I cannot take the gentlest joke. I find […]...
13. Sonnet XIX: You Cannot Love To Humor You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why? There was a time you told me that you would; But now again you will the same deny, If it might please you, would to God you could. What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not, neither. Nor love nor hate, how then? What […]...
14. The End Of The World Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot The armless ambidextrian was lighting A match between his great and second toe, And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb – Quite unexpectedly the top blew off: And […]...
15. Stalk Me Liner Notes – (from Love Is A Dog From Hell) My friend Jenny is really Worried that people are going to follow me around and send me dead animal Parts and doll heads as a result of this song but please, if you feel inclined To send me dead animal parts, think it through. Thanks. […]...
16. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
17. Winds of May Winds of May, that dance on the sea, Dancing a ring-around in glee From furrow to furrow, while overhead The foam flies up to be garlanded, In silvery arches spanning the air, Saw you my true love anywhere? Welladay! Welladay! For the winds of May! Love is unhappy when love is away!...
18. 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 […]...
19. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
20. Memory Of Sun Memory of sun seeps from the heart. Grass grows yellower. Faintly if at all the early snowflakes Hover, hover. Water becoming ice is slowing in The narrow channels. Nothing at all will happen here again, Will ever happen. Against the sky the willow spreads a fan The silk’s torn off. Maybe it’s better I did […]...
21. The Death Of A Fly There was once a man who disguised himself as a Housefly and went about the neighborhood depositing Flyspecks. Well, he has to do something hasn’t he? said someone to Someone else. Of course, said someone else back to someone. Then what’s all the fuss? said someone to someone else. Who’s fussing? I’m just saying that […]...
22. As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free 1 AS a strong bird on pinions free, Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee. The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not, Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, […]...
23. Liaison A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight, Star-spiders spinning their thread Hang high suspended, withouten respite Watching us overhead. Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths Curtain us in so dark That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s Flitting remark. Here in this swarthy, secret tent, Where black boughs flap […]...
24. Sonnet 134: So, now I have confessed that he is thine So, now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still. But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous, and he is kind, He learned but surety-like […]...
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. To the Man-of-War-Bird THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm, Waking renew’d on thy prodigious pinions, (Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st, And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,) Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating, As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee, (Myself a […]...
27. Her Toys I sat her in her baby chair, And set upon its tray Her kewpie doll and teddy bear, But no, she would not play. Although they looked so wistfully Her favour to implore, She laughed at me with elfin glee And dashed them to the floor. I brought her lamb and circus clown, But it […]...
28. When I was a Bird I climbed up the karaka tree Into a nest all made of leaves But soft as feathers. I made up a song that went on singing all by itself And hadn’t any words, but got sad at the end. There were daisies in the grass under the tree. I said just to try them: “I’ll […]...
29. Of Being is a Bird Of Being is a Bird The likest to the Down An Easy Breeze do put afloat The General Heavens upon It soars and shifts and whirls And measures with the Clouds In easy even dazzling pace No different the Birds Except a Wake of Music Accompany their feet As did the Down emit a Tune […]...
30. The Seed I was a seed that fell In silver dew; And nobody could tell, For no one knew; No one could tell my fate, As I grew tall; None visioned me with hate, No, none at all. A sapling I became, Blest by the sun; No rumour of my shame Had any one. Oh I was […]...
31. The Lady feeds Her little Bird The Lady feeds Her little Bird At rarer intervals The little Bird would not dissent But meekly recognize The Gulf between the Hand and Her And crumbless and afar And fainting, on Her yellow Knee Fall softly, and adore...
32. I heard a bird at dawn I heard a bird at dawn Singing sweetly on a tree, That the dew was on the lawn, And the wind was on the lea; But I didn’t listen to him, For he didn’t sing to me. I didn’t listen to him, For he didn’t sing to me That the dew was on the lawn […]...
33. A Change of Menu Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three, It’s a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big. “I am fed to the teeth with old ewe,” said he, “And I might be able to shoot a pig.” And he trusted more to his nose than ear To give him warning when pigs were near. Out of […]...
34. Unknown Bird Out of the dry days Through the dusty leaves Far across the valley Those few notes never Heard here before One fluted phrase Floating over its Wandering secret All at once wells up Somewhere else And is gone before it Goes on fallen into Its own echo leaving A hollow through the air That is […]...
35. No ladder needs the bird but skies No ladder needs the bird but skies To situate its wings, Nor any leader’s grim baton Arraigns it as it sings. The implements of bliss are few As Jesus says of Him, “Come unto me” the moiety That wafts the cherubim....
36. Death of the Bird For every bird there is this last migration; Once more the cooling year kindles her heart; With a warm passage to the summer station Love pricks the course in lights across the chart. Year after year a speck on the map, divided By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come; Season after season, sure and […]...
37. My friend must be a Bird My friend must be a Bird Because it flies! Mortal, my friend must be, Because it dies! Barbs has it, like a Bee! Ah, curious friend! Thou puzzlest me!...
38. The Last Word of a Blue Bird As told to a child As I went out a Crow In a low voice said, “Oh, I was looking for you. How do you do? I just came to tell you To tell Lesley (will you?) That her little Bluebird Wanted me to bring word That the north wind last night That made the […]...
39. For every Bird a Nest For every Bird a Nest Wherefore in timid quest Some little Wren goes seeking round Wherefore when boughs are free Households in every tree Pilgrim be found? Perhaps a home too high Ah Aristocracy! The little Wren desires Perhaps of twig so fine Of twine e’en superfine, Her pride aspires The Lark is not ashamed […]...
40. The Dinkey Bird In an ocean, ‘way out yonder, (As all sapient people know) Is the land of Wonder-Wander, Whither children love to go; It’s their playing, romping, swinging, That give great joy to me While the Dinkey-Bird goes singing In the amfalula tree! There the gum-drops grow like cherries, And taffy’s thick as peas Caramels you pick […]...