Canine Conversation

Related poetry:

1. Conversation with Jeanne Let us not talk philosophy, drop it, Jeanne. So many words, so much paper, who can stand it. I told you the truth about my distancing myself. I’ve stopped worrying about my misshapen life. It was no better and no worse than the usual human tragedies. For over thirty years we have been waging our […]...
2. Conversation The tumult in the heart Keeps asking questions. And then it stops and undertakes to answer In the same tone of voice. No one could tell the difference. Uninnocent, these conversations start, And then engage the senses, Only half-meaning to. And then there is no choice, And then there is no sense; Until a name […]...
3. Julot The Apache You’ve heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his mome. . . . Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home. A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache. From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat, […]...
4. Belts There was a row in Silver Street that’s near to Dublin Quay, Between an Irish regiment an’ English cavalree; It started at Revelly an’ it lasted on till dark: The first man dropped at Harrison’s, the last forninst the Park. For it was: “Belts, belts, belts, an’ that’s one for you!” An’ it was “Belts, […]...
5. Bingo The daughter of the village Maire Is very fresh and very fair, A dazzling eyeful; She throws upon me such a spell That though my love I dare not tell, My heart is sighful. She has the cutest brown caniche, The French for “poodle” on a leash, While I have Bingo; A dog of doubtful […]...
6. The Conversation Of Prayer The conversation of prayers about to be said By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs Who climbs to his dying love in her high room, The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move And the other full of tears that she will be dead, Turns in […]...
7. The Great Western Plains The little voices of the prairie dogs Are tireless. . . They will give three hurrahs Alike to stage, equestrian, and pullman, And all unstingingly as to the moon. And Fifi’s bows and poodle ease Whirl by them centred on the lap Of Lottie Honeydew, movie queen, Toward lawyers and Nevada. And how much more […]...
8. 1. Song-Handsome Nell O ONCE I lov’d a bonie lass, Ay, and I love her still; And whilst that virtue warms my breast, I’ll love my handsome Nell. As bonie lasses I hae seen, And mony full as braw; But, for a modest gracefu’ mein, The like I never saw. A bonie lass, I will confess, Is pleasant […]...
9. Trixie Dogs have a sense beyond our ken – At least my little Trixie had: Tail-wagging when I laughed, and when I sighed, eyes luminously sad. And if I planned to go away, She’d know, oh, days and days before: Aye, dogs I think are sometimes fey, They seem to sense our fate in store. Now […]...
10. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 11: Conversation: Undertones What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai? You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me; You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by. I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees. . . Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees. ‘These lines-converging, they suggest such distance! The […]...
11. Bone-fable one morning the bone was there Set in the centre of waste ground Against the early morning sun The frost along its concave rim Sparkled – raised a hundredfold The price a passing dog Would place on it but the dogs Who came (barking amongst themselves About the food shining at them Across the rubbled […]...
12. Conversation We smile at each other And I lean back against the wicker couch. How does it feel to be dead? I say. You touch my knees with your blue fingers. And when you open your mouth, A ball of yellow light falls to the floor And burns a hole through it. Don’t tell me, I […]...
13. Possessions Are Nine Points Of Conversation Some people, and it doesn’t matter whether they are paupers or millionaires, Think that anything they have is the best in the world just because it is theirs. If they happen to own a 1921 jalopy, They look at their neighbor’s new de luxe convertible like the wearer of a 57th Street gown at a […]...
14. Continual Conversation With A Silent Man The old brown hen and the old blue sky, Between the two we live and die The broken cartwheel on the hill. As if, in the presence of the sea, We dried our nets and mended sail And talked of never-ending things, Of the never-ending storm of will, One will and many wills, and the […]...
15. Conversation Galante I OBSERVE: “Our sentimental friend the moon! Or possibly (fantastic, I confess) It may be Prester John’s balloon Or an old battered lantern hung aloft To light poor travellers to their distress.” She then: “How you digress!” And I then: “Someone frames upon the keys That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain The night and […]...
16. Conversation with Comrade Lenin Awhirl with events, packed with jobs one too many, The day slowly sinks as the night shadows fall. There are two in the room: I and Lenin- A photograph on the whiteness of wall. The stubble slides upward above his lip As his mouth jerks open in speech. The tense Creases of brow hold thought […]...
17. Two Years Later Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn’d? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned? I could have warned you; but you are young, So we speak a different tongue. O you will take whatever’s offered And dream that all the world’s a friend, Suffer as […]...
18. Job the Rejected They met, and overwhelming her distrust With penitence, he praised away her fear; They married, and Job gave him half a year To wreck the temple, as we knew he must. He fumbled hungrily to readjust A fallen altar, but the road was clear By which it was her will to disappear That evening when […]...
19. If you were coming in the Fall If you were coming in the Fall, I’d brush the Summer by With half a smile, and half a spurn, As Housewives do, a Fly. If I could see you in a year, I’d wind the months in balls And put them each in separate Drawers, For fear the numbers fuse If only Centuries, delayed, […]...
20. I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone The dogs greet me, I descend Into their world of fur and tongues And then my wife and I embrace As if we’d just closed the door In a motel, our two girls slip in Between us and we’re all saying Each other’s names and the dogs Buster and Sundown are on their hind legs, […]...
21. Psalm 39 part 1 v.1-3 C. M. Watchfulness over the tongue. Thus I resolved before the Lord,- “Now will I watch my tongue; Lest I let slip one sinful word, Or do my neighbor wrong.” And if I’m e’er constrained to stay With men of lives profane, I’ll set a double guard that day, Nor let my talk be […]...
22. The Geranium When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail, She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle, Or a wizened aster in late September, I brought her back in again For a new routine Vitamins, water, and whatever Sustenance seemed sensible At the time: she’d lived So long […]...
23. Talking XX And then a scholar said, “Speak of Talking.” And he answered, saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your […]...
24. In The States With half a heart I wander here As from an age gone by A brother yet – though young in years, An elder brother, I. You speak another tongue than mine, Though both were English born. I towards the night of time decline, You mount into the morn....
25. The Old And The New Masters About suffering, about adoration, the old masters Disagree. When someone suffers, no one else eats Or walks or opens the window no one breathes As the sufferers watch the sufferer. In St. Sebastian Mourned by St. Irene The flame of one torch is the only light. All the eyes except the maidservant’s (she weeps And […]...
26. Making Love To Concrete An upright abutment in the mouth Of the Willis Avenue bridge A beige Honda leaps the divider Like a steel gazelle inescapable Sleek leather boots on the pavement Rat-a-tat-tat best intentions Going down for the third time Stuck in the particular You cannot make love to concrete If you care about being Non-essential wrong or […]...
27. Against Lying O ’tis a lovely thing for youth To early walk in wisdom’s way; To fear a lie, to speak the truth, That we may trust to all they say! But liars we can never trust, Even when they say what is true. And he who does one fault at first And lies to hide it, […]...
28. To Flush, My Dog Yet, my pretty sportive friend, Little is’t to such an end That I praise thy rareness! Other dogs may be thy peers Haply in these drooping ears, And this glossy fairness. But of thee it shall be said, This dog watched beside a bed Day and night unweary – Watched within a curtained room, Where […]...
29. Sonnet 89: Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offence; Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, Against thy reasons making no defence. Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, To set a form upon desirèd change, As I’ll my self disgrace, knowing thy will, […]...
30. Yellow One pearly day of early May I strolled upon the sand, And saw, say half-a-mile away A man with gun in hand; A dog was cowering to his will, As slow he sought to creep Upon a dozen ducks so still They seemed to be asleep, When like a streak the dog dashed out, The […]...
31. Sonnet LXXXIX Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offence; Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, Against thy reasons making no defence. Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, To set a form upon desired change, As I’ll myself disgrace: knowing thy will, I […]...
32. The Lily Night after night Darkness Enters the face Of the lily Which, lightly, Closes its five walls Around itself, And its purse Of honey, And its fragrance, And is content To stand there In the garden, Not quite sleeping, And, maybe, Saying in lily language Some small words We can’t hear Even when there is no […]...
33. The Three Bushes An incident from the ‘Historia mei Temporis’ Of the Abbe Michel de Bourdeille Said lady once to lover, ‘None can rely upon A love that lacks its proper food; And if your love were gone How could you sing those songs of love? I should be blamed, young man. O my dear, O my dear. […]...
34. I'm ceded I've stopped being Theirs I’m ceded I’ve stopped being Theirs The name They dropped upon my face With water, in the country church Is finished using, now, And They can put it with my Dolls, My childhood, and the string of spools, I’ve finished threading too Baptized, before, without the choice, But this time, consciously, of Grace Unto supremest […]...
35. The Seeing Eye The small dogs look at the big dogs; They observe unwieldy dimensions And curious imperfections of odor. Here is the formal male group: The young men look upon their seniors, They consider the elderly mind And observe its inexplicable correlations. Said Tsin-Tsu: It is only in small dogs and the young That we find minute […]...
36. THE CHEAT OF CUPID; OR, THE UNGENTLE GUEST One silent night of late, When every creature rested, Came one unto my gate, And knocking, me molested. Who’s that, said I, beats there, And troubles thus the sleepy? Cast off; said he, all fear, And let not locks thus keep ye. For I a boy am, who By moonless nights have swerved; And all […]...
37. Badger When midnight comes a host of dogs and men Go out and track the badger to his den, And put a sack within the hole, and lie Till the old grunting badger passes by. He comes an hears – they let the strongest loose. The old fox gears the noise and drops the goose. The […]...
38. Buying Stock “…The use of condoms offers substantial protection, but does not Guarantee total protection and that while There is no evidence that deep kissing has resulted in Transfer of the virus, no one can say that such transmission Would be absolutely impossible.” The Surgeon General, 1987 I know you won’t mind if I ask you to […]...
39. Hard Luck I left the course, and by my side There walked a ruined tout A hungry creature, evil-eyed, Who poured this story out. “You see,” he said, “there came a swell To Kensington today, And, if I picked the winners well, A crown at least he’s pay. “I picked three winners straight, I did; I filled […]...
40. The Ballade Of The Mistletoe Bough I am standing under the mistletoe, And I smile, but no answering smile replies For her haughty glance bids me plainly know That not for me is the thing I prize; Instead, from her coldly scornful eyes, Indifference looks on my barefaced guile; She knows, of course, what my act implies- But look at those […]...