Four-Foot Shelf

Related poetry:

1. Book Lover I keep collecting books I know I’ll never, never read; My wife and daughter tell me so, And yet I never head. “Please make me,” says some wistful tome, “A wee bit of yourself.” And so I take my treasure home, And tuck it in a shelf. And now my very shelves complain; They jam […]...
2. Pullman Porter The porter in the Pullman car Was charming, as they sometimes are. He scanned my baggage tags: “Are you The man who wrote of Lady Lou?” When I said “yes” he made a fuss – Oh, he was most assiduous; And I was pleased to think that he Enjoyed my brand of poetry. He was […]...
3. De Amicitiis Though care and strife Elsewhere be rife, Upon my word I do not heed ’em; In bed I lie With books hard by, And with increasing zest I read ’em. Propped up in bed, So much I’ve read Of musty tomes that I’ve a headful Of tales and rhymes Of ancient times, Which, wife declares, […]...
4. A Drop Fell on the Apple Tree A Drop Fell on the Apple Tree Another on the Roof A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves And made the Gables laugh A few went out to help the Brook That went to help the Sea Myself Conjectured were they Pearls What Necklace could be The Dust replaced, in Hoisted Roads The Birds jocoser […]...
5. Dunce At school I never gained a prize, Proving myself the model ass; Yet how I watched the wistful eyes, And cheered my mates who topped the class. No envy in my heart I found, Yet bone was worthier to own Those precious books in vellum bound, Than I, a dreamer and a drone. No prize […]...
6. My Hundred Books A thousand books my library Contains; And all are primed, it seems to me With brains. Mine are so few I scratch in thought My head; For just a hundred of the lot I’ve read. A hundred books, but of the best, I can With wisdom savour and digest And scan. Yet when afar from […]...
7. Three Ha'Pence a Foot I’ll tell you an old-fashioned story That Grandfather used to relate, Of a joiner and building contractor; ‘Is name, it were Sam Oglethwaite. In a shop on the banks of the Irwell, Old Sam used to follow ‘is trade, In a place you’ll have ‘eard of, called Bury; You know, where black puddings is made. […]...
8. The Land of Story-Books At evening when the lamp is lit, Around the fire my parents sit; They sit at home and talk and sing, And do not play at anything. Now, with my little gun, I crawl All in the dark along the wall, And follow round the forest track Away behind the sofa back. There, in the […]...
9. Gifts GIVE a man a horse he can ride, Give a man a boat he can sail; And his rank and wealth, his strength and health, On sea nor shore shall fail. Give a man a pipe he can smoke, Give a man a book he can read: And his home is bright with a calm […]...
10. Gratitude “Do you give thanks for this? or that?” No, God be thanked I am not grateful In that cold, calculating way, with blessing ranked As one, two, three, and four, that would be hateful. I only know that every day brings good above” My poor deserving; I only feel that, in the road of Life, […]...
11. The Actor Enthusiastic was the crowd That hailed him with delight; The wine was bright, the laughter loud And glorious the night. But when at dawn he drove away With echo of their cheer, To where his little daughter lay, Then he knew Fear. How strangely still the house! He crept On tip-toe to the bed; And […]...
12. The White Man's Foot In his lodge beside a river, Close beside a frozen river, Sat an old man, sad and lonely. White his hair was as a snow-drift; Dull and low his fire was burning, And the old man shook and trembled, Folded in his Waubewyon, In his tattered white-skin-wrapper, Hearing nothing but the tempest As it roared […]...
13. You'll know Her by Her Foot You’ll know Her by Her Foot The smallest Gamboge Hand With Fingers where the Toes should be Would more affront the Sand Than this Quaint Creature’s Boot Adjusted by a Stern Without a Button I could vouch Unto a Velvet Limb You’ll know Her by Her Vest Tight fitting Orange Brown Inside a Jacket duller […]...
14. Why I Went To The Foot Was ever a maiden so worried? I’ll admit I am partial to Jim, For Jimmie has promised to wed me When I’m old enough to wed him. But then I love teacher, too, dearly, She’s always so lovely to me, And she’s pretty and kind and sweet-tempered, And gentle as gentle can be. I wouldn’t […]...
15. He Came To Read He came to read. Two or three books Are open; historians and poets. But he only read for ten minutes, And gave them up. He is dozing On the sofa. He is fully devoted to books But he is twenty-three years old, and he’s very handsome; And this afternoon love passed Through his ideal flesh, […]...
16. Like Mighty Foot Lights burned the Red Like Mighty Foot Lights burned the Red At Bases of the Trees The far Theatricals of Day Exhibiting to These ‘Twas Universe that did applaud While Chiefest of the Crowd Enabled by his Royal Dress Myself distinguished God...
17. Television The most important thing we’ve learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set Or better still, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we’ve been, We’ve watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare […]...
18. "Mike Teavee…&quot The most important thing we’ve learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set Or better still, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we’ve been, We’ve watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare […]...
19. Sonnet 104 – A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece, Diminutive, but room enough. . like clay To finger eager on some torrid day. . Who’d throw her black hair back, and hang, and tease. Never, not once in all one’s horny lease To’have had a demi-lay, a pretty, gay, Snug, slim and supple-breasted girl for play. […]...
20. Benjamin Franklin Franklin fathered bastards fourteen, (So I read in the New Yorker); If it’s true, in terms of courtin’ Benny must have been a corker. To be prudent I’ve aspired, And my passions I have mastered; So that I have never sired A single bastard. One of course can never know; But I think that if […]...
21. My Rival I go to concert, party, ball What profit is in these? I sit alone against the wall And strive to look at ease. The incense that is mine by right They burn before her shrine; And that’s because I’m seventeen And She is forty-nine. I cannot check my girlish blush, My color comes and goes; […]...
22. The Great Recall I’ve wearied of so many things Adored in youthful days; Music no more my spirit wings, E’en when Master play. For stage and screen I have no heart, Great paintings leave me cold; Alas! I’ve lost the love of Art That raptured me of old. Only my love of books is left, Yet that begins […]...
23. Song Quoth the Duchess of Cleveland to counselor Knight, “I’d fain have a prick, knew I how to come by’t. I desire you’ll be secret and give your advice: Though cunt be not coy, reputation is nice.” “To some cellar in Sodom Your Grace must retire Where porters with black-pots sit round a coal fire; There […]...
24. Requiem Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me; “Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home […]...
25. At Thirty-Five Three score and ten, the psalmist saith, And half my course is well-nigh run; I’ve had my flout at dusty death, I’ve had my whack of feast and fun. I’ve mocked at those who prate and preach; I’ve laughed with any man alive; But now with sobered heart I reach The Great Divide of Thirty-five. […]...
26. A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears, and Some Books Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain In Dalton that would someday make his fortune. There’d been some Boston people out to see it: And experts said that deep down in the mountain The mica sheets were big as plate-glass windows. He’d like to take me there and show it to me. “I’ll tell you […]...
27. Autobiography I was born in 1902 I never once went back to my birthplace I don’t like to turn back At three I served as a pasha’s grandson in Aleppo At nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University At forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party’s guest And I’ve been a poet […]...
28. My Library Like prim Professor of a College I primed my shelves with books of knowledge; And now I stand before them dumb, Just like a child that sucks its thumb, And stares forlorn and turns away, With dolls or painted bricks to play. They glour at me, my tomes of learning. “You dolt!” they jibe; “you […]...
29. A Tragedy Among his books he sits all day To think and read and write; He does not smell the new-mown hay, The roses red and white. I walk among them all alone, His silly, stupid wife; The world seems tasteless, dead and done – An empty thing is life. At night his window casts a square […]...
30. The Night Cometh Work! for the night is coming; Work! through the morning hours; Work! while the dew is sparkling; Work! ‘mid the springing flowers; Work! while the day grows brighter, Under the glowing sun; Work! for the night is coming, Night, when man’s work is done. Work! for the night is coming; Work! through the sunny noon; […]...
31. The Little Big Man I am small because I am a little child. I shall be big when I am As old as my father is. My teacher will come and say, “It is late, bring your slate And your books.” I shall tell him, ” Do you not know I am as big as father? And I must […]...
32. White Hands FOR the second time in a year this lady with the white hands is brought to the west room second floor of a famous sanatorium. Her husband is a cornice manufacturer in an Iowa town and the lady has often read papers on Victorian poets before the local literary club. Yesterday she washed her hands […]...
33. Going Home He came home. Said nothing. It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong. He lay down fully dressed. Pulled the blanket over his head. Tucked up his knees. He’s nearly forty, but not at the moment. He exists just as he did inside his mother’s womb, Clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered […]...
34. April 24 Did you know that Evian spelled backwards is naive? I myself was unaware of this fact until last Tuesday night When John Ashbery, Marc Cohen, and Eugene Richie Gave a poetry reading and I introduced them To an audience that already knew them, And there were bottles of Evian at the table. As air to […]...
35. Book Borrower I am a mild man, you’ll agree, But red my rage is, When folks who borrow books from me Turn down their pages. Or when a chap a book I lend, And find he’s loaned it Without permission to a friend – As if he owned it. But worst of all I hate those crooks […]...
36. Son He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky! And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I. For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he’d the best of his life to live; And I’d loved him so, and I’m old, I’m old; and he’s all […]...
37. Discrimination The meter I had sought to find, perplexed, Was ripped from books of “verse” that read like prose. I found it in sheet music, in long rows Of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks Of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed Half-centuries by archivists, unscanned. I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed- Why should their tattered artistry be banned? […]...
38. The Constant Lover Out upon it, I have lov’d Three whole days together; And am like to love three more, If it prove fair weather. Time shall molt away his wings Ere he shall discover In such whole wide world again Such a constant lover. But the spite on’t is, no praise Is due at all to me: […]...
39. For Siggy & Bill I awoke with two poets in my bed, Books I chose from the library, possibly Intent on a swift read while schmoosing For poetic leads. My motives are appallingly Plain, a head bereft of fine ideas although Biographies are not an easy reading. I picked Siegfried Sassoon instinctively (not For any cogent reasons, I liked […]...
40. Horace and Lydia Reconciled HORACE When you were mine in auld lang syne, And when none else your charms might ogle, I’ll not deny, Fair nymph, that I Was happier than a Persian mogul. LYDIA Before she came that rival flame! (Was ever female creature sillier?) In those good times, Bepraised in rhymes, I was more famed than Mother […]...