Local Lad

Related poetry:

1. Poetry For Supper ‘Listen, now, verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty.’ ‘Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil That goes like blood to the poem’s making? Leave it to nature and the verse […]...
2. Convicts Love Canaries Dick’s dead! It was the Polack guard Put powdered glass into his cage When I was tramping round the yard, I could have killed him in my rage. I slugged him with that wrench I stole: That’s why I’m rotting in the Hole. Dick’s dead! Sure I wish I was too. His honey breast, his […]...
3. A Dead Boche To you who’d read my songs of War And only hear of blood and fame, I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before) ВЂќWar’s Hell! ” and if you doubt the same, Today I found in Mametz Wood A certain cure for lust of blood: Where, propped against a shattered trunk, In a great mess of […]...
4. A Culinary Puzzle In our dainty little kitchen, Where my aproned wife is queen Over all the tin-pan people, In a realm exceeding clean, Oft I like to loiter, watching While she mixes things for tea; And she tasks me, slyly smiling, “Now just guess what this will be!” Hidden in a big blue apron, Her dimpled arms […]...
5. Many red devils ran from my heart Many red devils ran from my heart And out upon the page, They were so tiny The pen could mash them. And many struggled in the ink. It was strange To write in this red muck Of things from my heart....
6. The Ordinary Man If you and I should chance to meet, I guess you wouldn’t care; I’m sure you’d pass me in the street As if I wasn’t there; You’d never look me in the face, My modest mug to scan, Because I’m just a commonplace And Ordinary Man. But then, it may be, you are too A […]...
7. Saved by Music At on time, in America, many years ago, Large gray wolves wont to wander to and fro; And from the farm yards they carried pigs and calves away, Which they devoured ravenously, without dismay. But, as the story goes, there was a negro fiddler called old Dick, Who was invited by a wedding party to […]...
8. The Fool “But it isn’t playing the game,” he said, And he slammed his books away; “The Latin and Greek I’ve got in my head Will do for a duller day.” “Rubbish!” I cried; “The bugle’s call Isn’t for lads from school.” D’ye think he’d listen? Oh, not at all: So I called him a fool, a […]...
9. Full Moon One night as Dick lay half asleep, Into his drowsy eyes A great still light began to creep From out the silent skies. It was the lovely moon’s, for when He raised his dreamy head, Her surge of silver filled the pane And streamed across his bed. So, for a while, each gazed at each […]...
10. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
11. Ballade Of A Great Weariness There’s little to have but the things I had, There’s little to bear but the things I bore. There’s nothing to carry and naught to add, And glory to Heaven, I paid the score. There’s little to do but I did before, There’s little to learn but the things I know; And this is the […]...
12. Old Boy Scout A bonny bird I found today Mired in a melt of tar; Its silky breast was silver-grey, Its wings were cinnabar. So still it lay right in the way Of every passing car. Yet as I gently sought to pry It loose, it glared at me; You would have thought its foe was I, It […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit snow doesn’t land At your feet but keeps falling below You): single-cell-plant chains, shreds Of zooplankton’s mucus food traps, Fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts, Sand grains, pollen….And inside These jagged falling islands Live more microlives, […]...
15. Florrie Because I was a wonton wild And welcomed many a lover, Who is the father of my child I wish I could discover. For though I know it is not right In tender arms to tarry, A barmaid has to be polite To Tom and Dick and Harry. My truest love was Poacher Jim: I […]...
16. Meeting At Night The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand. Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross […]...
17. Athabaska Dick When the boys come out from Lac Labiche in the lure of the early Spring, To take the pay of the “Hudson’s Bay”, as their fathers did before, They are all a-glee for the jamboree, and they make the Landing ring With a whoop and a whirl, and a “Grab your girl”, and a rip […]...
18. Greedy Richard “I think I want some pies this morning,” Said Dick, stretching himself and yawning; So down he threw his slate and books, And saunter’d to the pastry-cook’s. And there he cast his greedy eyes Round on the jellies and the pies, So to select, with anxious care, The very nicest that was there. At last […]...
19. The Sacrifices Twin boys I bore, my joy, my care, My hope, my life they were to me; Their father, dashing, debonair, Fell fighting at Gallipoli. His daring gallantry, no doubt, They ‘herited in equal share: So when the Second War broke out, With eagerness they chose the air. Said Dick: “The sea’s too bally slow; A […]...
20. Paper Men To Air Hopes And Fears The first speaker said Fear fire. Fear furnaces Incinerators, the city dump The faint scratch of a match. The second speaker said Fear water. Fear drenching rain Drizzle, oceans, puddles, a damp Day and the flush toilet. The third speaker said Fear wind. And it needn’t be A hurricane. Drafts, open Windows, electric fans. The […]...
21. This that would greet an hour ago This that would greet an hour ago Is quaintest Distance now Had it a Guest from Paradise Nor glow, would it, nor bow Had it a notice from the Noon Nor beam would it nor warm Match me the Silver Reticence Match me the Solid Calm...
22. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
23. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
24. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
25. Remembrances Of The Renowned Knight, Sir Rowland Cotton, Of Bellaport In Shropshire, Concerning Renowned Champion full of wrestling Art, And made for victory in every part, Whose active Limbes, oyl’d Tongue, and vertuous Mind, Subdu’d both Foe and Friend, the Rough and Kind, Yea, ev’n Thy-selfe, and thy Diseases too, And all but Death (which won with much adoe And shall at last be vanquish’d,) where are now […]...
26. The Burnt Child Matches among other things that were not allowed Never would be Lying high in a cool blue box That opened in other hands and there they all were Bodies clean and smooth blue heads white crowns White sandpaper on the sides of the box scoring Fire after fire gone before I could hear the scratch […]...
27. Before I. Let them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far. God must judge the couple: leave them as they are – Whichever one’s the guiltless, to his glory, And whichever one the guilt’s with, to my story! II. Why, you would not bid men, sunk in such a slough, Strike no arm out […]...
28. Sonnet CXLIV Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a […]...
29. 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; […]...
30. Sonnet 144: Two loves I have, of comfort and despair Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman coloured ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a […]...
31. Dumb Swede With barbwire hooch they filled him full, Till he was drunker than all hell, And then they peddled him the bull About a claim they had to sell. A thousand bucks they made him pay, Knowing that he had nothing more, And when he begged it back next day, And wept! – they kicked him […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. The Shooting Of Dan McGrew A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou. When out of the night, which […]...
34. Haunting the quark (I) If you can’t scientifically explain it Dawkins says it has no value – some hope Inside the mechanical framework of a guess (as far as any fact can truly grope) Doubts roam – mere looking can’t attain it Twentieth-century science perceived that mess The more you probed the inner – more the scope For […]...
35. Fight RED drips from my chin where I have been eating. Not all the blood, nowhere near all, is wiped off my mouth. Clots of red mess my hair And the tiger, the buffalo, know how. I was a killer. Yes, I am a killer. I come from killing. I go to more. I drive red […]...
36. My Job I’ve got a little job on ‘and, the time is drawin’ nigh; At seven by the Captain’s watch I’m due to go and do it; I wants to ‘ave it nice and neat, and pleasin’ to the eye, And I ‘opes the God of soldier men will see me safely through it. Because, you see, […]...
37. Slough Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death! Come, bombs and blow to smithereens Those air – conditioned, bright canteens, Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans, Tinned minds, tinned breath. Mess up the mess they call a town- […]...
38. 372. Song-Kellyburn Braes THERE lived a carl in Kellyburn Braes, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme; And he had a wife was the plague of his days, And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime. Ae day as the carl gaed up the lang glen, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme; […]...
39. Remorse is Memory awake Remorse is Memory awake Her Parties all astir A Presence of Departed Acts At window and at Door Its Past set down before the Soul And lighted with a Match Perusal to facilitate And help Belief to stretch Remorse is cureless the Disease Not even God can heal For ’tis His institution and The Adequate […]...
40. The Marriage of Edward Herbert Esquire, and Mrs. Elizabeth Herbert CUPID one day ask’d his Mother, When she meant that he shou’d Wed? You’re too Young, my Boy, she said: Nor has Nature made another Fit to match with Cupid’s Bed. Cupid then her Sight directed To a lately Wedded Pair; Where Himself the Match effected; They as Youthful, they as Fair. Having by Example […]...