My White Mouse

Related poetry:

1. Satire II:The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse MY mother’s maids, when they did sew and spin, They sang sometime a song of the field mouse, That for because her livelood was but thin [livelihood] Would needs go seek her townish sister’s house. She thought herself endured to much pain: The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse That when the furrows […]...
2. Diary of a Church Mouse Here among long-discarded cassocks, Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks, Here where the vicar never looks I nibble through old service books. Lean and alone I spend my days Behind this Church of England baize. I share my dark forgotten room With two oil-lamps and half a broom. The cleaner never bothers me, So here […]...
3. The Grave Of The Kitchen Mouse The stone says “Coors” The gay carpet says “Camels” Spears of dried grass The little sticks the children gathered The leaves the wind gathered The cat did not kill him The dog did not, not the trap Or lightning, or the rain’s anger The tree’s claws The black teeth of the moon The sun drilled […]...
4. The Tale of Custard the Dragon Belinda lived in a little white house, With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse, And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon, And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon. Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink, And the little gray mouse, she called hum Blink, And the […]...
5. Grief is a Mouse Grief is a Mouse And chooses Wainscot in the Breast For His Shy House And baffles quest Grief is a Thief quick startled Pricks His Ear report to hear Of that Vast Dark That swept His Being back Grief is a Juggler boldest at the Play Lest if He flinch the eye that way Pounce […]...
6. Missing Has anybody seen my mouse? I opened his box for half a minute, Just to make sure he was really in it, And while I was looking, he jumped outside! I tried to catch him, I tried, I tried…. I think he’s somewhere about the house. Has anyone seen my mouse? Uncle John, have you […]...
7. On The Eating Of Mice A woman prepared a mouse for her husband’s dinner, Roasting it with a blueberry in its mouth. At table he uses a dentist’s pick and a surgeon’s scalpel, Bending over the tiny roastling with a jeweler’s loupe. . . Twenty years of this: curried mouse, garlic and butter Mouse, mouse sauteed in its own fur, […]...
8. To A Mouse On Turning her up in her Nest with the Plough Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie, O what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee Wi’ murd’ring pattle! I’m truly sorry man’s dominion Has broken nature’s social union, An’ […]...
9. 76. To a Mouse WEE, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee, Wi’ murd’ring pattle! I’m truly sorry man’s dominion, Has broken nature’s social union, An’ justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, […]...
10. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
11. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
12. Late Summer Fires The paddocks shave black With a foam of smoke that stays, Welling out of red-black wounds. In the white of a drought This happens. The hardcourt game. Logs that fume are mostly cattle, Inverted, stubby. Tree stumps are kilns. Walloped, wiped, hand-pumped, Even this day rolls over, slowly. At dusk, a family drives sheep Out […]...
13. Memoriam A. H. H.: 67. When on my bed the moonlight fall When on my bed the moonlight falls, I know that in thy place of rest By that broad water of the west, There comes a glory on the walls: Thy marble bright in dark appears, As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name, And o’er the number of thy years. The […]...
14. Reverence I saw the Greatest Man on Earth, Aye, saw him with my proper eyes. A loin-cloth spanned his proper girth, But he was naked otherwise, Excepting for his grey sombrero; And when his domelike head he bared, With reverence I stared and stared, As mummified as any Pharaoh. He leaned upon a little cane, A […]...
15. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
16. Dream Song 45: He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back. He thought they was old friends. He felt on the stair Where her papa found them bare They became familiar. When the papers were lost Rich with pals’ secrets, he thought he had the knack Of ruin. Their paths crossed And once they crossed in jail; they […]...
17. Tourists In a strange town in a far land They met amid a throng; They stared, they could not understand How life was sudden song. As brown eyes looked in eyes of grey Just for a moment’s space, Twin spirits met with sweet dismay In that strange place. And then the mob that swept them near […]...
18. 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 […]...
19. Finding From the candles and dumb shadows, And the house where love had died, I stole to the vast moonlight And the whispering life outside. But I found no lips of comfort, No home in the moon’s light (I, little and lone and frightened In the unfriendly night), And no meaning in the voices. . . […]...
20. Mary Ellen It’s mighty quiet in the house Since Mary Ellen quit me cold; I’ve swept the hearth and fed the mouse That’s getting fat and overbold. I’ve bought a pig’s foot for the pot And soon I’ll set the fire alight; Then I may eat or I may not, Depends upon my appetite. Since Mary Ellen […]...
21. John Gorham “Tell me what you’re doing over here, John Gorham, Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you’re not; Make me laugh or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight Are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot.”- “I’m over here to tell you what the moon […]...
22. Platonic I knew it the first of the summer, I knew it the same at the end, That you and your love were plighted, But couldn’t you be my friend? Couldn’t we sit in the twilight, Couldn’t we walk on the shore With only a pleasant friendship To bind us, and nothing more? There was not […]...
23. CROW AND AUDEN A misprint in a newspaper reported: ‘Auden stepped from the train and was greeted by a small but enthusiastic crow.’ ‘Hmm,’ Auden thought when first he saw The bird, as train came to a stop, ‘I’ll make this image mine before Some Yorkshire upstart snaps it up.’ He drew a notebook from his mac’, Unclipped […]...
24. I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey's Version Of "Three Blind Mice&quot And I start wondering how they came to be blind. If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister, And I think of the poor mother Brooding over her sightless young triplets. Or was it a common accident, all three caught In a searing explosion, a firework perhaps? If not, If each came to […]...
25. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
26. Assault I I had forgotten how the frogs must sound After a year of silence, else I think I should not so have ventured forth alone At dusk upon this unfrequented road. II I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk Between me and the crying of the frogs? Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, […]...
27. The Woman and the Wife I THE EXPLANATION “You thought we knew,” she said, “but we were wrong. This we can say, the rest we do not say; Nor do I let you throw yourself away Because you love me. Let us both be strong, And we shall find in sorrow, before long, Only the price Love ruled that we […]...
28. In Back Of The Real railroad yard in San Jose I wandered desolate In front of a tank factory and sat on a bench Near the switchman’s shack. A flower lay on the hay on the asphalt highway the dread hay flower I thought It had a Brittle black stem and corolla of yellowish dirty Spikes like Jesus’ inchlong crown, […]...
29. The Visitor it came today to visit And moved into the house It was smaller than an elephant But larger than a mouse First it slapped my sister Then it kicked my dad Then it pushed my mother Oh! that really made me mad It went and tickled rover And terrified the cat It sliced apart my […]...
30. Hate My enemy came nigh, And I Stared fiercely in his face. My lips went writhing back in a grimace, And stern I watched him with a narrow eye. Then, as I turned away, my enemy, That bitter heart and savage, said to me: “Some day, when this is past, When all the arrows that we […]...
31. Crimson Changes People DID I see a crucifix in your eyes And nails and Roman soldiers And a dusk Golgotha? Did I see Mary, the changed woman, Washing the feet of all men, Clean as new grass When the old grass burns? Did I see moths in your eyes, lost moths, With a flutter of wings that meant: […]...
32. Dogheads AMONG the grassroots In the moonlight, who comes circling, red tongues and high noses? Is one of ’em Buck and one of ’em White Fang? In the moonlight, who are they, cross-legged, telling their stories over and over? Is one of ’em Martin Eden and one of ’em Larsen the Wolf? Let an epitaph read: […]...
33. Martha “Once…Once upon a time…” Over and over again, Martha would tell us her stories, In the hazel glen. Hers were those clear gray eyes You watch, and the story seems Told by their beautifulness Tranquil as dreams. She’d sit with her two slim hands Clasped round her bended knees; While we on our elbows lolled, […]...
34. On Dragon Hill Drunk on Dragon Hill tonight, The banished immortal, Great White, Turns among yellow flowers, His smile wide, As his hat sails away on the wind And he dances away in the moonlight....
35. The Answer You have spoken the answer. A child searches far sometimes Into the red dust On a dark rose leaf And so you have gone far For the answer is: Silence. In the republic Of the winking stars and spent cataclysms Sure we are it is off there the answer Is hidden and folded over, Sleeping […]...
36. Tz'u No. 18 To the tune of “Intoxicated in the Shadow of Flowers” Thin mist, dense clouds, a grief-stricken day; Auspicious incense burns in the gold animal. Once again, it is the joyous mid-autumn festival, But a midnight chill Touches my jade pillow and silk bed-screen. I drink wine by the eastern fence in the yellow dusk. Now […]...
37. Shagbark Hickory IN the moonlight under a shag-bark hickory tree Watching the yellow shadows melt in hoof-pools, Listening to the yes and the no of a woman’s hands, I kept my guess why the night was glad. The night was lit with a woman’s eyes. The night was crossed with a woman’s hands, The night kept humming […]...
38. The Return They turned him loose; he bowed his head, A felon, bent and grey. His face was even as the Dead, He had no word to say. He sought the home of his old love, To look on her once more; And where her roses breathed above, He cowered beside the door. She sat there in […]...
39. Songs Dawn coming in over the fields Of darkness takes me by surprise And I look up from my solitary road Pleased not to be alone, the birds Now choiring from the orange groves Huddling to the low hills. But sorry That this night has ended, a night In which you spoke of how little love […]...
40. Joey I thought I would go daft when Joey died. He was my first, and wise beyond his years. For nigh a hundred nights I cried and cried, Until my weary eyes burned up my tears. Willie and Rosie tried to comfort me: A woeful, weeping family were we. I was a widow with no friends […]...