Perfection

Related poetry:

1. The Habit Of Perfection Elected Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorlèd ear, Pipe me to pastures still and be The music that I care to hear. Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: It is the shut, the curfew sent From there where all surrenders come Which only makes you eloquent. Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark And […]...
2. Are You Drinking? washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook out again I write from the bed as I did last year. will see the doctor, Monday. “yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head- aches and my back hurts.” “are you drinking?” he will ask. “are you getting your Exercise, your vitamins?” I think that I am just ill […]...
3. A Friday Prayer Before the midnoon sermon was a starter He had sat quietly on the corner, His mien dripping with wudhu water His all seeing eyes observe in glister Standing on the altar was the preacher Who took a brush and painted in anger Onto the canvas of mosque-goers’ minds “His face, everybody!” so cruel and malignant […]...
4. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
5. The Genius Of The Crowd there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average Human being to supply any given army on any given day And the best at murder are those who preach against it And the best at hate are those who preach love And the best at war finally are those who preach peace Those who […]...
6. The Sergeant's Song WHEN Lawyers strive to heal a breach, And Parsons practise what they preach; Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down, And march his men on London town! Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum, Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay! When Justices hold equal scales, And Rogues are only found in jails; Then Little Boney he’ll pounce down, And march his men on London town! […]...
7. Work When twenty-one I loved to dream, And was to loafing well inclined; Somehow I couldn’t get up steam To welcome work of any kind. While students burned the midnight lamp, With dour ambition as their goad, I longed to be a gayful tramp And greet adventure on the road. But now that sixty years have […]...
8. 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. […]...
9. Mulholland's Contract The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea, An’ the pens broke up on the lower deck an’ let the creatures free An’ the lights went out on the lower deck, an’ no one near but me. I had been singin’ to them to keep ’em quiet there, For the […]...
10. What Has Happened? The industrialist is having his aeroplane serviced. The priest is wondering what he said in his sermon eight weeks ago About tithes. The generals are putting on civvies and looking like bank clerks. Public officials are getting friendly. The policeman points out the way to the man in the cloth cap. The landlord comes to […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
13. The Methodist Says Tom to Jack, ’tis very odd, These representatives of God, In color, way of life and evil, Should be so very like the devil. Jack, understand, was one of those, Who mould religion in the rose, A red hot methodist; his face Was full of puritanic grace, His loose lank hair, his slow gradation, […]...
14. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
15. 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...
16. 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 […]...
17. Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]...
18. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
19. Occasional Poems I Christmas Poem for Nancy Noel, Noel We live and we die Between heaven and hell Between the earth and the sky And all shall be well And all shall be unwell And once again! all shall once again! All shall be well By the ringing and the swinging of the great beautiful holiday bell […]...
20. Style Flaubert wanted to write a novel About nothing. It was to have no subject And be sustained upon the style alone, Like the Holy Ghost cruising above The abyss, or like the little animals In Disney cartoons who stand upon a branch That breaks, but do not fall Till they look down. He never wrote […]...
21. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
22. You Gotta be Kidding So you think God Soliloquizes to Himself (or Herself, Itself, or Godself For that matter) In front of the Bathroom Mirror? You gotta be kidding! You think God exchanges Conversations with Fellas At a Godly Round Table? You must be joking! You think what you Really think of Him (or Her, Or It for God’s […]...
23. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
24. Conferring with myself Conferring with myself My stranger disappeared Though first upon a berry fat Miraculously fared How paltry looked my cares My practise how absurd Superfluous my whole career Beside this travelling Bird...
25. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
26. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
27. 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 […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
30. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
31. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
32. Those who have been in the Grave the longest Those who have been in the Grave the longest Those who begin Today Equally perish from our Practise Death is the other way Foot of the Bold did least attempt it It is the White Exploit Once to achieve, annuls the power Once to communicate...
33. 410. Epigram-Kirk and State Excisemen YE men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering ‘Gainst poor Excisemen? Give the cause a hearing: What are your Landlord’s rent-rolls?-Taxing ledgers! What Premiers?-What ev’n Monarchs?-Mighty Gaugers! Nay, what are Priests? (those seeming godly wise-men,) What are they, pray, but Spiritual Excisemen!...
34. 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- […]...
35. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
36. Fame's Penny-Trumpet Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack, Ye little men of little souls! And bid them huddle at your back – Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals! Fill all the air with hungry wails – “Reward us, ere we think or write! Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails To sate the swinish appetite!” And, where great […]...
37. The Fury Of Rainstorms The rain drums down like red ants, Each bouncing off my window. The ants are in great pain And they cry out as they hit As if their little legs were only Stitche don and their heads pasted. And oh they bring to mind the grave, So humble, so willing to be beat upon With […]...
38. The Comet at Valbury or Yell'ham I It bends far over Yell’ham Plain, And we, from Yell’ham Height, Stand and regard its fiery train, So soon to swim from sight. II It will return long years hence, when As now its strange swift shine Will fall on Yell’ham; but not then On that sweet form of thine....
39. 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 […]...
40. Oaks Tutt My mother was for woman’s rights And my father was the rich miller at London Mills. I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them. When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries In order to learn how to reform the world. I traveled through many lands. […]...