Wallflower

Related poetry:

1. The Gardener X: Let Your Work Be, Bride Let your work be, bride. Listen, the Guest has come. Do you hear, he is gently shaking The chain which fastens the door? See that your anklets make no loud Noise, and that your step is not over- Hurried at meeting him. Let your work be, bride, the guest Had come in the evening. No, […]...
2. Wallflower Till midnight her needle she plied To finish her pretty pink dress; “Oh, bless you, my darling,” she sighed; “I hope you will be a success.” As she entered the Oddfellow’s Hall With the shy thrill of maiden romance She felt like the belle of the Ball, But. . . nobody asked her to dance. […]...
3. The Satin Dress Needle, needle, dip and dart, Thrusting up and down, Where’s the man could ease a heart Like a satin gown? See the stitches curve and crawl Round the cunning seams- Patterns thin and sweet and small As a lady’s dreams. Wantons go in bright brocade; Brides in organdie; Gingham’s for the plighted maid; Satin’s for […]...
4. Palanquin Bearers Lightly, O lightly we bear her along, She sways like a flower in the wind of our song; She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream, She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream. Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing, We bear her along like a pearl […]...
5. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM A SWEET SICK YOUTH Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere, On this sick youth work your enchantments here! Bind up his senses with your numbers, so As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe. Fall gently, gently, and a-while him keep Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep: That done, then let him, dispossess’d […]...
6. Barbie Doll This girlchild was born as usual And presented dolls that did pee-pee And miniature GE stoves and irons And wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy. Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs. She was healthy, tested intelligent, Possessed strong arms and back, Abundant […]...
7. Dance Figure For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee Dark-eyed, O woman of my dreams, Ivory sandalled, There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet. I have not found thee in the tents, In the broken darkness. I have not found thee at the well-head Among the women with pitchers. Thine arms are […]...
8. Night-Piece Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan, Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still; For now the moon through heaven sails alone, Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill. The faun from out his dim and secret place Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream Half-wakens, seeing there his sylvan face Reflected, […]...
9. The Peripheries of Love Through waning afternoons we glide The watery peripheries of love. A silence, a quietude falls. Above us–the sagging pavilions of clouds. Below us–rough pebbles slowly worn smooth Grate in the gentle turbulence Of yesterday’s forgotten rains. Later, the moon like a virgin Lifts her stricken white face And the waters rise Toward some unfathomable shore. […]...
10. Down Home Down home to-night the moonshine falls Across a hill with daisies pied, The pear tree by the garden gate Beckons with white arms like a bride. A savor as of trampled fern Along the whispering meadow stirs, And, beacon of immortal love, A light is shining through the firs. To my old gable window creeps […]...
11. July 12 Wisteria, hysteria is as obvious a rhyme As Viagra and Niagara there must be a reason Honeymooners traditionally went to the Falls Which were, said the divine Oscar, An American bride’s second biggest disappointment Tell me which do you like better, The American Falls or the Horseshoe Falls, I say the Horseshoe Falls, Joe says, […]...
12. Care-charming Sleep Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince; fall like a cloud In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud Or painful to his slumbers; easy, sweet, And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain, Like hollow […]...
13. As Kingfishers Catch Fire As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves – goes itself; […]...
14. The Folly Of Being Comforted One that is ever kind said yesterday: ‘Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience.’ Heart cries, ‘No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a […]...
15. Jug THE SHALE and water thrown together so-so first of all, Then a potter’s hand on the wheel and his fingers shaping the jug; out of the mud a mouth and a handle; Slimpsy, loose and ready to fall at a touch, fire plays on it, slow fire coaxing all the water out of the shale […]...
16. Burning the Doll I am the girl who burned her doll, Who gave her father the doll to burn ” The bride doll I had been given At six, as a Christmas gift, By the same great uncle who once introduced me At my blind second cousin’s wedding To a man who winced, A future Miss America, I’m […]...
17. Imagining you'd come to say goodbye Imagining you’d come to say goodbye, I made a doll of raffia and string. I gave her thatch hair, and a broomstick skirt Of patchwork satin rags. Around each eye I stitched thick lashes. Such a touching thing She was! That even you could not debate – Impassive, undemanding and inert. Yes, surely she’d cause […]...
18. A Song Persuade me not, there is a Grace Proceeds from Silvia’s Voice or Lute, Against Miranda’s charming Face To make her hold the least Dispute. Musick, which tunes the Soul for Love, And stirs up all our soft Desires, Do’s but the glowing Flame improve, Which pow’rful Beauty first inspires. Thus, whilst with Art she plays, […]...
19. Loin Cloth BODY of Jesus taken down from the cross Carved in ivory by a lover of Christ, It is a child’s handful you are here, The breadth of a man’s finger, And this ivory loin cloth Speaks an interspersal in the day’s work, The carver’s prayer and whim And Christ-love....
20. New Year's Eve There are only two things now, The great black night scooped out And this fireglow. This fireglow, the core, And we the two ripe pips That are held in store. Listen, the darkness rings As it circulates round our fire. Take off your things. Your shoulders, your bruised throat! You breasts, your nakedness! This fiery […]...
21. Wildpeace Not the peace of a cease-fire Not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb, But rather As in the heart when the excitement is over And you can talk only about a great weariness. I know that I know how to kill, that makes me an adult. And my son plays with a […]...
22. LES BALLONS Against these turbid turquoise skies The light and luminous balloons Dip and drift like satin moons Drift like silken butterflies; Reel with every windy gust, Rise and reel like dancing girls, Float like strange transparent pearls, Fall and float like silver dust. Now to the low leaves they cling, Each with coy fantastic pose, Each […]...
23. I Remember It was my bridal night I remember, An old man of seventy-three I lay with my young bride in my arms, A girl with t. b. It was wartime, and overhead The Germans were making a particularly heavy raid on Hampstead. What rendered the confusion worse, perversely Our bombers had chosen that moment to set […]...
24. The Potatoes' Dance (A Poem Game.) I “Down cellar,” said the cricket, “Down cellar,” said the cricket, “Down cellar,” said the cricket, “I saw a ball last night, In honor of a lady, In honor of a lady, In honor of a lady, Whose wings were pearly-white. The breath of bitter weather, The breath of bitter weather, The […]...
25. Nymphs Where are ye now, O beautiful girls of the mountain, Oreads all? Nothing at all stirs here save the drip of the fountain; Answers our call Only the heart-glad thrush, in the Vale of Thrushes; Stirs in the brake But the dew-bright ear of the hare in his couch of rushes Listening, awake....
26. The Host Of The Air O’Driscoll drove with a song The wild duck and the drake From the tall and the tufted reeds Of the drear Hart Lake. And he saw how the reeds grew dark At the coming of night-tide, And dreamed of the long dim hair Of Bridget his bride. He heard while he sang and dreamed A […]...
27. The Symbol Seduces THERE in her old-world garden smiles A symbol of the world’s desire, Striving with quaint and lovely wiles To bind to earth the soul of fire. And while I sit and listen there, The robe of Beauty falls away From universal things to where Its image dazzles for a day. Away! the great life calls; […]...
28. Happiness A man and a woman lie on a white bed. It is morning. I think Soon they will waken. On the bedside table is a vase Of lilies; sunlight Pools in their throats. I watch him turn to her As though to speak her name But silently, deep in her mouth At the window ledge, […]...
29. To Lou Andreas-Salome I held myself too open, I forgot That outside not just things exist and animals Fully at ease in themselves, whose eyes Reach from their lives’ roundedness no differently Than portraits do from frames; forgot that I With all I did incessantly crammed Looks into myself; looks, opinion, curiosity. Who knows: perhaps eyes form in […]...
30. The Line-Gang Here come the line-gang pioneering by, They throw a forest down less cut than broken. They plant dead trees for living, and the dead They string together with a living thread. They string an instrument against the sky Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken Will run as hushed as when they were a thought […]...
31. Legs rivers and age with landbound legs a wish For the easy flow of a river – not The clambering up crags to seek More favour from the sun (or long-haired moon) harped for Since those sparks of who am i First clicked through consciousness How the river sidles round Rocks blocking the painful straight Seems to brush aside […]...
32. The Firemen's Ball SECTION ONE “Give the engines room, Give the engines room.” Louder, faster The little band-master Whips up the fluting, Hurries up the tooting. He thinks that he stands, [*] The reins in his hands, In the fire-chief’s place In the night alarm chase. The cymbals whang, The kettledrums bang: – “Clear the street, Clear the […]...
33. Where? My snowy eupatorium has dropped Its silver threads of petals in the night; No signal told its blossoming had stopped; Its seed-films flutter silent, ghostly white: No answer stirs the shining air, As I ask, “Where?” Beneath the glossy leaves of winter-green Dead lilly-bells lie low, and in their place A rounded disk of pearly […]...
34. LE PANNEAU Under the rose-tree’s dancing shade There stands a little ivory girl, Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl With pale green nails of polished jade. The red leaves fall upon the mould, The white leaves flutter, one by one, Down to a blue bowl where the sun, Like a great dragon, writhes in gold. The […]...
35. In The Gold Room – A Harmony Her ivory hands on the ivory keys Strayed in a fitful fantasy, Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly, Or the drifting foam of a restless sea When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze. Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold Like the delicate gossamer […]...
36. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why (Sonnet XLIII) What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that […]...
37. Anna Imroth CROSS the hands over the breast here so. Straighten the legs a little more so. And call for the wagon to come and take her home. Her mother will cry some and so will her sisters and Brothers. But all of the others got down and they are safe and This is the only one […]...
38. The Walking Man of Rodin LEGS hold a torso away from the earth. And a regular high poem of legs is here. Powers of bone and cord raise a belly and lungs Out of ooze and over the loam where eyes look and ears hear And arms have a chance to hammer and shoot and run motors. You make us […]...
39. The Swan This laboring through what is still undone, As though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way, Is like the akward walking of the swan. And dying-to let go, no longer feel The solid ground we stand on every day- Is like anxious letting himself fall Into waters, which receive him gently And which, as though […]...
40. The Shower we like to shower afterwards (I like the water hotter than she) And her face is always soft and peaceful And she’ll watch me first Spread the soap over my balls Lift the balls Squeeze them, Then wash the cock: “hey, this thing is still hard!” Then get all the hair down there,- The belly, […]...