The Hyaenas

Related poetry:

1. Eleventh Avenue Racket THERE is something terrible About a hurdy-gurdy, A gipsy man and woman, And a monkey in red flannel All stopping in front of a big house With a sign “For Rent” on the door And the blinds hanging loose And nobody home. I never saw this. I hope to God I never will. Whoop-de-doodle-de-doo. Hoodle-de-harr-de-hum. […]...
2. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
3. The Centenarians I asked of ancient gaffers three The way of their ripe living, And this is what they told to me Without Misgiving. The First: ‘The why I’ve lived so long, To my fond recollection Is that for women, wine and song I’ve had a predilection. Full many a bawdy stave I’ve sung With wenches of […]...
4. In Harbor A young man, twenty eight years old, on a vessel from Tenos, Emes arrived at this Syrian harbor With the intention of learning the perfume trade. But during the voyage he was taken ill. And as soon As he disembarked, he died. His burial, the poorest, Took place here. A few hours before he died, […]...
5. Of Him I Love Day and Night OF him I love day and night, I dream’d I heard he was dead; And I dream’d I went where they had buried him I love—but he was not in that place; And I dream’d I wander’d, searching among burial-places, to find him; And I found that every place was a burial-place; The houses full […]...
6. Right in Front of the Army “Where ‘ave you been this week or more, ‘Aven’t seen you about the war’? Thought perhaps you was at the rear Guarding the waggons.” “What, us? No fear! Where have we been? Why, bless my heart, Where have we been since the bloomin’ start? Right in the front of the army, Battling day and night! […]...
7. Hate ONE man killed another. The saying between them had been “I’d give you the shirt off my back.” The killer wept over the dead. The dead if he looks back knows the killer was sorry. It was a shot in one second of hate out of ten years of love. Why is the sun a […]...
8. A Nativity 1914-18 The Babe was laid in the Manger Between the gentle kine All safe from cold and danger “But it was not so with mine, (With mine! With mine!) “Is it well with the child, is it well?” The waiting mother prayed. “For I know not how he fell, And I know not where he […]...
9. Chase Henry In my life I was the town drunkard; When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground. The which rebounded to my good fortune. For the Protestants bought this lot, And buried my body here, Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas, And of his wife Priscilla. Take note, ye prudent and […]...
10. Midsummer, was it, when They died Midsummer, was it, when They died A full, and perfect time The Summer closed upon itself In Consummated Bloom The Corn, her furthest kernel filled Before the coming Flail When These leaned unto Perfectness Through Haze of Burial...
11. My Papa's Waltz The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother’s countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed […]...
12. Lenore Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll!- a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?- weep now or nevermore! See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! Come! let the burial rite be read – the […]...
13. Filthy Savior Look at this storm, the idiot, Pouring its heart out here, of all places, An industrial suburb on a Sunday, Soaking nothing but cinder-block And parking lots, wasting its breath on smokeless Smoke-stacks, not even a trash can To send rumbling through the streets. And that lightning bolt, forking itself To death, to hit nothing […]...
14. A Western Ballad When I died, love, when I died My heart was broken in your care; I never suffered love so fair As now I suffer and abide When I died, love, when I died. When I died, love, when I died I wearied in an endless maze That men have walked for centuries, As endless as […]...
15. Natural Theology Primitive I ate my fill of a whale that died And stranded after a month at sea. . . . There is a pain in my inside. Why have the Gods afflicted me? Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith! Wow! I am sick till I cannot see! What is the sense of […]...
16. The Bombay Train Song He hangs on dangling handholds As the train sways and careens Endless nondescript buildings unfold Their secrets as the tired warrior returns. The day is over the night falls Thickly through the barricaded windows The man’s sleepy head lolls On his shoulder in a dream disturbed. The days are a hard white collar brawl The […]...
17. Hannah Armstrong I wrote him a letter asking him for old times’ sake To discharge my sick boy from the army; But maybe he couldn’t read it. Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter. But maybe that was lost in the mails. So I traveled all the way […]...
18. The Trumpet Rise up, rise up, And, as the trumpet blowing Chases the dreams of men, As the dawn glowing The stars that left unlit The land and water, Rise up and scatter The dew that covers The print of last night’s lovers – Scatter it, scatter it! While you are listening To the clear horn, Forget, […]...
19. EXCHANGE Today your things depart. Your faience cup Fell off the table at sunrise and cracked. Your old grey dog did not come up The stairs. I went to look for him, he had died In the long grass, near your library, Under your favourite mango-tree. The silk ribbon you tied on the scroll Was eaten […]...
20. Bivouac on a Mountain Side I SEE before me now, a traveling army halting; Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer; Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high; Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen; The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near and far, some away up on […]...
21. The Summit Redwood Only stand high a long enough time your lightning will come; that is what blunts the peaks of redwoods; But this old tower of life on the hilltop has taken it more than twice a century, this knows in every Cell the salty and the burning taste, the shudder and the voice. The fire from […]...
22. Pals Take a hold now On the silver handles here, Six silver handles, One for each of his old pals. Take hold And lift him down the stairs, Put him on the rollers Over the floor of the hearse. Take him on the last haul, To the cold straight house, The level even house, To the […]...
23. The Tortoise In Keystone Heights When I knew, it was raining. Winter in decline. I was tired. You in your soaked shirt diffused Into the western sky bulging with clouds, Speeding cars a few feet away- Why would they not slow down? Though afternoon, a slip of moon Busied itself with rising, And it had to mean something. If only […]...
24. The Song of the Shirt With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the “Song of the Shirt.” “Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. The Red Shirt “…his poems that no one reads anymore become dust, wind, nothing, Like the insolent colored shirt he bought to die in.” -Vargas Llosa If I gave 5 birds Each 4 eyes I would be blind Unto the 3rd Generation, if I Gave no one a word For a day And let the day Grow into […]...
28. Screw-Guns Smokin’ my pipe on the mountings, sniffin’ the mornin’ cool, I walks in my old brown gaiters along o’ my old brown mule, With seventy gunners be’ind me, an’ never a beggar forgets It’s only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets ‘Tss! ‘Tss! For you all love the screw-guns the […]...
29. Abbey Assaroe Gray, gray is Abbey Assaroe, by Belashanny town, It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down; The carven-stones lie scatter’d in briar and nettle-bed! The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead. A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, Singing a song of ancient days, in […]...
30. Twilight So Mary died last night! To-day The news has travelled here. And Robert died at Michaelmas, And Walter died last year. I went at sunset up the lane, I lingered by the stile; I saw the dusky fields that stretched Before me many a mile. I leaned against the stile, and thought Of her whose […]...
31. Troll Sat Alone on His Seat of Stone Troll sat alone on his seat of stone, And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; For many a year he had gnawed it near, For meat was hard to come by. Done by! Gum by! In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone, And meat was hard to come by. Up came Tom […]...
32. The Dead-Beat He dropped, more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet; Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; Didn’t appear to know a war was on, Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. “I’ll do ’em in,” he whined, “If this […]...
33. When The 'Army' Prays For Watty When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star, Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty’s Horse Bazaar; When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub, Then the Army prays for Watty at the entrance of his pub. Now, I often sit at Watty’s when the night […]...
34. Terence, This is Stupid Stuff ‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff: You eat your victuals fast enough; There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear, To see the rate you drink your beer. But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, 5 It gives a chap the belly-ache. The cow, the old cow, she is dead; It sleeps well, the horned head: […]...
35. The Englishman St George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon He drank a pint of English ale Out of an English flagon. For though he fast right readily In hair-shirt or in mail, It isn’t safe to give him cakes Unless you give him ale. St George he was for England, And right […]...
36. The Quesion Brethren, how shall it fare with me When the war is laid aside, If it be proven that I am he For whom a world has died? If it be proven that all my good, And the greater good I will make, Were purchased me by a multitude Who suffered for my sake? That I […]...
37. The Beleaguered City I have read, in some old, marvellous tale, Some legend strange and vague, That a midnight host of spectres pale Beleaguered the walls of Prague. Beside the Moldau’s rushing stream, With the wan moon overhead, There stood, as in an awful dream, The army of the dead. White as a sea-fog, landward bound, The spectral […]...
38. Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I have found the closer your relationship The closer the fit; The unsettling bit is the fear Of not fitting the role, or where Your forbear made a name or leashed A reputation, which by imputation […]...
39. Losses It was not dying: everybody died. It was not dying: we had died before In the routine crashes and our fields Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks, And the rates rose, all because of us. We died on the wrong page of the almanac, Scattered on mountains fifty miles away; Diving on […]...
40. Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down… – from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air Of late afternoon Is now the colour of tea. […]...