You Must n't Swim

Related poetry:

1. The Nude Swim On the southwest side of Capri We found a little unknown grotto Where no people were and we Entered it completely And let our bodies lose all Their loneliness. All the fish in us Had escaped for a minute. The real fish did not mind. We did not disturb their personal life. We calmly trailed […]...
2. The Mother Poem (two) I always wanted to give birth Do that incredible natural thing That women do-I nearly broke down When I heard we couldn’t And then my man said to me Well there’s always adoption (we didn’t have test tubes and the rest Then) and well even in the early sixties there was something Scandalous about adopting […]...
3. The Forsaken Holy Mother of God, Merciful Mary. Hear Me! I am very weary. I have come From a village miles away, all day I have been coming, and I ache For such Far roaming. I cannot walk as light as I used, and my Thoughts grow confused. I am heavier than I was. Mary Mother, you […]...
4. Come On In, The Senility Is Fine People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa, But you don’t have to live forever to become a grampa. The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild, You only have to live until your child has a child. From that point on you start looking both ways over your shoulder, Because sometimes you […]...
5. Divinely Superfluous Beauty The storm-dances of gulls, the barking game of seals, Over and under the ocean… Divinely superfluous beauty Rules the games, presides over destinies, makes trees grow And hills tower, waves fall. The incredible beauty of joy Stars with fire the joining of lips, O let our loves too Be joined, there is not a maiden […]...
6. If I were dead ‘IF I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’ The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! […]...
7. Slow Spring O year, grow slowly. Exquisite, holy, The days go on With almonds showing the pink stars blowing And birds in the dawn. Grow slowly, year, like a child that is dear, Or a lamb that is mild, By little steps, and by little skips, Like a lamb or a child....
8. Baby's Way If baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment. It is not for nothing that he does not leave us. He loves to rest his head on mother’s bosom, and cannot ever Bear to lose sight of her. Baby know all manner of wise words, though few on earth can Understand […]...
9. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
10. Sympathy If I were only a little puppy, not your baby, mother dear, would You say “No” to me if I tried to eat from your dish? Would you drive me off, saying to me, “Get away, you naughty Little puppy?” Then go, mother, go! I will never come to you when you call Me, and […]...
11. The Chanpa Flower Supposing I became a chanpa flower, just for fun, and grew on a Branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and Danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother? You would call, “Baby, where are you?” and I should laugh to Myself and keep quite quiet. I […]...
12. Waiting For The Miracle (co-written by Sharon Robinson) Baby, I’ve been waiting, I’ve been waiting night and day. I didn’t see the time, I waited half my life away. There were lots of invitations And I know you sent me some, But I was waiting For the miracle, for the miracle to come. I know you really loved me. […]...
13. The End It is time for me to go, mother; I am going. When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out Your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not Here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall […]...
14. The Astronomer I only said, “When in the evening the round full moon gets Entangled among the beaches of that Dadam tree, couldn’t somebody Catch it?” But dada laughed at me and said, “Baby, you are the silliest Child I have ever known. The moon is ever so far from us, how could Anybody catch it?” I […]...
15. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
16. Faith Healing Slowly the women file to where he stands Upright in rimless glasses, silver hair, Dark suit, white collar. Stewards tirelessly Persuade them onwards to his voice and hands, Within whose warm spring rain of loving care Each dwells some twenty seconds. Now, dear child, What’s wrong, the deep American voice demands, And, scarcely pausing, goes […]...
17. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
18. The Happy Child I saw this day sweet flowers grow thick But not one like the child did pick. I heard the packhounds in green park But no dog like the child heard bark. I heard this day bird after bird But not one like the child has heard. A hundred butterflies saw I But not one like […]...
19. Age and Youth WE have left our youth behind: Earth is in its baby years: Void of wisdom cries the wind, And the sunlight knows no tears. When shall twilight feel the awe, All the rapt thought of the sage, And the lips of wind give law Drawn from out their lore of age? When shall earth begin […]...
20. The old pond Following are several translations Of the ‘Old Pond’ poem, which may be The most famous of all haiku: Furuike ya Kawazu tobikomu Mizu no oto Basho Literal Translation Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, Ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) Mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound) The old pond A frog jumps in, sound of water. Translated by […]...
21. Hymn 169 The Divine Perfections. The Lord Jehovah reigns, His throne is built on high; The garments he assumes Are light and majesty: His glories shine With beams so bright, No mortal eye Can bear the sight. The thunders of his hand Keep the wide world in awe; His wrath and justice stand To guard his holy […]...
22. Superior Mother, your baby is silly! She is so absurdly childish! She does not know the difference between the lights in the Streets and the stars. When we play at eating with pebbles, she thinks they are real Food, and tries to put them into her mouth. When I open a book before her and ask […]...
23. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
24. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
25. TO THE LADY CREWE, UPON THE DEATH OF HER CHILD Why, Madam, will ye longer weep, Whenas your baby’s lull’d asleep? And, pretty child, feels now no more Those pains it lately felt before. All now is silent; groans are fled; Your child lies still, yet is not dead, But rather like a flower hid here, To spring again another year....
26. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
27. A Child in the Garden When to the garden of untroubled thought I came of late, and saw the open door, And wished again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, […]...
28. The Lonesome Child The baby in the looking-glass Is smiling through at me; She has her teaspoon in her hand, Her feeder on for tea. And if I look behind her I Can see the table spread; I wonder if she has to eat The nasty crusts of bread. Her doll, like mine, is sitting close Beside her […]...
29. God Gave To Me A Child In Part GOD gave to me a child in part, Yet wholly gave the father’s heart: Child of my soul, O whither now, Unborn, unmothered, goest thou? You came, you went, and no man wist; Hapless, my child, no breast you kist; On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb, Nor knew the kindly feel of home. […]...
30. The Pattern A women had given birth to an old man. He cried to have again been caught in the pattern. Oh well, he sighed as he took her breast to his mouth. The woman is happy to have her baby, even if it is old. Probably it got mislaid in the baby place, and when they […]...
31. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
32. Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward Child, the current of your breath is six days long. You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed; Lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong At my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed With love. At first hunger is not wrong. The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded Down […]...
33. Take, Oh Take Those Lips Away Take, oh take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn, And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn: But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, but sealed in vain. Hide, oh hide those hills of snow, Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow […]...
34. Baby Vamps BABY vamps, is it harder work than it used to be? Are the new soda parlors worse than the old time saloons? Baby vamps, do you have jobs in the day time or is this all you do? do you come out only at night? In the winter at the skating rinks, in the summer […]...
35. Tower Of Song Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey I ache in the places where I used to play And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on I’m just paying my rent every day Oh in the Tower of Song I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get? Hank Williams […]...
36. Not A Child ‘Not a child: I call myself a boy,’ Says my king, with accent stern yet mild, Now nine years have brought him change of joy; ‘Not a child.’ How could reason be so far beguiled, Err so far from sense’s safe employ, Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild? Seeing his face bent […]...
37. Baby Charley He’s fast asleep. See how, O Wife, Night’s finger on the lip of life Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife, Of busy Baby Charley. One arm stretched backward round his head, Five little toes from out the bed Just showing, like five rosebuds red, So slumbers Baby Charley. Heaven-lights, I know, are beaming through Those […]...
38. Days I am a Day. . . My sky is grey, My wind is wild, My sea high-piled: In year of days the first In misery. . . Oh pity me! I am a Day Accurst. “Sweet Day, not curst but blest: Behold upon my breast My baby born Your early morn. Safe in my arms […]...
39. Speak Roughly to Your Little Boy And with that she Began nursing her child again, singing a sort of Lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a vio­ Lent shake at the end of every line: “Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes; He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it […]...
40. Babyhood A baby shines as bright If winter or if May be On eyes that keep in sight A baby. Though dark the skies or grey be, It fills our eyes with light, If midnight or midday be. Love hails it, day and night, The sweetest thing that may be Yet cannot praise aright A baby. […]...