The Having To Love Something Else
There was a man who would marry his mother, and asked his
Father for his mother’s hand in marriage, and was told he could
Not marry his mother’s hand because it was attached to all
The rest of mother, which was all married to his father; that
He’d have to love something else. . .
And so he went into the world to love something else, and
Fell in love with a dining room.
He asked someone standing there, may I have this dining
Room’s hand in marriage?
You may not, its hand is attached to all the rest of it,
Which has all been promised to me in connubial alliance, said
Someone standing there.
Just because the dining room lives in your house doesn’t
Necessarily give you claim to its affections. . .
Yes it does, for a dining room is always to be married to
The heir apparent in the line of succession; after father it’s
My turn; and only if all mankind were destroyed could you
Succeed any other to the hand of this dining room. You’ll have
To love something else. . .
And so the man who would marry his mother was again in the
World looking for something to love that was not already
Loved. . .
Related poetry:
- Vomit The house grows sick in its dining room and begins to vomit. Father cries, the dining room is vomiting. No wonder, the way you eat, it’s enough to make anybody sick, Says his wife. What shall we do? What shall we do? he cries. Call the Vomit Doctor of course. Yes, but all he does […]...
- The Routine Things Around The House When Mother died I thought: now I’ll have a death poem. That was unforgivable. Yet I’ve since forgiven myself As sons are able to do Who’ve been loved by their mothers. I stared into the coffin Knowing how long she’d live, How many lifetimes there are In the sweet revisions of memory. It’s hard to […]...
- Mothers Are a Special Gift Mothers are a special gift sent From God above, They bless us with their nurturing, And fill us with their love. They pick us up when we are down, And when we’re sad they know, They’re always there to lend a hand, And guide us as we go. And mothers are like special jewels That […]...
- Young Munro the Sailor ‘Twas on a sunny morning in the month of May, I met a pretty damsel on the banks o’ the Tay; I said, My charming fair one, come tell to me I pray, Why do you walk alone on the banks o’ the Tay. She said, Kind sir, pity me, for I am in great […]...
- Nellie Clark I was only eight years old; And before I grew up and knew what it meant I had no words for it, except That I was frightened and told my Mother; And that my Father got a pistol And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy, Fifteen years old, except for his Mother. […]...
- I’m A Fool To Love You Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman, Some type of supernatural creature. My mother would tell you, if she could, About her life with my father, A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman. She would tell you about the choices A young black woman faces. Is falling in love with some man A […]...
- Housewife Some women marry houses. It’s another kind of skin; it has a heart, A mouth, a liver and bowel movements. The walls are permanent and pink. See how she sits on her knees all day, Faithfully washing herself down. Men enter by force, drawn back like Jonah Into their fleshy mothers. A woman is her […]...
- 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 […]...
- Pictures of Home In the red-roofed stucco house Of my childhood, the dining room Was screened off by folding doors With small glass panes. Our neighbors The Bertins, who barely escaped Hitler, Often joined us at table. One night Their daughter said, In Vienna Our dining room had doors like these. For a moment, we all sat quite […]...
- Love Poem There is always something to be made of pain. Your mother knits. She turns out scarves in every shade of red. They were for Christmas, and they kept you warm While she married over and over, taking you Along. How could it work, When all those years she stored her widowed heart As though the […]...
- 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 […]...
- 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 […]...
- The Frog and the Golden Ball She let her golden ball fall down the well And begged a cold frog to retrieve it; For which she kissed his ugly, gaping mouth – Indeed, he could scarce believe it. And seeing him transformed to his princely shape, Who had been by hags enchanted, She knew she could never love another man Nor […]...
- Lilian Stewart I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins, Born in a cottage near the grist-mill, Reared in the mansion there on the hill, With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate. How proud my mother was of the mansion! How proud of father’s rise in the world! And how my father loved and watched us, And […]...
- Crucifix Do not cry for me, Mother, seeing me in the grave. I This greatest hour was hallowed and thandered By angel’s choirs; fire melted sky. He asked his Father:”Why am I abandoned…?” And told his Mother: “Mother, do not cry…” II Magdalena struggled, cried and moaned. Peter sank into the stone trance… Only there, where […]...
- An Arab Love-Song The hunchèd camels of the night Trouble the bright And silver waters of the moon. The Maiden of the Morn will soon Through Heaven stray and sing, Star gathering. Now while the dark about our loves is strewn, Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come! And night will catch her breath up, […]...
- Ape You haven’t finished your ape, said mother to father, Who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers. I’ve had enough monkey, cried father. You didn’t eat the hands, and I went to all the Trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother. I’ll just nibble on its forehead, and then I’ve had […]...
- Of Three Or Four In The Room Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at the window. Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns, The fires on the hills. And people who left whole Are brought home in the evening, like small change. Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at […]...
- Love Poem Yours is the face that the earth turns to me, Continuous beyond its human features lie The mountain forms that rest against the sky. With your eyes, the reflecting rainbow, the sun’s light Sees me; forest and flower, bird and beast Know and hold me forever in the world’s thought, Creation’s deep untroubled retrospect. When […]...
- A Stone Is Nobody's A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner. Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the Rest of his life. His mother asked why. He said, because it’s held captive, because it is Captured. Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know Whether it’s […]...
- Hiawathas' photographing ( Part II ) First the Governor, the Father: He suggested velvet curtains Looped about a massy pillar; And the corner of a table, Of a rosewood dining-table. He would hold a scroll of something, Hold it firmly in his left-hand; He would keep his right-hand buried (Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat; He would contemplate the distance With a […]...
- The Runcorn Ferry On the banks of the Mersey, o’er on Cheshire side, Lies Runcorn that’s best known to fame By Transporter Bridge as takes folks over t’stream, Or else brings them back across same. In days afore Transporter Bridge were put up, A ferryboat lay in the slip, And old Ted the boatman would row folks across […]...
- Love Came to Us Love Came to Us Love came to us in time gone by When one at twilight shyly played And one in fear was standing nigh – For Love at first is all afraid. We were grave lovers. Love is past That had his sweet hours many a one; Welcome to us now at the last […]...
- Love Thyself Last Love thyself last. Look near, behold thy duty To those who walk beside thee down life’s road; Make glad their days by little acts of beauty, And help them bear the burden of earth’s load. Love thyself last. Look far and find the stranger, Who staggers ‘neath his sin and his despair; Go lend a […]...
- Love and a Question A stranger came to the door at eve, And he spoke the bridegroom fair. He bore a green-white stick in his hand, And, for all burden, care. He asked with the eyes more than the lips For a shelter for the night, And he turned and looked at the road afar Without a window light. […]...
- Yesterday My friend says I was not a good son You understand I say yes I understand He says I did not go To see my parents very often you know And I say yes I know Even when I was living in the same city he says Maybe I would go there once A month […]...
- The Return Suddenly the window will open And Mother will call It’s time to come in The wall will part I will enter heaven in muddy shoes I will come to the table And answer questions rudely I am all right leave me Alone. Head in hand I Sit and sit. How can I tell them About […]...
- Symptoms of Love Love is universal migraine, A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason. Symptoms of true love Are leanness, jealousy, Laggard dawns; Are omens and nightmares – Listening for a knock, Waiting for a sign: For a touch of her fingers In a darkened room, For a searching look. Take courage, lover! Could you endure […]...
- All My Pretty Ones Father, this year’s jinx rides us apart Where you followed our mother to her cold slumber; A second shock boiling its stone to your heart, Leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber You from the residence you could not afford: A gold key, your half of a woolen mill, Twenty suits from Dunne’s, an English […]...
- Always Unsuitable She wore little teeth of pearls around her neck. They were grinning politely and evenly at me. Unsuitable they smirked. It is true I look a stuffed turkey in a suit. Breasts Too big for the silhouette. She knew At once that we had sex, lots of it As if I had strolled into her […]...
- I'd Love To Be A Fairy's Child Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their hearts desire: Jingle pockets full of gold, Marry when they’re seven years old. Every fairy child may keep Two ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; […]...
- Celebates They must not wed the Doctor said, For they were far from strong, And children of their marriage bed Might not live overlong. And yet each eve I saw them pass With rapt and eager air, As fit a seeming lad and lass As ought to pair. For twenty years I went away And scoured […]...
- Far from Love the Heavenly Father Far from Love the Heavenly Father Leads the Chosen Child, Oftener through Realm of Briar Than the Meadow mild. Oftener by the Claw of Dragon Than the Hand of Friend Guides the Little One predestined To the Native Land....
- Sex Without Love How do they do it, the ones who make love Without love? Beautiful as dancers, Gliding over each other like ice-skaters Over the ice, fingers hooked Inside each other’s bodies, faces Red as steak, wine, wet as the Children at birth whose mothers are going to Give them away. How do they come to the […]...
- Annie Marshall the Foundling Annie Marshall was a foundling, and lived in Downderry, And was trained up by a coast-guardsman, kind-hearted and merry And he loved Annie Marshall as dear as his life, And he resolved to make her his own loving wife. The night was tempestuous, most terrific, and pitch dark, When Matthew Pengelly rescued Annie Marshall from […]...
- Mid-Term Break I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o’clock our neighbors drove me home. In the porch I met my father crying He had always taken funerals in his stride And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. The baby cooed and laughed […]...
- Grass The living room is overgrown with grass. It has Come up around the furniture. It stretches through The dining room, past the swinging door into the Kitchen. It extends for miles and miles into the Walls. . . There’s treasure in grass, things dropped or put There; a stick of rust that was once a […]...
- Love (I) Immortal love, authour of this great frame, Sprung from that beautie which can never fade; How hath man parcel’d out thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made, While mortall love doth all the title gain! Which siding with invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain, […]...
- The Orphan My father and mother are dead, Nor friend, nor relation I know; And now the cold earth is their bed, And daisies will over them grow. I cast my eyes into the tomb, The sight made me bitterly cry; I said, “And is this the dark room, Where my father and mother must lie?” I […]...
- Lady Love She is standing on my eyelids And her hair is in my hair She has the color of my eye She has the body of my hand In my shade she is engulfed As a stone against the sky She will never close her eyes And she does not let me sleep And her dreams […]...