The Philosophers

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1. 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...
2. THE PHILOSOPHERS Lavender musk rose from the volume I was reading through, The college crest impressed in gold, tooled gold lettering on the spine. It was not mine but my son’s, jammed in the corner of a cardboard box With dozens more; just one box of a score, stored in a heap Across my ex-wife’s floor, our […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. The Artist All day with brow of anxious thought The dictionary through, Amid a million words he sought The sole one that would do. He wandered on from pub to pub Yet never ceased to seek With burning brain and pencil stub The Word Unique. Said he: ‘I’ll nail it down or die. Oh Heaven help me, […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. The Touch For months my hand was sealed off In a tin box. Nothing was there but the subway railings. Perhaps it is bruised, I thought, And that is why they have locked it up. You could tell time by this, I thought, Like a clock, by its five knuckles And the thin underground veins. It lay […]...
9. Mother, Among The Dustbins Mother, among the dustbins and the manure I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure As of the presence of God, I am sure In the dustbins, in the manure, in the cat at play, Is the presence of God, in a sure way He moves there. Mother, what do you say? I too […]...
10. Elsa Wertman I was a peasant girl from Germany, Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong. And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene’s. On a summer’s day when she was away He stole into the kitchen and took me Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat, I turning my head. Then neither of […]...
11. Love stopped before it began It would have been love, I am sure of it, And I held her hand torn between concern and pride Whilst she cried and cried on her first day at school. We walked to where her brother mowed the lawns With many others, racing with their mowers At manic speed in tight formation. Fascination Dared […]...
12. A Domestic Tragedy Clorinda met me on the way As I came from the train; Her face was anything but gay, In fact, suggested pain. “Oh hubby, hubby dear!” she cried, “I’ve awful news to tell. . . .” “What is it, darling?” I replied; “Your mother is she well?” “Oh no! oh no! it is not that, […]...
13. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
14. Not yet 40, my beard is already white Not yet 40, my beard is already white. Not yet awake, my eyes are puffy and red, Like a child who has cried too much. What is more disagreeable Than last night’s wine? I’ll shave. I’ll stick my head in the cold spring and Look around at the pebbles. Maybe I can eat a can […]...
15. PEACEFUL GROUND Cool Morning spit on bladed grass. A Thousand silky fingers tickling toes. The strong scent of natures freshly cut hair. Mans spiritual stamping groung toward inner Peace....
16. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 6. One writes, that Other Friends Rem One writes, that “Other friends remain,” That “Loss is common to the race” And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more. Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break. O father, wheresoe’er thou be, […]...
17. Roscoe Purkapile She loved me. Oh! how she loved me! I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me. But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out, Or she might divorce me. But few die, none resign. Then I ran away and was […]...
18. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
19. Sonnet XXXIII GReat wrong I doe, I can it not deny, To that most sacred Empresse my dear dred, Not finishing her Queene of faery, That mote enlarge her liuing prayses dead: But lodwick, this of grace to me aread: Doe ye not thinck th’accomplishment of it, Sufficient worke for one mans simple head, All were it […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. The Pannikin Poet There’s nothing here sublime, But just a roving rhyme, Run off to pass the time, With nought titanic in. The theme that it supports, And, though it treats of quarts, It’s bare of golden thoughts It’s just a pannikin. I think it’s rather hard That each Australian bard Each wan, poetic card With thoughts galvanic […]...
22. It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon The Flower distinct and Red I, passing, thought another Noon Another in its stead Will equal glow, and thought no More But came another Day To find the Species disappeared The Same Locality The Sun in place no other fraud On Nature’s perfect Sum Had I but lingered […]...
23. The Storm I Ran to the forest for shelter, Breathless, half sobbing; I put my arms round a tree, Pillowed my head against the rough bark. “Protect me,” I said. “I am a lost child.” But the tree showered silver drops on my face and hair. A wind sprang up from the ends of the earth; It […]...
24. Song of Myself I was a Poet! But I did not know it, Neither did my Mother, Nor my Sister nor my Brother. The Rich were not aware of it; The Poor took no care of it. The Reverend Mr. Drewitt Never knew it. The High did not suspect it; The Low could not detect it. Aunt Sue […]...
25. By the Earth's Corpse I “O Lord, why grievest Thou? – Since Life has ceased to be Upon this globe, now cold As lunar land and sea, And humankind, and fowl, and fur Are gone eternally, All is the same to Thee as ere They knew mortality.” II “O Time,” replied the Lord, “Thou read’st me ill, I ween; […]...
26. 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...
27. The Bridge In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones. Before crossing he writes a letter to his mother: Dear mother, Guess what? the ape accidentally bit off one of his hands while Eating a banana. Just now I am at the foot of a bone bridge. I Shall be crossing it shortly. […]...
28. The Oldest Drama “It fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And. . . he sat on her knees till noon, And then died. And she went up, and laid […]...
29. The Ballad Of The Harp-Weaver “Son,” said my mother, When I was knee-high, “you’ve need of clothes to cover you, And not a rag have I. “There’s nothing in the house To make a boy breeches, Nor shears to cut a cloth with, Nor thread to take stitches. “There’s nothing in the house But a loaf-end of rye, And a […]...
30. The night wind Have you ever heard the wind go “Yooooo”? ‘T is a pitiful sound to hear! It seems to chill you through and through With a strange and speechless fear. ‘T is the voice of the night that broods outside When folk should be asleep, And many and many’s the time I’ve cried To the darkness […]...
31. My Vision Wherever my feet may wander Wherever I chance to be, There comes, with the coming of even’ time A vision sweet to me. I see my mother sitting In the old familiar place, And she rocks to the tune her needles sing, And thinks of an absent face. I can hear the roar of the […]...
32. Mother o' Mine If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! I know whose love would follow me still, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! If I were drowned in the deepest sea, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! I know whose tears would come down to me, Mother […]...
33. The Sleeper As Ann came in one summer’s day, She felt that she must creep, So silent was the clear cool house, It seemed a house of sleep. And sure, when she pushed open the door, Rapt in the stillness there, Her mother sat, with stooping head, Asleep upon a chair; Fast fast asleep; her two hands […]...
34. 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...
35. Charlene-n-Booker 4ever And the old men, supervising grown grandsons, nephews, Any man a boy given this chance of making A new sidewalk outside the apartment building where Some of them live, three old men and their wives, The aging unmarrying children, and the child Who is a cousin, whose mother has sent her here Because she doesn’t […]...
36. Little all-aloney Little All-Aloney’s feet Pitter-patter in the hall, And his mother runs to meet And to kiss her toddling sweet, Ere perchance he fall. He is, oh, so weak and small! Yet what danger shall he fear When his mother hovereth near, And he hears her cheering call: “All-Aloney”? Little All-Aloney’s face It is all aglow […]...
37. The Borders To say that she came into me, From another world, is not true. Nothing comes into the universe And nothing leaves it. My mother-I mean my daughter did not Enter me. She began to exist Inside me-she appeared within me. And my mother did not enter me. When she lay down, to pray, on me, […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. In Trouble 1 It’s all for nothing: I’ve lost im now. 2 I suppose it ad to be: 3 But oh I never thought it of im, 4 Nor e never thought it of me. 5 And all for a kiss on your evening out 6 An a field where the grass was down… 7 And e […]...
40. 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 […]...