The Position

Related poetry:

1. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
2. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
3. Her News You paused for a moment and I heard you smoking On the other end of the line. I pictured your expression, One eye screwed shut against the smoke As you waited for my reaction. I was waiting for it myself, a list of my own news Gone suddenly cold in my hand. Supposing my wife […]...
4. Distressed Haiku In a week or ten days The snow and ice Will melt from Cemetery Road. I’m coming! Don’t move! Once again it is April. Today is the day We would have been married Twenty-six years. I finished with April Halfway through March. You think that their Dying is the worst Thing that could happen. Then […]...
5. Anseo When the master was calling the roll At the primary school in Collegelands, You were meant to call back Anseo And raise your hand As your name occurred. Anseo, meaning here, here and now, All present and correct, Was the first word of Irish I spoke. The last name on the ledger Belonged to Joseph […]...
6. Hostel Beach, Oneroa The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach, If the tide was out you’d reach a tiny bay beyond The cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete For blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood; A risky place to contemplate the games we planned, We […]...
7. Dream Song 54: 'NO VISITORS' I thumb the roller to ‘NO VISITORS’ I thumb the roller to And leans against the door. Comfortable in my horseblanket I prop on the costly bed & dream of my wife, My first wife, And my second wife & my son. Insulting, they put guardrails up, As if it were a crib! I growl at the head nurse; we […]...
8. An Empty Crib Beside a crib that holds a baby’s stocking, A tattered picture book, a broken toy, A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking Her fair-haired cherub boy. Upon the cradle’s side her light touch keeping, She gently rocks it, crooning low a song; And smiles to think her little one is sleeping, So peacefully and […]...
9. Some time Last night, my darling, as you slept, I thought I heard you sigh, And to your little crib I crept, And watched a space thereby; And then I stooped and kissed your brow, For oh! I love you so You are too young to know it now, But some time you shall know! Some time […]...
10. Behavior BEHAVIOR-fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself, Nature and the Soul expressed-America and freedom expressed-In it the finest art, In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance, In it physique, intellect, faith-in it just as much as to manage an army or a city, or to write a book-perhaps more, The youth, […]...
11. The Missal Makers To visit the Escurial We took a motor bus, And there a guide mercurial Took charge of us. He showed us through room after room, And talked hour after hour, Of place, crypt and royal tomb, Of pomp and power. But in bewilderment of grace What pleased me most of all Were ancient missals proud […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. Dream Song 26: The glories of the world struck me The glories of the world struck me, made me aria, once. Гўв‚”What happen then, Mr Bones? If be you cares to say. Гўв‚”Henry. Henry became interested in women’s bodies, His loins were & were the scene of stupendous achievement. Stupor. Knees, dear. Pray. All the knobs & softnesses of, my God, The ducking & trouble […]...
14. Monotony One monotonous day is followed By another monotonous, identical day. The same Things will happen, they will happen again The same moments find us and leave us. A month passes and ushers in another month. One easily guesses the coming events; They are the boring ones of yesterday. And the morrow ends up not resembling […]...
15. Judge Somers How does it happen, tell me, That I who was the most erudite of lawyers, Who knew Blackstone and Coke Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech The court-house ever heard, and wrote A brief that won the praise of Justice Breese How does it happen, tell me, That I lie here unmarked, forgotten, […]...
16. In soothing, sweetened words No, she said, I never knew it was your first. It doesn’t Matter anyway. I always had an inkling that we’d find A way. And then we did. I’m glad about it just for that. Whether it was good or bad, or would have happened Had we made a pact or that it should have […]...
17. The Hand Throughout my life I see A guiding hand; The pitfalls set for me Were grimly planned. But always when and where They opened wide, Someone who seemed to care Stood by my side. When up the pathway dark I stumbled on, Afar, ahead a spark Of guidance shone. When forked the tragic trail And sad […]...
18. The Geniuses Among Us They take us by surprise, these tall perennials That jut like hollyhocks above the canopy Of all the rest of us-bright testimonials To the scale of human possibility. They come to bloom for every generation, Blazing with extraordinary notions From the taproots of imagination- Dazzling us with incandescent visions. And soon, the things we never […]...
19. 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...
20. Memory Of Sun Memory of sun seeps from the heart. Grass grows yellower. Faintly if at all the early snowflakes Hover, hover. Water becoming ice is slowing in The narrow channels. Nothing at all will happen here again, Will ever happen. Against the sky the willow spreads a fan The silk’s torn off. Maybe it’s better I did […]...
21. Strayed Crab This is not my home. How did I get so far from water? It must Be over that way somewhere. I am the color of wine, of tinta. The inside of my powerful Right claw is saffron-yellow. See, I see it now; I wave it like a Flag. I am dapper and elegant; I move […]...
22. Now I sit here on the 2nd floor Hunched over in yellow Pajamas Still pretending to be A writer. Some damned gall, At 71, My brain cells eaten Away by Life. Rows of books Behind me, I scratch my thinning Hair And search for the Word. For decades now I have infuriated the Ladies, The critics, […]...
23. 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...
24. Procreation It hurts my pride that I should be The issue of a night of lust; Yet even Bishops, you’ll agree, Obey the biologic ‘must’; Though no doubt with more dignity Than we of layman dust. I think the Lord made a mistake When he designed the human race, That man and angel in the make […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Having it Out with Melancholy 1FROM THE NURSERY When I was born, you waited Behind a pile of linen in the nursery, And when we were alone, you lay down On top of me, pressing The bile of desolation into every pore. And from that day on Everything under the sun and moon Made me sad even the yellow Wooden […]...
27. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
28. The Reason Why The Closet-Man Is Never Sad This is the house of the closet-man. There are no rooms, Just hallways and closets. Things happen in rooms. He does not like things to Happen. . . Closets, you take things out of closets, You put things into closets, and nothing happens. . . Why do you have such a strange house? I am […]...
29. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
30. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
31. Crying to be written Dawn has reached the ridges to the north and a thin Line of light chased the night west; it is the best Time of day for me – a cup of coffee, Benson & Scud Pretending to sleep in their baskets at my feet, I am seated, ready to write knowing the lounge fire Is […]...
32. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
33. 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...
34. Sunt Leones The lions who ate the Christians on the sands of the arena By indulging native appetites played was now been seen a Not entirely negligible part In consolidating at the very start The position of the Early Christian Church. Initiatory rights are always bloody In the lions, it appears From contemporary art, made a study […]...
35. Dream Song 76: Henry's Confession Nothin very bad happen to me lately. How you explain that? —I explain that, Mr Bones, Terms o’ your bafflin odd sobriety. Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones, What could happen bad to Mr Bones? €”If life is a handkerchief sandwich, In a modesty of death I join my father Who dared […]...
36. Romulus and Remus Oh, little did the Wolf-Child care When first he planned his home, What City should arise and bear The weight and state of Rome. A shiftless, westward-wandering tramp, Checked by the Tiber flood, He reared a wall around his camp Of uninspired mud. But when his brother leaped the Wall And mocked its height and […]...
37. PREMATURE SPRING DAYS full of rapture, Are ye renew’d? Smile in the sunlight Mountain and wood? Streams richer laden Flow through the dale, Are these the meadows? Is this the vale? Coolness cerulean! Heaven and height! Fish crowd the ocean, Golden and bright. Birds of gay plumage Sport in the grove, Heavenly numbers Singing above. Under the […]...
38. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
39. In Black Despair In grayish doubt and black despair, I drafted hymns to the earth and the air, Pretending to joy, although I lacked it. The age had made lament redundant. So here’s the question who can answer it Was he a brave man or a hypocrite?...
40. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....