Limbo

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1. Limbo The sole true Something This! In Limbo Den It frightens Ghosts as Ghosts here frighten men For skimming in the wake it mock’d the care Of the old Boat-God for his Farthing Fare ; Tho’ Irus’ Ghost itself he ne’er frown’d blacker on, The skin and skin-pent Druggist crost the Acheron, Styx, and with Puriphlegethon […]...
2. Our biggest fish When in the halcyon days of old, I was a little tyke, I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and the like; And oh, the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I’d caught! And, oh, the indignation and the valor I’d […]...
3. Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell Down through the tomb’s inward arch He has shouldered out into Limbo To gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber: The merciful dead, the prophets, The innocents just His own age and those Unnumbered others waiting here Unaware, in an endless void He is ending Now, stooping to tug at their hands, To pull them from […]...
4. Lullaby For The Cat Minnow, go to sleep and dream, Close your great big eyes; Round your bed Events prepare The pleasantest surprise. Darling Minnow, drop that frown, Just cooperate, Not a kitten shall be drowned In the Marxist State. Joy and Love will both be yours, Minnow, don’t be glum. Happy days are coming soon Sleep, and let […]...
5. Kicks The fishermen on Lake Michigan, sometimes, For kicks, they spit two hunks of bait on hooks At either end of a single length of line And toss that up among the scavenging gulls, Who go for it so fast that often two of them Make the connection before it hits the water. Hooked and hung […]...
6. Dutch lullaby Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe, Sailed on a river of misty light Into a sea of dew. “Where are you going, and what do you wish?” The old moon asked the three. “We have come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of […]...
7. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe, Sailed on a river of crystal light Into a sea of dew. “Where are you going, and what do you wish?” The old moon asked the three. “We have come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of […]...
8. Letter to My Lover After Seven Years You gave me the child That seamed my belly & stitched up my life. You gave me: one book of love poems, Five years of peace & two of pain. You gave me darkness, light, laughter & the certain knowledge That we someday die. You gave me seven years During which the cells of my […]...
9. The Little Turtle A Recitation for Martha Wakefield, Three Years Old There was a little turtle. He lived in a box. He swam in a puddle. He climbed on the rocks. He snapped at a mosquito. He snapped at a flea. He snapped at a minnow. And he snapped at me. He caught the mosquito. He caught the […]...
10. A BREAK IN THE RHYTHM OF LIFE Bhaskar Roy Barman When the world itself looked exhausted, Revolving round the sun; When a bumble-bee sounded tired Of humming round a ternate leaf; When a few fishermen were venting their rage on their net -they looked fed up of mending their net off and on – And when the fish were leaping and playing […]...
11. Fisherfolk I like to look at fishermen And oftentimes I wish One would be lucky now and then And catch a little fish. I watch them statuesquely stand, And at the water look; But if they pull their float to land It’s just to bait a hook. I ponder the psychology That roots them in their […]...
12. Hymn 106 Dead to sin by the cross of Christ. Rom. 6:1,2,6. Shall we go on to sin Because thy grace abounds; Or crucify the Lord again, And open all his wounds? Forbid it, mighty God! Nor let it e’er be said, That we whose sins are crucified Should raise them from the dead. We will be […]...
13. Helen all Alone “In the Same Boat” A Diversity of Creatures There was darkness under Heaven For an hour’s space Darkness that we knew was given Us for special grace. Sun and noon and stars were hid, God had left His Throne, When Helen came to me, she did, Helen all alone! Side by side (because our fate […]...
14. Water It was a Maine lobster town- Each morning boatloads of hands Pushed off for granite Quarries on the islands, And left dozens of bleak White frame houses stuck Like oyster shells On a hill of rock, And below us, the sea lapped The raw little match-stick Mazes of a weir, Where the fish for bait […]...
15. Salutation O generation of the thoroughly smug and thoroughly uncomfortable, I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun, I have seen them with untidy families, I have seen their smiles full of teeth and heard ungainly laughter. And I am happier than you are, And they were happier than I am; And the fish swim in […]...
16. The Golden Hook Two fish float: One slowly downstream Into the warm Currents of the known The other tugging Against the stream, Disconsolate twin, The golden Marriage hook Tearing its throat....
17. The Bait Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove, Of golden sand, and crystal brooks, With silken lines and silver hooks. There will the river whispering run, Warmed by thy eyes more than the sun. And there the enamoured fish will stay. Begging themselves they may betray. When wilt […]...
18. Crab When I eat crab, slide the rosy Rubbery claw across my tongue I think of my mother. She’d drive down To the edge of the Bay, tiny woman in a Huge car, she’d ask the crab-man to Crack it for her. She’d stand and wait as the Pliers broke those chalky homes, wild- Red and […]...
19. The Purse-Seine Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark of the moon; daylight or moonlight They could not tell where to spread the net, unable to see the phosphorescence of the shoals of fish. They work northward from Monterey, coasting Santa Cruz; off New Year’s Point or off Pigeon Point The look-out man will see […]...
20. Lines On The Mermaid Tavern Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host’s Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison? O generous food! Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with […]...
21. 45 Mercy Street In my dream, Drilling into the marrow Of my entire bone, My real dream, I’m walking up and down Beacon Hill Searching for a street sign Namely MERCY STREET. Not there. I try the Back Bay. Not there. Not there. And yet I know the number. 45 Mercy Street. I know the stained-glass window Of […]...
22. Meeting Among the Mountains The little pansies by the road have turned Away their purple faces and their gold, And evening has taken all the bees from the thyme, And all the scent is shed away by the cold. Against the hard and pale blue evening sky The mountain’s new-dropped summer snow is clear Glistening in steadfast stillness: like […]...
23. A Wreath To The Fish Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth, Flat on my drainboard, dead asleep, Its suit of mail proof only against the stream? What is it to live in a stream, To dwell forever in a tunnel of cold, Never to leave your shining birthsuit, Never to spend your inheritance of thin coins? And who […]...
24. A Kiss One wave falling forward meets another wave falling Forward. Well-water, Hand-hauled, mineral, cool, could be A kiss, or pastures Fiery green after rain, before The grazers. The kiss like a shoal of fish whipped One way, another way, like the fever dreams Of a million monkeys the kiss Carry me closer than your carotid artery […]...
25. It don't sound so terrible quite as it did It don’t sound so terrible quite as it did I run it over “Dead”, Brain, “Dead.” Put it in Latin left of my school Seems it don’t shriek so under rule. Turn it, a little full in the face A Trouble looks bitterest Shift it just Say “When Tomorrow comes this way I shall have […]...
26. The Red Flower In the pleasant time of Pentecost, By the little river Kyll, I followed the angler’s winding path Or waded the stream at will, And the friendly fertile German land Lay round me green and still. But all day long on the eastern bank Of the river cool and clear, Where the curving track of the […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Bear In There There’s a Polar Bear In our Frigidaire He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there. With his seat in the meat And his face in the fish And his big hairy paws In the buttery dish, He’s nibbling the noodles, He’s munching the rice, He’s slurping the soda, He’s licking the ice. And he lets […]...
29. Canto XLIX For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses: Rain; empty river; a voyage, Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight Under the cabin roof was one lantern. The reeds are heavy; bent; And the bamboos speak as if weeping. Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes Against sunset Evening is like a […]...
30. Yes, the Dead Speak to Us YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the […]...
31. Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife, Our chance to live depends on such a sign While others talk and The Pentagon from the moon Is bouncing exact commands: “Forget your faith; Be ready for whatever […]...
32. A Paumanok Picture TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, Ten fishermen waiting-they discover a thick school of mossbonkers-they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water, The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers, The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop […]...
33. I'm In Love she’s young, she said, But look at me, I have pretty ankles, And look at my wrists, I have pretty Wrists O my god, I thought it was all working, And now it’s her again, Every time she phones you go crazy, You told me it was over You told me it was finished, Listen, […]...
34. The Cross-Roads A bullet through his heart at dawn. On The table a letter signed With a woman’s name. A wind that goes howling round the House, And weeping as in shame. Cold November dawn peeping through The windows, Cold dawn creeping over the floor, creeping up his cold legs, Creeping over his cold body, creeping across […]...
35. If I may have it, when it's dead If I may have it, when it’s dead, I’ll be contented so If just as soon as Breath is out It shall belong to me Until they lock it in the Grave, ‘Tis Bliss I cannot weigh For tho’ they lock Thee in the Grave, Myself can own the key Think of it Lover! I […]...
36. In The Deep Museum My God, my God, what queer corner am I in? Didn’t I die, blood running down the post, Lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin Of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost? Surely my body is done? Surely I died? And yet, I know, I’m here. What place is this? Cold […]...
37. Agnostic The chapel looms against the sky, Above the vine-clad shelves, And as the peasants pass it by They cross themselves. But I alone, I grieve to state, Lack sentiment divine: A citified sophisticate, I make no sign. Their gesture may a habit be, Mechanic in a sense, Yet somehow it awakes in me Strange reverence. […]...
38. The Curse Oh, lay my ashes on the wind That blows across the sea. And I shall meet a fisherman Out of Capri, And he will say, seeing me, “What a Strange Thing! Like a fish’s scale or a Butterfly’s wing.” Oh, lay my ashes on the wind That blows away the fog. And I shall meet […]...
39. And you love me And you love me I love you. You are, then, cold coward. Aye; but, beloved, When I strive to come to you, Man’s opinions, a thousand thickets, My interwoven existence, My life, Caught in the stubble of the world Like a tender veil This stays me. No strange move can I make Without noise of […]...
40. Prayer You talk o’ prayer an’ such – Well, I jest don’t know how; I guess I got as much Religion as a cow. I fight an’ drink an’ swear; Red hell I often raise, But never said a prayer In all my days. I’m honest, right enough; Don’t take no stock in crimes; I’m jest […]...