The Borders

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. Nursing You On the first night Of the full moon, The primeval sack of ocean Broke, & I gave birth to you Little woman, Little carrot top, Little turned-up nose, Pushing you out of myself As my mother Pushed Me out of herself, As her mother did, & her mother’s mother before her, All of us born […]...
3. Bat His awful skin Stretched out by some tradesman Is like my skin, here between my fingers, A kind of webbing, a kind of frog. Surely when first born my face was this tiny And before I was born surely I could fly. Not well, mind you, only a veil of skin From my arms to […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Song The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, Under the burden of dissatisfaction the weight, The weight we carry is love. Who can deny? In dreams It touches the body, In thought constructs A miracle, in imagination Anguishes till born In human Looks out of the heart burning with purity For […]...
6. On The Borders We’re driving across tableland Somewhere in the world; It is almost bare of trees. Upland near void of features Always moves me, but not to thought; It lets me rest from thinking. I feel no need to interpret it As if it were art. Too much Of poetry is criticism now. That hawk, clinging to […]...
7. The New Mistress “Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be? You may be good for something, but you are not good for me. Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here. And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear. “I will go where I […]...
8. The Consecrating Mother I stand before the sea And it rolls and rolls in its green blood Saying, “Do not give up one god For I have a handful.” The trade winds blew In their twelve-fingered reversal And I simply stood on the beach While the ocean made a cross of salt And hung up its drowned And […]...
9. His Dream I swayed upon the gaudy stem The butt-end of a steering-oar, And saw wherever I could turn A crowd upon a shore. And though I would have hushed the crowd, There was no mother’s son but said, “What is the figure in a shroud Upon a gaudy bed?’ And after running at the brim Cried […]...
10. Before I Knocked Before I knocked and flesh let enter, With liquid hands tapped on the womb, I who was as shapeless as the water That shaped the Jordan near my home Was brother to Mnetha’s daughter And sister to the fathering worm. I who was deaf to spring and summer, Who knew not sun nor moon by […]...
11. My Twins Of twin daughters I’m the mother – Lord! how I was proud of them; Each the image of the other, Like two lilies on one stem; But while May, my first-born daughter, Was angelic from the first, Different as wine and water, Maude, my second, seemed accurst. I’m a tender-hearted dame, Military is my bent; […]...
12. Daughter leaves and leaving call october home Her daughter releases wood Smoke from her skin Rich in scorpio Blood survived the first Flood each new year marks A circle around her Thick bark middle This the month summer and Winter fall into each Other and leave orange Yellow ashes The vibrancy of death Carry it all […]...
13. The Philosophers I think, therefore I am, said a man whose mother quickly Hit him on the head, saying, I hit my son on the head, Therefore I am. No no, you’ve got it all wrong, cried the man. So she hit him on the head again and cried, therefore I am. You’re not, not that way; […]...
14. Lois Spears Here lies the body of Lois Spears, Born Lois Fluke, daughter of Willard Fluke, Wife of Cyrus Spears, Mother of Myrtle and Virgil Spears, Children with clear eyes and sound limbs (I was born blind) I was the happiest of women As wife, mother and housekeeper, Caring for my loved ones, And making my home […]...
15. Prayer XXIII Then a priestess said, “Speak to us of Prayer.” And he answered, saying: You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? And if […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. The Gift of the Sea The dead child lay in the shroud, And the widow watched beside; And her mother slept, and the Channel swept The gale in the teeth of the tide. But the mother laughed at all. “I have lost my man in the sea, And the child is dead. Be still,” she said, “What more can ye […]...
18. Snow White's Acne At first she was sure it was just a bit of dried strawberry juice, Or a fleck of her mother’s red nail polish that had flaked off When she’d patted her daughter to sleep the night before. But as she scrubbed, Snow felt a bump, something festering Under the surface, like a tapeworm curled up […]...
19. The Changeling ( From The Tent on the Beach ) FOR the fairest maid in Hampton They needed not to search, Who saw young Anna favor Come walking into church, Or bringing from the meadows, At set of harvest-day, The frolic of the blackbirds, The sweetness of the hay. Now the weariest of all mothers, The saddest two years’ bride, She scowls in the face […]...
20. EIGHT EPITAPHS I. You liked your scrolls? — Here they are. The manuscript of your book? — Here it is. Your wine and figs? — Here they are. The portrait of your wife? — Here it is. Your garden and your house? — Here they are. The box you never opened? — Here it is. You are […]...
21. Two thursdays when the doctor came on a monday He looked at my mother and said There’s something seriously wrong here – She’s had a stroke – she’s almost dead It must have happened on thursday Why wasn’t i told before The busy rest home shook its head We thought she was drowsy – nothing more She […]...
22. Late, Late, So Late Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light had we: for that we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light: so late! […]...
23. 1492 Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate, Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword, The children of the prophets of the Lord, Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate. Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state, The West refused them, and the East abhorred. No anchorage the known world […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. The Locket From out her shabby rain-coat pocket The little Jew girl in the train Produced a dinted silver locket With pasted in it portraits twain. “These are my parents, sir” she said; “Or were, for now I fear they’re dead. “I know to Belsen they were sent; I never heard of them again. So many were […]...
26. Siren I became a criminal when I fell in love. Before that I was a waitress. I didn’t want to go to Chicago with you. I wanted to marry you, I wanted Your wife to suffer. I wanted her life to be like a play In which all the parts are sad parts. Does a good […]...
27. Gates and Doors (For Richardson Little Wright) There was a gentle hostler (And blessed be his name!) He opened up the stable The night Our Lady came. Our Lady and Saint Joseph, He gave them food and bed, And Jesus Christ has given him A glory round his head. So let the gate swing open However poor the […]...
28. Ditty of First Desire In the green morning I wanted to be a heart. A heart. And in the ripe evening I wanted to be a nightingale. A nightingale. (Soul, Turn orange-colored. Soul, Turn the color of love.) In the vivid morning I wanted to be myself. A heart. And at the evening’s end I wanted to be my […]...
29. To My Mother Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of “Mother,” Therefore by that dear name I long have called you- You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death […]...
30. Rapunzel A woman Who loves a woman Is forever young. The mentor And the student Feed off each other. Many a girl Had an old aunt Who locked her in the study To keep the boys away. They would play rummy Or lie on the couch And touch and touch. Old breast against young breast… Let […]...
31. Little Pierre's Song In a humble room in London sat a pretty little boy, By the bedside of his sick mother her only joy, Who was called Little Pierre, and who’s father was dead; There he sat poor boy, hungry and crying for bread. There he sat humming a little song, which was his own, But to the […]...
32. Elizabeth Gone 1. You lay in the nest of your real death, Beyond the print of my nervous fingers Where they touched your moving head; Your old skin puckering, your lungs’ breath Grown baby short as you looked up last At my face swinging over the human bed, And somewhere you cried, let me go let me […]...
33. The Night I Was Going To Die the night I was going to die I was sweating on the bed And I could hear the crickets And there was a cat fight outside And I could feel my soul dropping down through the Mattress And just before it hit the floor I jumped up I was almost too weak to walk But […]...
34. Wedding Each strips his own skin Each bares his own constellation Which has never seen the night Each fills his skin with rocks And plays with it Lit by his own stars Who doesn’t stop till dawn Who doesn’t bat an eyelid or fall Earns his own skin (This game is rarely played)...
35. MATINS, OR MORNING PRAYER When with the virgin morning thou dost rise, Crossing thyself come thus to sacrifice; First wash thy heart in innocence; then bring Pure hands, pure habits, pure, pure every thing. Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thence Give up thy soul in clouds of frankincense. Thy golden censers fill’d with odours sweet Shall make […]...
36. Plus Intra Soul within sense, immeasurable, obscure, Insepulchred and deathless, through the dense Deep elements may scarce be felt as pure Soul within sense. From depth and height by measurers left immense, Through sound and shape and colour, comes the unsure Vague utterance, fitful with supreme suspense. All that may pass, and all that must endure, Song […]...
37. The Singing-Woman From The Wood's Edge What should I be but a prophet and a liar, Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar? Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water, What should I be but the fiend’s god-daughter? And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog, That was got beneath a furze-bush and […]...
38. The Breast This is the key to it. This is the key to everything. Preciously. I am worse than the gamekeeper’s children Picking for dust and bread. Here I am drumming up perfume. Let me go down on your carpet, Your straw mattress whatever’s at hand Because the child in me is dying, dying. It is not […]...
39. I have fallen into unconsciousness I have got out of my own control, I have fallen into unconsciousness; in my utter unconsciousness how joyful I am with myself! The darling sewed up my eyes so that I might not see other than him, so that suddenly I opened my eyes on his face. My soul fought with me saying, “Do […]...
40. 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 […]...