The End

Related poetry:

1. Washerwoman THE WASHERWOMAN is a member of the Salvation Army. And over the tub of suds rubbing underwear clean She sings that Jesus will wash her sins away And the red wrongs she has done God and man Shall be white as driven snow. Rubbing underwear she sings of the Last Great Washday....
2. Among Those Killed In The Dawn Raid Was A Man Aged A Hundred When the morning was waking over the war He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died, The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide, He dropped where he loved on the burst pavement stone And the funeral grains of the slaughtered floor. Tell his street on its back he stopped […]...
3. The Upstairs Room It must have been in March the rug wore through. Now the day passes and I stare At warped pine boards my father’s father nailed, At the twisted grain. Exposed, where emptiness allows, Are the wormholes of eighty years; four generations’ shoes Stumble and scrape and fall To the floor my father stained, The new […]...
4. A Hole In The Floor for Rene Magritte The carpenter’s made a hole In the parlor floor, and I’m standing Staring down into it now At four o’clock in the evening, As Schliemann stood when his shovel Knocked on the crowns of Troy. A clean-cut sawdust sparkles On the grey, shaggy laths, And here is a cluster of shavings >From […]...
5. The Last Words Of My English Grandmother There were some dirty plates And a glass of milk Beside her on a small table Near the rank, disheveled bed- Wrinkled and nearly blind She lay and snored Rousing with anger in her tones To cry for food, Gimme something to eat- They’re starving me- I’m all right I won’t go To the hospital. […]...
6. BLINDMAN'S BUFF OH, my Theresa dear! Thine eyes, I greatly fear, Can through the bandage see! Although thine eyes are bound, By thee I’m quickly found, And wherefore shouldst thou catch but me? Ere long thou held’st me fast, With arms around me cast, Upon thy breast I fell; Scarce was thy bandage gone, When all my […]...
7. Reapers Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His belly close to ground. […]...
8. Carl Hamblin The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked, And I was tarred and feathered, For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago: “I saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes Standing on the steps of a marble temple. Great multitudes passed in front of her, Lifting their faces to her […]...
9. SECOND POEM Morning again, nothing has to be done, maybe buy a piano or make fudge. At least clean the room up for sure like my farther I’ve done flick the ashes & butts over the bed side on the floor. But frist of all wipe my glasses and drink the water to clean the smelly mouth. […]...
10. The Bandaged Shoulder He said that he had hurt himself on a wall or that he had fallen. But there was probably another reason For the wounded and bandaged shoulder. With a somewhat abrupt movement, To bring down from a shelf some Photographs that he wanted to see closely, The bandage was untied and a little blood ran. […]...
11. Queen Elizabeth Speaks My hands were stained with blood, my heart was Proud and cold, My soul is black with shame. . . but I gave Shakespeare gold. So after aeons of flame, I may, by grace of God, Rise up to kiss the dust that Shakespeare’s feet have trod....
12. A Child's Nightmare Through long nursery nights he stood By my bed unwearying, Loomed gigantic, formless, queer, Purring in my haunted ear That same hideous nightmare thing, Talking, as he lapped my blood, In a voice cruel and flat, Saying for ever, “Cat! … Cat! … Cat!…” That one word was all he said, That one word through […]...
13. Eight O'Clock He stood, and heard the steeple Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town. One, two, three, four, to market-place and people It tossed them down. Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck....
14. Clean Hands IT is something to face the sun and know you are free. To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean: It is something. To go one day of your life among all men with clean hands, Clean for […]...
15. Flies I never kill a fly because I think that what we have of laws To regulate and civilize Our daily life – we owe to flies. Apropos, I’ll tell you of Choo, the spouse Of the head of the hunters, Wung; Such a beautiful cave they had for a house, And a brood of a […]...
16. Black On Black Serrations of chimneys Stone-black perforate Velvet-black dark. A tree coils in core of darkness. My swinging Hands Incise the night. A man slips into a doorway, Black hole in blackness, and drowns there. A second man passing traces The diagram of his steps On invisible pavement. Rain Draws black parallel threads Through the hollow of […]...
17. Something Has Fallen Something has fallen wordlessly And holds still on the black driveway. You find it, like a jewel, Among the empty bottles and cans Where the dogs toppled the garbage. You pick it up, not sure If it is stone or wood Or some new plastic made To replace them both. When you raise your sunglasses […]...
18. The Investiture GOD with a Roll of Honour in His hand Sits welcoming the heroes who have died, While sorrowless angels ranked on either side Stand easy in Elysium’s meadow-land. Then you come shyly through the garden gate, Wearing a blood-soaked bandage on your head; And God says something kind because you’re dead, And homesick, discontented with […]...
19. Christ Crucified Now ere I slept, my prayer had been that I might see my way To do the will of Christ, our Lord and Master, day by day; And with this prayer upon my lips, I knew not that I dreamed, But suddenly the world of night a pandemonium seemed. From forest, and from slaughter house, […]...
20. Driver Smith ‘Twas Driver Smith of Battery A was anxious to see a fight; He thought of the Transvaal all the day, he thought of it all the night “Well, if the battery’s left behind, I’ll go to the war,” says he, “I’ll go a-driving and ambulance in the ranks of the A. M. C. “I’m fairly […]...
21. The Flood Blood has been harder to dam back than water. Just when we think we have it impounded safe Behind new barrier walls (and let it chafe!), It breaks away in some new kind of slaughter. We choose to say it is let loose by the devil; But power of blood itself releases blood. It goes […]...
22. Return This little house sows the degrees By which wood can return to trees. Weather has stained the shingles dark And indistinguishable from bark. Lichen that long ago adjourned Its lodging here has now returned. And if you look in through the door You see a sapling through the floor....
23. A Week Later A week later, I said to a friend: I don’t Think I could ever write about it. Maybe in a year I could write something. There is something in me maybe someday To be written; now it is folded, and folded, And folded, like a note in school. And in my dream Someone was playing […]...
24. I Stood With the Dead I Stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still: When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead. And my slow heart said, ‘You must kill, you must kill: ‘Soldier, soldier, morning is red’. On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace I stared for a while through the thin cold rain… ‘O […]...
25. At Mass No doubt to-morrow I will hide My face from you, my King. Let me rejoice this Sunday noon, And kneel while gray priests sing. It is not wisdom to forget. But since it is my fate Fill thou my soul with hidden wine To make this white hour great. My God, my God, this marvelous […]...
26. To the Pay Toilet You strop my anger, especially When I find you in restaurant or bar And pay for the same liquid, coming and going. In bus depots and airports and turnpike plazas Some woman is dragging in with three kids hung off her Shrieking their simple urgency like gulls. She’s supposed to pay for each of them […]...
27. The Floor The floor is something we must fight against. Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human Stance, it is that place that men fall to. I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse; The pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face. But should I go dizzy I crash down into the […]...
28. I Want To Die In My Own Bed All night the army came up from Gilgal To get to the killing field, and that’s all. In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead. I want to die in My own bed. Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny, I’m always the few and they are the many. I must answer. […]...
29. The Fortune-Teller Down in the valley come meet me to-night, And I’ll tell you your fortune truly As ever ’twas told, by the new-moon’s light, To a young maiden, shining as newly. But, for the world, let no one be nigh, Lest haply the stars should deceive me, Such secrets between you and me and the sky […]...
30. Hard Rock Returns To Prison From The Hospital For The Criminal Insane Hard Rock/ was/ “known not to take no shit From nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it: Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut Across his temple and plowed through a thick Canopy of kinky hair. The WORD/ was/ that Hard Rock wasn’t a […]...
31. From The Long Sad Party Someone was saying Something about shadows covering the field, about How things pass, how one sleeps towards morning And the morning goes. Someone was saying How the wind dies down but comes back, How shells are the coffins of wind But the weather continues. It was a long night And someone said something about the […]...
32. The Death Of Santa Claus He’s had the chest pains for weeks, But doctors don’t make house Calls to the North Pole, He’s let his Blue Cross lapse, Blood tests make him faint, Hospital gown always flap Open, waiting rooms upset His stomach, and it’s only Indigestion anyway, he thinks, Until, feeding the reindeer, He feels as if a monster […]...
33. Winter-Time Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; Blinks but an hour or two; and then, A blood-red orange, sets again. Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise; And shivering in my nakedness, By the cold candle, bathe and dress. Close by the jolly fire I […]...
34. The Donkey When forests walked and fishes flew And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood, Then, surely, I was born. With monstrous head and sickening bray And ears like errant wings – The devil’s walking parody Of all four-footed things: The battered outlaw of the earth Of ancient crooked will; Scourge, beat, […]...
35. The 'Ole in the Ark One evening at dusk as Noah stood on his Ark, Putting green oil in starboard side lamp, His wife came along and said, ‘Noah, summat’s wrong, Our cabin is getting quite damp. Noah said, ‘Is that so?’ Then he went down below, And found it were right what she’d said, For there on the floor […]...
36. Girl (three) and the black horse i want to hold the horse’s string Cried the girl (three) stamping her foot Told by adults she was much too young The black horse stood staring at the wall It worries us you may get hurt The adults whispered – meaning to offer Comfort to the little madam (not convinced) The black horse stood […]...
37. The Listeners “Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grass Of the forest’s ferny floor; And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller’s head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; “Is there anybody there?” he said. […]...
38. The Rat As often as he let himself be seen We pitied him, or scorned him, or deplored The inscrutable profusion of the Lord Who shaped as one of us a thing so mean – Who made him human when he might have been A rat, and so been wholly in accord With any other creature we […]...
39. The Palm And The Pine From the German of Heine. In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone, Upon a wintry height; It sleeps: around it snows have thrown A covering of white. It dreams forever of a Palm That, far i’ the Morning-land, Stands silent in a most sad calm Midst of the burning sand....
40. The Dormouse and the Doctor There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red), And all the day long he’d a wonderful view Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue). A Doctor came hurrying round, and he said: “Tut-tut, I am sorry to find you in bed. Just say ‘Ninety-nine’ while I look at […]...