The Pact

Related poetry:

1. A Pact I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman I have detested you long enough. I come to you as a grown child Who has had a pig-headed father; I am old enough now to make friends. It was you that broke the new wood, Now is a time for carving. We have one sap and […]...
2. The Free-Selector's Daughter I met her on the Lachlan Side A darling girl I thought her, And ere I left I swore I’d win The free-selector’s daughter. I milked her father’s cows a month, I brought the wood and water, I mended all the broken fence, Before I won the daughter. I listened to her father’s yarns, I […]...
3. Forgive Me Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. Forgive me if I have laughed In your chapels, Forgive me if I have slammed The hospital door, Forgive me for the noise, For life, For the love to which I have no right. Forgive me for not resembling you....
4. One Day Today I have been happy. All the day I held the memory of you, and wove Its laughter with the dancing light o’ the spray, And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love, And sent you following the white waves of sea, And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth, Stray buds from that […]...
5. Advice to a young sylv-i-an dragon on going to school when you step out of the wood and go first time to school You have to be so specially careful if you’re really a dragon To put the most innocent expression on your face you can find And not flip your flappers (unless the others don’t mind) You must be very strict with yourself – […]...
6. The Flowers All the names I know from nurse: Gardener’s garters, Shepherd’s purse, Bachelor’s buttons, Lady’s smock, And the Lady Hollyhock. Fairy places, fairy things, Fairy woods where the wild bee wings, Tiny trees for tiny dames These must all be fairy names! Tiny woods below whose boughs Shady fairies weave a house; Tiny tree-tops, rose or […]...
7. Grumpy Grandpa Grand-daughter of the Painted Nails, As if they had been dipped in gore, I’d like to set you lugging pails And make you scrub the kitchen floor. I’m old and crotchety of course, And on this point my patience fails; I’d sue my old girl for divorce If she showed up with painted nails. Grand-daughter […]...
8. Passers-By PASSERS-BY, Out of your many faces Flash memories to me Now at the day end Away from the sidewalks Where your shoe soles traveled And your voices rose and blend To form the city’s afternoon roar Hindering an old silence. Passers-by, I remember lean ones among you, Throats in the clutch of a hope, Lips […]...
9. My Kingdom Down by a shining water well I found a very little dell, No higher than my head. The heather and the gorse about In summer bloom were coming out, Some yellow and some red. I called the little pool a sea; The little hills were big to me; For I am very small. I made […]...
10. The Expatriates My dear, it was a moment To clutch for a moment So that you may believe in it And believing is the act of love, I think, Even in the telling, wherever it went. In the false New England forest Where the misplanted Norwegian trees Refused to root, their thick synthetic Roots barging out of […]...
11. To One denied the drink To One denied the drink To tell what Water is Would be acuter, would it not Than letting Him surmise? To lead Him to the Well And let Him hear it drip Remind Him, would it not, somewhat Of His condemned lip?...
12. Two Truths Darling,’ he said, ‘I never meant To hurt you;’ and his eyes were wet. ‘I would not hurt you for the world: Am I to blame if I forget?’ ‘Forgive my selfish tears!’ she cried, ‘Forgive! I knew that it was not Because you meant to hurt me, sweet- I knew it was that you […]...
13. Larry Levis My poem would eat nothing. I tried giving it water But it said no, Worrying me. Day after day, I held it up to the llight, Turning it over, But it only pressed its lips More tightly together. It grew sullen, like a toad Through with being teased. I offered it money, My clothes, my […]...
14. Variations On A Theme By William Carlos Williams 1 I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer. I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do And its wooden beams were so inviting. 2 We laughed at the hollyhocks together And then I sprayed them with lye. Forgive me. I simply do […]...
15. Epitaph In The Form Of A Ballade Freres humains qui apres nous vivez, N’ayez les coeurs contre nous endurcis… Men, brother men, that after us yet live, Let not your hearts too hard against us be; For if some pity of us poor men ye give, The sooner God shall take of you pity. Here are we five or six strung up, […]...
16. Uhland's There were three cavaliers that went over the Rhine, And gayly they called to the hostess for wine. “And where is thy daughter? We would she were here, Go fetch us that maiden to gladden our cheer!” “I’ll fetch thee thy goblets full foaming,” she said, “But in yon darkened chamber the maiden lies dead.” […]...
17. The Lost Master “And when I come to die,” he said, “Ye shall not lay me out in state, Nor leave your laurels at my head, Nor cause your men of speech orate; No monument your gift shall be, No column in the Hall of Fame; But just this line ye grave for me: ‘He played the game.'” […]...
18. Confirmation He was a poet who wrote clever verses, And folks said he had a fine poetical taste; But his father, a practical farmer, accused him Of letting the strength of his arm go to waste. He called on his sweetheart each Saturday evening, As pretty a maiden as ever man faced, And there he confirmed […]...
19. Tears In Sleep All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day, And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger’s breast, Shed tears, like a task not to be put away – In the false light, false grief in my happy bed, A labor of tears, set against joy’s undoing. I would not wake at […]...
20. Our Eyes Our eyes are limpid drops of water. In each drop exists a tiny sign of our genius Which has given life to cold iron. Our eyes are limpid drops of water Merged absolutely in the Ocean That you could hardly recognize the drop in a block of ice in a boiling pan. The masterpiece of […]...
21. The Break Away Your daisies have come On the day of my divorce: The courtroom a cement box, A gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me And a perhaps land, a possibly promised land For the Jew in me, But still a betrayal room for the till-death-do-us- And yet a death, as in the unlocking of scissors […]...
22. The Dictators An odor has remained among the sugarcane: A mixture of blood and body, a penetrating Petal that brings nausea. Between the coconut palms the graves are full Of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles. The delicate dictator is talking With top hats, gold braid, and collars. The tiny palace gleams like a watch And the rapid […]...
23. Account of a Visit From ST. Nicholas “Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads, […]...
24. Sestina September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother Sits in the kitchen with the child Beside the Little Marvel Stove, Reading the jokes from the almanac, Laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears And the rain that beats on the roof of the house […]...
25. A Hymn To God The Father Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which is my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more. Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I […]...
26. Bingo The daughter of the village Maire Is very fresh and very fair, A dazzling eyeful; She throws upon me such a spell That though my love I dare not tell, My heart is sighful. She has the cutest brown caniche, The French for “poodle” on a leash, While I have Bingo; A dog of doubtful […]...
27. A dull sound, varying now and again And then we began eating corn starch, Chalk chewed wet into sirup. We pilfered Argo boxes stored away to stiffen My white dress shirt, and my cousin And I played or watched TV, no longer annoyed By the din of never cooling afternoons. On the way home from church one fifth Sunday, Shirt outside my […]...
28. The Iron Bridge I am standing on a disused iron bridge That was erected in 1902, According to the iron plaque bolted into a beam, The year my mother turned one. Imagine a mother in her infancy, And she was a Canadian infant at that, One of the great infants of the province of Ontario. But here I […]...
29. The Double Image 1. I am thirty this November. You are still small, in your fourth year. We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer, Flapping in the winter rain. Falling flat and washed. And I remember Mostly the three autumns you did not live here. They said I’d never get you back again. I tell you what […]...
30. Inland People that build their houses inland, People that buy a plot of ground Shaped like a house, and build a house there, Far from the sea-board, far from the sound Of water sucking the hollow ledges, Tons of water striking the shore,- What do they long for, as I long for One salt smell of […]...
31. The Colonel What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His Daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the Night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol On the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on Its black cord over the […]...
32. The Houses ‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard; By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate, On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate. For my house and thy house no help shall we find Save […]...
33. To Say Before Going To Sleep I would like to sing someone to sleep, Have someone to sit by and be with. I would like to cradle you and softly sing, Be your companion while you sleep or wake. I would like to be the only person In the house who knew: the night outside was cold. And would like to […]...
34. Everything Lately the wind burns The last leaves and evening Comes too late to be Of use, lately I learned That the year has turned Its face to winter And nothing I say or do Can change anything. So I sleep late and waken Long after the sun has risen In an empty house and walk […]...
35. If Mary Had Known If Mary had known When she held her Babe’s hands in her own­ Little hands that were tender and white as a rose, All dented with dimples from finger to wrist, Such as mothers have kissed­ That one day they must feel the fierce blows Of a hatred insane, Must redden with holiest stain, And […]...
36. In a Garden Gushing from the mouths of stone men To spread at ease under the sky In granite-lipped basins, Where iris dabble their feet And rustle to a passing wind, The water fills the garden with its rushing, In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns. Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone, Where trickle […]...
37. A Brook in the City The firm house lingers, though averse to square With the new city street it has to wear A number in. But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook? I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength And impulse, having dipped a finger length And made it leap my […]...
38. Broken Love MY Spectre around me night and day Like a wild beast guards my way; My Emanation far within Weeps incessantly for my sin. ‘A fathomless and boundless deep, There we wander, there we weep; On the hungry craving wind My Spectre follows thee behind. ‘He scents thy footsteps in the snow Wheresoever thou dost go, […]...
39. Tears TEARS! tears! tears! In the night, in solitude, tears; On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck’d in by the sand; Tears-not a star shining-all dark and desolate; Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head: -O who is that ghost?-that form in the dark, with tears? What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch’d there […]...
40. Relativity I looked down on a daisied lawn To where a host of tiny eyes Of snow and gold from velvet shone And made me think of starry skies. I looked up to the vasty night Where stars were very small indeed, And in their galaxy of light They made me think of daised mead. I […]...