The Unborn

Related poetry:

1. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
2. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
3. Thinking Of A Friend At Night In this evil year, autumn comes early… I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters, The wind on my hat…And you? And you, my friend? You are standing maybe and seeing the sickle moon Move in a small arc over the forests And bivouac fire, red in the black valley. You are […]...
4. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
5. Of Three Or Four In The Room Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at the window. Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns, The fires on the hills. And people who left whole Are brought home in the evening, like small change. Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at […]...
6. Lies About Love We are a liars, because The truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow, Whereas letters are fixed, And we live by the letter of truth. The love I feel for my friend, this year, Is different from the love I felt last year. If it were not so, it would be a lie. Yet we […]...
7. The Swan Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air – An armful of white blossoms, A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned Into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, Biting the air […]...
8. The Spirit Of The Unborn Babe The Spirit of the Unborn Babe peered through the window-pane, Peered through the window-pane that glowed like beacon in the night; For, oh, the sky was desolate and wild with wind and rain; And how the little room was crammed with coziness and light! Except the flirting of the fire there was no sound at […]...
9. Life I leave the office, take the stairs, In time to mail a letter Before 3 in the afternoon the last dispatch. The red, white and blue air mail Falls past the slot for foreign mail And hits bottom with a sound That tells me my letter is alone. They will have to bring in a […]...
10. Buttons I HAVE been watching the war map slammed up for Advertising in front of the newspaper office. Buttons red and yellow buttons blue and black buttons Are shoved back and forth across the map. A laughing young man, sunny with freckles, Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd, And then fixes […]...
11. To An Unborn Pauper Child Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently, And though thy birth-hour beckons thee, Sleep the long sleep: The Doomsters heap Travails and teens around us here, And Time-Wraiths turn our songsingings to fear. Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh, And laughters fail, and greetings die; Hopes dwindle; yea, Faiths waste away, Affections and enthusiasms numb: […]...
12. Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down… – from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air Of late afternoon Is now the colour of tea. […]...
13. Friend Art thou abroad on this stormy night On thy journey of love, my friend? The sky groans like one in despair. I have no sleep tonight. Ever and again I open my door and look out on The darkness, my friend! I can see nothing before me. I wonder where lies thy path! By what […]...
14. Deeply Morbid Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters Always out of office hours running with her social betters But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about her Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt her It was that look within her eye Why […]...
15. Aftermath I learnt to write to you in happier days, And every letter was a piece I chipped From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays, Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise. To make a pavement for your feet I stripped My soul for […]...
16. The Cave Of The Unborn I rose at night and visited The Cave of the Unborn, And crowding shapes surrounded me For tidings of the life to be, Who long had prayed the silent Head To speed their advent morn. Their eyes were lit with artless trust; Hope thrilled their every tone: “A place the loveliest, is it not? A […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
19. Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts, That all sin is divided into two parts. One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important, And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant, And the other kind of […]...
20. The Truth of Woman Woman’s faith, and woman’s trust – Write the characters in the dust; Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon’s pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, And more permanent, I ween, Than the thing those letters mean. I have strain’d the spider’s thread ‘Gainst the promise of […]...
21. Before an Examination The little letters dance across the page, Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes; Sick of the strain, the glaring light, I rise Yawning and stretching, full of empty rage At the dull maunderings of a long dead sage, Fling up the windows, fling aside his lies; Choosing to breathe, not stifle and be […]...
22. I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament […]...
23. Charlene-n-Booker 4ever And the old men, supervising grown grandsons, nephews, Any man a boy given this chance of making A new sidewalk outside the apartment building where Some of them live, three old men and their wives, The aging unmarrying children, and the child Who is a cousin, whose mother has sent her here Because she doesn’t […]...
24. On Cheating The Fiddler “Then we will have tonight!” we said. “Tomorrow – may we not be dead?” The morrow touched our eyes, and found Us walking firm above the ground, Our pulses quick, our blood alight. Tomorrow’s gone – we’ll have tonight!...
25. You love the Lord you cannot see You love the Lord you cannot see You write Him every day A little note when you awake And further in the Day. An Ample Letter How you miss And would delight to see But then His House is but a Step And Mine’s in Heaven You see....
26. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
27. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
28. One Year When I got to his marker, I sat on it, Like sitting on the edge of someone’s bed And I rubbed the smooth, speckled granite. I took some tears from my jaw and neck And started to wash a corner of his stone. Then a black and amber ant Ran out onto the granite, and […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. Reuben Pantier Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted, Your love was not all in vain. I owe whatever I was in life To your hope that would not give me up, To your love that saw me still as good. Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story. I pass the effect of my […]...
31. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
32. Cliff Klingenhagen Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine With him one day; and after soup and meat, And all the other things there were to eat, Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign For me to choose at all, he took the draught Of bitterness himself, […]...
33. My Suicide I’ve often wondered why Old chaps who choose to die In evil passes, Before themselves they slay, Invariably they Take off their glasses? As I strolled by the Castle cliff An oldish chap I set my eyes on, Who stood so singularly stiff And stark against the blue horizon; A poet fashioning a sonnet, I […]...
34. Letters I was thinking of letters, We all have a lot in our life A few good – a few sad But mostly run of the mill- I suppose that’s my fault For writing to run of the mill people. I’ve never had a letter I really wanted It might come one day But then, it […]...
35. The Horrors of Majuba ‘Twas after the great Majuba fight: And the next morning, at daylight, Captain Macbean’s men were ordered to headquarters camp, So immediately Captain Macbean and his men set out on tramp. And there they were joined by the Blue Jackets and 58th men, Who, for unflinching courage, no man can them condemn; And that brave […]...
36. CHRISTEL My senses ofttimes are oppress’d, Oft stagnant is my blood; But when by Christel’s sight I’m blest, I feel my strength renew’d. I see her here, I see her there, And really cannot tell The manner how, the when, the where, The why I love her well. If with the merest glance I view Her […]...
37. Incantation A white well In a black cave; A bright shell In a dark wave. A white rose Black brambles hood; Smooth bright snows In a dark wood. A flung white glove In a dark fight; A white dove On a wild black night. A white door In a dark lane; A bright core To bitter […]...
38. For Lucy, Who Came First She simply settled down in one piece right where she was, in the sand of a long-vanished lake edge or stream and died. -Donald C. Johanson, paleoanthropologist When I put my hand up to my face I can trace her heavy jawbone and the sockets Of her eyes under my skin. And in the dark […]...
39. Some Foreign Letters I knew you forever and you were always old, Soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold Me for sitting up late, reading your letters, As if these foreign postmarks were meant for me. You posted them first in London, wearing furs And a new dress in the winter of eighteen-ninety. I read […]...
40. Soldier, Soldier “Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Why don’t you march with my true love?” “We’re fresh from off the ship an’ ‘e’s maybe give the slip, An’ you’d best go look for a new love.” New love! True love! Best go look for a new love, The dead they cannot rise, an’ you’d better dry […]...