Where the Sidewalk Ends

Related poetry:

1. The Sonnets To Orpheus: IV O you tender ones, walk now and then Into the breath that blows coldly past, Upon your cheeks let it tremble and part; Behind you it will tremble together again. O you blessed ones, you who are whole, You who seem the beginning of hearts, Bows for the arrows and arrows’ targets Tear-bright, your lips […]...
2. The Months have ends the Years a knot The Months have ends the Years a knot No Power can untie To stretch a little further A Skein of Misery The Earth lays back these tired lives In her mysterious Drawers Too tenderly, that any doubt An ultimate Repose The manner of the Children Who weary of the Day Themself the noisy Plaything They […]...
3. Stout Marches Lead To Certain Ends STOUT marches lead to certain ends, We seek no Holy Grail, my friends – That dawn should find us every day Some fraction farther on our way. The dumb lands sleep from east to west, They stretch and turn and take their rest. The cock has crown in the steading-yard, But priest and people slumber […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Book Ends I Baked the day she suddenly dropped dead We chew it slowly that last apple pie. Shocked into sleeplessness you’re scared of bed. We never could talk much, and now don’t try. You’re like book ends, the pair of you, she’d say, Hog that grate, say nothing, sit, sleep, stare… The ‘scholar’ me, you, worn […]...
6. The Path RUNNING along a bank, a parapet That saves from the precipitous wood below The level road, there is a path. It serves Children for looking down the long smooth steep, Between the legs of beech and yew, to where A fallen tree checks the sight: while men and women Content themselves with the road and […]...
7. SONNET OF AUTUMN THEY say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes: “Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?” Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise All save that antique brute-like faith of thine; And will not bare the secret of their shame To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long, Nor their […]...
8. Little World Children – are staring of eyes so frightful, Mischievous legs on a wooden floor, Children – is sun in the gloomy motives, Hypotheses’ of happy sciences world. Eternal disorder in the ring’s gold, Tender word’s whispers in semi-sleep, On the wall in a cozy child’s room, the dreaming Peaceful pictures of birds and sheep. Children […]...
9. Blue Island Intersection SIX street ends come together here. They feed people and wagons into the center. In and out all day horses with thoughts of nose-bags, Men with shovels, women with baskets and baby buggies. Six ends of streets and no sleep for them all day. The people and wagons come and go, out and in. Triangles […]...
10. A Song of the Road O I will walk with you, my lad, whichever way you fare, You’ll have me, too, the side o’ you, with heart as light as air; No care for where the road you take’s a-leadin’ anywhere, It can but be a joyful ja’nt whilst you journey there. The road you take’s the path o’ love, […]...
11. Walking the Dog Two universes mosey down the street Connected by love and a leash and nothing else. Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves While he mooches along with tail up and snout down, Getting a secret knowledge through the nose Almost entirely hidden from my sight. We stand while he’s enraptured by a bush Till […]...
12. Pentecost Better a jungle in the head Than rootless concrete. Better to stand bewildered By the fireflies’ crooked street; Winter lamps do not show Where the sidewalk is lost, Nor can these tongues of snow Speak for the Holy Ghost; The self-increasing silence Of words dropped from a roof Points along iron railings, Direction, in not […]...
13. Courtship There is a girl you like so you tell her Your penis is big, but that you cannot get yourself To use it. Its demands are ridiculous, you say, Even self-defeating, but to be honored, somehow, Briefly, inconspicuously in the dark. When she closes her eyes in horror, You take it all back. You tell […]...
14. On Rabbi Kook's Street On Rabbi Kook’s Street I walk without this good man A streiml he wore for prayer A silk top hat he wore to govern, Fly in the wind of the dead Above me, float on the water Of my dreams. I come to the Street of Prophets there are none. And the Street of Ethiopians […]...
15. As You Leave Me Shiny record albums scattered over The living room floor, reflecting light From the lamp, sharp reflections that hurt My eyes as I watch you, squatting among the platters, The beer foam making mustaches on your lips. And, too, The shadows on your cheeks from your long lashes Fascinate me almost as much as the dimples […]...
16. One Cigarette No smoke without you, my fire. After you left, Your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray And sent up a long thread of such quiet grey I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal Of so much love. One cigarette In the non-smoker’s tray. As the last spire Trembles up, a sudden draught Blows […]...
17. The Year IA STORM of white petals, Buds throwing open baby fists Into hands of broad flowers. IIRed roses running upward, Clambering to the clutches of life Soaked in crimson. IIIRabbles of tattered leaves Holding golden flimsy hopes Against the tramplings Into the pits and gullies. IVHoarfrost and silence: Only the muffling Of winds dark and lonesome- […]...
18. Souvenir Just a rainy day or two In a windy tower, That was all I had of you- Saving half an hour. Marred by greeting passing groups In a cinder walk, Near some naked blackberry hoops Dim with purple chalk. I remember three or four Things you said in spite, And an ugly coat you wore, […]...
19. Main Street (For S. M. L.) I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea, But it isn’t half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow, And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs […]...
20. Letter Home New Orleans, November 1910 Four weeks have passed since I left, and still I must write to you of no work. I’ve worn down The soles and walked through the tightness Of my new shoes calling upon the merchants, Their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking My plain English and good writing would […]...
21. Wallace Stevens On His Way To Work He would leave early and walk slowly As if balancing books On the way to school, already expecting To be tardy once again and heavy With numbers, the unfashionably rounded Toes of his shoes invisible beyond The slope of his corporation. He would pause At his favorite fundamentally sound Park bench, which had been the […]...
22. An Arab Love-Song The hunchèd camels of the night Trouble the bright And silver waters of the moon. The Maiden of the Morn will soon Through Heaven stray and sing, Star gathering. Now while the dark about our loves is strewn, Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come! And night will catch her breath up, […]...
23. Possessions Are Nine Points Of Conversation Some people, and it doesn’t matter whether they are paupers or millionaires, Think that anything they have is the best in the world just because it is theirs. If they happen to own a 1921 jalopy, They look at their neighbor’s new de luxe convertible like the wearer of a 57th Street gown at a […]...
24. Quick And Bitter The end was quick and bitter. Slow and sweet was the time between us, Slow and sweet were the nights When my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love Of your body which came Between them. And when I entered into you It seemed then that great happiness Could be […]...
25. Trinity Place THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street. The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street stops. And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on the grass of graves, speaking of war and weather, of babies, […]...
26. Flophouse you haven’t lived Until you’ve been in a Flophouse With nothing but one Light bulb And 56 men Squeezed together On cots With everybody Snoring At once And some of those Snores So Deep and Gross and Unbelievable- Dark Snotty Gross Subhuman Wheezings From hell Itself. Your mind Almost breaks Under those Death-like Sounds And […]...
27. The Fires Men make them fires on the hearth Each under his roof-tree, And the Four Winds that rule the earth They blow the smoke to me. Across the high hills and the sea And all the changeful skies, The Four Winds blow the smoke to me Till the tears are in my eyes. Until the tears […]...
28. Good Hours I had for my winter evening walk No one at all with whom to talk, But I had the cottages in a row Up to their shining eyes in snow. And I thought I had the folk within: I had the sound of a violin; I had a glimpse through curtain laces Of youthful forms […]...
29. THE PLAY HOUSE We had a new house And split the decorating. You took the piled rolls of paper, While I stacked the cans of gloss, One to each corner-white-what else? And when we began our slow labour We did not even sigh except in some relief In being there at last. There were no spaces for our […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. In Time Of "The Breaking Of Nations&quot I Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk. II Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch-grass; Yet this will go onwards the same Though Dynasties pass. III Yonder a maid and her wight Go whispering by: […]...
32. Afternoon Rain in State Street Cross-hatchings of rain against grey walls, Slant lines of black rain In front of the up and down, wet stone sides of buildings. Below, Greasy, shiny, black, horizontal, The street. And over it, umbrellas, Black polished dots Struck to white An instant, Stream in two flat lines Slipping past each other with the smoothness of […]...
33. Third Avenue In Sunlight Third Avenue in sunlight. Nature’s error. Already the bars are filled and John is there. Beneath a plentiful lady over the mirror He tilts his glass in the mild mahogany air. I think of him when he first got out of college, Serious, thin, unlikely to succeed; For several months he hung around the Village, […]...
34. Making It Work 3-foot blue cannisters of nitro Along a conveyor belt, slow fish Speaking the language of silence. On the roof, I in my respirator Patching the asbestos gas lines As big around as the thick waist Of an oak tree. “These here are The veins of the place, stuff Inside’s the blood.” We work in rain, […]...
35. A Day Like Any Other Such insignificance: a glance At your record on the doctor’s desk Or a letter not meant for you. How could you have known? It’s not true That your life passes before you In rapid motion, but your watch Suddenly ticks like an amplified heart, The hands freezing against a white That is a judgment. Otherwise […]...
36. Letter To N. Y For Louise Crane In your next letter I wish you’d say Where you are going and what you are doing; How are the plays and after the plays What other pleasures you’re pursuing: Taking cabs in the middle of the night, Driving as if to save your soul Where the road gose round and round […]...
37. A Spell before Winter After the red leaf and the gold have gone, Brought down by the wind, then by hammering rain Bruised and discolored, when October’s flame Goes blue to guttering in the cusp, this land Sinks deeper into silence, darker into shade. There is a knowledge in the look of things, The old hills hunch before the […]...
38. Picture Puzzle Piece One picture puzzle piece Lyin’ on the sidewalk, One picture puzzle piece Soakin’ in the rain. It might be a button of blue On the coat of the woman Who lived in a shoe. It might be a magical bean, Or a fold in the red Velvet robe of a queen. It might be the […]...
39. A London Thoroughfare. 2 A. M They have watered the street, It shines in the glare of lamps, Cold, white lamps, And lies Like a slow-moving river, Barred with silver and black. Cabs go down it, One, And then another. Between them I hear the shuffling of feet. Tramps doze on the window-ledges, Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks. The city is […]...
40. The Old Prison The rows of cells are unroofed, A flute for the wind’s mouth, Who comes with a breath of ice From the blue caves of the south. O dark and fierce day: The wind like an angry bee Hunts for the black honey In the pits of the hollow sea. Waves of shadow wash The empty […]...