Dead Musicians

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1. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
2. Musicians wrestle everywhere Musicians wrestle everywhere All day among the crowded air I hear the silver strife And walking long before the morn Such transport breaks upon the town I think it that “New Life”! If is not Bird it has no nest Nor “Band” in brass and scarlet drest Nor Tamborin nor Man It is not Hymn […]...
3. On a Dead Child Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! Though cold and stark and bare, The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;-alas! no longer To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be Thy father’s pride:-ah, […]...
4. Ballade of Dead Actors Where are the passions they essayed, And where the tears they made to flow? Where the wild humours they portrayed For laughing worlds to see and know? Othello’s wrath and Juliet’s woe? Sir Peter’s whims and Timon’s gall? And Millamant and Romeo? Into the night go one and all. Where are the braveries, fresh or […]...
5. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking. He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark That he barks every time they leave the house. They must switch him on on their way out. The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking. I close all the windows in the house And put on a Beethoven symphony full […]...
6. Ghosts Some ghosts are women, Neither abstract nor pale, Their breasts as limp as killed fish. Not witches, but ghosts Who come, moving their useless arms Like forsaken servants. Not all ghosts are women, I have seen others; Fat, white-bellied men, Wearing their genitals like old rags. Not devils, but ghosts. This one thumps barefoot, lurching […]...
7. The Dead Village Here there is death. But even here, they say, Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon As desolate as ever the dead moon Did glimmer on dead Sardis, men were gay; And there were little children here to play, With small soft hands that once did keep in tune The strings that stretch from […]...
8. Villonaud for This Yule Towards the Noel that morte saison (Christ make the shepherds’ homage dear!) Then when the grey wolves everychone Drink of the winds their chill small-beer And lap o’ the snows food’s gueredon Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer (Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!) Wineing the ghosts of yester-year. Ask ye […]...
9. To Any Dead Officer Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say, Because I’d like to know that you’re all right. Tell me, have you found everlasting day, Or been sucked in by everlasting night? For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; I hear you make some cheery old remark – I can rebuild […]...
10. My Dead Dream HAVE YOU found me, at last, O my Dream? Seven eons ago You died and I buried you deep under forests of snow. Why have you come hither? Who bade you awake from your sleep And track me beyond the cerulean foam of the deep? Would you tear from my lintels these sacred green garlands […]...
11. Yes, the Dead Speak to Us YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the […]...
12. Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy Love’s Lunacy Why do I speak of joy, or write of love, When my heart is the very den of horror, And in my soul the pains of Hell I prove, With all his torments and infernal terror? What should I say? What yet remains to do? My brain is dry with weeping all too […]...
13. The Dead Drummer I They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest Uncoffined just as found: His landmark is a kopje-crest That breaks the veldt around; And foreign constellations west Each night above his mound. II Young Hodge the Drummer never knew – Fresh from his Wessex home – The meaning of the broad Karoo, The Bush, the dusty […]...
14. Living and a Dead Faith The Lord receives his highest praise From humble minds and hearts sincere; While all the loud professor says Offends the righteous Judge’s ear. To walk as children of the day, To mark the precepts’ holy light, To wage the warfare, watch, and pray, Show who are pleasing in His sight. Not words alone it cost […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. Letters To Dead Imagists EMILY DICKINSON: You gave us the bumble bee who has a soul, The everlasting traveler among the hollyhocks, And how God plays around a back yard garden. STEVIE CRANE: War is kind and we never knew the kindness of war till You came; Nor the black riders and clashes of spear and shield out Of […]...
17. The Dead Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That […]...
18. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
19. Sonnet XXI: A Witless Galant A witless gallant a young wench that woo’d (Yet his dull spirit her not one jot could move), Entreated me, as e’er I wish’d his good, To write him but one sonnet to his love; When I, as fast as e’er my pen could trot, Pour’d out what first from quick invention came, Nor never […]...
20. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
21. The Anxious Dead O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear Above their heads the legions pressing on: (These fought their fight in time of bitter fear, And died not knowing how the day had gone.) O flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see The coming dawn that streaks the sky afar; Then let your mighty chorus […]...
22. To Thyrza: And Thou Art Dead And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft and charm so rare Too soon returned to Earth! Though Earth received them in her bed, And o’er the spot the crowd may tread In carelessness or mirth, There is an eye which could not brook A moment […]...
23. The Princess: A Medley: Home they Brought her Warrior Dead Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swoon’d nor utter’d cry: All her maidens, watching, said, “She must weep or she will die.” Then they praised him, soft and low, Call’d him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly […]...
24. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
25. Dead thoughts of corpses The symbols that we use are T shirts of the dead Thoughts of corpses without heads, a rictus Without sound – open-mouthed, empty, unbound. And if you ever write those clichés which incite My approbation, fuck you, I am not amused. And if I ever do, then fuck me too. I battle with the icons […]...
26. The Wind tapped like a tired Man The Wind tapped like a tired Man And like a Host “Come in” I boldly answered entered then My Residence within A Rapid footless Guest To offer whom a Chair Were as impossible as hand A Sofa to the Air No Bone had He to bind Him His Speech was like the Push Of numerous […]...
27. Dead Man's Dump The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched; Their shut mouths made […]...
28. The Dead A good man is seized by the police And spirited away. Months later Someone brags that he shot him once Through the back of the head With a Walther 7.65, and his life Ended just there. Those who loved Him go on searching the cafés In the Barrio Chino or the bars Near the harbor. […]...
29. The Dead King (EDWARD VII.) 1910 Who in the Realm to-day lays down dear life for the sake of a land more dear? And, unconcerned for his own estate, toils till the last grudged sands have run? Let him approach. It is proven here Our King asks nothing of any man more than Our King himself, has done. […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. To His Dead Body When roaring gloom surged inward and you cried, Groping for friendly hands, and clutched, and died, Like racing smoke, swift from your lolling head Phantoms of thought and memory thinned and fled. Yet, though my dreams that throng the darkened stair Can bring me no report of how you fare, Safe quit of wars, I […]...
32. Ghosts in Love “Tell me, where do ghosts in love Find their bridal veils?” “If you and I were ghosts in love We’d climb the cliffs of Mystery, Above the sea of Wails. I’d trim your gray and streaming hair With veils of Fantasy From the tree of Memory. ‘Tis there the ghosts that fall in love Find […]...
33. A Dead Friend I. Gone, O gentle heart and true, Friend of hopes foregone, Hopes and hopeful days with you Gone? Days of old that shone Saw what none shall see anew, When we gazed thereon. Soul as clear as sunlit dew, Why so soon pass on, Forth from all we loved and knew Gone? II. Friend of […]...
34. Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; (As the last gun ceased-but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried-I charge […]...
35. The Haymakers' Song HERE’S to him that grows it, Drink, lads, drink! That lays it in and mows it, Clink, jugs, clink! To him that mows and makes it, That scatters it and shakes it, That turns, and teds, and rakes it, Clink, jugs, clink! Now here ‘s to him that stacks it, Drink, lads, drink! That thrashes […]...
36. Recall WHAT call may draw thee back again, Lost dove, what art, what charm may please? The tender touch, the kiss, are vain, For thou wert lured away by these. Oh, must we use the iron hand, And mask with hate the holy breath, With alien voice give love’s command, As they through love the call […]...
37. Modern Love XLVIII: Their Sense Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, Destroyed by subleties these women are! More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win. Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near. Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each. We drank the pure daylight of […]...
38. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
39. The Curse of Kehama I charm thy life, From the weapons of strife, From stone and from wood, From fire and from flood, From the serpent’s tooth, And the beast of blood. From sickness I charm thee, And time shall not harm thee; But earth, which is mine, Its fruits shall deny thee; And water shall hear me, And […]...
40. The Shame of Going Back The Shame of Going Back And the reason of your failure isn’t anybody’s fault When you haven’t got a billet, and the times are very slack, There is nothing that can spur you like the shame of going back; Crawling home with empty pockets, Going back hard-up; Oh! it’s then you learn the meaning of […]...