Stretcher Case

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1. Tears, Idle Tears Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up […]...
2. The Stretcher-Bearer My stretcher is one scarlet stain, And as I tries to scrape it clean, I tell you wot I’m sick with pain For all I’ve ‘eard, for all I’ve seen; Around me is the ‘ellish night, And as the war’s red rim I trace, I wonder if in ‘Eaven’s height, Our God don’t turn away […]...
3. Midnight On The Great Western In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy, And the roof-lamp’s oily flame Played down on his listless form and face, Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going, Or whence he came. In the band of his hat the journeying boy Had a ticket stuck; and a string Around his neck bore the key […]...
4. These Fought in Any Case These fought in any case, And some believing Pro domo, in any case….. Died some, pro patria, Walked eye-deep in hell Believing in old men’s lies, then unbelieving Came home, home to a lie, Home to many deceits, Home to old lies and new infamy; Usury age-old and age-thick And liars in public places. Daring […]...
5. In My Youth I Was a Tireless Dancer But now I pass Graveyards in a car. The dead lie, Unsuperstitiously, With their feet toward me Please forgive me for Saying the tombstones would not Fancy their faces turned from the highway. Oh perish the thought I was thinking in that moment Newman Illinois The Saturday night dance What a life? Would I like […]...
6. A Case Of Murder They should not have left him there alone, Alone that is except for the cat. He was only nine, not old enough To be left alone in a basement flat, Alone, that is, except for the cat. A dog would have been a different thing, A big gruff dog with slashing jaws, But a cat […]...
7. Through The Metodja To Abd-El-Kadr 1842 I As I ride, as I ride, With a full heart for my guide, So its tide rocks my side, As I ride, as I ride, That, as I were double-eyed, He, in whom our Tribes confide, Is descried, ways untried As I ride, as I ride. II As I ride, as I ride […]...
8. The Planet On The Table Ariel was glad he had written his poems. They were of a remembered time Or of something seen that he liked. Other makings of the sun Were waste and welter And the ripe shrub writhed. His self and the sun were one And his poems, although makings of his self, Were no less makings of […]...
9. A Man Young And Old: III. The Mermaid A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown....
10. Remorse For Any Death Free of memory and of hope, Limitless, abstract, almost future, The dead man is not a dead man: he is death. Like the God of the mystics, Of Whom anything that could be said must be denied, The dead one, alien everywhere, Is but the ruin and absence of the world. We rob him of […]...
11. The Case Of Conscience THOSE who in fables deal, bestow at ease Both names and titles, freely as they please. It costs them scarcely any thing, we find. And each is nymph or shepherdess designed; Some e’en are goddesses, that move below, From whom celestial bliss of course must flow. THIS Horace followed, with superior art: If, to the […]...
12. Imagining Defeat She woke me up at dawn, Her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels. I sat up and looked out the window At the snow falling in the stand of blackjack trees. A bus ticket in her hand. Then she brought something black up to her mouth, A plum I thought, but it […]...
13. The Princess: A Medley: Tears, Idle Tears Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up […]...
14. Thinking Ahead To Possible Options And A Worst-Case Scenario I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel In the center of the road and that’s when The deer came charging out of the forest And forced me to hit the brakes for all I Was worth and I careened back to the other Side of the road just as a skunk came toddling Out of […]...
15. Riders in the Stand There’s some that ride the Robbo style, and bump at every stride; While others sit a long way back, to get a longer ride. There’s some that ride as sailors do, with legs, and arms, and teeth; And some that ride the horse’s neck, and some ride underneath. But all the finest horsemen out the […]...
16. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 6. One writes, that Other Friends Rem One writes, that “Other friends remain,” That “Loss is common to the race” And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more. Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break. O father, wheresoe’er thou be, […]...
17. In the footsteps of the walking air In the footsteps of the walking air Sky’s prophetic chickens weave their cloth of awe And hillsides lift green wings in somber journeying. Night in his soft haste bumps on the shoulders of the abyss And a single drop of dark blood covers the earth. Now is the China of the spirit at walking In […]...
18. To L. H. B. (1894-1915 ) Last night for the first time since you were dead I walked with you, my brother, in a dream. We were at home again beside the stream Fringed with tall berry bushes, white and red. “Don’t touch them: they are poisonous,” I said. But your hand hovered, and I saw a beam Of strange, bright […]...
19. Brown Penny I whispered, ‘I am too young,’ And then, ‘I am old enough’; Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. ‘Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair.’ Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair. O […]...
20. Old Woman THE owl-car clatters along, dogged by the echo From building and battered paving-stone. The headlight scoffs at the mist, And fixes its yellow rays in the cold slow rain; Against a pane I press my forehead And drowsily look on the walls and sidewalks. The headlight finds the way And life is gone from the […]...
21. Little Words When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf, Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds; And I can only stare, and shape my grief In little words. I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown The bitter woe that racks my cords apart. The weary pen that sets my sorrow down Feeds at my […]...
22. Sonnet: Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire Of watching you; and swing me suddenly Into the shade and loneliness and mire Of the last land! There, waiting patiently, One day, I think, I’ll feel a cool wind blowing, See a slow light across the Stygian tide, And hear the Dead about me stir, […]...
23. Song For The Severed Head In 'The King Of The Great Clock Tower&#039 Saddle and ride, I heard a man say, Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea, What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower? All those tragic characters ride But turn from Rosses’ crawling tide, The meet’s upon the mountain-side. A slow low note and an iron bell. What brought them there so far from their […]...
24. The Pity of the Leaves Vengeful across the cold November moors, Loud with ancestral shame there came the bleak Sad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek, Reverberant through lonely corridors. The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce, Words out of lips that were no more to speak – Words of the past that shook the old […]...
25. A Hall The road led straight to the temple. Notre Dame, though not Gothic at all. The huge doors were closed. I chose one on the side, Not to the main building-to its left wing, The one in green copper, worn into gaps below. I pushed. Then it was revealed: An astonishing large hall, in warm light. […]...
26. Echoes THE MIGHT that shaped itself through storm and stress In chaos, here is lulled in breathing sweet; Under the long brown ridge in gentleness Its fierce old pulses beat. Quiet and sad we go at eve; the fire That woke exultant in an earlier day Is dead; the memories of old desire Only in shadows […]...
27. Rio Grande Now this was what Macpherson told While waiting in the stand; A reckless rider, over-bold, The only man with hands to hold The rushing Rio Grande. He said, “This day I bid good-bye To bit and bridle rein, To ditches deep and fences high, For I have dreamed a dream, and I Shall never ride […]...
28. Walking Across The Atlantic I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach Before stepping onto the first wave. Soon I am walking across the Atlantic Thinking about Spain, Checking for whales, waterspouts. I feel the water holding up my shifting weight. Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface. But for now I try to imagine what […]...
29. Rio Grande's Last Race Now this was what Macpherson told While waiting in the stand; A reckless rider, over-bold, The only man with hands to hold The rushing Rio Grande. He said, ‘This day I bid good-bye To bit and bridle rein, To ditches deep and fences high, For I have dreamed a dream, and I Shall never ride […]...
30. Sylvia's Death for Sylvia Plath O Sylvia, Sylvia, With a dead box of stones and spoons, With two children, two meteors Wandering loose in a tiny playroom, With your mouth into the sheet, Into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer, (Sylvia, Sylvia Where did you go After you wrote me From Devonshire About rasing potatoes And keeping […]...
31. Spring comes on the World Spring comes on the World I sight the Aprils Hueless to me until thou come As, till the Bee Blossoms stand negative, Touched to Conditions By a Hum....
32. Memoranda THIS handful of grass, brown, says little. This quarter mile field of it, waving seeds ripening in the sun, is a lake of luminous firefly lavender. Prairie roses, two of them, climb down the sides of a road ditch. In the clear pool they find their faces along stiff knives of grass, and cat-tails who […]...
33. Accomplished Facts EVERY year Emily Dickinson sent one friend The first arbutus bud in her garden. In a last will and testament Andrew Jackson Remembered a friend with the gift of George Washington’s pocket spy-glass. Napoleon too, in a last testament, mentioned a silver Watch taken from the bedroom of Frederick the Great, And passed along this […]...
34. The Embrace You weren’t well or really ill yet either; Just a little tired, your handsomeness Tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought To your face a thoughtful, deepening grace. I didn’t for a moment doubt you were dead. I knew that to be true still, even in the dream. You’d been out-at work maybe?- Having a […]...
35. The Wife of Flanders Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered, Where I had seven sons until to-day, A little hill of hay your spur has scattered. . . . This is not Paris. You have lost your way. You, staring at your sword to find it brittle, Surprised at the surprise that was your plan, Who, […]...
36. The Doomed Ship The doomed ship drives on helpless through the sea, All that the mariners may do is done And death is left for men to gaze upon, While side by side two friends sit silently; Friends once, foes once, and now by death made free Of Love and Hate, of all things lost or won; Yet […]...
37. Riding Together For many, many days together The wind blew steady from the East; For many days hot grew the weather, About the time of our Lady’s Feast. For many days we rode together, Yet met we neither friend nor foe; Hotter and clearer grew the weather, Steadily did the East wind blow. We saw the trees […]...
38. Dylan And is it not a gesture grand To drink oneself to death? Oh sure ’tis I can understand, Being of sober breath. And so I do not sing success, But dirge the damned who fall, And who contempt for life express Through alcohol. Of Stephen Foster and of Poe, Of Burns and Wilde I think; […]...
39. Snake A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there. In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree I came down the steps with my pitcher And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before Me. […]...
40. Docks STROLLING along By the teeming docks, I watch the ships put out. Black ships that heave and lunge And move like mastodons Arising from lethargic sleep. The fathomed harbor Calls them not nor dares Them to a strain of action, But outward, on and outward, Sounding low-reverberating calls, Shaggy in the half-lit distance, They pass […]...