On the desert

Related poetry:

1. Until the Desert knows Until the Desert knows That Water grows His Sands suffice But let him once suspect That Caspian Fact Sahara dies Utmost is relative Have not or Have Adjacent sums Enough the first Abode On the familiar Road Galloped in Dreams...
2. Rangipo Desert Whangaehu waters, hot-spilled from the cauldron Of Crater Lake, swirling mud-green from the cup Between Tahurangi and Pyramid Peak, Sulphurous, sibilant among purer daughters Of the snow-line, Plunging eastwards down broken-faced ravines, Boiling between razor-edged ridges, Breasting a broken, blackened ghostscape To desert Rangipo. Where these waters slow their rush And ease the dragon’s fire […]...
3. What the Miner in the Desert Said The moon’s a brass-hooped water-keg, A wondrous water-feast. If I could climb the ridge and drink And give drink to my beast; If I could drain that keg, the flies Would not be biting so, My burning feet be spry again, My mule no longer slow. And I could rise and dig for ore, And […]...
4. Javanese Dancers Twitched strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums, Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting: And now the stealthy dancer comes Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling; Smiling between her painted lids a smile, Motionless, unintelligible, she twines Her fingers into mazy lines, The scarves across her fingers twine the while. One, two, three, four glide forth, and, […]...
5. The Sad Shepherd There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend, And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming, Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming And humming Sands, where windy surges wend: And he called loudly to the stars to bend From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they Among themselves laugh on and […]...
6. In the desert In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said: “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter – bitter,” he answered; “But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.”...
7. Walking on the Estuary Hill The curlew and the heron call, The hissing mud and whispering wings Beat eery through the idle air Until the moonlit midnight silence falls And then the tide flows softly Through the gut and sluice of estuary sands And dark against the dreamlit sky The trees arise from hedgerows, And the hills Alive with monstrous […]...
8. I walked in a desert I walked in a desert. And I cried, “Ah, God, take me from this place!” A voice said, “It is no desert.” I cried, “Well, But The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon.” A voice said, “It is no desert.”...
9. In The Kalahari Desert The sun rose like a tarnished Looking-glass to catch the sun And flash His hot message At the missionaries below Isabella and the Rev. Roger Price, And the Helmores with a broken axle Left, two days behind, at Fever Ponds. The wilderness was full of home: A glinting beetle on its back Struggled like an […]...
10. Death Fugue Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown We drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night We drink it and drink it We dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes He writes when […]...
11. Indian Dancer EYES ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimmer around them in fountains of light; O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire, And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces bewitch the […]...
12. We Go Out Together In the Staring Town We go out together into the staring town And buy cheese and bread and little jugs with Flowered labels Everywhere is a tent where we put on our whirling Show A great deal has been said of the handless serpents Which war has set loose in the gay milk of our Heads But because you […]...
13. Blizzard Notes I DON’T blame the kettle drums-they are hungry. And the snare drums-I know what they want-they are empty too. And the harring booming bass drums-they are hungriest of all.. . . The howling spears of the Northwest die down. The lullabies of the Southwest get a chance, a mother song. A cradle moon rides out […]...
14. Reading the Obituaries Now the Barbaras have begun to die, Trailing their older sisters to the grave, The Helens, Margies, Nans-who said goodbye Just days ago, it seems, taking their leave A step or two behind the hooded girls Who bloomed and withered with the century- The Dorotheas, Eleanors and Pearls Now swaying on the edge of memory. […]...
15. I Went Down into the Desert I went down into the desert To meet Elijah- Arisen from the dead. I thought to. find him in an echoing cave; For so my dream had said. I went down into the desert To meet John the Baptist. I walked with feet that bled, Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold. I spied […]...
16. Desert Places Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it-it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness […]...
17. Sonnet 11 – And therefore if to love can be desert And therefore if to love can be desert, I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale As these you see, and trembling knees that fail To bear the burden of a heavy heart,- This weary minstrel-life that once was girt To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail To pipe now ‘gainst the valley nightingale A […]...
18. Snow No breath of wind, No gleam of sun – Still the white snow Whirls softly down Twig and bough And blade and thorn All in an icy Quiet, forlorn. Whispering, rustling, Through the air On still and stone, Roof, – everywhere, It heaps its powdery Crystal flakes, Of every tree A mountain makes; ‘Til pale […]...
19. Hunter's Song The toils are pitched, and the stakes are set, Ever sing merrily, merrily; The bows they bend, and the knives they whet, Hunters live so cheerily. It was a stag, a stag of ten, Bearing its branches sturdily; He came silently down the glen, Ever sing hardily, hardily. It was there he met with a […]...
20. Perseus Her sleeping head with its great gelid mass Of serpents torpidly astir Burned into the mirroring shield A scathing image dire As hated truth the mind accepts at last And festers on. I struck. The shield flashed bare. Yet even as I lifted up the head And started from that place Of gazing silences and […]...
21. O Sweetheart, Hear You O Sweetheart, hear you Your lover’s tale; A man shall have sorrow When friends him fail. For he shall know then Friends be untrue And a little ashes Their words come to. But one unto him Will softly move And softly woo him In ways of love. His hand is under Her smooth round breast; […]...
22. Jennie M'Grew Not, where the stairway turns in the dark, A hooded figure, shriveled under a flowing cloak! Not yellow eyes in the room at night, Staring out from a surface of cobweb gray! And not the flap of a condor wing, When the roar of life in your ears begins As a sound heard never before! […]...
23. The Beach Squat, unshaven, full of gas, Joseph Samuels, former clerk In four large cities, out of work, Waits in the darkened underpass. In sanctuary, out of reach, He stares at the fading light outside: The rain beginning: hears the tide That drums along the empty beach. When drops first fell at six o’clock, The bathers left. […]...
24. Ancestors Behold these jewelled, merchant Ancestors, Foregathered in some chancellery of death; Calm, provident, discreet, they stroke their beards And move their faces slowly in the gloom, And barter monstrous wealth with speech subdued, Lustreless eyes and acquiescent lids. And oft in pauses of their conference, They listen to the measured breath of night’s Hushed sweep […]...
25. The Afflicted Softly every night they come To the picture show, That old couple, deaf and dumb In the second row; Wistful watching, hand in hand, Proud they understand. Shut-ins from the world away, All in all to each; Knowing utter joy as they Read the lips of speech. . . Would, I wonder, I be glum […]...
26. The Slums That should be obvious Of course it won’t Any fool knows that. Even in the winter. Consider for a moment. What? Consider what! They never have. Why now? Certainly it means nothing. It’s all a lie. What else could it be? That’s right. Sure. Any way you look at it. A silk hat. A fat […]...
27. THE INVISIBLE BRIDE THE low-voiced girls that go In gardens of the Lord, Like flowers of the field they grow In sisterly accord. Their whispering feet are white Along the leafy ways; They go in whirls of light Too beautiful for praise. And in their band forsooth Is one to set me free The one that touched my […]...
28. Habitation Marriage is not A house or even a tent It is before that, and colder: The edge of the forest, the edge Of the desert the unpainted stairs At the back where we squat Outside, eating popcorn Where painfully and with wonder At having survived even This far We are learning to make fire...
29. The Sloth In moving-slow he has no Peer. You ask him something in his Ear, He thinks about it for a Year; And, then, before he says a Word There, upside down (unlike a Bird), He will assume that you have Heard A most Ex-as-per-at-ing Lug. But should you call his manner Smug, He’ll sigh and give […]...
30. The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of […]...
31. The Kiss The snow is white on wood and wold, The wind is in the firs, So dead my heart is with the cold, No pulse within it stirs, Even to see your face, my dear, Your face that was my sun; There is no spring this bitter year, And summer’s dreams are done. The snakes that […]...
32. Slumber Song Some day, if I should ever lose you, Will you be able then to go to sleep Without me softly whispering above you Like night air stirring in the linden tree? Without my waking here and watching And saying words as tender as eyelids That come to rest weightlessly upon your breast, Upon your sleeping […]...
33. A Psalm of Life WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust […]...
34. Oh! That We Two Were Maying 1 Oh! that we two were Maying 2 Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; 3 Like children with violets playing 4 In the shade of the whispering trees. 5 Oh! that we two sat dreaming 6 On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down, 7 Watching the white mist steaming 8 Over river and […]...
35. Melancholia the history of melancholia Includes all of us. Me, I writhe in dirty sheets While staring at blue walls And nothing. I have gotten so used to melancholia That I greet it like an old Friend. I will now do 15 minutes of grieving For the lost redhead, I tell the gods. I do it […]...
36. The Ball Poem What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over-there it is in the water! No use to say ‘O there are other balls’: An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, […]...
37. Beat! Beat! Drums! 1 BEAT! beat! drums!-Blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows-through doors-burst like a ruthless force, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet-no happiness must he have now with his bride; Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his […]...
38. Ekka The Ekka institution bares us all, though call it Exhibition, Royal Queensland Show, it’s that time of year when you will go in Liberal spirit where the spectacle of fantasies escrow. Gaudy frills and simple bunting still excites the passive soul, Ignites the fires patrolled by commonsense and daily grind, Enlivens dour inclines with smeared […]...
39. Turns And Movies: Rose And Murray After the movie, when the lights come up, He takes her powdered hand behind the wings; She, all in yellow, like a buttercup, Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings; And with a silent, gliding step they move Over the footlights, in familiar glare, Panther-like in the Tango whirl of love, He […]...
40. Grand-Pa's Whim While for me gapes the greedy grave It don’t make sense That I should have a crazy crave To paint our fence. Yet that is what I aim to do, Though dim my sight: Jest paint them aged pickets blue, Or green or white. Jest squat serenely in the sun Wi’ brush an’ paint, An’ […]...