Rain After a Vaudeville Show
The last pose flickered, failed. The screen’s dead white Glared in a sudden flooding of harsh light Stabbing the eyes; and as I stumbled out The curtain rose. A fat girl with a pout
Colors
(For D. M. C.) The little man with the vague beard and guise Pulled at the wicket. “Come inside!” he said, “I’ll show you all we’ve got now it was size You wanted? oh,
The White Peacock
(France Ancient Regime.) I. Go away! Go away; I will not confess to you! His black biretta clings like a hangman’s cap; under his twitching fingers the beads shiver and click, As he mumbles
Talk
Tobacco smoke drifts up to the dim ceiling From half a dozen pipes and cigarettes, Curling in endless shapes, in blue rings wheeling, As formless as our talk. Phil, drawling, bets Cornell will win
May Morning
I lie stretched out upon the window-seat And doze, and read a page or two, and doze, And feel the air like water on me close, Great waves of sunny air that lip and
Love in Twilight
There is darkness behind the light and the pale light drips Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships And the firelight wavers and changes
The General Public
“Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?” Browning. “Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then,” The old man said. A dry smile creased his face With many wrinkles. “That’s a great poem, now!
Going Back to School
The boat ploughed on. Now Alcatraz was past And all the grey waves flamed to red again At the dead sun’s last glimmer. Far and vast The Sausalito lights burned suddenly In little dots
Portrait of a Baby
He lay within a warm, soft world Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, Wave upon wave that broke and whirled To vanish in the grey-green gloom, Perspectiveless and shadowy.
Poor Devil!
Well, I was tired of life; the silly folk, The tiresome noises, all the common things I loved once, crushed me with an iron yoke. I longed for the cool quiet and the dark,
Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room
Soup should be heralded with a mellow horn, Blowing clear notes of gold against the stars; Strange entrees with a jangle of glass bars Fantastically alive with subtle scorn; Fish, by a plopping, gurgling
The City Revisited
The grey gulls drift across the bay Softly and still as flakes of snow Against the thinning fog. All day I sat and watched them come and go; And now at last the sun
The Breaking Point
It was not when temptation came, Swiftly and blastingly as flame, And seared me white with burning scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all
Lonely Burial
There were not many at that lonely place, Where two scourged hills met in a little plain. The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again. Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race
Alexander VI Dines with the Cardinal of Capua
Next, then, the peacock, gilt With all its feathers. Look, what gorgeous dyes Flow in the eyes! And how deep, lustrous greens are splashed and spilt Along the back, that like a sea-wave’s crest