Empty

Related poetry:

1. Quite empty, quite at rest Quite empty, quite at rest, The Robin locks her Nest, and tries her Wings. She does not know a Route But puts her Craft about For rumored Springs She does not ask for Noon She does not ask for Boon, Crumbless and homeless, of but one request The Birds she lost...
2. Bottle 'O&#039 I ain’t the kind of bloke as takes to any steady job; I drives me bottle cart around the town; A bloke what keeps ‘is eyes about can always make a bob I couldn’t bear to graft for every brown. There’s lots of handy things about in everybody’s yard, There’s cocks and hens a-runnin’ to […]...
3. The Empty Boats Why do I see these empty boats, sailing on airy seas? One haunted me the whole night long, swaying with every breeze, Returning always near the eaves, or by the skylight glass: There it will wait me many weeks, and then, at last, will pass. Each soul is haunted by a ship in which that […]...
4. Dream Song 56: Hell is empty. O that has come to pass Hell is empty. O that has come to pass Which the cut Alexandrian foresaw, And Hell is empty. Lightning fell silent where the Devil knelt And over the whole grave space hath settled awe In a full death of guilt. The tinchel closes. Terror, & plunging, swipes. I lay my ears back. I am about […]...
5. If Thou Could'st Empty All Thyself Of Self If thou could’st empty all thyself of self, Like to a shell dishabited, Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf, And say, “This is not dead,” And fill thee with Himself instead. But thou are all replete with very thou And hast such shrewd activity, That when He comes He says, “This is […]...
6. Empty my Heart, of Thee Empty my Heart, of Thee Its single Artery Begin, and leave Thee out Simply Extinction’s Date Much Billow hath the Sea One Baltic They Subtract Thyself, in play, And not enough of me Is left to put away “Myself” meanth Thee Erase the Root no Tree Thee then no me The Heavens stripped Eternity’s vast […]...
7. An Empty Crib Beside a crib that holds a baby’s stocking, A tattered picture book, a broken toy, A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking Her fair-haired cherub boy. Upon the cradle’s side her light touch keeping, She gently rocks it, crooning low a song; And smiles to think her little one is sleeping, So peacefully and […]...
8. Echoes in an empty room The strident sounds of silence echo In a darkened room, a beggar’s tomb Of emptied space and barrenness, a Shameful waste, a bitter sadness. It violates all sense of being strips aside All causal meaning bound inside the shrinking Wrap that clings to surfaces debased, Insulates the tiny tap of time, a skulking Soulless mirthless […]...
9. The bottle tree A bottle tree bloometh in Winkyway land – Heigh-ho for a bottle, I say! A snug little berth in that ship I demand That rocketh the Bottle-Tree babies away Where the Bottle Tree bloometh by night and by day And reacheth its fruit to each wee, dimpled hand; You take of that fruit as much […]...
10. Empty Room The clock disserts on punctuation, syntax. The clock’s voice, thin and dry, asserts, repeats. The clock insists: a lecturer demonstrating, Loudly, with finger raised, when the class has gone. But time flows through the room, light flows through the room Like someone picking flowers, like someone whistling Without a tune, like talk in front of […]...
11. A Man Young And Old: V. The Empty Cup A crazy man that found a cup, When all but dead of thirst, Hardly dared to wet his mouth Imagining, moon-accursed, That another mouthful And his beating heart would burst. October last I found it too But found it dry as bone, And for that reason am I crazed And my sleep is gone....
12. The Empty Quatrain A flawless cup: how delicate and fine The flowing curve of every jewelled line! Look, turn it up or down, ‘t is perfect still, But holds no drop of life’s heart-warming wine....
13. An Empty Threat I stay; But it isn’t as if There wasn’t always Hudson’s Bay And the fur trade, A small skiff And a paddle blade. I can just see my tent pegged, And me on the floor, Cross-legged, And a trapper looking in at the door With furs to sell. His name’s Joe, Alias John, And between […]...
14. 24. Song-No Churchman am I NO churchman am I for to rail and to write, No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight, No sly man of business contriving a snare, For a big-belly’d bottle’s the whole of my care. The peer I don’t envy, I give him his bow; I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low; […]...
15. An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire, The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire. It’s Etna, or Vesuvius, if those big things were small, And then ’tis but itself again, and does not smoke at all. And so my blood grows cold. I say, “The bottle held but ink, […]...
16. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
17. 5.7 I don’t care if you are you and I am I. I am not some exotic flower. Whatever coat you have on, I will put it on to warm me… and the shoes however small… I will walk in them to balance our height difference. You don’t need to convert for me; I have already […]...
18. 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 […]...
19. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
20. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
21. The Batchelors Song Like a Dog with a bottle, fast ti’d to his tail, Like Vermin in a trap, or a Thief in a Jail, Or like a Tory in a Bog, Or an Ape with a Clog: Such is the man, who when he might go free, Does his liberty loose, For a Matrimony noose, And sels […]...
22. Eastern River Do not look for the stones In water above the mud, The boat is gone. No longer with nets and baskets The river is dotted. The sun wick, The marsh marigold flickered out in rain. Only the willow still bears witness, In its roots The secrets of tramps lie hidden, Their paltry treasures, A rusty […]...
23. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
24. Gin The first time I drank gin I thought it must be hair tonic. My brother swiped the bottle From a guy whose father owned A drug store that sold booze In those ancient, honorable days When we acknowledged the stuff Was a drug. Three of us passed The bottle around, each tasting With disbelief. People […]...
25. Commandeering Our hero was a Tommy with a conscience free from care, And such an open countenance that when he breathed the air He mopped up all the atmosphere so little went to spare You could hardly say he breathed, he “commandeered” it. For nowadays you’ll notice when a man is “on the make”, And other […]...
26. Big Night On The Town drunk on the dark streets of some city, It’s night, you’re lost, where’s your Room? You enter a bar to find yourself, Order scotch and water. Damned bar’s sloppy wet, it soaks Part of one of your shirt Sleeves. It’s a clip joint-the scotch is weak. You order a bottle of beer. Madame Death walks […]...
27. Alone Over the fence, the dead settle in For a journey. Nine o’clock. You are alone for the first time Today. Boys asleep. Husband out. A beer bottle sweats in your hand, And sea lavender clogs the air With perfume. Think of yourself. Your arms rest with nothing to do After weeks spent attending to others. […]...
28. A House upon the Height A House upon the Height That Wagon never reached No Dead, were ever carried down No Peddler’s Cart approached Whose Chimney never smoked Whose Windows Night and Morn Caught Sunrise first and Sunset last Then held an Empty Pane Whose fate Conjecture knew No other neighbor did And what it was we never lisped Because […]...
29. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
30. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
31. This Life Which Seems So Fair This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children’s breath, Who chase it everywhere And strive who can most motion it bequeath. And though it sometimes seem of its own might Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there, And firm to hover in […]...
32. Houses Of Dreams You took my empty dreams And filled them every one With tenderness and nobleness, April and the sun. The old empty dreams Where my thoughts would throng Are far too full of happiness To even hold a song. Oh, the empty dreams were dim And the empty dreams were wide, They were sweet and shadowy […]...
33. The Remains I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets. I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road. At night I turn back the clocks; I open the family album and look at myself as a boy. What good does it do? The hours have done their job. I say my […]...
34. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
35. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
36. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
37. With Tenure If Ezra Pound were alive today (and he is) He’d be teaching At a small college in the Pacific Northwest And attending the annual convention Of writing instructors in St. Louis And railing against tenure, Saying tenure Is a ladder whose rungs slip out From under the scholar as he climbs Upwards to empty heaven […]...
38. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
39. My Will I’ve made my Will. I don’t believe In luxury and wealth; And to those loving ones who grieve My age and frailing health I give the meed to soothe their ways That they may happy be, And pass serenely all their days In snug security. That duty done, I leave behind The all I have […]...
40. How M'Ginnis went missing Let us cease our idle chatter, Let the tears bedew our cheek, For a man from Tallangatta Has been missing for a week. Where the roaring flooded Murray Covered all the lower land, There he started in a hurry, With a bottle in his hand. And his fate is hid for ever, But the public […]...