Refrigerator, 1957

Related poetry:

1. Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York,1957 Once, in summer In the blueberries, I fell asleep, and woke When a deer stumbled against me. I guess She was so busy with her own happiness She had grown careless And was just wandering along Listening To the wind as she leaned down To lip up the sweetness. So, there we were With nothing […]...
2. Dream Song 32: And where, friend Quo, lay you hiding And where, friend Quo, lay you hiding Across malignant half my years or so? One evil faery It was workt night, with amoroso pleasing Menace, the panes shake Where Lie-by-the-fire is waiting for his cream. A tiger by a torrent in rain, wind, Narrows fiend’s eyes for grief In an old ink-on-silk, Reminding me of […]...
3. A catchy phrase It was called Farm Fantastic, a catchy phrase, And potentially a day’s wasted sweat. Even after the event I can’t say it wasn’t, And I’m kind of glad we went, for better Or worse, to see if it was. Actually, I went Because my Better had prefaced a day away From the farm, her invites […]...
4. The Family Monkey We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather Recklessly with funds carefully gathered since Grandfather’s time for the purchase of a steam monkey. We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric Or gas monkey. The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey Merchant. But the family always planned on a […]...
5. The Ballad of the Carpet Bag Ho! Darkies, don’t you hear dose voters cryin’ Pack dat carpet bag! You must get to de Poll, you must get there flyin’; Pack dat carpet bag! You must travel by de road, you must travel by de train, And the things what you’ve done you will have to explain, And the things what you’ve […]...
6. Barry Holden The very fall my sister Nancy Knapp Set fire to the house They were trying Dr. Duval For the murder of Zora Clemens, And I sat in the court two weeks Listening to every witness. It was clear he had got her in a family way; And to let the child be born Would not […]...
7. Baccalaureate A year or two, and grey Euripides, And Horace and a Lydia or so, And Euclid and the brush of Angelo, Darwin on man, Vergilius on bees, The nose and Dialogues of Socrates, Don Quixote, Hudibras and Trinculo, How worlds are spawned and where the dead gods go, All shall be shard of broken memories. […]...
8. Nancy Knapp Well, don’t you see this was the way of it: We bought the farm with what he inherited, And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning His fathers mind against the rest of them. And we never had any peace with our treasure. The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed. And lightning […]...
9. Master And Mistress As if I were composed of dust and air, The shape confronting me upon the stair (Athlete of shadow, lighted by a stain On its disjunctive breast I saw it plain ) Moved through my middle flesh. I turned around, Shaken and it was marching without sound Beyond the door; and when my hand was […]...
10. THE LEGEND OF THE HORSESHOE WHAT time our Lord still walk’d the earth, Unknown, despised, of humble birth, And on Him many a youth attended (His words they seldom comprehended), It ever seem’d to Him most meet To hold His court in open street, As under heaven’s broad canopy One speaks with greater liberty. The teachings of His blessed word […]...
11. Cherry-Time Cherries of the night are riper Than the cherries pluckt at noon Gather to your fairy piper When he pipes his magic tune: Merry, merry, Take a cherry; Mine are sounder, Mine are rounder, Mine are sweeter For the eater Under the moon. And you’ll be fairies soon. In the cherry pluckt at night, With […]...
12. Two Children Give me your hand, oh little one! Like children be we two; Yet I am old, my day is done That barely breaks for you. A baby-basket hard you hold, With in it cherries four: You cherish them as men do gold, And count them o’er. And then you stumble in your walk; The cherries […]...
13. Labor Day Requiring something lovely on his arm Took me to Stamford, Connecticut, a quasi-farm, His family’s; later picking up the mammoth Girlfriend of Charlie, meanwhile trying to pawn me off On some third guy also up for the weekend. But Saturday we still were paired; spent It sprawled across that sprawling acreage Until the grass grew […]...
14. Alias Bill We bore him to his boneyard lot One afternoon at three; The clergyman was on the spot To earn his modest fee. We sprinkled on his coffin ld The customary loam, And so old Bill was snugly slid To his last home. A lonesome celebate we thought, For close as clam was he; We never […]...
15. Reminiscence I am reminiscing you; and the little boy who often stole some change from the left pocket of your pants that would hang behind the door in the front room; his pride in bringing home for Mom, his three brothers and as many sisters, a plastic bagful of bananas or oranges from the money he’d […]...
16. My Great Great Etc. Uncle Patrick Henry There’s a fortune to be made in just about everything In this country, somebody’s father had to invent Everything baby food, tractors, rat poisoning. My family’s obviously done nothing since the beginning Of time. They invented poverty and bad taste And getting by and taking it from the boss. O my mother goes around chewing […]...
17. The Buyers Father drank himself to death, Quite enjoyed it. Urged to draw a sober breath He’d avoid it. ‘Save your sympathy,’ said Dad; ‘Never sought it. Hob-nail liver, gay and glad, Sure, I bought it.’ Uncle made a heap of dough, Ponies playing. ‘Easy come and easy go,’ Was his saying. Though he died in poverty […]...
18. The Simple Truth I bought a dollar and a half’s worth of small red potatoes, Took them home, boiled them in their jackets And ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt. Then I walked through the dried fields On the edge of town. In middle June the light Hung on in the dark furrows at […]...
19. When First I Came Here WHEN first I came here I had hope, Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat My heart at the sight of the tall slope Or grass and yews, as if my feet Only by scaling its steps of chalk Would see something no other hill Ever disclosed. And now I walk Down it the […]...
20. Morning Midday And Evening Sacrifice The dappled die-away Cheek and wimpled lip, The gold-wisp, the airy-grey Eye, all in fellowship- This, all this beauty blooming, This, all this freshness fuming, Give God while worth consuming. Both thought and thew now bolder And told by Nature: Tower; Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder That beat and breathe in power- This pride […]...
21. All In a Family Way My banks are all furnished with rags, So thick, even Freddy can’t thin ’em; I’ve torn up my old money-bags, Having little or nought to put in ’em. My tradesman are smashing by dozens, But this is all nothing, they say; For bankrupts, since Adam, are cousins, So, it’s all in the family way. My […]...
22. Cherries and birds cherries are so vulnerable Blinking their way from green To polished red in trees Guileless to stave off birds A murmur does its rounds And when the bright day comes And ripeness throws its coyness In the air a seething mesh Of wings and whetted beaks (knowing its cherry-right) Falls upon the fleshy fruit And […]...
23. Modern Love XIX: No State Is Enviable No state is enviable. To the luck alone Of some few favoured men I would put claim. I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I […]...
24. The Star-Splitter ‘You know Orion always comes up sideways. Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, And rising on his hands, he looks in on me Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something I should have done by daylight, and indeed, After the ground is frozen, I should have done Before it froze, and a gust […]...
25. Two Tramps In Mud Time Out of the mud two strangers came And caught me splitting wood in the yard, And one of them put me off my aim By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!” I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind And let the other go on a way. I knew pretty well what he had in […]...
26. I Remember, I Remember Coming up England by a different line For once, early in the cold new year, We stopped, and, watching men with number plates Sprint down the platform to familiar gates, ‘Why, Coventry!’ I exclaimed. ‘I was born here.’ I leant far out, and squinnied for a sign That this was still the town that had […]...
27. To Robert Nichols (From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: “I am just finishing my ‘Faun’s Holiday.’ I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.”) Here by a snowbound river In scrapen holes we shiver, And like old bitterns we Boom to you plaintively: Robert, how can I rhyme […]...
28. The Quarry Between the rice swamps and the fields of tea I met a sacred elephant, snow-white. Upon his back a huge pagoda towered Full of brass gods and food of sacrifice. Upon his forehead sat a golden throne, The massy metal twisted into shapes Grotesque, antediluvian, such as move In myth or have their broken images […]...
29. Picture Puzzle Piece One picture puzzle piece Lyin’ on the sidewalk, One picture puzzle piece Soakin’ in the rain. It might be a button of blue On the coat of the woman Who lived in a shoe. It might be a magical bean, Or a fold in the red Velvet robe of a queen. It might be the […]...
30. Security Young man, gather gold and gear, They will wear you well; You can thumb your nose at fear, Wish the horde in hell. With the haughty you can be Insolent and bold: Young man, if you would be free Gather gear and gold. Mellow man o middle age, Buy a little farm; Then let revolution […]...
31. Pragmatic When young I was an Atheist, Yea, pompous as a pigeon No opportunity I missed To satirize religion. I sneered at Scripture, scoffed at Faith, I blasphemed at believers: Said I: “There’s nothing after Death, Your priests are just deceivers.” In middle age I was not so Contemptuous and caustic. Thought I: “There’s much I […]...
32. Winnie When I went by the meadow gate The chestnut mare would trot to meet me, And as her coming I would wait, She’d whinney high as if to greet me. And I would kiss her silky nose, And stroke her neck until it glistened, And speak soft words: I don’t suppose She understand – but […]...
33. Independence Listen… Thud-thud Can you hear it? Thud-thud It’s the beat of my heart. Thud-thud I shall live on. Thud-thud My tortured soul Is not willing to rest. Thud-thud-thud This war has just begun. I’ve learned how to laugh In the face of evil now. Thud-thud-thud You can no longer hurt me, As long as I […]...
34. They called me to the Window, for They called me to the Window, for ” ‘Twas Sunset” Some one said I only saw a Sapphire Farm And just a Single Herd Of Opal Cattle feeding far Upon so vain a Hill As even while I looked dissolved Nor Cattle were nor Soil But in their stead a Sea displayed And Ships of […]...
35. The Lion The Lion is a kingly beast. He likes a Hindu for a feast. And if no Hindu he can get, The lion-family is upset. He cuffs his wife and bites her ears Till she is nearly moved to tears. Then some explorer finds the den And all is family peace again....
36. Yeats Died Saturday In France Yeats died Saturday in France. Freedom from his animal Has come at last in alien Nice, His heart beat separate from his will: He knows at last the old abyss Which always faced his staring face. No ability, no dignity Can fail him now who trained so long For the outrage of eternity, Teaching his […]...
37. The Romance Of Patrolman Casey There was a young patrolman who Had large but tender feet; They always hurt him badly when He walked upon his beat. (He always took them with him when He walked upon his beat.) His name was Patrick Casey and A sweetheart fair had he; Her face was full of freckles-but Her name was Kate […]...
38. The Release To-day within a grog-shop near I saw a newly captured linnet, Who beat against his cage in fear, And fell exhausted every minute; And when I asked the fellow there If he to sell the bird were willing, He told me with a careless air That I could have it for a shilling. And so […]...
39. Unobtainable Whether it was putting in an extra beat, Or leaving one out, I couldn’t tell. My heart seemed to have forgotten Everything it ever knew About timing and co-ordination In its efforts to get through to someone On the other side of a wall. As I lay in bed, I could hear it Hammering away […]...
40. Deer Dancer Nearly everyone had left that bar in the middle of winter except the Hardcore. It was the coldest night of the year, every place shut down, but Not us. Of course we noticed when she came in. We were Indian ruins. She Was the end of beauty. No one knew her, the stranger whose tribe […]...