Ethiopia Saluting the Colors

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1. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
2. 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, dry colors! Well” he led To a dim alley lined with musty bins, And pulled one fiercely. Violent and bold A […]...
3. My Cocoon tightens Colors tease My Cocoon tightens Colors tease I’m feeling for the Air A dim capacity for Wings Demeans the Dress I wear A power of Butterfly must be The Aptitude to fly Meadows of Majesty implies And easy Sweeps of Sky So I must baffle at the Hint And cipher at the Sign And make much blunder, […]...
4. A Child's Nightmare Through long nursery nights he stood By my bed unwearying, Loomed gigantic, formless, queer, Purring in my haunted ear That same hideous nightmare thing, Talking, as he lapped my blood, In a voice cruel and flat, Saying for ever, “Cat! … Cat! … Cat!…” That one word was all he said, That one word through […]...
5. ANSWERS IN A GAME OF QUESTIONS THE LADY. IN the small and great world too, What most charms a woman’s heart? It is doubtless what is new, For its blossoms joy impart; Nobler far is what is true, For fresh blossoms it can shoot Even in the time of fruit. THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN. With the Nymphs in wood and cave Paris […]...
6. THE QUADROON GIRL The Slaver in the broad lagoon Lay moored with idle sail; He waited for the rising moon, And for the evening gale. Under the shore his boat was tied, And all her listless crew Watched the gray alligator slide Into the still bayou. Odors of orange-flowers, and spice, Reached them from time to time, Like […]...
7. The Age My age, my beast, is there anyone Who can peer into your eyes And with his own blood fuse Two centuries’ worth of vertebrae? The creating blood gushes From the throat of earthly things, And the parasite just trembles On the threshold of new days. While the creature still has life, The spine must be […]...
8. The Coquette, and After (Triolets) I For long the cruel wish I knew That your free heart should ache for me While mine should bear no ache for you; For, long the cruel wish! I knew How men can feel, and craved to view My triumph fated not to be For long! . . . The cruel wish I knew […]...
9. Psalm 22 Christ’s sufferings and exaltation. Now let our mournful songs record The dying sorrows of our Lord, When he complained in tears and blood, As one forsaken of his God. The Jews beheld him thus forlorn, And shake their heads, and laugh in scorn: “He rescued others from the grave; Now let him try himself to […]...
10. That Bright Chimeric Beast That bright chimeric beast Conceived yet never born, Save in the poet’s breast, The white-flanked unicorn, Never may be shaken From his solitude; Never may be taken In any earthly wood. That bird forever feathered, Of its new self the sire, After aeons weathered, Reincarnate by fire, Falcon may not nor eagle Swerve from his […]...
11. Medallion THE BRASS medallion profile of your face I keep always. It is not jingling with loose change in my pockets. It is not stuck up in a show place on the office wall. I carry it in a special secret pocket in the day And it is under my pillow at night. The brass came […]...
12. A Lost Angel When first we met she seemed so white I feared her; As one might near a spirit bright I neared her; An angel pure from heaven above I dreamed her, And far too good for human love I deemed her. A spirit free from mortal taint I thought her, And incense as unto a saint […]...
13. Swift's Epitaph Swift has sailed into his rest; Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast. Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveller; he Served human liberty....
14. The Negro Speaks Of Rivers I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the […]...
15. 210. Song-Stay my Charmer STAY my charmer, can you leave me? Cruel, cruel to deceive me; Well you know how much you grieve me; Cruel charmer, can you go! Cruel charmer, can you go! By my love so ill-requited, By the faith you fondly plighted, By the pangs of lovers slighted, Do not, do not liave me so! Do […]...
16. My Mother Would Be a Falconress My mother would be a falconress, And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist, Would fly to bring back From the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize, Where I dream in my little hood with many bells Jangling when I’d turn my head. My mother would be a falconress, And she sends […]...
17. If You Only Knew Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the trappings of poetic myth, Far from me but here all the same without your knowing, Far from me and even more silent because I imagine you endlessly. Far from me, my lovely mirage and eternal dream, you cannot know. If you only knew. […]...
18. The Pattern A women had given birth to an old man. He cried to have again been caught in the pattern. Oh well, he sighed as he took her breast to his mouth. The woman is happy to have her baby, even if it is old. Probably it got mislaid in the baby place, and when they […]...
19. Trespassers When Love and I drew softly nigh And gazed in modest Chloe’s eye We saw reflected there in part The lovely mansion of her heart, A sight so fair that, quite bereft Of sense and shame, we had but left One wish, that we by foul or fair Might enter in and tarry there. But […]...
20. God lay dead in heaven God lay dead in heaven; Angels sang the hymn of the end; Purple winds went moaning, Their wings drip-dripping With blood That fell upon the earth. It, groaning thing, Turned black and sank. Then from the far caverns Of dead sins Came monsters, livid with desire. They fought, Wrangled over the world, A morsel. But […]...
21. Parable For A Certain Virgin Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine; Refresh your recollection, And sit a moment, to define His means of self-protection. How truly fortified is he! Where is the beast his double In forethought of emergency And readiness for trouble? Recall his figure, and his shade- How deftly planned and clearly For slithering through the dappled glade Unseen, […]...
22. The Combat It was not meant for human eyes, That combat on the shabby patch Of clods and trampled turf that lies Somewhere beneath the sodden skies For eye of toad or adder to catch. And having seen it I accuse The crested animal in his pride, Arrayed in all the royal hues Which hide the claws […]...
23. Faithless Sally Brown Young Ben he was a nice young man, A carpenter by trade; And he fell in love with Sally Brown, That was a lady’s maid. But as they fetch’d a walk one day, They met a press-gang crew; And Sally she did faint away, Whilst Ben he was brought to. The Boatswain swore with wicked […]...
24. Demon And Beast For certain minutes at the least That crafty demon and that loud beast That plague me day and night Ran out of my sight; Though I had long perned in the gyre, Between my hatred and desire. I saw my freedom won And all laugh in the sun. The glittering eyes in a death’s head […]...
25. 424. Song-Phillis the Fair WHILE larks, with little wing, Fann’d the pure air, Tasting the breathing Spring, Forth I did fare: Gay the sun’s golden eye Peep’d o’er the mountains high; Such thy morn! did I cry, Phillis the fair. In each bird’s careless song, Glad I did share; While yon wild-flowers among, Chance led me there! Sweet to […]...
26. The Book of Urizen: Chapter VI 1. But Los saw the Female & pitied He embrac’d her, she wept, she refus’d In perverse and cruel delight She fled from his arms, yet he followd 2. Eternity shudder’d when they saw, Man begetting his likeness, On his own divided image. 3. A time passed over, the Eternals Began to erect the tent; […]...
27. Euthansia A sea-gull with a broken wing, I found upon the kelp-strewn shore. It sprawled and gasped; I sighed: “Poor thing! I fear your flying days are o’er; Sad victim of a savage gun, So ends your soaring in the sun.” I only wanted to be kind; Its icy legs I gently caught, Thinking its fracture […]...
28. En-Dor “Behold there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at En-dor.” I Samuel, xxviii. 7. The road to En-dor is easy to tread For Mother or yearning Wife. There, it is sure, we shall meet our Dead As they were even in life. Earth has not dreamed of the blessing in store For desolate […]...
29. The Woman At The Gate “Where is your little boy to-day?” I asked her at the gate. “I used to see him at his play, And often I would wait: He was so beautiful, so bright, I watched him with delight. “He had a tiny motor-car And it was painted red; He wound it up; it ran so far, So […]...
30. Guenevere I was a queen, and I have lost my crown; A wife, and I have broken all my vows; A lover, and I ruined him I loved: There is no other havoc left to do. A little month ago I was a queen, And mothers held their babies up to see When I came riding […]...
31. Her Vision In The Wood Dry timber under that rich foliage, At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood, Too old for a man’s love I stood in rage Imagining men. Imagining that I could A greater with a lesser pang assuage Or but to find if withered vein ran blood, I tore my body that its wine might cover Whatever […]...
32. Assault I I had forgotten how the frogs must sound After a year of silence, else I think I should not so have ventured forth alone At dusk upon this unfrequented road. II I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk Between me and the crying of the frogs? Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, […]...
33. Between the Dusk of a Summer Night Between the dusk of a summer night And the dawn of a summer day, We caught at a mood as it passed in flight, And we bade it stoop and stay. And what with the dawn of night began With the dusk of day was done; For that is the way of woman and man, […]...
34. Our biggest fish When in the halcyon days of old, I was a little tyke, I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and the like; And oh, the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I’d caught! And, oh, the indignation and the valor I’d […]...
35. Unfolded Out of the Folds UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to come unfolded; Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest man of the earth; Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to come the friendliest man; Unfolded only out of the perfect body […]...
36. Village Mystery The woman in the pointed hood And cloak blue-gray like a pigeon’s wing, Whose orchard climbs to the balsam-wood, Has done a cruel thing. To her back door-step came a ghost, A girl who had been ten years dead, She stood by the granite hitching-post And begged for a piece of bread. Now why should […]...
37. Curse of the Cat Woman It sometimes happens That the woman you meet and fall in love with Is of that strange Transylvanian people With an affinity for cats. You take her to a restuarant, say, or a show, On an ordinary date, being attracted By the glitter in her slitty eyes and her catlike walk, And afterwards of course […]...
38. The Lady's First Song I turn round Like a dumb beast in a show. Neither know what I am Nor where I go, My language beaten Into one name; I am in love And that is my shame. What hurts the soul My soul adores, No better than a beast Upon all fours....
39. TO PANSIES Ah, Cruel Love! must I endure Thy many scorns, and find no cure? Say, are thy medicines made to be Helps to all others but to me? I’ll leave thee, and to Pansies come: Comforts you’ll afford me some: You can ease my heart, and do What Love could ne’er be brought unto....
40. Phenomenal Woman Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m […]...