What Place is Besieged?

Related poetry:

1. Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls Into Besieged City Early germ Warfare. The dead Hurled this way look like wheels In the sky. Look: there goes Larry the Shoemaker, barefoot, over the wall, And Mary Sausage Stuffer, see how she flies, And the Hatter twins, both at once, soar Over the parapet, little Tommy’s elbow bent As if in a salute, And his sister, […]...
2. Scab Maids On Speed My first job was when I was about 15. I had met A girl named Hope who became my best friend. Hope and I were flunking math Class so we became speed freaks. This honed our algebra skills and we quickly Became whiz kids. For about 5 minutes. Then, our brains started to fry And […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Dream Song 39: Goodbye, sir, & fare well. You're in the clear Goodbye, sir, & fare well. You’re in the clear. ‘Nobody’ (Mark says you said) ‘is ever found out.’ I figure you were right, Having as Henry got away with murder For long. Some jarred clock tell me it’s late, Not for you who went straight But for the lorn. Our roof is lefted off Lately: […]...
6. 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...
7. An Army Corps on the March WITH its cloud of skirmishers in advance, With now the sound of a single shot, snapping like a whip, and now an irregular volley, The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on; Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun-the dust-cover’d men, In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground, […]...
8. 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...
9. 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 […]...
10. 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!...
11. 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 […]...
12. 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...
13. Not Mine All my life to pretend this world of theirs is mine And to know such pretending is disgraceful. But what can I do? Suppose I suddenly screamed And started to prophesy. No one would hear me. Their screens and microphones are not for that. Others like me wander the streets And talk to themselves. Sleep […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. Maternity There once was a Square, such a square little Square, And he loved a trim Triangle; But she was a flirt and around her skirt Vainly she made him dangle. Oh he wanted to wed and he had no dread Of domestic woes and wrangles; For he thought that his fate was to procreate Cute […]...
16. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
17. In a Vale WHEN I was young, we dwelt in a vale By a misty fen that rang all night, And thus it was the maidens pale I knew so well, whose garments trail Across the reeds to a window light. The fen had every kind of bloom, And for every kind there was a face, And a […]...
18. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
19. The Future A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time; Brimming with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light, Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream. As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been. Whether he […]...
20. The Owners Of The Little Box Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its milk And sleep in the clouds Just don’t go around pretending You’re more important than her length And wiser than her […]...
21. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
22. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
23. Jehovah-Shammah (Ezekiel, xlviii.35) As birds their infant brood protect, And spread their wings to shelter them, Thus saith the Lord to His elect, “So will I guard Jerusalem.” And what then is Jerusalem, This darling object of His cares? Where is its worth in God’s esteem? Who built it? who inhabits there? Jehovah founded it in […]...
24. Who shall deliver me? God strengthen me to bear myself; That heaviest weight of all to bear, Inalienable weight of care. All others are outside myself; I lock my door and bar them out The turmoil, tedium, gad-about. I lock my door upon myself, And bar them out; but who shall wall Self from myself, most loathed of all? […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Dying! To be afraid of thee Dying! To be afraid of thee One must to thine Artillery Have left exposed a Friend Than thine old Arrow is a Shot Delivered straighter to the Heart The leaving Love behind. Not for itself, the Dust is shy, But, enemy, Beloved be Thy Batteries divorce. Fight sternly in a Dying eye Two Armies, Love […]...
27. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
28. This Little Bag This little bag I hope will prove To be not vainly made For, if you should a needle want It will afford you aid. And as we are about to part T’will serve another end, For when you look upon the Bag You’ll recollect your friend...
29. Baby Vamps BABY vamps, is it harder work than it used to be? Are the new soda parlors worse than the old time saloons? Baby vamps, do you have jobs in the day time or is this all you do? do you come out only at night? In the winter at the skating rinks, in the summer […]...
30. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
31. Song For Heroes Captain O’Hare was a mariner brave; He refused to abandon his ship; A hero, he sleeps in a watery grave- And his widow is now Mrs. Bipp, Haw! Haw! His widow is now Mrs. Bipp! Henri Dupont was a fearless young ace; Five thousand feet up he was hit; Each year on his grave pretty […]...
32. Lo! Victress on the Peaks LO! Victress on the peaks! Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world, (The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee;) Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all; Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee, Flauntest now unharm’d, in immortal soundness and bloom-lo! in these hours supreme, No poem proud, I, […]...
33. Redemption Having been tenant long to a rich lord, Not thriving, I resolved to be bold, And make a suit unto him, to afford A new small-rented lease, and cancel the old. In heaven at his manor I him sought; They told me there that he was lately gone About some land, which he had dearly […]...
34. To a Waterfowl Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler’s eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek’st thou the plashy brink Of […]...
35. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
36. O Me! O Life! O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless-of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light-of the objects mean-of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results […]...
37. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
38. Mummia As those of old drank mummia To fire their limbs of lead, Making dead kings from Africa Stand pandar to their bed; Drunk on the dead, and medicined With spiced imperial dust, In a short night they reeled to find Ten centuries of lust. So I, from paint, stone, tale, and rhyme, Stuffed love’s infinity, […]...
39. LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER'S SKULL [This curious imitation of the ternary metre Of Dante was written at the age of 77.] WITHIN a gloomy charnel-house one day I view’d the countless skulls, so strangely mated, And of old times I thought, that now were grey. Close pack’d they stand, that once so fiercely hated, And hardy bones, that to the […]...
40. The Destroying Angel I dreamt a dream the other night That an Angel appeared to me, clothed in white. Oh! it was a beautiful sight, Such as filled my heart with delight. And in her hand she held a flaming brand, Which she waved above her head most grand; And on me she glared with love-beaming eyes, Then […]...