The Send-Off

Related poetry:

1. Song (Sylvia The Fair, In The Bloom Of Fifteen) Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of fifteen, Felt an innocent warmth as she lay on the green: She had heard of a pleasure, and something she guessed By the towsing and tumbling and touching her breast: She saw the men eager, but was at a loss What they meant by their sighing and kissing […]...
2. Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased) The lump of coal my parents teased I’d find in my Christmas stocking Turned out each year to be an orange, For I was their sunshine. Now I have one C. gave me, A dense node of sleeping fire. I keep it where I read and write. “You’re on chummy terms with dread,” It reminds […]...
3. A Last Confession What lively lad most pleasured me Of all that with me lay? I answer that I gave my soul And loved in misery, But had great pleasure with a lad That I loved bodily. Flinging from his arms I laughed To think his passion such He fancied that I gave a soul Did but our […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
6. To Certain Poets Now is the rhymer’s honest trade A thing for scornful laughter made. The merchant’s sneer, the clerk’s disdain, These are the burden of our pain. Because of you did this befall, You brought this shame upon us all. You little poets mincing there With women’s hearts and women’s hair! How sick Dan Chaucer’s ghost must […]...
7. I send Two Sunsets I send Two Sunsets Day and I in competition ran I finished Two and several Stars While He was making One His own was ampler but as I Was saying to a friend Mine is the more convenient To Carry in the Hand...
8. Send Me A Leaf Send me a leaf, but from a bush That grows at least one half hour Away from your house, then You must go and will be strong, and I Thank you for the pretty leaf....
9. Send No Money Standing under the fobbed Impendent belly of Time Tell me the truth, I said, Teach me the way things go. All the other lads there Were itching to have a bash, But I thought wanting unfair: It and finding out clash. So he patted my head, booming Boy, There’s no green in your eye: Sit […]...
10. Send Round the Hat Now this is the creed from the Book of the Bush – Should be simple and plain to a dunce: “If a man’s in a hole you must pass round the hat – Were he jail-bird or gentleman once.”...
11. I'll send the feather from my Hat! I’ll send the feather from my Hat! Who knows but at the sight of that My Sovereign will relent? As trinket worn by faded Child Confronting eyes long comforted Blisters the Adamant!...
12. Come, Send Round the Wine Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief To simpleton sages and reasoning fools; This moment’s a flower too fair and brief To be wither’d and stain’d by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, But, while they are fill’d from the same bright bowl, […]...
13. I send you a decrepit flower I send you a decrepit flower That nature sent to me At parting she was going south And I designed to stay Her motive for the souvenir If sentiment for me Or circumstances prudential Withheld invincibly...
14. I prithee send me back my heart I prithee send me back my heart, Since I cannot have thine; For if from yours you will not part, Why, then, shouldst thou have mine? Yet now I think on’t, let it lie, To find it were in vain; For thou hast a thief in either eye Would steal it back again. Why should […]...
15. Jehovah-Shalom. The Lord Send Peace (Judges, vi.25) Jesus! whose blood so freely stream’d To satisfy the law’s demand; By Thee from guilt and wrath redeem’d, Before the Father’s face I stand. To reconcile offending man, Make Justice drop her angry rod; What creature could have form’d the plan, Or who fulfil it but a God? No drop remains of all […]...
16. Tom Merritt At first I suspected something She acted so calm and absent-minded. And one day I heard the back door shut, As I entered the front, and I saw him slink Back of the smokehouse into the lot, And run across the field. And I meant to kill him on sight. But that day, walking near […]...
17. Charity The Princess was of ancient line, Of royal race was she; Like cameo her face was fine, With sad serentiy: Yet bent she toiled with dimming eye, Her rice and milk to buy. With lacework that for pity plead, So out of date it seemed, She sought to make her daily bread, As of her […]...
18. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
19. Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, mock on; ’tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again. And every sand becomes a gem Reflected in the beams divine; Blown back they blind the mocking eye, But still in Israel’s paths they shine. The Atoms […]...
20. Deaf Martha Poor Martha is old, and her hair is turn’d grey, And her hearing has left her for many a year; Ten to one if she knows what it is that you say, Though she puts her poor wither’d hand close to her ear. I’ve seen naughty children run after her fast, And cry, “Martha, run, […]...
21. Who is now Reading This? WHO is now reading this? May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life, Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me, Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision, Or may-be one who is puzzled at me. As if I […]...
22. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
23. Right in Front of the Army “Where ‘ave you been this week or more, ‘Aven’t seen you about the war’? Thought perhaps you was at the rear Guarding the waggons.” “What, us? No fear! Where have we been? Why, bless my heart, Where have we been since the bloomin’ start? Right in the front of the army, Battling day and night! […]...
24. Like Snow She, then, like snow in a dark night, Fell secretly. And the world waked With dazzling of the drowsy eye, So that some muttered ‘Too much light’, And drew the curtains close. Like snow, warmer than fingers feared, And to soil friendly; Holding the histories of the night In yet unmelted tracks....
25. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
26. On a Theme by Frost Amherst never had a witch O Coos or of Grafton But once upon a time There were three old women. One wore a small beard And carried a big umbrella. One stood in the middle Of the road hailing cars. One drove an old cart All over the town collecting junk. They were not weird […]...
27. The Gift “He gave her class. She gave him sex.” Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers He gave her money. She gave him head. He gave her tips on “aggressive growth” mutual funds. She gave him a red rose and a little statue of eros. He gave her Genesis 2 (21-23). She gave him Genesis […]...
28. At The Abbey Theatre (Imitated from Ronsard) Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case. When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they’ll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things, So bitterly, you’d dream they longed to look All their lives […]...
29. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
30. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
31. My Cuckoo Clock I bought a cuckoo clock And glad was I To hear its tick and tock, Its dulcet cry. But Jones, whose wife is young And pretty too, Winced when that bird gave tongue: Cuckoo! Cuckoo! I have a lady friend Whom I would wed, For dalliance should end In bridal bed. Until the thought occurred: […]...
32. Prospect NSW (For Anita Cobby) The hushed dark hugs the streets. Somewhere a cat snaps the silence. Dogs begin to bark, like a pack moving in for the kill. Women shrink in their homes. Shadows slip through the night and stars dim their lights as cars flash past. When they disappear, silence, heavy as hate, descends. Hours stretch like elastic […]...
33. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
34. We send the Wave to find the Wave We send the Wave to find the Wave An Errand so divine, The Messenger enamored too, Forgetting to return, We make the wise distinction still, Soever made in vain, The sagest time to dam the sea is when the sea is gone...
35. Jack McGuire They would have lynched me Had I not been secretly hurried away To the jail at Peoria. And yet I was going peacefully home, Carrying my jug, a little drunk, When Logan, the marshal, halted me, Called me a drunken hound and shook me, And, when I cursed him for it, struck me With that […]...
36. A Week Later A week later, I said to a friend: I don’t Think I could ever write about it. Maybe in a year I could write something. There is something in me maybe someday To be written; now it is folded, and folded, And folded, like a note in school. And in my dream Someone was playing […]...
37. "Birds of Prey" March March! The mud is cakin’ good about our trousies. Front! eyes front, an’ watch the Colour-casin’s drip. Front! The faces of the women in the ‘ouses Ain’t the kind o’ things to take aboard the ship. Cheer! An’ we’ll never march to victory. Cheer! An’ we’ll never live to ‘ear the cannon roar! The Large […]...
38. The Laughter Of Women The laughter of women sets fire To the Halls of Injustice And the false evidence burns To a beautiful white lightness It rattles the Chambers of Congress And forces the windows wide open So the fatuous speeches can fly out The laughter of women wipes the mist From the spectacles of the old; It infects […]...
39. Forget Not Yet Forget not yet the tried intent Of such a truth as I have meant My great travail so gladly spent Forget not yet. Forget not yet when first began The weary life ye knew, since whan The suit, the service, none tell can, Forget not yet. Forget not yet the great assays, The cruel wrongs, […]...
40. The Grey Monk “I die, I die!” the Mother said, “My children die for lack of bread. What more has the merciless Tyrant said?” The Monk sat down on the stony bed. The blood red ran from the Grey Monk’s side, His hands and feet were wounded wide, His body bent, his arms and knees Like to the […]...