A Last Confession

Related poetry:

1. The Lady's Second Song What sort of man is coming To lie between your feet? What matter, we are but women. Wash; make your body sweet; I have cupboards of dried fragrance. I can strew the sheet. The Lord have mercy upon us. He shall love my soul as though Body were not at all, He shall love your […]...
2. The Death and Last Confession of Wandering Peter When Peter Wanderwide was young He wandered everywhere he would: All that he approved was sung, And most of what he saw was good. When Peter Wanderwide was thrown By Death himself beyond Auxerre, He chanted in heroic tone To priests and people gathered there: “If all that I have loved and seen Be with […]...
3. Confession waiting for death Like a cat That will jump on the Bed I am so very sorry for My wife She will see this Stiff White Body Shake it once, then Maybe Again “Hank!” Hank won’t Answer. It’s not my death that Worries me, it’s my wife Left with this Pile of Nothing. I want […]...
4. By an Evolutionist By an Evolutionist The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man, And the man said, ‘Am I your debtor?’ And the Lord-‘Not yet; but make it as clean as you can, And then I will let you a better.’ I. If my body come from brutes, my soul uncertain […]...
5. The Answer Bill has left his house of clay, Slammed the door and gone away: How he laughed but yesterday! I had two new jokes to tell, Salty, but he loved them well: Now I see his empty shell. Poker-faced he looks at me; Peeved to miss them jokes – how h Would have belly-laughed with glee! […]...
6. 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....
7. Crazy Jane On The Day Of Judgment ‘Love is all Unsatisfied That cannot take the whole Body and soul’; And that is what Jane said. ‘Take the sour If you take me I can scoff and lour And scold for an hour.’ “That’s certainly the case,’ said he. ‘Naked I lay, The grass my bed; Naked and hidden away, That black day’; […]...
8. GENERAL CONFESSION In this noble ring to-day Let my warning shame ye! Listen to my solemn voice, Seldom does it name ye. Many a thing have ye intended, Many a thing have badly ended, And now I must blame ye. At some moment in our lives We must all repent us! So confess, with pious trust, All […]...
9. A First Confession I admit the briar Entangled in my hair Did not injure me; My blenching and trembling, Nothing but dissembling, Nothing but coquetry. I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man’s attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones. Brightness that I pull back […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. A Man Young And Old: III. The Mermaid A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown....
12. Debt What do I owe to you Who loved me deep and long? You never gave my spirit wings Or gave my heart a song. But oh, to him I loved, Who loved me not at all, I owe the open gate That led through heaven’s wall....
13. The Beasts' Confession To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents When beasts could speak (the learned say, They still can do so ev’ry day), It seems, they had religion then, As much as now we find in men. It happen’d, when a plague broke out (Which therefore made them more devout), The king […]...
14. Father He never made a fortune, or a noise In the world where men are seeking after fame; But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys Who loved the very ground on which he trod. They thought him just little short of God; Oh you should have heard the way they said his name […]...
15. The Peasant's Confession Good Father!… ‘Twas an eve in middle June, And war was waged anew By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn Men’s bones all Europe through. Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed The Sambre at Charleroi, To move on Brussels, where the English host Dallied in Parc and Bois. The yestertide we’d […]...
16. Among Those Killed In The Dawn Raid Was A Man Aged A Hundred When the morning was waking over the war He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died, The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide, He dropped where he loved on the burst pavement stone And the funeral grains of the slaughtered floor. Tell his street on its back he stopped […]...
17. In a Breath To the Williamson Brothers HIGH noon. White sun flashes on the Michigan Avenue Asphalt. Drum of hoofs and whirr of motors. Women trapsing along in flimsy clothes catching Play of sun-fire to their skin and eyes. Inside the playhouse are movies from under the sea. From the heat of pavements and the dust of sidewalks, […]...
18. Confession for all my country poses My cells belong to a town Grass is symbol-deep in me But brick dips deeper down Mountains knock me sideways A moor chills my bones A field of wheat exults me I’m awed by ancient stones But lines of dowdy shop-fronts Mean unpolished streets Sever the green man in me […]...
19. Sonnet (Women Have Loved Before As I Love Now) Women have loved before as I love now; At least, in lively chronicles of the past- Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast Much to their cost invaded-here and there, Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest, I find some woman bearing as I bear Love like a […]...
20. A Confession To: I At the risk of being customary I wish to make a confession Not that it may be true They do not love that do not show it But because it’s true That to deny it is to argue with reality...
21. Confession To say I’m without fear It wouldn’t be true. I’m afraid of sickness, humiliation. Like anyone, I have my dreams. But I’ve learned to hide them, To protect myself From fulfillment: all happiness Attracts the Fates’ anger. They are sisters, savages In the end they have No emotion but envy....
22. Clothes chapter X And the weaver said, “Speak to us of Clothes.” And he answered: Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind […]...
23. A Confession To A Friend In Trouble Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near; I even smile old smiles with listlessness Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern: That I will not show zeal again to […]...
24. Dream Song 76: Henry's Confession Nothin very bad happen to me lately. How you explain that? —I explain that, Mr Bones, Terms o’ your bafflin odd sobriety. Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones, What could happen bad to Mr Bones? €”If life is a handkerchief sandwich, In a modesty of death I join my father Who dared […]...
25. First We Take Manhattan They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. I’m guided by a signal in the heavens I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin I’m guided by the beauty of our […]...
26. Life's Tragedy It may be misery not to sing at all, And to go silent through the brimming day; It may be misery never to be loved, But deeper griefs than these beset the way. To sing the perfect song, And by a half-tone lost the key, There the potent sorrow, there the grief, The pale, sad […]...
27. The Spirit Medium Poetry, music, I have loved, and yet Because of those new dead That come into my soul and escape Confusion of the bed, Or those begotten or unbegotten Perning in a band, I bend my body to the spade Or grope with a dirty hand. Or those begotten or unbegotten, For I would not recall […]...
28. In Tara's Halls A man I praise that once in Tara’s Hals Said to the woman on his knees, ‘Lie still. My hundredth year is at an end. I think That something is about to happen, I think That the adventure of old age begins. To many women I have said, ”Lie still,” And given everything a woman […]...
29. Morning (Love Sonnet XXVII) Naked you are simple as one of your hands; Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round. You’ve moon-lines, apple pathways Naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat. Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba; You’ve vines and stars in your hair. Naked you are spacious and yellow As summer in a golden […]...
30. C. L. M IN the dark womb where I began My mother’s life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her. Down in the darkness of the grave She cannot see the life she […]...
31. Air And Angels Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name, So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us oft, and worship’d be; Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see. But since my soul, whose child love is, Takes limbs […]...
32. Clouds Gathering It seemed the kind of life we wanted. Wild strawberries and cream in the morning. Sunlight in every room. The two of us walking by the sea naked. Some evenings, however, we found ourselves Unsure of what comes next. Like tragic actors in a theater on fire, With birds circling over our heads, The dark […]...
33. A Mysterious Naked Man A mysterious naked man has been reported On Cranston Avenue. The police are performing The usual ceremonies with coloured lights and sirens. Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing Excitedly As they do during disasters when their involvement is Peripheral. ‘What did he look like? ‘ the lieutenant is asking. ‘I don’t know, ‘ […]...
34. Modern Love IX: He Felt the Wild Beast He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles So masterfully rude, that he would grieve To see the helpless delicate thing receive His guardianship through certain dark defiles. Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too? But still he spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’ He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; […]...
35. When You Are Old When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But […]...
36. A Man Young And Old: IX. The Secrets Of The Old I have old women’s secrets now That had those of the young; Madge tells me what I dared not think When my blood was strong, And what had drowned a lover once Sounds like an old song. Though Margery is stricken dumb If thrown in Madge’s way, We three make up a solitude; For none […]...
37. Burning the Doll I am the girl who burned her doll, Who gave her father the doll to burn ” The bride doll I had been given At six, as a Christmas gift, By the same great uncle who once introduced me At my blind second cousin’s wedding To a man who winced, A future Miss America, I’m […]...
38. I stepped from Plank to Plank I stepped from Plank to Plank A slow and cautious way The Stars about my Head I felt About my Feet the Sea. I knew not but the next Would be my final inch This gave me that precarious Gait Some call Experience....
39. Because Oh, because you never tried To bow my will or break my pride, And nothing of the cave-man made You want to keep me half afraid, Nor ever with a conquering air You thought to draw me unaware Take me, for I love you more Than I ever loved before. And since the body’s maidenhood […]...
40. Chamfort THERE’S Chamfort. He’s a sample. Locked himself in his library with a gun, Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye. And this Chamfort knew how to write And thousands read his books on how to live, But he himself didn’t know How to die by force of his own hand see? They […]...