Leda And The Swan

Related poetry:

1. Leda Where the slow river Meets the tide, A red swan lifts red wings And darker beak, And underneath the purple down Of his soft breast Uncurls his coral feet. Through the deep purple Of the dying heat Of sun and mist, The level ray of sun-beam Has caressed The lily with dark breast, And flecked […]...
2. Archaic Bust Of Apollo (After Rilke) We cannot know the indescribable face Where the eyes like apples ripened. Even so, His torso has a candelabra’s glow, His gaze, contained as in a mirror’s grace, Shines within it. Otherwise his breast Would not be dazzling. Nor would you recognize The smile that moves along his curving thighs, There where love’s […]...
3. Love The Wild Swan “I hate my verses, every line, every word. Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky. Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch One color, one glinting Flash, of the splendor of things. Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets […]...
4. The Children's Hour Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day’s occupation, That is know as the children’s hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study […]...
5. A Poem About George Doty In The Death House Lured by the wall, and drawn To stare below the roof, Where pigeons nest aloof From prowling cats and men, I count the sash and bar Secured to granite stone, And note the daylight gone, Supper and silence near. Close to the wall inside, Immured, empty of love, A man I have wondered of Lies […]...
6. The Ghost Of Roger Casement O what has made that sudden noise? What on the threshold stands? It never crossed the sea because John Bull and the sea are friends; But this is not the old sea Nor this the old seashore. What gave that roar of mockery, That roar in the sea’s roar? The ghost of Roger Casement Is […]...
7. The Swan Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air – An armful of white blossoms, A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned Into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, Biting the air […]...
8. The Swan This laboring through what is still undone, As though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way, Is like the akward walking of the swan. And dying-to let go, no longer feel The solid ground we stand on every day- Is like anxious letting himself fall Into waters, which receive him gently And which, as though […]...
9. THE SWAN ANDROMACHE, I think of you! The stream, The poor, sad mirror where in bygone days Shone all the majesty of your widowed grief, The lying Simoпs flooded by your tears, Made all my fertile memory blossom forth As I passed by the new-built Carrousel. Old Paris is no more (a town, alas, Changes more quickly […]...
10. The Cold Night It is cold. The white moon Is up among her scattered stars— Like the bare thighs of The Police Sergeant’s wife—among Her five children. . . No answer. Pale shadows lie upon The frosted grass. One answer: It is midnight, it is still And it is cold. . . ! White thighs of the sky! […]...
11. The Swan At Edgewater Park Isn’t one of your prissy richpeoples’ swans Wouldn’t be at home on some pristine pond Chooses the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers, condoms in its tidal fringe Prefers to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck into the body of a Great Lake, Swilling whatever it is swans swill, Chardonnay of algae with bouquet of crud, […]...
12. An Old Man's Winter Night All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept him from remembering what it was That brought him to […]...
13. Turtle, Swan Because the road to our house Is a back road, meadowlands punctuated By gravel quarry and lumberyard, There are unexpected travelers Some nights on our way home from work. Once, on the lawn of the Tool And Die Company, a swan; The word doesn’t convey the shock Of the thing, white architecture Rippling like a […]...
14. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
15. No Swan So Fine “No water so still as the Dead fountains of Versailles.” No swan, With swart blind look askance And gondoliering legs, so fine As the chinz china one with fawn- Brown eyes and toothed gold Collar on to show whose bird it was. Lodged in the Louis Fifteenth Candelabrum-tree of cockscomb- Tinted buttons, dahlias, Sea-urchins, and […]...
16. Swan Song A bunch of old snakeheads down by the pond Carrying on the swan tradition hissing Inside their white bodies, raising and lowering their heads Like ostriches, regretting only the sad ritual That forced them to waddle back into the water After their life under the rocks, wishing they could lie again in the sun And […]...
17. Sing All Ye People! Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor, For the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever, And the Dark Tower is thrown down. Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard, For your watch hath not been in vain, And the Black Gate is broken, And your King hath passed through, […]...
18. Remember at seventeen Was i, So old So young. And It was there I first met war. I saw their broken eyes Those that returned From vietnam, A (so called) American war. They were the children I knew, Broken as toys Discarded into The lost echoes Of a history, Now unwritten In our schools. Sweet children […]...
19. You Know Where You Did Despise You know where you did despise (Tother day) my little Eyes, Little Legs, and little Thighs, And some things, of little Size, You know where. You, tis true, have fine black eyes, Taper legs, and tempting Thighs, Yet what more than all we prize Is a Thing of little Size, You know where....
20. The Summit Redwood Only stand high a long enough time your lightning will come; that is what blunts the peaks of redwoods; But this old tower of life on the hilltop has taken it more than twice a century, this knows in every Cell the salty and the burning taste, the shudder and the voice. The fire from […]...
21. The Alfresco Moment A butler asks, will Madam be having her morning coffee Alfresco? If you would be so good as to lift me out of my bed to The veranda I would be more than willing to imbibe coffee Alfresco. Shall I ask the Master to join you for coffee alfresco, Madam? But my nightgown’s so sheer […]...
22. Red-Tiled Roof Poets may praise a wattle thatch Doubtfully waterproof; Let me uplift my lowly latch Beneath a rose-tiled roof. Let it be gay and rich in hue, Soft bleached by burning days, Where skies ineffably are blue, And seas a golden glaze. But set me in the surly North Beneath a roof of slate, And as […]...
23. Ages and Ages, Returning at Intervals AGES and ages, returning at intervals, Undestroy’d, wandering immortal, Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, I, chanter of Adamic songs, Through the new garden, the West, the great cities calling, Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex, Offspring of my loins....
24. Tower Of Song Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey I ache in the places where I used to play And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on I’m just paying my rent every day Oh in the Tower of Song I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get? Hank Williams […]...
25. Summer Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom, And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest, And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast; She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair, And […]...
26. Blood And The Moon I Blessed be this place, More blessed still this tower; A bloody, arrogant power Rose out of the race Uttering, mastering it, Rose like these walls from these Storm-beaten cottages – In mockery I have set A powerful emblem up, And sing it rhyme upon rhyme In mockery of a time Half dead at the […]...
27. A Domestic Tragedy Clorinda met me on the way As I came from the train; Her face was anything but gay, In fact, suggested pain. “Oh hubby, hubby dear!” she cried, “I’ve awful news to tell. . . .” “What is it, darling?” I replied; “Your mother is she well?” “Oh no! oh no! it is not that, […]...
28. Mad As The Mist And Snow Bolt and bar the shutter, For the foul winds blow: Our minds are at their best this night, And I seem to know That everything outside us is Mad as the mist and snow. Horace there by Homer stands, Plato stands below, And here is Tully’s open page. How many years ago Were you and […]...
29. Any Woman I am the pillars of the house; The keystone of the arch am I. Take me away, and roof and wall Would fall to ruin me utterly. I am the fire upon the hearth, I am the light of the good sun, I am the heat that warms the earth, Which else were colder than […]...
30. Sten There is a knocking in the skull, An endless silent shout Of something beating on a wall, And crying, “Let me out! ” That solitary prisoner Will never hear reply. No comrade in eternity Can hear the frantic cry. No heart can share the terror That haunts his monstrous dark. The light that filters through […]...
31. Armies in the Fire The lamps now glitter down the street; Faintly sound the falling feet; And the blue even slowly falls About the garden trees and walls. Now in the falling of the gloom The red fire paints the empty room: And warmly on the roof it looks, And flickers on the back of books. Armies march by […]...
32. The Phases Of The Moon An old man cocked his car upon a bridge; He and his friend, their faces to the South, Had trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled, Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape; They had kept a steady pace as though their beds, Despite a dwindling and late-risen moon, Were distant still. An old […]...
33. Spelling My daughter plays on the floor With plastic letters, Red, blue & hard yellow, Learning how to spell, Spelling, How to make spells. * I wonder how many women Denied themselves daughters, Closed themselves in rooms, Drew the curtains So they could mainline words. * A child is not a poem, A poem is not […]...
34. The Runaway Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall, We stopped by a mountain pasture to say ‘Whose colt?’ A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall, The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt. We heard the miniature thunder […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. Bus Stop Lights are burning In quiet rooms Where lives go on Resembling ours. The quiet lives That follow us – These lives we lead But do not own – Stand in the rain So quietly When we are gone, So quietly. . . And the last bus Comes letting dark Umbrellas out – Black flowers, black […]...
37. Fleurette (The Wounded Canadian Speaks) My leg? It’s off at the knee. Do I miss it? Well, some. You see I’ve had it since I was born; And lately a devilish corn. (I rather chuckle with glee To think how I’ve fooled that corn.) But I’ll hobble around all right. It isn’t that, it’s my face. […]...
38. A KIND OF DISTRACTION You always disrupt me; When I ring you for comfort You wing me, send my Pudding of a mind A-splatter on the wall. You chase me to bed even, Passionately, not-yourself-at-all, You bawl your lewd reminders Down aching avenues of dreams To shudder me awake. And then at last you’ll fake Your promises and take […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like […]...