The Thing

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. There's Wisdom In Women “Oh love is fair, and love is rare;” my dear one she said, “But love goes lightly over.” I bowed her foolish head, And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she; So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly. But there’s wisdom in women, of […]...
3. The Look The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word, No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord Looked only, on the traitor. None record What that look was, none guess; for those who have seen Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen, […]...
4. Disillusionment Of Ten O'clock The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk […]...
5. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. Approach Of Winter The half-stripped trees Struck by a wind together, Bending all, The leaves flutter drily And refuse to let go Or driven like hail Stream bitterly out to one side And fall Where the salvias, hard carmine- Like no leaf that ever was – Edge the bare garden....
8. 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...
9. 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...
10. Sonnet 19 XIX When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide, “Doth God exact day-labour, […]...
11. On His Blindness When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, “Doth God exact day-labour, light […]...
12. Sonnet 16 XVI When I consider how my light is spent, E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide, Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, least he returning chide, Doth God exact day-labour, […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. 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!...
15. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
18. The Leaden-Eyed Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world’s one crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed. Not that they starve; but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap, Not that they serve, […]...
19. Theory Into love and out again, Thus I went, and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen- Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Some one dropped me on my head?...
20. 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...
21. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
22. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
23. 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 […]...
24. TO HIS BOOK Make haste away, and let one be A friendly patron unto thee; Lest, rapt from hence, I see thee lie Torn for the use of pastery; Or see thy injured leaves serve well To make loose gowns for mackarel; Or see the grocers, in a trice, Make hoods of thee to serve out spice....
25. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. Ladies And Gentlemen In Outer Space Here is my philosophy: Everything changes (the word “everything” Has just changed as the Word “change” has: it now Means “no change”) so Quickly that it literally surpasses my belief, Charges right past it Like some of the giant Ideas in this area. I had no beginning and I shall have No end: the beam […]...
28. She Didn’t Mean To Do It Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad. She didn’t mean to do it. Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs, Go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces, But no more. Certain thrills knock you flat On your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade And they […]...
29. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
30. Infelice Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess, He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand, He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming, Leaving my alone with a private meaning, He loves me so much, my heart is singing. Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening They said: […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. 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...
33. 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, […]...
34. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. 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 […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. A Song of the Pen Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft, Not for the people’s praise; Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed, Claiming us all our days, Claiming our best endeavour body and heart and brain Given with no reserve Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain: Still, […]...
40. 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 […]...