Waking at 3 a. m

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1. A Woman Waking She wakens early remembering Her father rising in the dark Lighting the stove with a match Scraped on the floor. Then measuring Water for coffee, and later the smell Coming through. She would hear Him drying spoons, dropping Them one by one in the drawer. Then he was on the stairs Going for the milk. […]...
2. Waking In March Last night, again, I dreamed My children were back at home, Small boys huddled in their separate beds, And I went from one to the other Listening to their breathing regular, Almost soundless until a white light Hardened against the bedroom wall, The light of Los Angeles burning south Of here, going at last as […]...
3. 391. A Tippling Ballad-When Princes and Prelates, etc WHEN Princes and Prelates, And hot-headed zealots, A’ Europe had set in a low, a low, The poor man lies down, Nor envies a crown, And comforts himself as he dow, as he dow, And comforts himself as he dow. The black-headed eagle, As keen as a beagle, He hunted o’er height and o’er howe, […]...
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. The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of […]...
6. Their Height in Heaven comforts not Their Height in Heaven comforts not Their Glory nought to me ‘Twas best imperfect as it was I’m finite I can’t see The House of Supposition The Glimmering Frontier that Skirts the Acres of Perhaps To Me shows insecure The Wealth I had contented me If ’twas a meaner size Then I had counted it […]...
7. Half-waking I thought it was the little bed I slept in long ago; A straight white curtain at the head, And two smooth knobs below. I thought I saw the nursery fire, And in a chair well-known My mother sat, and did not tire With reading all alone. If I should make the slightest sound To […]...
8. Waking in the Blue The night attendant, a B. U. sophomore, Rouses from the mare’s-nest of his drowsy head Propped on The Meaning of Meaning. He catwalks down our corridor. Azure day Makes my agonized blue window bleaker. Crows maunder on the petrified fairway. Absence! My hearts grows tense As though a harpoon were sparring for the kill. (This […]...
9. Dreams are well but Waking's better Dreams are well but Waking’s better, If One wake at morn If One wake at Midnight better Dreaming of the Dawn Sweeter the Surmising Robins Never gladdened Tree Than a Solid Dawn confronting Leading to no Day...
10. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 13: The half-shut doors through which we heard that music The half-shut doors through which we heard that music Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence. The stars whirl out, the night grows deep. Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain. In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep. Where have we been? What savage chaos of music […]...
11. The End It is time for me to go, mother; I am going. When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out Your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not Here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall […]...
12. Two Rivulets TWO Rivulets side by side, Two blended, parallel, strolling tides, Companions, travelers, gossiping as they journey. For the Eternal Ocean bound, These ripples, passing surges, streams of Death and Life, Object and Subject hurrying, whirling by, The Real and Ideal, Alternate ebb and flow the Days and Nights, (Strands of a Trio twining, Present, Future, […]...
13. Baby Picture It’s in the heart of the grape Where that smile lies. It’s in the good-bye-bow in the hair Where that smile lies. It’s in the clerical collar of the dress Where that smile lies. What smile? The smile of my seventh year, Caught here in the painted photograph. It’s peeling now, age has got it, […]...
14. Dream Song 131: Come touch me baby in his waking dream Come touch me baby in his waking dream Disordered Henry murmured. I’ll read you Hegel And that will hurt your mind I can’t remember when you were unkind But I will clear that block, I’ll set you on fire Along with our babies To save them up the high & ruined stairs, My growing daughters. […]...
15. Dream Song 63: Bats have no bankers and they do not drink Bats have no bankers and they do not drink And cannot be arrested and pay no tax And, in general, bats have it made. Henry for joining the human race is bats, Known to be so, by few them who think, Out of the cave. Instead of the cave! ah lovely-chilly, dark, Ur-moist his cousins […]...
16. The Opal Dream Cave In an opal dream cave I found a fairy: Her wings were frailer than flower petals, Frailer far than snowflakes. She was not frightened, but poised on my finger, Then delicately walked into my hand. I shut the two palms of my hands together And held her prisoner. I carried her out of the opal […]...
17. Hymn 5 Submission to afflictive providences. Job 1:21. Naked as from the earth we came, And crept to life at first, We to the earth return again, And mingle with our dust. The dear delights we here enjoy, And fondly call our own, Are but short favors borrowed now, To be repaid anon. ‘Tis God that lifts […]...
18. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
19. Psalm 127 The blessing of God on the business and comforts of life. If God succeed not, all the cost And pains to build the house are lost; If God the city will not keep, The watchful guards as well may sleep. What if you rise before the sun, And work and toil when day is done; […]...
20. The Nightjar We loved our nightjar, but she would not stay with us. We had found her lying as dead, but soft and warm, Under the apple tree beside the old thatched wall. Two days we kept her in a basket by the fire, Fed her, and thought she well might live – till suddenly I the […]...
21. Lover's Gifts XVIII: Your Days Your days will be full of cares, if you must give me your heart. My house by the cross-roads has its doors open and my mind is Absent, – for I sing. I shall never be made to answer for it, if you must give me Your heart. If I pledge my word to you […]...
22. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. Hesper Her eyes are like the evening air, Her voice is like a rose, Her lips are like a lovely song, That ripples as it flows, And she herself is sweeter than The sweetest thing she knows. A slender, haunting, twilight form Of wonder and surprise, She seemed a fairy or a child, Till, deep within […]...
25. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
26. The New Convert The new-born child of gospel grace, Like some fair tree when summer’s nigh, Beneath Emmanuel’s shining face Lifts up his blooming branch on high. No fears he feels, he sees no foes, No conflict yet his faith employs, Nor has he learnt to whom he owes The strength and peace his soul enjoys. But sin […]...
27. Mortal Limit I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming. It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags. There west were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height Hangs now […]...
28. 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...
29. 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 […]...
30. 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...
31. Winter Seascape The sea runs back against itself With scarcely time for breaking wave To cannonade a slatey shelf And thunder under in a cave. Before the next can fully burst The headwind, blowing harder still, Smooths it to what it was at first – A slowly rolling water-hill. Against the breeze the breakers haste, Against the […]...
32. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
33. ENGLAND’S OPENERS A blackbird lands A good beer-barrel A man sits in a cave knitting A theatre in Copenhagen Abask the sea-wall Alice was demure and O All the way to Bury Amid the heather Among the lupins And after little suzie And it was his grief that kept him travelling And the baby miscarried And the […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. Blue The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide Slowly into another day; slowly the rover Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide. I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting Me who am issued […]...
37. 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 […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
40. Jinzhu Ridge Wingceltis goldenrain shine empty bend Fresh and green ripple ripples ripples Secret enter Shang hill road Woodcutter not able know Wingceltis and goldenrain shine at the empty bend, Fresh and green, rippling ever onward. A secret road leads up to Shangshan hill, Even the woodcutter does not know....