Tortures

Related poetry:

1. Sympathetic Portrait Of A Child The murderer’s little daughter Who is barely ten years old Jerks her shoulders Right and left So as to catch a glimpse of me Without turning round. Her skinny little arms Wrap themselves This way then that Reversely about her body! Nervously She crushes her straw hat About her eyes And tilts her head To […]...
2. Giving Myself Up I give up my eyes which are glass eggs. I give up my tongue. I give up my mouth which is the contstant dream of my tongue. I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice. I give up my heart which is a burning apple. I give up my lungs which […]...
3. A Poet at Twenty Images leap with him from branch to branch. His eyes Brighten, his head cocks, he pauses under a green bough, Alert. And when I see him I want to hide him somewhere. The other wood is past the hill. But he will enter it, and find the particular maple. He will walk through the door […]...
4. The Forge To at last be indestructible, a poem Must first glow, almost flammable, upon A thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone, Then bend this way and that, and slowly cool At arms-length, something irreducible Drawn out with caution, toughened in a pool Of water so contrary just a hiss Escapes it-water instantly a mist. […]...
5. The Walking Man of Rodin LEGS hold a torso away from the earth. And a regular high poem of legs is here. Powers of bone and cord raise a belly and lungs Out of ooze and over the loam where eyes look and ears hear And arms have a chance to hammer and shoot and run motors. You make us […]...
6. In The Beginning Ever since those wondrous days of Creation Our Lord God sleeps: we are His sleep. And He accepted this in His indulgence, Resigned to rest among the distant stars. Our actions stopped Him from reacting, For His fist-tight hand is numbed by sleep, And the times brought in the age of heroes During which our […]...
7. The Conqueror Worm Lo! ’tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years. An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre to see A play of hopes and fears While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres. Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, […]...
8. Bells in the Rain Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain, Upon the steep cliffs of the town. Sleep falls; men are at peace again While the small drops fall softly down. The bright drops ring like bells of glass Thinned by the wind, and lightly blown; Sleep cannot fall on peaceful grass So softly as it falls on […]...
9. The Pick I watched him swinging the pick in the sun, Breaking the concrete steps into chunks of rock, And the rocks into dust, And the dust into earth again. I must have sat for a very long time on the split rail fence, Just watching him. My father’s body glistened with sweat, His arms flew like […]...
10. I Said Coffee I said coffee I didn’t say, “would you Like to cup My warm Soft breasts In your Un-calloused, Long, Tapered, Ring less fingered Hands?” I said coffee I didn’t say, “would you Like to Run your tongue Along my neck Just below My left ear-lobe?” I said coffee I didn’t say, “would you Like to […]...
11. The Woman So beautiful God himself quailed At her approach: the long body curved Like the horizon. Why had he made Her so? How would it be, she said, Leaning towards him, if instead of Quarreling over it, we divided it Between us? You can have all the credit For its invention, if you will leave the […]...
12. At Blackwater Pond At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled After a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink A long time. It tastes Like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold Into my body, waking the bones. I hear them Deep inside me, whispering Oh what is that beautiful thing That just happened?...
13. Please Master Please master can I touch your cheeck Please master can I kneel at your feet Please master can I loosen your blue pants Please master can I gaze at your golden haired belly Please master can I have your thighs bare to my eyes Please master can I take off my clothes below your chair […]...
14. Legs rivers and age with landbound legs a wish For the easy flow of a river – not The clambering up crags to seek More favour from the sun (or long-haired moon) harped for Since those sparks of who am i First clicked through consciousness How the river sidles round Rocks blocking the painful straight Seems to brush aside […]...
15. To a Stranger PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, […]...
16. He Loves Me That God should love me is more wonderful Than that I so imperfectly love him. My reason is mortality, and dim Senses; his oh, insupportable Is that he sees me. Even when I pull Dark thoughts about my head, each vein and limb Delights him, though remembrance in him, grim With my worst crimes, should […]...
17. A Man George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T. V. His Dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash From his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning. Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and […]...
18. Testament I GIVE the undertakers permission to haul my body To the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, the Feet, the hands, all: I know there is something left Over they can not put away. Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shanty People eat the clover over my grave and […]...
19. Winding Wool She’d bring to me a skein of wool And beg me to hold out my hands; So on my pipe I cease to pull And watch her twine the shining strands Into a ball so snug and neat, Perchance a pair of socks to knit To comfort my unworthy feet, Or pullover my girth to […]...
20. The Shadow Voice My shadow said to me: What is the matter Isn’t the moon warm Enough for you Why do you need The blanket of another body Whose kiss is moss Around the picnic tables The bright pink hands held sandwiches Crumbled by distance. Flies crawl Over the sweet instant You know what is in these blankets […]...
21. Under The Moon I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde, Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle, Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while; Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind; Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart: Land-under-Wave, where out of the […]...
22. Snarleyow This ‘appened in a battle to a batt’ry of the corps Which is first among the women an’ amazin’ first in war; An’ what the bloomin’ battle was I don’t remember now, But Two’s off-lead ‘e answered to the name o’ Snarleyow. Down in the Infantry, nobody cares; Down in the Cavalry, Colonel ‘e swears; […]...
23. Still Falls the Rain Still falls the Rain – Dark as the world of man, black as our loss – Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails Upon the Cross. Still falls the Rain With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat In the Potter’s Field, and the sound of the […]...
24. Thompson's Lunch Room Grand Central Station Study in Whites Wax-white Floor, ceiling, walls. Ivory shadows Over the pavement Polished to cream surfaces By constant sweeping. The big room is coloured like the petals Of a great magnolia, And has a patina Of flower bloom Which makes it shine dimly Under the electric lamps. Chairs are ranged in rows Like sepia seeds […]...
25. Painted Head By dark severance the apparition head Smiles from the air a capital on no Column or a Platonic perhaps head On a canvas sky depending from nothing; Stirs up an old illusion of grandeur By tickling the instinct of heads to be Absolute and to try decapitation And to play truant from the body bush; […]...
26. Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days She gives him his eyes, she found them Among some rubble, among some beetles He gives her her skin He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists […]...
27. To Live We both have our hands to give Take mine I shall lead you afar I have lived several times my face hasw changed With every threshold I have crossed and every hand clasped Familial springtime was reborn Keeping for itself and for me its perishable snow Death and the betrothed The future with five fingers […]...
28. Idea XX: An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possess’d, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute’s rest. In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake; And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments […]...
29. Men When I was young, I used to Watch behind the curtains As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men. Young men sharp as mustard. See them. Men are always Going somewhere. They knew I was there. Fifteen Years old and starving for them. Under my window, they would pause, Their shoulders […]...
30. The Demon In Me The demon in me’s not dead, He’s living, and well. In the body as in a hold, In the self as in a cell. The world is but walls. The exit’s the axe. (“All the world’s a stage,” The actor prates.) And that hobbling buffoon Is no joker; In the body as in glory, In […]...
31. Horse What does the horse give you That I cannot give you? I watch you when you are alone, When you ride into the field behind the dairy, Your hands buried in the mare’s Dark mane. Then I know what lies behind your silence: Scorn, hatred of me, of marriage. Still, You want me to touch […]...
32. The Ballad Of The Foxhunter ‘Lay me in a cushioned chair; Carry me, ye four, With cushions here and cushions there, To see the world once more. ‘To stable and to kennel go; Bring what is there to bring; Lead my Lollard to and fro, Or gently in a ring. ‘Put the chair upon the grass: Bring Rody and his […]...
33. Sonnet XX: An Evil Spirit An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute’s rest; In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake, And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments […]...
34. Oh! Breathe Not His Name Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonour’d his relics are laid: Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed, As the night-dew that falls on the grass o’er his head. But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps, Shall brighten with verdure the […]...
35. The Trout Naughty little speckled trout, Can’t I coax you to come out? Is it such great fun to play In the water every day? Do you pull the Naiads’ hair Hiding in the lilies there? Do you hunt for fishes’ eggs, Or watch tadpoles grow their legs? Do the little trouts have school In some deep […]...
36. Wallflower Come friend, I have an old story to tell you- Listen. Sit down beside me and listen. My face is red with sorrow And my breasts are made of straw. I sit in the ladder-back chair In a corner of the polished stage. I have forgiven all the old actors for dying. A new one […]...
37. The Play I am the only actor. It is difficult for one woman To act out a whole play. The play is my life, My solo act. My running after the hands And never catching up. (The hands are out of sight – That is, offstage.) All I am doing onstage is running, Running to keep up, […]...
38. Girl In A Miniskirt Reading The Bible Outside My Window Sunday, I am eating a Grapefruit, church is over at the Russian Orthadox to the West. She is dark Of Eastern descent, Large brown eyes look up from the Bible Then down. a small red and black Bible, and as she reads Her legs keep moving, moving, She is doing a slow rythmic dance Reading […]...
39. Wildpeace Not the peace of a cease-fire Not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb, But rather As in the heart when the excitement is over And you can talk only about a great weariness. I know that I know how to kill, that makes me an adult. And my son plays with a […]...
40. The End We decided to have the abortion, became Killers together. The period that came Changed nothing. They were dead, that young couple Who had been for life. As we talked of it in bed, the crash Was not a surprise. We went to the window, Looked at the crushed cars and the gleaming Curved shears of […]...