Drylands

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. Metaphors Of A Magnifico Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges, Into twenty villages, Or one man Crossing a single bridge into a village. This is old song That will not declare itself. . . Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are Twenty men crossing a bridge Into a village. […]...
4. The Bridge In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones. Before crossing he writes a letter to his mother: Dear mother, Guess what? the ape accidentally bit off one of his hands while Eating a banana. Just now I am at the foot of a bone bridge. I Shall be crossing it shortly. […]...
5. To The River Otter Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have passed, What happy and what mournful hours, since last I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny ray, […]...
6. Sonnet To the River Otter Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have past, What happy and what mournful hours, since last I skimm’d the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut […]...
7. Casting The waters deep, the waters dark, Reflect the seekers, hide the sought, Whether in water or in air to drown. Between them curls the silver spark, Barbed, baited, waiting, of a thought Which in the world is upside down, The fish hook or the question mark?...
8. The Rains The river rises And the rains keep coming. My Papa says It can’t flood for The water can run Away as fast as It comes down. I believe Him because he’s Papa And because I’m afraid Ofwater I know I can’t stop. All day in school I See the windows darken, And hearing the steady […]...
9. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. THE FISHERMAN THE waters rush’d, the waters rose, A fisherman sat by, While on his line in calm repose He cast his patient eye. And as he sat, and hearken’d there, The flood was cleft in twain, And, lo! a dripping mermaid fair Sprang from the troubled main. She sang to him, and spake the while: “Why […]...
13. THE FOX AND HUNTSMAN HARD ’tis on a fox’s traces To arrive, midst forest-glades; Hopeless utterly the chase is, If his flight the huntsman aids. And so ’tis with many a wonder, (Why A B make Ab in fact,) Over which we gape and blunder, And our head and brains distract. 1821.*...
14. The Voice of the Waters WHERE the Greyhound River windeth through a loneliness so deep, Scarce a wild fowl shakes the quiet that the purple boglands keep, Only God exults in silence over fields no man may reap. Where the silver wave with sweetness fed the tiny lives of grass I was bent above, my image mirrored in the fleeting […]...
15. How To Psalmodize 1. The Poet Someone awake when others are sleeping, Asleep when others are awake. An illiterate who signs everything with an X. A man about to be hanged cracking a joke. 2. The Poem It is a piece of meat Carried by a burglar To distract a watchdog....
16. The Road to Gundagai The mountain road goes up and down From Gundagai to Tumut Town And, branching off, there runs a track Across the foothills grim and black, Across the plains and ranges grey To Sydney city far away. It came by chance one day that I From Tumut rode to Gundagai, And reached about the evening tide […]...
17. 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...
18. 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...
19. 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 […]...
20. SOUND OF SLEAT I always looked out at the world, And wondered if the world looked back at me, Standing on the edge of something, On my face – the wind from the cold sea. Across the waters were mirrors to see Faces that looked like me, People caught between two places, People crossing over the seas. And […]...
21. 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!...
22. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
27. 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...
28. Psalm 119 part 5 Delight in Scripture; or, The word of God dwelling in us. Ver. 97 O how I love thy holy law! ‘Tis daily my delight; And thence my meditations draw Divine advice by night. Ver. 148 My waking eyes prevent the day To meditate thy word; My soul with longing melts away To hear thy gospel, […]...
29. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. 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....
32. Searching These quiet Autumn days, My soul, like Noah’s dove, on airy wings Goes out and searches for the hidden things Beyond the hills of haze. With mournful, pleading cries, Above the waters of the voiceless sea That laps the shore of broad Eternity, Day after day, it flies, Searching, but all in vain, For some […]...
33. The Mountaineer OH, at the eagle’s height To lie i’ the sweet of the sun, While veil after veil takes flight And God and the world are one. Oh, the night on the steep! All that his eyes saw dim Grows light in the dusky deep, And God is alone with him....
34. 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 […]...
35. The Future A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time; Brimming with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light, Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream. As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been. Whether he […]...
36. Ode To Modern Art Come on in and stay a while I’ll photograph you emerging from the revolving door Like Frank O’Hara dating the muse of modern art Talking about the big Pollock show is better Than going to it on a dismal Saturday afternoon When my luncheon partner is either the author or the subject Of The Education […]...
37. Time to play It is a pristine page, clean on the blue screen Where I compose, I don’t expect it to stay that way As words glow from blunt, abused fingers, as insistent Sounds in my head translate into sentence structures, As lips articulate the rhythms and the sounds of the Jumbled lexis as swiftly as I can […]...
38. 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. […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit snow doesn’t land At your feet but keeps falling below You): single-cell-plant chains, shreds Of zooplankton’s mucus food traps, Fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts, Sand grains, pollen….And inside These jagged falling islands Live more microlives, […]...