And We Shall Not Get Excited

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1. By the Spring, at Sunset Sometimes we remember kisses, Remember the dear heart-leap when they came: Not always, but sometimes we remember The kindness, the dumbness, the good flame Of laughter and farewell. Beside the road Afar from those who said “Good-by” I write, Far from my city task, my lawful load. Sun in my face, wind beside my shoulder, […]...
2. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
3. 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...
4. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
5. Aftermath I learnt to write to you in happier days, And every letter was a piece I chipped From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays, Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise. To make a pavement for your feet I stripped My soul for […]...
6. Dream Song 71: Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four Hearers in the racket of the market With ancient signs, infamous characters, New rythms. On the steps he was beloved, Hours a day, by all his four, or more, Depending. And they paid him. It was not, so, like no one listening But critics famed & Henry’s pals […]...
7. Try To Remember Some Details Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing Of the one you love So that on the day of loss you’ll be able to say: last seen Wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat. Try to remember some details. For they have no face And their soul is hidden and their crying Is the same as […]...
8. The Fury Of Overshoes They sit in a row Outside the kindergarten, Black, red, brown, all With those brass buckles. Remember when you couldn’t Buckle your own Overshoe Or tie your own Overshoe Or tie your own shoe Or cut your own meat And the tears Running down like mud Because you fell off your Tricycle? Remember, big fish, […]...
9. To own the Art within the Soul To own the Art within the Soul The Soul to entertain With Silence as a Company And Festival maintain Is an unfurnished Circumstance Possession is to One As an Estate perpetual Or a reduceless Mine....
10. Quick And Bitter The end was quick and bitter. Slow and sweet was the time between us, Slow and sweet were the nights When my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love Of your body which came Between them. And when I entered into you It seemed then that great happiness Could be […]...
11. Talisman it is written The act of writing is Holy words are Sacred and your breath Brings out the God in them I write these words Quickly repeat them Softly to myself This talisman for you Fold this prayer Around your neck fortify Your back with these Whispers May you walk ever Loved and in love […]...
12. If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem If I forget thee, Jerusalem, Then let my right be forgotten. Let my right be forgotten, and my left remember. Let my left remember, and your right close And your mouth open near the gate. I shall remember Jerusalem And forget the forest my love will remember, Will open her hair, will close my window, […]...
13. Listening I listen to the stillness of you, My dear, among it all; I feel your silence touch my words as I talk, And take them in thrall. My words fly off a forge The length of a spark; I see the night-sky easily sip them Up in the dark. The lark sings loud and glad, […]...
14. A Singing Lesson Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses, Is good, or was held so, for ladies: but nought In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is Far-fetched and dear-bought. As the turn of a wave should it sound, and the thought Ring smooth, and as light as the spray that disperses […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. Fit the Eighth (Hunting of the Snark ) The Vanishing They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with forks and hope; They threatened its life with a railway-share; They charmed it with smiles and soap. They shuddered to think that the chase might fail, And the Beaver, excited at last, Went bounding along on the tip of […]...
17. Lessons In Hunger “Do you like me?” I asked the blue blazer. No answer. Silence bounced out of his books. Silence fell off his tongue And sat between us And clogged my throat. It slaughtered my trust. It tore cigarettes out of my mouth. We exchanged blind words, And I did not cry, And I did not beg, […]...
18. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
19. Yvonne Of Brittany In your mother’s apple-orchard, Just a year ago, last spring: Do you remember, Yvonne! The dear trees lavishing Rain of their starry blossoms To make you a coronet? Do you ever remember, Yvonne, As I remember yet? In your mother’s apple-orchard, When the world was left behind: You were shy, so shy, Yvonne! But your […]...
20. Soap Suds This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child. […]...
21. In soothing, sweetened words No, she said, I never knew it was your first. It doesn’t Matter anyway. I always had an inkling that we’d find A way. And then we did. I’m glad about it just for that. Whether it was good or bad, or would have happened Had we made a pact or that it should have […]...
22. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
23. Prospect NSW (For Anita Cobby) The hushed dark hugs the streets. Somewhere a cat snaps the silence. Dogs begin to bark, like a pack moving in for the kill. Women shrink in their homes. Shadows slip through the night and stars dim their lights as cars flash past. When they disappear, silence, heavy as hate, descends. Hours stretch like elastic […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. Silence I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea, And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the room. And I ask: For the depths, Of what use is language? A […]...
26. It tossed and tossed It tossed and tossed A little Brig I knew o’ertook by Blast It spun and spun And groped delirious, for Morn It slipped and slipped As One that drunken stept Its white foot tripped Then dropped from sight Ah, Brig Good Night To Crew and You The Ocean’s Heart too smooth too Blue To break […]...
27. Your Dad Did What? Where they have been, if they have been away, Or what they’ve done at home, if they have not – You make them write about the holiday. One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what? That’s not a sentence. Never mind the bell. We stay behind until the work is done. You count […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. Inner Man It isn’t the body That’s a stranger. It’s someone else. We poke the same Ugly mug At the world. When I scratch He scratches too. There are women Who claim to have held him. A dog Follows me about. It might be his. If I’m quiet, he’s quieter. So I forget him. Yet, as I […]...
31. 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: […]...
32. I Remember, I Remember I Remember, I Remember I remember, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon Nor brought too long a day; But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away. I remember, I remember The […]...
33. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
34. Music I Heard Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. These […]...
35. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
36. The Breaking Point It was not when temptation came, Swiftly and blastingly as flame, And seared me white with burning scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all my mutinous body rose To range itself beside my foes, And, like a greyhound in the slips, The Beast that dwells […]...
37. The First Jasmines Ah, these jasmines, these white jasmines! I seem to remember the first day when I filled my hands with These jasmines, these white jasmines. I have loved the sunlight, the sky and the green earth; I have heard the liquid murmur of the river thorough the Darkness of midnight; Autumn sunsets have come to me […]...
38. Lesson In Grammar THE SENTENCE Perhaps I can make it plain by analogy. Imagine a machine, not yet assembled, Each part being quite necessary To the functioning of the whole: if the job is fumbled And a vital piece mislaid The machine is quite valueless, The workers will not be paid. It is just the same when constructing […]...
39. Remember Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann’d: Only remember me; you understand […]...
40. Passers-By PASSERS-BY, Out of your many faces Flash memories to me Now at the day end Away from the sidewalks Where your shoe soles traveled And your voices rose and blend To form the city’s afternoon roar Hindering an old silence. Passers-by, I remember lean ones among you, Throats in the clutch of a hope, Lips […]...