On Rabbi Kook's Street

Related poetry:

1. Dream Song 136: While his wife earned the living, Rabbi Henry While his wife earned the living, Rabbi Henry Studied the Torah, writing commentaries More likely to be burnt than printed. It was rumoured that they needed revision. Smiling, kissing, he bent his head not with ‘Please’ But with austere requests barely hinted, Like a dog with a bone he worried the Sacred Book And often […]...
2. 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...
3. 45 Mercy Street In my dream, Drilling into the marrow Of my entire bone, My real dream, I’m walking up and down Beacon Hill Searching for a street sign Namely MERCY STREET. Not there. I try the Back Bay. Not there. Not there. And yet I know the number. 45 Mercy Street. I know the stained-glass window Of […]...
4. William Street The red globe of light, the liquor green, The pulsing arrows and the running fire Spilt on the stones, go deeper than a stream; You find this ugly, I find it lovely Ghosts’ trousers, like the dangle of hung men, In pawn-shop windows, bumping knee by knee, But none inside to suffer or condemn; You […]...
5. Main Street (For S. M. L.) I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea, But it isn’t half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow, And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs […]...
6. Straw in the Street Straw in the street where I pass to-day Dulls the sound of the wheels and feet. ‘Tis for a failing life they lay Straw in the street. Here, where the pulses of London beat, Someone strives with the Presence grey; Ah, is it victory or defeat? The hurrying people go their way, Pause and jostle […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Faces In The Street They lie, the men who tell us for reasons of their own That want is here a stranger, and that misery’s unknown; For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet My window-sill is level with the faces in the street Drifting past, drifting past, To the beat of weary feet While I sorrow […]...
9. Street Cries WHEN dawn’s first cymbals beat upon the sky, Rousing the world to labour’s various cry, To tend the flock, to bind the mellowing grain, From ardent toil to forge a little gain, And fasting men go forth on hurrying feet, Buy bread, buy bread, rings down the eager street. When the earth falters and the […]...
10. Good-Children Street There’s a dear little home in Good-Children street – My heart turneth fondly to-day Where tinkle of tongues and patter of feet Make sweetest of music at play; Where the sunshine of love illumines each face And warms every heart in that old-fashioned place. For dear little children go romping about With dollies and tin […]...
11. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
12. Memories of West Street and Lepke Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming In pajamas fresh from the washer each morning, I hog a whole house on Boston’s “hardly passionate Marlborough Street,” Where even the man Scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans, Has two children, a beach wagon, a helpmate, And is “a young Republican.” I have a nine months’ daughter, […]...
13. MacDougal Street AS I went walking up and down to take the evening air, (Sweet to meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?) I saw him lay his hand upon her torn black hair; (“Little dirty Latin child, let the lady by!”) The women squatting on the stoops were slovenly and fat, (Lay me […]...
14. In the Street Where the needle-woman toils Through the night with hand and brain, Till the sickly daylight shudders like a spectre at the pain – Till her eyes seem to crawl, And her brain seems to creep – And her limbs are all a-tremble for the want of rest and sleep! It is there the fire-brand blazes […]...
15. Glass was the Street in tinsel Peril Glass was the Street in tinsel Peril Tree and Traveller stood Filled was the Air with merry venture Hearty with Boys the Road Shot the lithe Sleds like shod vibrations Emphasized and gone It is the Past’s supreme italic Makes this Present mean...
16. The Street Sounds to the Soldiers' Tread The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread, And out we troop to see: A single redcoat turns his head, He turns and looks at me. My man, from sky to sky’s so far, We never crossed before; Such leagues apart the world’s ends are, We’re like to meet no more; What thoughts at heart have […]...
17. Harrison Street Court I heard a woman’s lips Speaking to a companion Say these words: “A woman what hustles Never keeps nothin’ For all her hustlin’. Somebody always gets What she goes on the street for. If it ain’t a pimp It’s a bull what gets it. I been hustlin’ now Till I ain’t much good any more. […]...
18. On Going Back To The Street After Viewing An Art Show they talk down through The centuries to us, And this we need more and more, The statues and paintings In midnight age As we go along Holding dead hands. And we would say Rather than delude the knowing: A damn good show, But hardly enough for a horse to eat, And out on the sunshine […]...
19. Halsted Street Car COME you, cartoonists, Hang on a strap with me here At seven o’clock in the morning On a Halsted street car. Take your pencils And draw these faces. Try with your pencils for these crooked faces, That pig-sticker in one corner his mouth That overall factory girl her loose cheeks. Find for your pencils A […]...
20. Rabbi Ben Ezra Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith ‘A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’ Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed ‘Which rose make ours, Which […]...
21. Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers Ye poets ragged and forlorn, Down from your garrets haste; Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born, Not yet consign’d to paste; I know a trick to make you thrive; O, ’tis a quaint device: Your still-born poems shall revive, And scorn to wrap up spice. Get all your verses printed fair, Then let them […]...
22. The Rabbi's Song “The House Surgeon” Actions and Reactions 2 Samuel XIV. 14. If Thought can reach to Heaven, On Heaven let it dwell, For fear the Thought be given Like power to reach to Hell. For fear the desolation And darkness of thy mind Perplex an habitation Which thou hast left behind. Let nothing linger after No […]...
23. The Drunkards in the Street The Drunkards in the street are calling one another, Heeding not the night-wind, great of heart and gay, – Publicans and wantons – Calling, laughing, calling, While the Spirit bloweth Space and Time away. Why should I feel the sobbing, the secrecy, the glory, This comforter, this fitful wind divine? I the cautious Pharisee, the […]...
24. Afternoon Rain in State Street Cross-hatchings of rain against grey walls, Slant lines of black rain In front of the up and down, wet stone sides of buildings. Below, Greasy, shiny, black, horizontal, The street. And over it, umbrellas, Black polished dots Struck to white An instant, Stream in two flat lines Slipping past each other with the smoothness of […]...
25. Devonshire Street W.1 The heavy mahogany door with its wrought-iron screen Shuts. And the sound is rich, sympathetic, discreet. The sun still shines on this eighteenth-century scene With Edwardian faience adornment Devonshire Street. No hope. And the X-ray photographs under his arm Confirm the message. His wife stands timidly by. The opposite brick-built house looks lofty and calm […]...
26. A Catalpa Tree On West Twelfth Street While the sun stops, or Seems to, to define a term For the indeterminable, The human aspect, here In the West Village, spindles To a mutilated dazzle- Niched shards of solitude Embedded in these brownstone Walkups such that the Hudson At the foot of Twelfth Street Might be a thing that’s Done with mirrors: definition […]...
27. Bless 'em beggars, buskers, street vendors bless ’em beggars, buskers, street vendors Breastfeeding mothers, fathers weather- Beaten, misplaced babies, outofschoolboys&girls Enduring with furious fidelity Everyday musk of japanese/german carfumery Bless ’em by-products of national antigress Fretful souls on the brims of sanity&civility However they might have depreciated thin Our soles of mercy Each with a pair of nike shoes, before we […]...
28. December 30 At 1:30 in the morning a fart Smells like a marriage between An avocado and a fish head. I have to get out of bed To write this down without My glasses on....
29. The Shanty On The Rise When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West, On a spur among the mountains stood ‘The Bullock-drivers’ Rest’; It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside, But ’twas good enough for bushmen in the careless days that died Just a quiet little shanty kept by ‘Something-in-Disguise’, As the […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. The Wizard in the Street [Concerning Edgar Allan Poe] Who now will praise the Wizard in the street With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet – This Jingle-man, of strolling players born, Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn, This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good, With melancholy bells upon his hood? The hurrying great ones scorn his […]...
32. The Hat In city shop a hat I saw That to my fancy seemed to strike, I gave my wage to buy the straw, And make myself a one the like. I wore it to the village fair; Oh proud I was, though poor was I. The maids looked at me with a stare, The lads looked […]...
33. Street Cries Oft seems the Time a market-town Where many merchant-spirits meet Who up and down and up and down Cry out along the street Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO: Till all the ways are full of sound: But still come rain, and sun, and snow, And still the world goes round. I. Remonstrance. […]...
34. Rhapsody on a Windy Night TWELVE o’clock. Along the reaches of the street Held in a lunar synthesis, Whispering lunar incantations Dissolve the floors of memory And all its clear relations Its divisions and precisions, Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum, And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman […]...
35. Occasional Poems I Christmas Poem for Nancy Noel, Noel We live and we die Between heaven and hell Between the earth and the sky And all shall be well And all shall be unwell And once again! all shall once again! All shall be well By the ringing and the swinging of the great beautiful holiday bell […]...
36. Some Advice To Those Who Will Serve Time In Prison If instead of being hanged by the neck you’re thrown inside for not giving up hope In the world, your country, your people, if you do ten or fifteen years apart from the time you have left, You won’t say, “Better I had swung from the end of a rope like a flag” You’ll put […]...
37. Love Of Jerusalem There is a street where they sell only red meat And there is a street where they sell only clothes and perfumes. And there Is a day when I see only cripples and the blind And those covered with leprosy, and spastics and those with twisted lips. Here they build a house and there they […]...
38. Where the Sidewalk Ends There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark […]...
39. Lines and Squares Whenever I walk in a London street, I’m ever so careful to watch my feet; And I keep in the squares, And the masses of bears, Who wait at the corners all ready to eat The sillies who tread on the lines of the street Go back to their lairs, And I say to them, […]...
40. 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, […]...