Babi Yar

Related poetry:

1. Temporary Poem Of My Time Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west, Latin writing, from west to east. Languages are like cats: You must not stroke their hair the wrong way. The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert, The trees bend in the wind, And stones fly from all four winds, Into […]...
2. Houses People who are afraid of themselves Multiply themselves into families And so divide themselves And so become less afraid. People who might have to go out Into clanging strangers’ laughter, Crowd under roofs, make compacts To no more than smile at each other. People who might meet their own faces Or surprise their own voices […]...
3. Another Version Our trees are aspens, but people Mistake them for birches; They think of us as characters In a Russian novel, Kitty and Levin Living contentedly in the country. Our friends from the city watch the birds And rabbits feeding together On top of the deep, white snow. (We have Russian winters in Illinois, But no […]...
4. If He were living dare I ask If He were living dare I ask And how if He be dead And so around the Words I went Of meeting them afraid I hinted Changes Lapse of Time The Surfaces of Years I touched with Caution lest they crack And show me to my fears Reverted to adjoining Lives Adroitly turning out Wherever […]...
5. Noises I woke up this morning With the city’s noises Fusing into my dream A pride of lions Roaring in anger The traffic, it must have been A hunter shouting something But I probably heard a street vendor For a moment, total silence Then a shot rings out in the wild Perhaps a car’s broken exhaust […]...
6. Demon A young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand Over the demon’s mouth sometimes… D. H. Lawrence I mentioned my demon to a friend And the friend swam in oil and came forth to me Greasy and cryptic And said, “I’m thinking of taking him out of hock. I pawned him years […]...
7. 'They&#039 The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back ‘They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought ‘In a just cause: they lead the last attack ‘On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought ‘New right to breed an honourable race, ‘They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.’ ‘We’re none of […]...
8. The Hero Mother, let us imagine we are travelling, and passing through a Strange and dangerous country. You are riding in a palanquin and I am trotting by you on a Red horse. It is evening and the sun goes down. The waste of Joradighi Lies wan and grey before us. The land is desolate and barren. […]...
9. Ulster fancy shooting a man dead for an old label But think If there weren’t any old labels Nobody would ever be shot dead And all those poor people Whose livelihood depends on making guns Would have to be left to starve Make up your mind Who would you sooner see living men with bullets in […]...
10. The Burial of the Reverend Gilfillan On the Gilfillan burial day, In the Hill o’ Balgay, It was a most solemn sight to see, Not fewer than thirty thousand people assembled in Dundee, All watching the funeral procession of Gilfillan that day, That death had suddenly taken away, And was going to be buried in the Hill o’ Balgay. There were […]...
11. Ossawatomie I DON’T know how he came, Shambling, dark, and strong. He stood in the city and told men: My people are fools, my people are young and strong, my people must learn, my people are terrible workers and fighters. Always he kept on asking: Where did that blood come from? They said: You for the […]...
12. The Benefactors Of The Little Box We’ll return the little box Into the arms Of her inconspicuously honest properties We won’t do anything Against her will We’ll simply take her apart We’ll crucify her On her own cross Piece her bloated emptiness And let ooze All the blue cosmic blood she gathered We’ll sweet her clean of stars And anti-stars And […]...
13. Waterfalls of Jack and a soft shoe shuffle The following is based on true events: (Part One) 493 guests were watching People searching their Gmail Flirting in chats, forums, MSN; Service changes, east coast raiders Just acquired 101,001 websites. 404 ERROR page not found Five hammers and a counterfeit shekel But I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express In anticipation Of their […]...
14. The British We are a people living in shells and moving Crablike; reticent, awkward, deeply suspicious; Watching the world from a corner of half-closed eyelids, Afraid lest someone show that he hates or loves us, Afraid lest someone weep in the railway train. We are coiled and clenched like a foetus clad in armour. We hold our […]...
15. Birch Tree The birch tree in winter Leaning over the secret pool Is Narcissus in love With the slight white branches, The slim trunk, In the dark glass; But, Spring coming on, Is afraid, And scarfs the white limbs In green....
16. When I'm Killed When I’m killed, don’t think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there’s one thing that I know well, I’m damned if I’ll be damned to Hell! So when I’m killed, don’t wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, […]...
17. The White Lady I cannot rest, I cannot rest In straight and shiny wood, My woven hands upon my breast The dead are all so good! The earth is cool across their eyes; They lie there quietly. But I am neither old nor wise; They do not welcome me. Where never I walked alone before, I wander in […]...
18. Chase Henry In my life I was the town drunkard; When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground. The which rebounded to my good fortune. For the Protestants bought this lot, And buried my body here, Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas, And of his wife Priscilla. Take note, ye prudent and […]...
19. The Old Dust The living is a passing traveler; The dead, a man come home. One brief journey betwixt heaven and earth, Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages. The rabbit in the moon pounds the medicine in vain; Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood. Man dies, his white […]...
20. Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposèd dead, And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts, And all those friends which I thought burièd. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But […]...
21. Sonnet XXXI Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead, And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But […]...
22. The Turning Unknown faces in the street And winter coming on. I Stand in the last moments of The city, no more a child, Only a man, one who has Looked upon his own nakedness Without shame, and in defeat Has seen nothing to bless. Touched once, like a plum, I turned Rotten in the meat, or […]...
23. THE PARIS COMMUNE From the French of Andrй Frйnaud France was born there and it is from there she sings Of Joan of Ark and Varlin both. We must dig deep, o motherland, Beneath those heavy cobbles. Country of the Commune, so dear to me, My very own which make my blood burn And that same blood will […]...
24. NO ONE EVER COMES Eupatius thought: “Give him a thousand horses, A thousand bridles of eloquent gold. Wash his feet, feed him well, show him my dancers. If he knows a secret, don’t ask him about it. If he wants to tell a fable, let him speak. Lead him into my garden, pluck peaches for him. Keep near him […]...
25. Attack of the Squash People And thus the people every year In the valley of humid July Did sacrifice themselves To the long green phallic god And eat and eat and eat. They’re coming, they’re on us, The long striped gourds, the silky Babies, the hairy adolescents, The lumpy vast adults Like the trunks of green elephants. Recite fifty zucchini […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. Sonnets iv THY bosom is endeared with all hearts Which I, by lacking, have supposed dead: And there reigns Love, and all Love’s loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye, As interest of the dead! which now appear But […]...
28. Dream Song 130: When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought This is the end of the dream, now I’ll wake up. That was more years ago Than I care to reckon, and my friend is not Dying but adhering to an élite group In California O. Why did I never wake, when covered with blood […]...
29. Broken-face Gargoyles ALL I can give you is broken-face gargoyles. It is too early to sing and dance at funerals, Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker humming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-and-wing, now you see it and now you don’t. Fish to swim a […]...
30. Sorrow Sorrow like a ceaseless rain Beats upon my heart. People twist and scream in pain,- Dawn will find them still again; This has neither wax nor wane, Neither stop nor start. People dress and go to town; I sit in my chair. All my thoughts are slow and brown: Standing up or sitting down Little […]...
31. The Buried Train Tell me about the train that people say got buried By the avalanche was it snow? It was In Colorado, and no one saw it happen. There was smoke from the engine curling up Lightly through fir tops, and the engine sounds. There were all those people reading some From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward […]...
32. Song in the Manner of Housman O woe, woe, People are born and die, We also shall be dead pretty soon Therefore let us act as if we were Dead already. The bird sits on the hawthorn tree But he dies also, presently. Some lads get hung, and some get shot. Woeful is this human lot. Woe! woe, etcetera. . . […]...
33. Hate ONE man killed another. The saying between them had been “I’d give you the shirt off my back.” The killer wept over the dead. The dead if he looks back knows the killer was sorry. It was a shot in one second of hate out of ten years of love. Why is the sun a […]...
34. The Forsaken Holy Mother of God, Merciful Mary. Hear Me! I am very weary. I have come From a village miles away, all day I have been coming, and I ache For such Far roaming. I cannot walk as light as I used, and my Thoughts grow confused. I am heavier than I was. Mary Mother, you […]...
35. The Great Yellow River Inundation in China ‘Twas in the year of 1887, and on the 28th of September, Which many people of Honan, in China, will long remember; Especially those that survived the mighty deluge, That fled to the mountains, and tops of trees, for refuge. The river burst its embankments suddenly at dead of night, And the rushing torrent swept […]...
36. The Soldier Of Fortune “Deny your God!” they ringed me with their spears; Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife; Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers, And one man spat on me and nursed a knife. And there was I, sore wounded and alone, I, the last living of my slaughtered band. Oh sinister the sky, and […]...
37. The Battle of Corunna ‘Twas in the year of 1808, and in the autumn of the year, Napoleon resolved to crush Spain and Portugal without fear; So with a mighty army three hundred thousand strong Through the passes of the Pyrenees into spain he passed along. But Sir John Moore concentrated his troops in the north, And into the […]...
38. The Battle of Inkermann ‘Twas in the year of 1854, and on the 5th November, Which Britain will no doubt long remember, When the Russians plotted to drive the British army into the sea, But at the bayonet charge the British soon made them flee. With fourteen hundred British, fifteen thousand Russians were driven back, At half-past seven o’clock […]...
39. By Broad Potomac's Shore 1 BY broad Potomac’s shore-again, old tongue! (Still uttering-still ejaculating-canst never cease this babble?) Again, old heart so gay-again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning; Again the freshness and the odors-again Virginia’s summer sky, pellucid blue and silver, Again the forenoon purple of the hills, Again the deathless grass, so noiseless, soft […]...
40. Equinox I must keep from breaking into the story by force For if I do I will find myself with a war club in my hand And the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun, Your nation dead beside you. I keep walking away though it has been an eternity And from each drop of blood […]...