Poems

A Book Of Music by Jack Spicer Coming at an end, the lovers Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where Did it end? There is no telling. No love is Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves' boundaries From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye Like death. Coming at an end. Rather, I would say, like a length Of coiled rope Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths Its endings. But, you will say, we loved And some parts of us loved And the rest of us will remain Two persons. Yes, Poetry ends like a rope. (Hat-tip: Poets.org)
The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden (To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State) He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a    saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on…
Canto XIV by Ezra Pound Io venni in luogo d'ogni luce muto; The stench of wet coal, politicians . . . . . . . . . . e and. . . . . n, their wrists bound to     their ankles, Standing bare bum, Faces smeared on their rumps,     wide eye on flat buttock, Bush hanging for beard,     Addressing crowds through their arse-holes, Addressing the multitudes in the ooze,     newts, water-slugs, water-maggots, And with them. . . . . . . r,     a scrupulously clean table-napkin Tucked under his penis,     and. . . . . . . . . . . m Who disliked colioquial language, stiff-starched, but soiled, collars…
The Bistro Styx by Rita Dove She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness as she paused just inside the double glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape billowing dramatically behind her. What's this, I thought, lifting a hand until she nodded and started across the parquet; that's when I saw she was dressed all in gray, from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl down to the graphite signature of her shoes. "Sorry I'm late," she panted, though she wasn't, sliding into the chair, her cape tossed off in a shudder of brushed steel. We kissed. Then I leaned back to peruse my blighted child, this…
When Ecstasy is Inconvenient by Lorine Niedecker Feign a great calm; all gay transport soon ends. Chant: who knows -- flight's end or flight's beginning for the resting gull? Heart, be still. Say there is money but it rusted; say the time of moon is not right for escape. It's the color in the lower sky too broadly suffused, or the wind in my tie. Know amazedly how often one takes his madness into his own hands and keeps it.
The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy "Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! "But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place. "I shot him dead because -- Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was; That's clear enough; although "He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, Off-hand like -- just as I -- Was out of work -- had sold his traps -- No other reason why. "Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You'd treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-…
In Memory of Sigmund Freud by W.H. Auden When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed to the critique of a whole epoch the frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they die among us, those who were doing us some good, who knew it was never enough but hoped to improve a little by living. Such was this doctor: still at eighty he wished to think of our life from whose unruliness so many plausible young futures with threats or flattery ask obedience, but his wish was denied him: he…
(That would be Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., not Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. -- the Supreme Court Justice.) Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man by Oliver Wendell Holmes Oh, there are times When all this fret and tumult that we hear Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear His own dull chimes. Ding dong! ding dong! The world is in a simmer like a sea Over a pent volcano, -- woe is me All the day long! From crib to shroud! Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby, And friends in boots tramp round us as we die, Snuffling aloud. At morning's call The small-voiced pug-dog welcomes in the sun, And flea-…
The Age Demanded by Ernest Miller Hemingway The age demanded that we sing And cut away our tongue. The age demanded that we flow And hammered in the bung. The age demanded that we dance And jammed us into iron pants. And in the end the age was handed The sort of shit that it demanded.
The Labyrinth by W.H. Auden Anthropos apteros for days Walked whistling round and round the Maze, Relying happily upon His temperament for getting on. The hundredth time he sighted, though, A bush he left an hour ago, He halted where four alleys crossed, And recognized that he was lost. "Where am I? Metaphysics says No question can be asked unless It has an answer, so I can Assume this maze has got a plan. If theologians are correct, A Plan implies an Architect: A God-built maze would be, I'm sure, The Universe in miniature. Are data from the world of Sense, In that case, valid evidence? What…
The Hymn of a Fat Woman by Joyce Huff All of the saints starved themselves. Not a single fat one. The words "deity" and "diet" must have come from the same Latin root. Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones or shards of stained glass or Christ carved on his cross. Hard as pew seats. Brittle as hair shirts. Women made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted wooden chest. Women consumed by fervor. They must have been able to walk three or four abreast down that straight and oh-so-narrow path. They must have slipped with ease through the eye of the needle, leaving the…
Two poems for this week because they are short. Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor. He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning. But I will not hold the bridle while he clinches the girth. And he may mount by himself: I will not give him a leg up. Though he flick my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran. With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where…
Cartoon Physics, part 1 by Nick Flynn Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know that the universe is ever-expanding, inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies swallowed by galaxies, whole solar systems collapsing, all of it acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning the rules of cartoon animation, that if a man draws a door on a rock only he can pass through it. Anyone else who tries will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds should stick with burning houses, car wrecks, ships going down -- earthbound, tangible disasters, arenas where they can be heroes. You can run back into a burning…
Poem of the Week is a bit late because of the holiday, but I think it is worth it. The World Is a Beautiful Place by Lawrence Ferlinghetti The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don't mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is fine because even in heaven they don't sing all the time The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn't half bad if it isn't you Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born…
In honor of the holidays, here is a poem by Robert Frost. My English teacher in high school used to have this theory that this poem is actually about Santa Claus. Look closely and you will catch the references. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know, His house is in the village though. He will not see me stopping here, To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer, To stop without a farmhouse near, Between the woods and frozen lake, The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake, To ask if…
You know the story of Persephone right. Here is a clever poem about it by Louise Gluck. A Myth of Devotion by Louise Gluck When Hades decided he loved this girl he built for her a duplicate of earth, everything the same, down to the meadow, but with a bed added. Everything the same, including sunlight, because it would be hard on a young girl to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness Gradually, he thought, he'd introduce the night, first as the shadows of fluttering leaves. Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars. Let Persephone get used to it slowly. In the end, he thought…
To His Coy Mistress By Andrew Marvell Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the…
This poem is not for children. This is an adult poem for adults -- and possibly mature, sophisticated teenagers. (In some ways it makes me wish my parents did not read this site, but I will get over that.) As a consequence of its sordid nature, it is completely below the fold. It is also very, very good and exemplary of Walt Whitman's style. A Woman Waits for Me by Walt Whitman A woman waits for me -- she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs,…
Relationships -- they are a messy business. These two go out to someone who knows that better than most. Safe Sex by Donald Hall If he and she do not know each other, and feel confident they will not meet again; if he avoids affectionate words; if she has grown insensible skin under skin; if they desire only the tribute of another's cry; if they employ each other as revenge on old lovers or families of entitlement and steel-- then there will be no betrayals, no letters returned unread, no frenzy, no hurled words of permanent humiliation, no trembling days, no vomit at midnight, no repeated…
I have a lot of friends applying to medical school right now (the saddest part is that they are likely to finish before me). In honor of the medical school secondary essay -- a veritable autobiography in most cases, here is a poem by Lisel Mueller. Enjoy. Curriculum Vitae by Lisel Mueller 1992 1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea. 2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of course I do not remember this. 3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws. 4) A cornucopia…