Openly, yes, With the naturalness Of the hippopotamus or the alligator When it climbs out on the bank to experience the
Sun, I do these Things which I do, which please No one but myself. Now I breathe and now I am sub- Merged; the blemishes stand up and shout when the object
In view was a Renaissance; shall I say The contrary? The sediment of the river which Encrusts my joints, makes me very gray but I am used
When they confess that they have lost the penial bone and outer space is Once again a numinous void, when they’re kept out of Other Places, And Dr Fieser falls asleep at last and dreams of unburnt faces, When gold medals are won by the ton for forgetting about the different races, God Bless America.
When in the Latin shanties the scented priesthood suffers metempsychosis And with an organ entry tutti copula the dollar uncrosses
You have put your two hands upon me, and your mouth, You have said my name as a prayer. Here where trees are planted by the water I have watched your eyes, cleansed from regret, And your lips, closed over all that love cannot say,
My mother remembers the agony of her womb And long years that seemed to promise more than this. She says, “You do not love me,
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
The mountain sheep are sweeter, But the valley sheep are fatter; We therefore deemed it meeter To carry off the latter. We made an expedition; We met a host, and quelled it; We forced a strong position, And killed the men who held it.
On Dyfed's richest valley, Where herds of kine were browsing, We made a mighty sally, To furnish our carousing. Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
Andromeda, by Perseus sav'd and wed, Hanker'd each day to see the Gorgon's head: Till o'er a fount he held it, bade her lean, And mirror'd in the wave was safely seen That death she liv'd by.
Let not thine eyes know Any forbidden thing itself, although It once should save as well as kill: but be Its shadow upon life enough for thee.
Most happy letters, fram'd by skilful trade, With which that happy name was first design'd: The which three times thrice happy hath me made, With gifts of body, fortune, and of mind. The first my being to me gave by kind, From mother's womb deriv'd by due descent, The second is my sovereign Queen most kind, That honour and large richesse to me lent.
And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes. And he answered: Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Lord, it’s not true That my faith is cooling. It’s just that people Are saying that candle smoke Has caused cancer in church mice. And I also worry that candle light Is too weak to reach your cloud.
at the third floor window of the tenement, the street looks shiny. It has been washed and rinsed by rain. Beyond the silver streaks of the streetcar tracks a single streetlight stands in a pool of wet light. It is night. St. Louis. Nineteen forty-seven. I have just come home from the orphanage
I first discovered what was killing these men. I had three sons who worked with their father in the tunnel: Cecil, aged 23, Owen, aged 21, Shirley, aged 17. They used to work in a coal mine, not steady work for the mines were not going much of the time. A power Co. foreman learned that we made home brew, he formed a habit of dropping in evenings to drink, persuading the boys and my husband —
My dear, your eyes are weary; Rest them a little while. Assume the languid posture Of pleasure mixed with guile. Outside the talkative fountain Continues night and day Repeating my warm passion In whatever it has to say.
The sheer luminous gown The fountain wears Where Phoebe’s very own Color appears Falls like a summer rain Or shawl of tears.
Once, in the city of Kalamazoo, The gods went walking, two and two, With the friendly phoenix, the stars of Orion, The speaking pony and singing lion. For in Kalamazoo in a cottage apart Lived the girl with the innocent heart.
Thenceforth the city of Kalamazoo Was the envied, intimate chum of the sun. He rose from a cave by the principal street. The lions sang, the dawn-horns blew, And the ponies danced on silver feet. He hurled his clouds of love around; Deathless colors of his old heart Draped the houses and dyed the ground.
I tell thee, Dick, where I have been, Where I the rarest things have seen; Oh, things without compare! Such sights again cannot be found In any place on English ground, Be it at wake, or fair.
Whose lives are hidden in God? Whose? Who can now tell what was taken, or where, or how, or whether it was received: how ditched, divested, clamped, sifted, over- laid, raked over, grassed over, spread around, rotted down with leafmould, accepted as civic concrete, reinforceable base cinderblocks:
What shall I do with this absurdity — O heart, O troubled heart — this caricature, Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a dog's tail? Never had I more Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye
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