The Telegraph Operator

T

Robert W. Service

Robert W. Service

I will not wash my face;

I will not brush my hair;

I "pig" around the place —

There's nobody to care.

Nothing but rock and tree;

Nothing but wood and stone;

Oh god, it's hell to be

Alone, alone, alone.

Snow-peaks and deep-gashed draws

Corral me in a ring.

I feel as if I was

The only living thing

On all this blighted earth;

And so I frowst and shrink,

And crouching by my hearth,

I hear the thoughts I think.

I think of all I miss —

The boys I used to know;

The girls I used to kiss;

The coin I used to blow:

The bars I used to haunt;

The racket and the row;

The beers I didn't want

(I wish I had 'em now).

Day after day the same,

Only a little worse;

No one to grouch or blame —

Oh, for a loving curse!

Oh, in the night I fear,

Haunted by nameless things,

Just for a voice to cheer,

Just for a hand that clings!

Faintly as from a star

Voices come o'er the line;

Voices of ghosts afar,

Not in this world of mine.

Lives in whose loom I grope;

Words in whose weft I hear

Eager the thrill of hope,

Awful the chill of fear.

I'm thinking out aloud;

I reckon that is bad;

(The snow is like a shroud) —

Maybe I'm going mad.

Say! wouldn't that be tough?

This awful hush that hugs

And chokes one is enough

To make a man go "bugs".

There's not a thing to do;

I cannot sleep at night;

No wonder I'm so blue;

Oh, for a friendly fight!

The din and rush of strife;

A music-hall aglow;

A crowd, a city, life —

Dear God, I miss it so!

Here, you have moped enough!

Brace up and play the game!

But say, it's awful tough —

Day after day the same

(I've said that twice, I bet).

Well, there's not much to say.

I wish I had a pet,

Or something I could play.

Cheer up! don't get so glum

And sick of everything;

The worst is yet to come;

God help you till the spring.

God shield you from the Fear;

Teach you to laugh, not moan.

Ha! ha! it sounds so queer —

Alone, alone, alone.

Rating:

Comment form:

Similar Poems:

Zero Hour by Ernesto Cardenal

Ernesto Cardenal

Tropical nights in Central America,
with moonlit lagoons and volcanoes
and lights from presidential palaces,
barracks and sad curfew warnings.
"Often while smoking a cigarette
I've decided that a man should die,"
says Ubico smoking a cigarette . . .
In his pink-wedding-cake palace

138

Rating:

Dreamwork Three by Jerome Rothenberg

Jerome Rothenberg

a trembling old man dreams of a chinese garden
a comical old man dreams of newspapers under his rabbi's hat

a simple tavernkeeper dreams of icicles & fisheyes
a sinister tavernkeeper dreams of puddles with an angel of the law in every drop

the furrier's plump daughter is dreaming of a patch of old vanilla
the furrier's foreign daughter is dreaming of a hat from which a marten hangs

the proud accountant dreams of a trolleycar over the frozen river
the reluctant accountant dreams of his feet sleep in a fresh pair of red socks

173

Rating:

Sophia Nichols, by Robin Blaser

Robin Blaser

the wind hits and returns it is easy to personify
a new place and language, but the new body stings

these men with green eyelids, drawing their worth,
it was rumoured, from Egypt, knew

the work is part of it a power arrived at the
same thirst

he borrowed a head for a day

but which head the phrases tremble in the other

150

Rating:

The end of the world by Miroslav Holub

Miroslav Holub

The bird had come to the very end of its song
and the tree was dissolving under its claws.

And in the sky the clouds were twisting
and darkness flowed through all the cracks
into the sinking vessel of the landscape.

Only in the telegraph wires
a message still
crackled:

140

Rating:

Mother and Poet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !

II.

168

Rating:

I was Wash-Way in Blood by Kamau Brathwaite

Kamau Brathwaite

The Barbados Advocate, Thursday, January 19, 1995, page 4 MILDRED COLLYMORE told the No. 3 Supreme Court yesterday that when she recovered from an attack with a stone she found herself "washed-way" in blood.

Collymore said also that accused Philamena Hinds came back to move the rock but she would not let her.

175

Rating:

A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed by Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Corinna, pride of Drury-Lane
For whom no shepherd sighs in vain;
Never did Covent Garden boast
So bright a battered, strolling toast;
No drunken rake to pick her up,
No cellar where on tick to sup;
Returning at the midnight hour;
Four stories climbing to her bow’r;
Then, seated on a three-legged chair,
Takes off her artificial hair:
Now, picking out a crystal eye,
She wipes it clean, and lays it by.
Her eye-brows from a mouse’s hide,
Stuck on with art on either side,
Pulls off with care, and first displays ’em,

108

Rating: