Le sporting-club de Monte Carlo (for Lena Horne)

L
The lady is a tramp
a camp
a lamp

The lady is a sight
a might
a light
the lady devastated
an alley or two
reverberated through the valley
which leads to me, and you

the lady is the apple
of God's eye:
He's cool enough about it
but He tends to strut a little
when she passes by

the lady is a wonder
daughter of the thunder
smashing cages
legislating rages
with the voice of ages
singing us through.
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

Sohrab and Rustum by Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
An Episode AND the first grey of morning fill'd the east,
And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.
Read Poem
0
153
Rating:

Today We Fly by Curzio Malaparte
Curzio Malaparte
One Sunday morning,
instead of studying The Illiad,
I escaped with Bino to Florence,
to see what miracles the aviator Manissero
would perform.

Whether he would demonstrate the art of Daedalus
or the folly of Icarus.

We found the whole city festooned with banners
Read Poem
0
144
Rating:

The Beasts' Confession by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents When beasts could speak (the learned say,
They still can do so ev'ry day),
It seems, they had religion then,
As much as now we find in men.
Read Poem
0
155
Rating:

The American Way by Gregory Corso
Gregory Corso
1

I am a great American
I am almost nationalistic about it!
I love America like a madness!
But I am afraid to return to America
I’m even afraid to go into the American Express—


2

They are frankensteining Christ in America
Read Poem
0
145
Rating:

Sather Tower Mystery by Ishmael Reed
Ishmael Reed
Seems there was this Professor
a member of what should be called
The Good German Department

Must have signed his name to
5,000 petitions in front of
the Co-Op on Cedar
and bought two tons of benefit
cookies
Read Poem
0
131
Rating:

Staggerlee wonders by James Baldwin
James Baldwin
1

I always wonder
what they think the niggers are doing
while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists,
are containing
Russia
and defining and re-defining and re-aligning
China,
Read Poem
0
163
Rating:

The City (1925) by Carl Rakosi
Carl Rakosi
1

Under this Luxemburg of heaven,
upright capstan,
small eagles. . . .
is the port of N.Y. . . . .

gilders, stampers, pen makers, goldbeaters,

apprehensions of thunder
speed
Read Poem
0
120
Rating:

Swifts by Gerald Stern
Gerald Stern
Bing Crosby died in Spain
while playing golf with Franco
but who could care less, and at this
writing only a few of
my dear ones are gone—ah I
could make a sad list—the swifts,
as if to prove a point,
fly into the light and make
a mockery out of our darkness.
They scream for food but in
the world of shadows they only
make a quick motion; I have
studied them—the whiter
the wall is—the barer the bulb—
the more they scream, the more
Read Poem
0
114
Rating:

University by Karl Shapiro
Karl Shapiro
To hurt the Negro and avoid the Jew
Is the curriculum. In mid-September
The entering boys, identified by hats,
Wander in a maze of mannered brick
Where boxwood and magnolia brood
And columns with imperious stance
Like rows of ante-bellum girls
Eye them, outlanders.
Read Poem
0
144
Rating:

Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound by Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
I am surprised to see
that the ocean is still going on.
Now I am going back
and I have ripped my hand
from your hand as I said I would
and I have made it this far
as I said I would
and I am on the top deck now
Read Poem
0
105
Rating:

Saturday Night by Alicia Ostriker
Alicia Ostriker
Music is most sovereign because more than anything
else, rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost
soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with
them and imparting grace.
—Plato, The Republic

The cranes are flying ...
—Chekhov
Read Poem
0
117
Rating:

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3 by Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs,
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.

Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,
To taste awhile the pleasures of a court;
In various talk th' instructive hours they pass'd,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
Read Poem
0
132
Rating:

Town Eclogues: Tuesday; St. James's Coffee-House by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
SILLIANDER and PATCH. THOU so many favours hast receiv'd,
Wondrous to tell, and hard to be believ'd,
Oh ! H—— D, to my lays attention lend,
Hear how two lovers boastingly contend ;
Like thee successful, such their bloomy youth,
Renown'd alike for gallantry and truth.

St. JAMES's bell had toll'd some wretches in,
Read Poem
0
132
Rating:

The Reading Club by Patricia Goedicke
Patricia Goedicke
Is dead serious about this one, having rehearsed it for two weeks
they bring it right into the Odd Fellows Meeting Hall.
Riding the backs of the Trojan Women,
In Euripides’ great wake they are swept up,

But the women of the chorus, in black stockings and kerchiefs,
Stand up bravely to it, shawled arms thrash
In a foam of hysterical voices shrieking,
Seaweed on the wet flanks of a whale,
Read Poem
0
128
Rating:

City Without a Name by Czeslaw Milosz
Czeslaw Milosz
1
Who will honor the city without a name
If so many are dead and others pan gold
Or sell arms in faraway countries?

What shepherd's horn swathed in the bark of birch
Will sound in the Ponary Hills the memory of the absent—
Vagabonds, Pathfinders, brethren of a dissolved lodge?

This spring, in a desert, beyond a campsite flagpole,
Read Poem
0
124
Rating:

The Double Image by Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
1.

I am thirty this November.
You are still small, in your fourth year.
We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain,
falling flat and washed. And I remember
mostly the three autumns you did not live here.
They said I’d never get you back again.
Read Poem
0
171
Rating:

Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey by Hayden Carruth
Hayden Carruth
Scrambled eggs and whiskey
in the false-dawn light. Chicago,
a sweet town, bleak, God knows,
but sweet. Sometimes. And
weren’t we fine tonight?
When Hank set up that limping
treble roll behind me
my horn just growled and I
Read Poem
0
147
Rating:

Sidewalk Games by Colleen J. McElroy
Colleen J. McElroy
I

The sidewalks were long where I grew up.
They were as veined as the backs
Of my Grandma’s hands.
We knew every inch of pavement;
We jumped the cracks
Chanting rhymes that broke evil spirits,
Played tag at sunset
Read Poem
0
129
Rating:

Destitute Peru by James Schuyler
James Schuyler
For John Ashbery We pullmaned to Peoria. Was
Gladys glad, Skippy missed
Read Poem
0
116
Rating:

Of What is Real by Richard Tagett
Richard Tagett
I like to lie with you wordless
on black cloud rooft beach
in late june 5 o’clock tempest
on clump weed bed with sand
fitting your contours like tailor made

and I like to wash my summer brown face
in north cold hudson rapids
with octagon soap
Read Poem
0
125
Rating: