Marching

M
At dawn I heard among bird calls
the billions of marching feet in the churn
and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet
still wet from the mother's amniotic fluid,
and very old halting feet, the feet
of the very light and very heavy, all marching
but not together, criss-crossing at every angle
with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump
into each other, walking in the doors of houses
and out the back door forty years later, finally
knowing that time collapses on a single
plateau where they were all their lives,
knowing that time stops when the heart stops
as they walk off the earth into the night air.
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
179
Rating:

from The Prodigal: 10 by Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
I

The ground dove stuttered for a few steps then flew
up from his path to settle in the sun-browned
branches that were now barely twigs; in drought it coos
with its relentless valve, a tiring sound,
not like the sweet exchanges of turtles in the Song
of Solomon, or the flutes of Venus in frescoes
though all the mounds in the dove-calling drought
Read Poem
0
140
Rating:

An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician by Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,
The not-incurious in God's handiwork
(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made,
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,
To coop up and keep down on earth a space
That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul)
—To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,
Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,
Read Poem
0
147
Rating:

April by Alicia Ostriker
Alicia Ostriker
The optimists among us
taking heart because it is spring
skip along
attending their meetings
signing their e-mail petitions
marching with their satiric signs
singing their we shall overcome songs
posting their pungent twitters and blogs
believing in a better world
for no good reason
I envy them
said the old woman

The seasons go round they
go round and around
Read Poem
0
93
Rating:

Aesthetics of the Asylum by Constance Urdang
Constance Urdang
The sober reality
Was a double line of orphans in blue smocks
Marching above the blue river
Under the smoky eye of winter.
It is possible to envy them;
The picture of which they formed a part
Was so well composed,
In shades of blue and smoke
Read Poem
0
138
Rating:

The Dark Chamber by Louis Untermeyer
Louis Untermeyer
The brain forgets but the blood will remember.
There, when the play of sense is over,
The last, low spark in the darkest chamber
Will hold all there is of love and lover.

The war of words, the life-long quarrel
Of self against self will resolve into nothing;
Less than the chain of berry-red coral
Crying against the dead black of her clothing.
Read Poem
0
122
Rating:

Lilacs by Amy Lowell
Amy Lowell
Lilacs,
False blue,
White,
Purple,
Color of lilac,
Your great puffs of flowers
Are everywhere in this my New England.
Among your heart-shaped leaves
Read Poem
0
144
Rating:

Musical Moment by Virginia Hamilton Adair
Virginia Hamilton Adair
Always the caravan of sound made us halt
to admire the swinging and the swift go-by
of beasts with enormous hooves and heads
beating the earth or reared against the sky.

Do not reread, I mean glance ahead to see
what has become of the colossal forms:
everything happened at the instant of passing:
the hoof-beat, the whinny, the bells on the harness,
Read Poem
0
104
Rating:

Nocturne Militaire by Thomas McGrath
Thomas McGrath
Miami Beach: wartime Imagine or remember how the road at last led us
Over bridges like prepositions, linking a drawl of islands.
Read Poem
0
169
Rating:

A Shropshire Lad 35: On the idle hill of summer by A. E. Housman
A. E. Housman
On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.

Read Poem
0
159
Rating:

The Landlord's Tale. Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."
Read Poem
0
165
Rating:

Climbing Milestone Mountain, August 22, 1937 by Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth
For a month now, wandering over the Sierras,
A poem had been gathering in my mind,
Details of significance and rhythm,
The way poems do, but still lacking a focus.
Last night I remembered the date and it all
Began to grow together and take on purpose.
We sat up late while Deneb moved over the zenith
And I told Marie all about Boston, how it looked
Read Poem
0
173
Rating:

A Broken Appointment by Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,—
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.
Read Poem
0
142
Rating:

Barbara Frietchie by John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,

Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
Read Poem
0
103
Rating:

Zebra by C. K. Williams
C. K. Williams
Kids once carried tin soldiers in their pockets as charms
against being afraid, but how trust soldiers these days
not to load up, aim, blast the pants off your legs?

I have a key-chain zebra I bought at the Thanksgiving fair.
How do I know she won't kick, or bite at my crotch?
Because she's been murdered, machine-gunned: she's dead.

Also, she's a she: even so crudely carved, you can tell
by the sway of her belly a foal's inside her.
Even murdered mothers don't hurt people, do they?

And how know she's murdered? Isn't everything murdered?
Some dictator's thugs, some rebels, some poachers;
some drought, world-drought, world-rot, pollution, extinction.
Read Poem
0
179
Rating:

Paradise Lost: Book 12 (1674 version) by John Milton
John Milton
AS one who in his journey bates at Noone,
Though bent on speed, so heer the Archangel paus'd
Betwixt the world destroy'd and world restor'd,
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose;
Then with transition sweet new Speech resumes.

Thus thou hast seen one World begin and end;
And Man as from a second stock proceed.
Much thou hast yet to see, but I perceave
Thy mortal sight to faile; objects divine
Must needs impaire and wearie human sense:
Henceforth what is to com I will relate,
Thou therefore give due audience, and attend.
This second sours of Men, while yet but few;
And while the dread of judgement past remains
Read Poem
0
228
Rating:

Paradise Lost: Book  1 (1674 version) by John Milton
John Milton
OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
Read Poem
0
159
Rating:

Ballad of the Salvation Army by Kenneth Fearing
Kenneth Fearing
On Fourteenth street the bugles blow,
Bugles blow, bugles blow.
The red, red, red, red banner floats
Where sweating angels split their throats,
Marching in burlap petticoats,
Blow, bugles, blow.

God is a ten car Bronx express,
Red eyes round, red eyes round.
Read Poem
0
162
Rating:

Eating Chocolate Ice Cream: Reading Mayakovsky by Barbara Guest
Barbara Guest
Since I’ve decided to revolutionize my life
since

decided

revolutionize

life
Read Poem
0
194
Rating:

To a Reason by Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
A tap of your finger on the drum releases all sounds and initiates the new harmony.
A step of yours is the conscription of the new men and their marching orders.
You look away: the new love!
You look back,—the new love!
“Change our fates, shoot down the plagues, beginning with time,” the children sing to you. “Build wherever you can the substance of our fortunes and our wishes,” they beg you.
Arriving from always, you’ll go away everywhere.
Read Poem
0
134
Rating: