All Poems
/ page 2685 of 3210 /
A Miracle For Breakfast
© Elizabeth Bishop
At six o'clock we were waiting for coffee,
waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb
that was going to be served from a certain balcony
like kings of old, or like a miracle.
It was still dark. One foot of the sun
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river.
Rain Towards Morning
© Elizabeth Bishop
The great light cage has broken up in the air,
freeing, I think, about a million birds
whose wild ascending shadows will not be back,
and all the wires come falling down.
Poem
© Elizabeth Bishop
About the size of an old-style dollar bill,
American or Canadian,
mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays
--this little painting (a sketch for a larger one?)
O Breath
© Elizabeth Bishop
Beneath that loved and celebrated breast,
silent, bored really blindly veined,
grieves, maybe lives and lets
live, passes bets,
Exchanging Hats
© Elizabeth Bishop
Unfunny uncles who insist
in trying on a lady's hat,
--oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist
Conversation
© Elizabeth Bishop
The tumult in the heart
keeps asking questions.
And then it stops and undertakes to answer
in the same tone of voice.
No one could tell the difference.
Five Flights Up
© Elizabeth Bishop
Enormous morning, ponderous, meticulous;
gray light streaking each bare branch,
each single twig, along one side,
making another tree, of glassy veins...
The bird still sits there. Now he seems to yawn.
Anaphora
© Elizabeth Bishop
In memory of Marjorie Carr Stevens
Each day with so much ceremony
begins, with birds, with bells,
with whistles from a factory;
The Man-Moth
© Elizabeth Bishop
Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for "mammoth."
Here, above,
cracks in the buldings are filled with battered moonlight.
At The Fishhouses
© Elizabeth Bishop
Down at the water's edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.
Casabianca
© Elizabeth Bishop
Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.
The Armadillo
© Elizabeth Bishop
This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,
The Unbeliever
© Elizabeth Bishop
He sleeps on the top of a mast
with his eyes fast closed.
The sails fall away below him
like the sheets of his bed,
leaving out in the air of the night the sleeper's head.
Letter To N.Y.
© Elizabeth Bishop
In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:
Argument
© Elizabeth Bishop
Days that cannot bring you near
or will not,
Distance trying to appear
something more obstinate,
Sonnet (1979)
© Elizabeth Bishop
Caught -- the bubble
in the spirit level,
a creature divided;
and the compass needle
The Shampoo
© Elizabeth Bishop
The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.
The Map
© Elizabeth Bishop
Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
First Death In Nova Scotia
© Elizabeth Bishop
In the cold, cold parlor
my mother laid out Arthur
beneath the chromographs:
Edward, Prince of Wales,
