All Poems

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King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the
M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at
Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh
Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates:
saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the
friend of Charlemagne.

In Memory of Jane Fraser

© Geoffrey Hill

When snow like sheep lay in the fold
And wind went begging at each door,
And the far hills were blue with cold,
And a cloud shroud lay on the moor,

Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings

© Geoffrey Hill

For whom the possessed sea littered, on both shores,
Ruinous arms; being fired, and for good,
To sound the constitution of just wards,
Men, in their eloquent fashion, understood.

September Song

© Geoffrey Hill

Undesirable you may have been, untouchable
you were not. Not forgotten
or passed over at the proper time.

From On Being Fired Again

© Erin Belieu

most notably by Larry who found my snood
unsuitable, another time by Jack,
whom I was sleeping with. Poor attitude,
tardiness, a contagious lack
of team spirit; I have been unmotivated

The Hideous Chair

© Erin Belieu

This hideous,
upholstered in gift-wrap fabric, chromed
in places, design possibility

Rondeau at the Train Stop

© Erin Belieu

It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay
drifting toward me on the T stop, the train
circling the city like a dingy, year-round
Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin
is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound

Legend of the Albino Farm

© Erin Belieu

Omaha, Nebraska They do not sleep nights
but stand betweenrows of glowing corn and
cabbages grown on acres pastthe edge of the city.
Surrendered flags,their nightgowns furl and

Georgic on Memory

© Erin Belieu

Make your daily monument the Ego,
use a masochist's epistemology
of shame and dog-eared certainty
that others less exacting might forgo.

For Catherine: Juana, Infanta of Navarre

© Erin Belieu

Once you were a daughter, too,
then a wife and now the mother
of a baby with a Spanish name.

All Distance

© Erin Belieu

but something comes before
Before car or cow, before
sky becomes...

Against Writing about Children

© Erin Belieu

When I think of the many people
who privately despise children,
I can't say I'm completely shocked,

The Man With The Hoe

© Edwin Markham

BOWED by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.

A Look Into The Gulf

© Edwin Markham

I LOOKED one night, and there the Semiramis,
With all her mourning doves about her head,
Sat rocking on an ancient road of Hell,
Withered and eyeless, chanting to the moon

Lion And Lioness

ONE night we were together, you and I,
And had unsown Assyria for a lair,
Before the walls of Babylon rose in air.
How languid hills were heaped along the sky,

Lincoln, The Man Of The People

WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.

The Invisible Bride

THE low-voiced girls that go
In gardens of the Lord,
Like flowers of the field they grow
In sisterly accord.

Thrushes

Tossed on the glittering air they soar and skim,
Whose voices make the emptiness of light
A windy palace. Quavering from the brim
Of dawn, and bold with song at edge of night,

Wind in the Beechwood

O luminous and lovely! Let your flowers,
Your ageless-squadroned wings, your surge and gleam,
Drown me in quivering brightness: let me fade
In the warm, rustling music of the hours
That guard your ancient wisdom, till my dream
Moves with the chant and whisper of the glade.