All Poems

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Be Angry At The Sun

© Robinson Jeffers

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

The Purse-Seine

© Robinson Jeffers

Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark
of the moon; daylight or moonlight
They could not tell where to spread the net,
unable to see the phosphorescence of the

Shine, Perishing Republic

© Robinson Jeffers

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,

Summer Holiday

© Robinson Jeffers

When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of
bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;

Praise Life

© Robinson Jeffers

This country least, but every inhabited country
Is clotted with human anguish.
Remember that at your feasts.

The Stars Go Over The Lonely Ocean

© Robinson Jeffers

Unhappy about some far off things
That are not my affair, wandering
Along the coast and up the lean ridges,
I saw in the evening

The heroic stars spending themselves,
Coining their very flesh into bullets for the lost battle,
They must burn out at length like used candles;
And Mother Night will weep in her triumph, taking home her heroes.

Shiva

© Robinson Jeffers

There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.

Hurt Hawks

© Robinson Jeffers

No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

End Of The World

© Robinson Jeffers

When I was young in school in Switzerland, about the time of the Boer War,
We used to take it for known that the human race
Would last the earth out, not dying till the planet died. I wrote a schoolboy poem
About the last man walking in stoic dignity along the dead shore

We Are Those People

© Robinson Jeffers

I have abhorred the wars and despised the liars, laughed at the frightened
And forecast victory; never one moment's doubt.
But now not far, over the backs of some crawling years, the next
Great war's column of dust and fire writhes

Waxwings

© Robert Francis

Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berry bush
in sun, and I am one.

Thoreau in Italy

© Robert Francis

Lingo of birds was easier than lingo of peasants-
they were elusive, though, the birds, for excellent reasons.
He thought of Virgil, Virgil who wasn't there to chat with.

Squash in Blossom

© Robert Francis

How lush, how loose, the uninhibited squash is.
If ever hearts (and these immoderate leaves
Are vegetable hearts) were worn on sleeves,
The squash's are. In green the squash vine gushes.

The Bulldozer

Bull by day
And dozes by night.Would that the bulldozer
Dozed all the timeWould that the bulldozer
Would rust in peace.His watchword

In Memoriam: Four Poets

Searock his tower above the sea,
Searock he built, not ivory.
Searock as well his haunted art
Who gave to plunging hawks his hearts.

New England Mind

My mind matches this understand land.
Outdoors the pencilled tree, the wind-carved drift,
Indoors the constant fire, the careful thrift
Are facts that I accept and understand.

Sheep

From where I stand the sheep stand still
As stones against the stony hill.The stones are gray
And so are they.And both are weatherworn and round,
Leading the eye back to the ground.Two mingled flocks -

Return

This little house sows the degrees
By which wood can return to trees.Weather has stained the shingles dark
And indistinguishable from bark.Lichen that long ago adjourned
Its lodging here has now returned.And if you look in through the door

Summons

Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.