Attitude poems

/ page 8 of 10 /

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Two that could not have lived their single lives
As can some husbands and wives
Did something strange: they tensed their vocal cords
And attacked each other with silences and words
Like catapulted stones and arrowed knives.

The Shepherd's Tree

© John Clare

Huge elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred,
Like to a warrior's destiny! I love
To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward,
And hear the laugh of summer leaves above;

To win a game

© Ivan Donn Carswell

How do you win a football game? Not by skill alone or clever plays,
in modern days the game has changed and subterfuge and actors
ways will pave the path to glory. Fitness pays a fair reward to keep
a fleetness in the feet, a clearness in the head, and special food

Epistle to Mrs. Tyler

© Christopher Smart

I shall not make a long oration
in order for my vindication,
For what the plague can I say more
Than lazy dogs have done before;
Such stuff is naught but mere tautology,
And so take that for my apology.

June 11

© David Lehman

It's my birtday I've got an empty
stomach and the desire to be
lazy in the hammock and maybe
go for a cool swim on a hot day

The Owl-Critic

© James Thomas Fields

"Who stuffed that white owl?"

No one spoke in the shop,

Love And Marilyn Monroe

© Delmore Schwartz

Let us praise, to say it again, her spiritual pride
And admire one who delights in what she has and is
(Who says also: "A woman is like a motor car:
She needs a good body."
And: "I sun bathe in the nude, because I want
to be blonde all over.")

All Night, All Night

© Delmore Schwartz

Looked out at the night, unable to distinguish
Lights in the towns of passage from the yellow lights
Numb on the ceiling. And the bird flew parallel and still
As the train shot forth the straight line of its whistle,
Forward on the taut tracks, piercing empty, familiar --

Stroke

© Heather McHugh

my shocked senses flocked to the window's reference
where now all backyard attitudes were deep
in memory: the landscapes I had known too well-
the picnic table and the hoe, the tricycle, the stubborn
shrub-the homegrown syllables
of shapely living-all

Ghazal 2 ( With English Translation )

© Daagh Dehlvi

Saaz Ya Keena Saaz Kya Jany
Naz walay Niyaz kiya Jany'
Kab kisi Dar Pa Juba Sai Kee

Freedom

© Charles Péguy

GOD SPEAKS:

When you love someone, you love him as he is.

Marriage

© Marianne Clarke Moore

This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind

The Growth of Love

© Robert Seymour Bridges

So in despite of sorrow lately learn'd
I still hold true to truth since thou art true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue
To my life's need more splendid and unearn'd
Than hath thy gift outmatch'd desire and due.

On a Dead Child

© Robert Seymour Bridges

Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
Though cold and stark and bare,
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.

From 'The Testament of Beauty'

'Twas at that hour of beauty when the setting sun
squandereth his cloudy bed with rosy hues, to flood
his lov'd works as in turn he biddeth them Good-night;
and all the towers and temples and mansions of men

The Flight Of The Duchess

You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;
So here's the tale from beginning to end,
My friend!

The Italian In England

That second time they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea,
And Austria, hounding far and wide
Her blood-hounds through the countryside,

Ode On A Grecian Urn

© John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: