Failure poems

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It Couldn’t Be Done

© Edgar Albert Guest

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done

But he with a chuckle replied

Movement Song

© Elizabeth Daryush

I have studied the tight curls on the back of your neck

moving away from me

The Brus Book XIII

© John Barbour

[Douglas's division attacks]

Quhen thir twa fyrst bataillis wer

You ask me of English honour, whether your Nation is just?
Justice for us is a word divine, a name we revere,
Alas, no more than a name, a thing laid by in the dust.
The world shall know it again, but not in this month or year.

Drought And Doctrine.

© James Brunton Stephens

COME, take the tenner, doctor . . . yes, I know the bill says "five,"

But it ain't as if you'd merely kep' our little 'un alive;

The Scamps

© Henry Lawson

Of home, name and wealth and ambition bereft

We are children of fortune and luck:

Vespers [In your extended absence, you permit me]

© Louise Gluck

In your extended absence, you permit me

use of earth, anticipating

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 07:

© Conrad Aiken

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimming
Of lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal
My brain unfolding! There you'll see me sitting
Day after day, close to a certain window,
Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .

Kaddish

© Allen Ginsberg

Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, married dreamed, mortal changed—Ass and face done with murder.
In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under pine, almed in Earth, balmed in Lone, Jehovah, accept.
Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless, Father in death. Tho I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I’m hymnless, I’m Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore
Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not light or darkness, Dayless Eternity—
Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some of my Time, now given to Nothing—to praise Thee—But Death
This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping—page beyond Psalm—Last change of mine and Naomi—to God’s perfect Darkness—Death, stay thy phantoms!

The Unknown Eros. Book I.

© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore

Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold
In vestal February;
Not rather choosing out some rosy day
From the rich coronet of the coming May,
When all things meet to marry!

Three Women

© Wilcox Ella Wheeler

My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.

Turning Forty

© Jonathan Galassi

The barroom mirror lit up with our wives
has faded to a loaded-to-the-gills
Japanese subcompact, little lives
asleep behind us, heading for the hills

Here And There: Or This World And The Next: Being Suitable Thoughts For A New Year

© Hannah More

Here bliss is short, imperfect, insincere,

But total, absolute, and perfect there.

Fanny

Part Four of “Pro Femina”

At Samoa, hardly unpacked, I commenced planting,

Apparent Failure

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building."

--_Paris Newspaper_.

Retreat

© John Fuller

I should like to live in a sunny town like this
Where every afternoon is half-day closing
And I would wait at the terminal for the one train
Of the day, pacing the platform, and no one arriving.