Future poems
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Out from Behind this Mask.
© Walt Whitman
1
OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask,
(All straighter, liker Masks rejectedthis preferrd,)
This common curtain of the face, containd in me for me, in you for you, in each for
Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City.
© Walt Whitman
ONCE I pass'd through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its
shows, architecture, customs, and traditions;
Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met there, who detain'd me
for love of me;
Poets to Come.
© Walt Whitman
POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! Arousefor you must justify meyou must answer.
An Old Mans Thought of School.
© Walt Whitman
AN old mans thought of School;
An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot.
Now only do I know you!
Turn, O Libertad.
© Walt Whitman
TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over,
(From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute, sweeping the world,)
Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past;
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past;
As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontarios Shores.
© Walt Whitman
1
AS I sat alone, by blue Ontarios shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace returnd, and the dead that return no
more,
To Think of Time.
© Walt Whitman
1
TO think of timeof all that retrospection!
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!
To a Historian.
© Walt Whitman
YOU who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the racesthe life that has
exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and
Five A.M.
© Allen Ginsberg
Elan that lifts me above the clouds
into pure space, timeless, yea eternal
Breath transmuted into words
Transmuted back to breath
Letter Of Recommendation From My Father To My Future Wife
© Richard Jones
During the war, I was in China.
Every night we blew the world to hell.
The sky was purple and yellow
like his favorite shirt.
A Prayer For My Son
© William Butler Yeats
Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, nor turn in the bed
Till his morning meal come round;
The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam Of Naishapur
© Edward Fitzgerald
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
Upon His Drinking a Bowl
© John Wilmot
Vulcan, contrive me such a cup
As Nestor used of old;
Show all thy skill to trim it up,
Damask it round with gold.
Predawn In Health
© Les Murray
The stars are filtering through a tree
outside in the moon's silent era.
Reality is moving layer over layer
The Quality Of Sprawl
© Les Murray
Sprawl is the quality
of the man who cut down his Rolls-Royce
into a farm utility truck, and sprawl
is what the company lacked when it made repeated efforts
to buy the vehicle back and repair its image.
Dogfish
© Mary Oliver
Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman's boot,
with a white belly.
Travelling Bohemians
© Charles Baudelaire
The prophetic tribe of the ardent eyes
Yesterday they took the road, holding their babies
On their backs, delivering to fierce appetites
The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts.
Laodamia
© André Breton
"With sacrifice before the rising morn
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:
Celestial pity I again implore;—
Restore him to my sight—great Jove, restore!"
