Life poems
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The Earth
© Anne Sexton
God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth.
Sonnet 154: "The little Love-god lying once asleep,..."
© William Shakespeare
The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
The Child Bearers
© Anne Sexton
Jean, death comes close to us all,
flapping its awful wings at us
and the gluey wings crawl up our nose.
Our children tremble in their teen-age cribs,
Attainment
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Do not miss the purpose of this life,
and do not wait for circumstance
to mold or change your fate.
In your own self lies destiny.
A Contemplation
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
Then let my Contemplation soar
And Heav'n my Subject be
Though low on Earth in nature poor
Some prospect we may see
The Evil Eye
© Anne Sexton
It comes oozing
out of flowers at night,
it comes out of the rain
if a snake looks skyward,
You, Doctor Martin
© Anne Sexton
You, Doctor Martin, walk
from breakfast to madness. Late August,
I speed through the antiseptic tunnel
where the moving dead still talk
The Fury Of Beautiful Bones
© Anne Sexton
Sing me a thrush, bone.
Sing me a nest of cup and pestle.
Sing me a sweetbread fr an old grandfather.
Sing me a foot and a doorknob, for you are my love.
An Autumnal Extravaganza
© James Whitcomb Riley
With a sweeter voice than birds
Dare to twitter in their sleep,
The Big Boots Of Pain
© Anne Sexton
There can be certain potions
needled in the clock
for the body's fall from grace,
to untorture and to plead for.
Rowing
© Anne Sexton
As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.
The Break Away
© Anne Sexton
I pray it will know truth,
if truth catches in its cup
and yet I pray, as a child would,
that the surgery take.
Doubtful Dreams
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
Aye, snows are rife in December,
And sheaves are in August yet,
Cripples And Other Stories
© Anne Sexton
My doctor, the comedian
I called you every time
and made you laugh yourself
when I wrote this silly rhyme...
The Sufi In The City
© Sir Henry Newbolt
When late I watched the arrows of the sleet
Against the windows of the Tavern beat,
I heard a Rose that murmured from her Pot:
"Why trudge thy fellows yonder in the Street?
Frenzy
© Anne Sexton
I am not lazy.
I am on the amphetamine of the soul.
I am, each day,
typing out the God
Lines. "Upon the altar of my life there lies"
© Frances Anne Kemble
Upon the altar of my life there lies
A costly offering: its price I know;
The Room Of My Life
© Anne Sexton
Here,
in the room of my life
the objects keep changing.
Ashtrays to cry into,
