Pet poems
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Brass Keys
© Carl Sandburg
JOY
weaving two violet petals for a coat lapel
painting on a slab of night sky a Christ face
slipping new brass keys into rusty iron locks and shouldering till at last the door gives and we are in a new room
forever and ever violet petals, slabs, the Christ face, brass keys and new rooms.
are we near or far?
is there anything else?
who comes back?
and why does love ask nothing and give all? and why is love rare as a tailed comet shaking guesses out of men at telescopes ten feet long? why does the mystery sit with its chin on the lean forearm of women in gray eyes and women in hazel eyes?
A Tall Man
© Carl Sandburg
THE MOUTH of this man is a gaunt strong mouth.
The head of this man is a gaunt strong head.
The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians.
Chartres
© Edith Wharton
IImmense, august, like some Titanic bloom,
The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core,
Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or,
Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom,
A Petition
© Amy Lowell
I pray to be the tool which to your hand
Long use has shaped and moulded till it be
Apt for your need, and, unconsideringly,
You take it for its service. I demand
Pickthorn Manor
© Amy Lowell
I
How fresh the Dartle's little waves that day! A
steely silver, underlined with blue,
And flashing where the round clouds, blown away, Let drop the
Thompson's Lunch Room -- Grand Central Station
© Amy Lowell
Study in WhitesWax-white --
Floor, ceiling, walls.
Ivory shadows
Over the pavement
The Red Lacquer Music-Stand
© Amy Lowell
The clock upon the stair
Struck five, and in the kitchen someone shook a grate.
The Boy began to dress, for it was getting late.
Malmaison
© Amy Lowell
I
How the slates of the roof sparkle in the sun,
over there, over there,
beyond the high wall! How quietly the Seine runs in loops
Stravinsky's Three Pieces
© Amy Lowell
First Movement
Thin-voiced, nasal pipes
Drawing sound out and out
Until it is a screeching thread,
The Basket
© Amy Lowell
Peter watches her, fluid with fatigue, floating, and drifting,
and undulant in the orange glow. His senses flow towards
her,
where she lies supine and dreaming. Seeming drowned in
a golden halo.
The pungent smell of the geraniums is hard to bear.
The Great Adventure of Max Breuck
© Amy Lowell
1
A yellow band of light upon the street
Pours from an open door, and makes a wide
Pathway of bright gold across a sheet
The Road to Avignon
© Amy Lowell
A Minstrel stands on a marble stair,
Blown by the bright wind, debonair;
Below lies the sea, a sapphire floor,
Above on the terrace a turret door
The Bombardment
© Amy Lowell
The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower
flickering at the window. The little red lips of flame
creep along
the ceiling beams.
Loon Point
© Amy Lowell
Softly the water ripples
Against the canoe's curving side,
Softly the birch trees rustle
Flinging over us branches wide.
The Shadow
© Amy Lowell
The Coroner took the body away,
And the watches were sold that Saturday.
The Auctioneer said one could seldom buy
Such watches, and the prices were high.
The Captured Goddess
© Amy Lowell
Over the housetops,
Above the rotating chimney-pots,
I have seen a shiver of amethyst,
And blue and cinnamon have flickered
Crowned
© Amy Lowell
You came to me bearing bright roses,
Red like the wine of your heart;
You twisted them into a garland
To set me aside from the mart.
Stupidity
© Amy Lowell
Dearest, forgive that with my clumsy touch
I broke and bruised your rose.
I hardly could suppose
It were a thing so fragile that my clutch
Lead Soldiers
© Amy Lowell
The old mandarin nods under his purple umbrella. The
rose in his hand
shoots its petals up in thin quills of crimson. Then
they collapse
and shrivel like red embers. The fire sizzles.
