Time poems
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London Voluntaries IV: Out of the Poisonous East
© William Ernest Henley
Out of the poisonous East,
Over a continent of blight,
Like a maleficent Influence released
From the most squalid cellerage of hell,
I am the Reaper
© William Ernest Henley
I am the Reaper.
All things with heedful hook
Silent I gather.
Pale roses touched with the spring,
O Gather Me the Rose
© William Ernest Henley
O gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it.
The Hudson
© Luis Benitez
Now nobody says "horse"
and there is a new colt in the world.
From now on, damn, bless,
the bread that you take to your mouth will taste of contradiction.
The Dark and the Fair
© Stanley Kunitz
A roaring company that festive night;
The beast of dialectic dragged his chains,
Prowling from chair to chair is the smoking light,
While the snow hissed against the windowpanes.
The Portrait
© Stanley Kunitz
My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
Tractor
© Ted Hughes
Worse iron is waiting. Power-lift kneels
Levers awake imprisoned deadweight,
Shackle-pins bedded in cast-iron cow-shit.
The blind and vibrating condemned obedience
Of iron to the cruelty of iron,
Wheels screeched out of their night-locks -
Earth-Moon
© Ted Hughes
Once upon a time there was a person
He was walking along
He met the full burning moon
Rolling slowly twoards him
September
© Ted Hughes
We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold:
No clock counts this.
When kisses are repeated and the arms hold
There is no telling where time is.
Dancing Tango
© Sheema Kalbasi
Oh, Orlando!
Remember the night we danced
quietly on the sands where music
was played? Your words were
wonderers, said quietly
in the pockets of my ears.
Trying To Pray
© James Wright
This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
Rip
© James Wright
It can't be the passing of time that casts
That white shadow across the waters
Just offshore.
I shiver a little, with the evening.
Narva and Mored
© Thomas Chatterton
Recite the loves of Narva and Mored
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said.
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung,
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung:
Merry Autumn
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
It's all a farce,these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o'er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
To Dan
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
STEP me now a bridal measure,
Work give way to love and leisure,
Hearts be free and hearts be gay --
Doctor Dan doth wed to-day.
Passing Time
© Maya Angelou
Your skin like dawn
Mine like muskOne paints the beginning
of a certain end.The other, the end of a
sure beginning.
Men
© Maya Angelou
When I was young, I used to
Watch behind the curtains
As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men.
Young men sharp as mustard.
This Life
© Grace Paley
the people who usually look up
and call jump jump did not see him
the life savers who creep around the back staircases
and reach the roof's edge just in time
never got their chance he meant it he wanted
only one person to know
