Time poems
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Nature Study
© Craig Raine
All the lizards are asleep--
perched pagodas with tiny triangular tiles,
each milky lid a steamed-up window.
Inside, the heart repeats itself like a sleepy gong,
summoning nothing to nothing.
A Martian Sends A Postcard Home
© Craig Raine
Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings --they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
Still
© Wislawa Szymborska
In sealed box cars travel
names across the land,
and how far they will travel so,
and will they ever get out,
don't ask, I won't say, I don't know.
Tortures
© Wislawa Szymborska
Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it shuddered
before the founding of Rome and after,
in the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are as they were, it's just the earth that's grown smaller,
and whatever happens seems right on the other side of the wall.
Conversation
© Ai
We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
The Daguerreotype
© William Vaughn Moody
This, then, is she,
My mother as she looked at seventeen,
When she first met my father. Young incredibly,
Younger than spring, without the faintest trace
An Ode in Time of Hesitation
© William Vaughn Moody
After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted negro regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.
I Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe,
And set here in the city's talk and trade
The Curtain
© Hayden Carruth
renewing field of corpse-flesh.
In this valley the snow falls silently all day and out our window
We see the curtain of it shifting and folding, hiding us away in
On a Line from Valéry (The Gulf War)
© Carolyn Kizer
The whole green sky is dying.The last tree flares
With a great burst of supernatural rose
Under a canopy of poisonous airs.
On a Line From Valery (Gulf War)
© Carolyn Kizer
The whole green sky is dying. The last tree flares
With a great burst of supernatural rose
Under a canopy of poisonous airs.
Mud Soup
© Carolyn Kizer
1.Had the ham bone, had the lentils,
Got to meat store for the salt pork,
Got to grocery for the celery.
Had the onions, had the garlic,
Days of 1986
© Carolyn Kizer
He was believed by his peers to be an important poet,
But his erotic obsession, condemned and strictly forbidden,
Compromised his standing, and led to his ruin.
The Vulgar Little Lady
© Ann Taylor
"But, mamma, now, " said Charlotte, "pray, don't you believe
That I'm better than Jenny, my nurse?
Only see my red shoes, and the lace on my sleeve;
Her clothes are a thousand times worse.
The Little Cripple's Complaint
© Ann Taylor
I'm a helpless cripple child,
Gentle Christians, pity me;
Once, in rosy health I smiled,
Blithe and gay as you can be,
And upon the village green
First in every sport was seen.
St. Winefred's Well
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
ACT I. SC. IEnter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.T. WHAT is it, Gwen, my girl? why do you hover and haunt me? W. You came by Caerwys, sir?
T. I came by Caerwys.
W. There
Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle.
St. Alphonsus Rodriguez
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.
To His Watch
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Field-flown, the departed day no morning brings
Saying This was yours with her, but new one, worse,
And then that last and shortest
On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
O I admire and sorrow! The hearts eye grieves
Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years.
A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves,
And beautys dearest veriest vein is tears.
In Honour Of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.
The Times Are Nightfall
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Or what is else? There is your world within.
There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.
Your will is law in that small commonweal
