Work poems
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Dream Song 10: There were strange gatherings. A vote would come
© John Berryman
There were strange gatherings. A vote would come
that would be no vote. There would come a rope.
Yes. There would come a rope.
Men have their hats down. "Dancing in the Dark"
will see him up, car-radio-wise. So many, some
won't find a rut to park.
Argentile and Curan. - extracted from Albion's England
© William Warner
The Brutons thus departed hence, seaven kingdoms here begonne,
Where diversly in divers broyls the Saxons lost and wonne.
Dream Song 111: I miss him. When I get back to camp
© John Berryman
I miss him. When I get back to camp
I'll dig him up. Well, he can prop & watch,
can't he, pink or blue,
and I will talk to him. I miss him. Slams,
grand or any, aren't for the tundra much.
One face-card will do.
Dream Song 98: I met a junior--not so junior--and
© John Berryman
I met a juniorânot so juniorâand
a-many others, who knew 'him' or 'them'
long ago, slightly,
whom I know. It was the usual
cocktail party, only (my schedule being strict)
beforehand.
Dream Song 52: Silent Song
© John Berryman
Bright-eyed & bushy tailed woke not Henry up.
Bright though upon his workshop shone a vise
central, moved in
while he was doing time down hospital
and growing wise.
He gave it the worst look he had left.
'Possum' A Lay of New Chumland
© Henry Lawson
SO YER travlin for yer pleasure while yer writin for the press?
An yer huntin arter copy?well, Ive heerd o that. I guess
Dream Song 46: I am, outside. Incredible
© John Berryman
I am, outside. Incredible panic rules.
People are blowing and beating each other without mercy.
Drinks are boiling. Iced
drinks are boiling. The worse anyone feels, the worse
treated he is. Fools elect fools.
A harmless man at an intersection said, under his breath, "Christ!"
Luke
© Francis Bret Harte
Wot's that you're readin'?--a novel? A novel!--well, darn my skin!
You a man grown and bearded and histin' such stuff ez that in--
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder you're thin ez a
knife.
Look at me--clar two hundred--and never read one in my life!
Catharina
© William Cowper
She came--she is gone--we have met--
And meet perhaps never again;
The sun of that moment is set,
And seems to have risen in vain.
Dream Song 324: An Elegy for W.C.W., the lovely man
© John Berryman
Henry in Ireland to Bill underground:
Rest well, who worked so hard, who made a good sound
constantly, for so many years:
your high-jinks delighted the continents & our ears:
you had so many girls your life was a triumph
and you loved your one wife.
Saturday Night in the Parthenon
© Kenneth Patchen
Tiny green birds skate over the surface of the room.
A naked girl prepares a basin with steaming water,
Genesis BK XIII
© Caedmon
The sleep of death and fiends' seduction; death and hell and
exile and damnation - these were the fatal fruit whereon they
feasted. And when the apple worked within him and touched his
heart, then laughed aloud the evilhearted fiend, capered about,
and gave thanks to his lord for both:
Jim the Splitter
© Henry Kendall
The bard who is singing of Wollombi Jim
Is hardly just now in the requisite trim
To sit on his Pegasus fairly;
Besides, he is bluntly informed by the Muse
That Jim is a subject no singer should choose;
For Jim is poetical rarely.
The Cloud's Swan-Song
© Francis Thompson
There is a parable in the pathless cloud,
There's prophecy in heaven,--they did not lie,
The Chaldee shepherds; seal-ed from the proud,
To cheer the weighted heart that mates the seeing eye.
At the Top of My voice
© Vladimir Mayakovsky
Professor,
take off your bicycle glasses!
I myself will expound
those times
and myself.
The Ashes by Karin Gottshall: American Life in Poetry #21 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
How many of us, alone at a grave or coming upon the site of some remembered event, find ourselves speaking to a friend or loved one who has died? In this poem by Karin Gottshall the speaker addresses someone's ashes as she casts them from a bridge. I like the way the ashes take on new life as they merge with the wind.
The Ashes
You were carried here by hands
and now the wind has you, gritty
as incense, dark sparkles borne
Conversation with Comrade Lenin
© Vladimir Mayakovsky
will be done
and is already being done.
We feed and we clothe
and give light to the needy,
Back Home
© Vladimir Mayakovsky
Thoughts, go your way home.
Embrace,
depths of the soul and the sea.
In my view,
