Not long ago, I studied medicine. It was terrible, what the body told. I'd look inside another person's mouth And see the desolation of the world. I'd see his genitals and think of sin. ...
'Tis love that moveth the celestial spheres In endless yearning for the Changeless One, And the stars sing together, as they run To number the innumerable years. 'Tis love that lifteth t...
Like the bole of a fallen mountain tree. A clear, majestic, pure and lofty brow. Black brows together drawn in the fine and arching line that images the flight of a bird lightly sketche...
For Francisco X. Alarcón, RIP It considers those men that ambled & Flushed their swords & cut off the neck Of the blue horses & scraped off death Dust from the carcass — rape of wome...
Love, love, the clouds went up the tower of the sky like triumphant washerwomen, and it all glowed in blue, all like a single star, the sea, the ship, the day were all exiled together. ...
A child is something else again. Wakes up in the afternoon and in an instant he's full of words, in an instant he's humming, in an instant warm, instant light, instant darkness. A child...
Extreme exertion isolates a person from help, discovered Atlas. Once a certain shoulder-to-burden ratio collapses, there is so little others can do: they can't lend a hand ...
The birds were being so bizarre today, we stood static and listened to them insane in their winter shock of sweet gum and ash. We swallow what we won’t say: Maybe it’s a warning. M...
(ars poetica) Poetry is this screaming madwoman. Everything seems poetry. Madmen gaze high. Everything seems madness. Madmen fear no moon, fear no fire. Burns of flesh are poetry. Madmen�...
A yellow leaf in the branches Of a shamel ash In the front yard; I see it, a yellow leaf Among so many. Nothing distinguishes it, Nothing striking, striped, stripped, Strident, not...
I What brought you to my frozen solitude, overshadowed by the dying rack of a grey twilight? . . . Behold the scene, arid, sad, immeasurably sad. If you come from sorrow, if your hea...
Let poetry be like an air conditioner. On hot days like this July 1st in the tropics, let it remove the humidity trapped in every room, and let us sleep easy, deeply and long.
I will not reason, wrestle here with you, Though you pursue and worry me about; As well put forth my swarthy arm to stop The wild wind howling, darkly mad without. The night is yo...
G uido , I wish that Lapo, thou, and I, Could be by spells conveyed, as it were now, Upon a barque, with all the winds that blow Across all seas at our good will to hie. So no misc...
In the warm air of the ceiling the footlights of dreams are illuminated. The white walls have curved. The burdened chest breathes confused words. In the mirror, the wind from the south spins, ca...
Holbein's More, my patron saint as a convert, the gold chain of S's, the golden rose, the plush cap, the brow's damp feathertips of hair, the good eyes' stern, facetious twinkle, ready t...
When I woke, the lake-lights were quivering on the wall, The sunshine swam in a shoal across and across, And a hairy, big bee hung over the primulas In the window, his body black fur...
Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far and high into the m...
it is midnight no magical bewitching hour for me i know only that i am here waiting remembering that once as a child i walked two miles in my sleep. did i know then where i ...
O lucky prison, blithe captivity, Where neither out of rage, nor out of spite, But bound by love, and charity's sweet might, She has me fast,—my lovely enemy! Others, at turning of the...
Queen Circe, the farmer's wife at the Fair, Met three sailor-men stumping there, Who came from the parrot-plumed sea, Yo-Ho! And each his own trumpet began to blow. ‘We come,’ said...
Son, of great fortune have I none To make you rich: instead of gold, Though, certain lessons I would bring Up, if you'll give them a hearing. From first youth, innocent and pure, Lear...
We were sitting there, and I made a joke about how it doesn’t dovetail: time, one minute running out faster than the one in front it catches up to. That way, I said, there can be...
And one morning while in the woods I stumbled suddenly upon the thing, Stumbled upon it in a grassy clearing guarded by scaly oaks and elms. And the sooty details of the scene rose, thrustin...
I do not want to be reflective any more Envying and despising unreflective things Finding pathos in dogs and undeveloped handwriting And young girls doing their hair and all the castles of...
Ashamed of my race? And of what race am I? I am many in one. Thru my veins there flows the blood Of Red Man, Black Man, Briton, Celt and Scot, In warring clash and tumultuous riot. I...
I've listened: and all the sounds I heard Were music,—wind, and stream, and bird. With youth who sang from hill to hill I've listened: my heart is hungry still. I've looked: the morni...