Asking For Roses
A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.
I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'
'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,
'But one we must ask if we want any roses.'
Some Like Poetry
Some -
thus not all. Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting schools, where one has to,
and the poets themselves,
there might be two people per thousand.
Like -
but one also likes chicken soup with noodles,
one likes compliments and the color blue,
one likes an old scarf,
Dirge Without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.
A Sphinx
Close-mouthed you sat five thousand years and never let out a whisper.
Processions came by, marchers, asking questions you answered with grey eyes never blinking, shut lips never talking.
Not one croak of anything you know has come from your cat crouch of ages.
I am one of those who know all you know and I keep my questions: I know the answers you hold.
The Journey
Underneath the infinite sky,
above the ovoid earth,
anxiously,
he began his journey,
the journey to find answers
to questions brimmed,
perpetually in his head.
With each mile he crossed,
the more he explored,
A Casualty
That boy I took in the car last night,
With the body that awfully sagged away,
And the lips blood-crisped, and the eyes flame-bright,
And the poor hands folded and cold as clay --
Oh, I've thought and I've thought of him all the day.
For the weary old doctor says to me:
"He'll only last for an hour or so.
Both of his legs below the knee
Blown off by a bomb. . . . So, lad, go slow,
War Some More
War. And war some more.
War. And war some more.
No one knows,
What it's for,
War. And war some more.
The images seem
To rule the day,
War and Generals,
All the same,
Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers The Sea Shell
Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered
Figuring what anything is for:
Enough for her devotions that things are
And can be contemplated soon as gathered.
She knows how every living thing was fathered,
She calculates the climate of each star,
She counts the fish at sea, but cannot care
Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered.
Alone In Crowds To Wander On
Alone in crowds to wander on,
And feel that all the charm is gone
Which voices dear and eyes beloved
Shed round us once, where'er we roved --
This, this the doom must be
Of all who've loved, and loved to see
The few bright things they thought would stay
For ever near them, die away.
Though fairer forms around us throng,
Daylight Saving
My answers are inadequate
To those demanding day and date
And ever set a tiny shock
Through strangers asking what's o'clock;
Whose days are spent in whittling rhyme-
What's time to her, or she to Time?
A Lovers Arm
In a lovers arms
I find my calm
In a lovers arms
I reinstate my peace
With a sweet soft tender lingering kiss
In a lovers arms
My life long dreams are
Spiced up, stirred and stewed
Hedgehog
The snail moves like a
Hovercraft, held up by a
Rubber cushion of itself,
Sharing its secret
With the hedgehog. The hedgehog
Shares its secret with no one.
We say, Hedgehog, come out
Of yourself and we will love you.
A Cry For Help
collapsed in tears of pain
so lost in heavy confusion
how did things get so messed up
Please help me now is all i can say
God, hear my cries and see my tears
this is not what i wanted
i begged for it to not happen this way
so unsure i am of many things
i am still so young
i just cant handle this
Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey On The Way
How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that case and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!"
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
The Best Friend
Now shall I walk
Or shall I ride?
"Ride", Pleasure said;
"Walk", Joy replied.
Now what shall I --
Stay home or roam?
"Roam", Pleasure said;
And Joy -- "stay home."
Falling Tears
these tears i shed will never go away
the tears that fall, will remind me of that pain
the pain of loss is what i speak
the pain that made me fall to my knees
this pain is what i so despise but,
what can i do but fall and cry
i loss my way,
to this never ending pain
i loss reason
to why i should go on
Here I'M Alone
I don’t know why I like to talk with you
In your language
Why I can’t withdraw my fingers from the keys
Till I finished the page
Why do I always fall prey to your childlike charm
And believe your words
When I see you staring at me from inside the glass
My thoughts collapse as a tower of cards
Ha'Nacker Mill
Sally is gone that was so kindly,
Sally is gone from Ha'nacker Hill
And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly;
And ever since then the clapper is still...
And the sweeps have fallen from Ha'nacker Mill.
Ha'nacker Hill is in Desolation:
Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.
And Spirits that call on a fallen nation,
Spirits that loved her calling aloud,
Blind Bartimeus
Blind Bartimeus at the gates
Of Jericho in darkness waits;
He hears the crowd;--he hears a breath
Say, "It is Christ of Nazareth!"
And calls, in tones of agony,
The thronging multitudes increase;
Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace!
But still, above the noisy crowd,
The beggar's cry is shrill and loud;
! From Kahlil Gibran On Friendship
Your friend is one who answers to your needs:
the field you sow with love, and reap with thanks;
you seek him for your peace, to hear his heart;
and when he's silent - still his heart you hear:
because, with words or not, you share his joy;
in presence or in absence he is there;
and stronger love may in his absence show:
the beauty of a love that asks for naught.