Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

How stern are the woes of the desolate mourner
As he bends in still grief o'er the hallowed bier,
As enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,
And drops to perfection's remembrance a tear;
When floods of despair down his pale cheeks are streaming,
When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,
Or, if lulled for a while, soon he starts from his dreaming,
And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.
Ah, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,
Or summer succeed to the winter of death?
Rest awhle, hapless victim! and Heaven will save
The spirit that hath faded away with the breath.
Eternity points, in its amaranth bower
Where no clouds of fate o'er the sweet prospect lour,
Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,
When woe fades away like the mist of the heath.
...

(For Eduardo Chirinos)

Downstairs I left a candle burning
In its light I'll read a few lines when I return

By the time I returned the candle had burned out
Those few lines had faded like innocence

You walk with me
The way moon walks along with a child sitting in a train window

...

Before me are two vessels,
Filled cups; one clear, one grey.
One brimming life and beauty,
One steeped in death, decay.

My soul desires with thirst,
The love, the healing, hope.
Yet my hand grasps for the other,
The shackles, chain.., the rope..


...

A faithless shepherd courted me,
He stole away my liberty.
When my poor heart was strange to men,
He came and smiled and stole it then.

When my apron would hang low,
Me he sought through frost and snow.
When it puckered up with shame,
And I sought him, he never came.

When summer brought no fears to fright,
He came to guard me every night.
When winter nights did darkly prove,
None came to guard me or to love.

I wish, I wish, but all in vain,
I wish I was a maid again.
A maid again I cannot be,
O when will green grass cover me?
...

'As a people we are now called Australians because a vast & lonely land
has touched us with her differences'
- George Ivan Smith, 1953 preface to For The Term Of His Natural Life

'it's noble to refuse to be added up or divided'
- Frank O'Hara

'In this dawn as in the first

...

I just want to wake beside you at seven,
When the world is still, and the light is uneven.
To watch you reach for the alarm, still lost in sleep,
Your hair messy, yet somehow, you're everything I want to keep.

I want to be the warmth when the day has drained you,
To be the silence that comforts, when nothing else will do.
But most of all, I want to whisper in the night,
Telling you "I love you, " until the dark feels right.


...

KILMARNOCK wabsters, fidge an' claw,
An' pour your creeshie nations;
An' ye wha leather rax an' draw,
Of a' denominations;
Swith to the Ligh Kirk, ane an' a'
An' there tak up your stations;
Then aff to Begbie's in a raw,
An' pour divine libations
For joy this day.


Curst Common-sense, that imp o' hell,
Cam in wi' Maggie Lauder; 1
But Oliphant 2 aft made her yell,
An' Russell 3 sair misca'd her:
This day Mackinlay 4 taks the flail,
An' he's the boy will blaud her!
He'll clap a shangan on her tail,
An' set the bairns to daud her
Wi' dirt this day.


Mak haste an' turn King David owre,
And lilt wi' holy clangor;
O' double verse come gie us four,
An' skirl up the Bangor:
This day the kirk kicks up a stoure;
Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her,
For Heresy is in her pow'r,
And gloriously she'll whang her

...

1.

CHORUS There is nothing stranger than man.
As if he were a storm
he strides through the waves
of the winter seas
and year after year
he wears down the oldest god,
earth herself, with his ploughshare.


...

You're my everything,
Beautiful as Spring's newborns,
Gentle as a goddess by her hearth.
Loving you feels like
Winning a thousand wars.

You're my everything,
Even beyond this mortal world.
We're like compass legs—
Drifted apart, yet always connected.

...