Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

Love is sharper than stones or sticks;
Lone as the sea, and deeper blue;
Loud in the night as a clock that ticks;
Longer-lived than the Wandering Jew.
Show me a love was done and through,
Tell me a kiss escaped its debt!
Son, to your death you'll pay your due-
Women and elephants never forget.

Ever a man, alas, would mix,
Ever a man, heigh-ho, must woo;
So he's left in the world-old fix,
Thus is furthered the sale of rue.
Son, your chances are thin and few-
Won't you ponder, before you're set?
Shoot if you must, but hold in view
Women and elephants never forget.

Down from Caesar past Joynson-Hicks
Echoes the warning, ever new:
Though they're trained to amusing tricks,
Gentler, they, than the pigeon's coo,
Careful, son, of the curs'ed two-
Either one is a dangerous pet;
Natural history proves it true-
Women and elephants never forget.

L'ENVOI

Prince, a precept I'd leave for you,

...

The factory siren tells workers time to go home
tells them the evening has begun.
When living with the tall man

whom I didn't love, I would wander
the streets, dreaming of Italy.
Trekking the handful of avenues

with him, he would say look there
between pink cobblestones,

...

The moment I think of you I hear
A replicated voice of yours
Perhaps a distant nightingale..
Perhaps it's you that nightingale

Distance doesn't count minded
When two young voices in oneness
Sing songs melodious well bound...
Wow! ! mama, those juvenile days..! !
...

Once there was a tree....
and she loved a little boy.
And everyday the boy would come
and he would gather her leaves
and make them into crowns
and play king of the forest.
He would climb up her trunk
and swing from her branches
and eat apples.
And they would play hide-and-go-seek.
And when he was tired,
he would sleep in her shade.
And the boy loved the tree....
very much.
And the tree was happy.
But time went by.
And the boy grew older.
And the tree was often alone.
Then one day the boy came to the tree
and the tree said, 'Come, Boy, come and
climb up my trunk and swing from my
branches and eat apples and play in my
shade and be happy.'
'I am too big to climb and play' said
the boy.
'I want to buy things and have fun.
I want some money?'
'I'm sorry,' said the tree, 'but I
have no money.
I have only leaves and apples.

...

A light is on in my father's study.
"Still up?" he says, and we are silent,
looking at the harbor lights,
listening to the surf
and the creak of coconut boughs.

He is working late on cases.
No impassioned speech! He argues from evidence,
actually pacing out and measuring,
while the fans revolving on the ceiling

...

I am already down and out
I am almost dead and burning
Give me no more pain
I am already a fallen leaf
Flitting with the wind of summer
Wandering across fields and lanes

Don't think about me
In a few days I will be in the sea
In the tides flowing high and low

...

WHO nearer Nature’s life would truly come
Must nearest come to him of whom I speak;
He all kinds knew,—the vocal and the dumb;
Masterful in genius was he, and unique,
Patient, sagacious, tender, frolicsome.
This Concord Pan would oft his whistle take,
And forth from wood and fen, field, hill, and lake,
Trooping around him in their several guise,
The shy inhabitants their haunts forsake:
Then he, like Æsop, man would satirize,
Hold up the image wild to clearest view
Of undiscerning manhood’s puzzled eyes,
And mocking say, “Lo! mirrors here for you:
Be true as these, if ye would be more wise.”
...

Billie Holiday's burned voice
had as many shadows as lights,
a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano,
the gardenia her signature under that ruined face.

(Now you're cooking, drummer to bass,
magic spoon, magic needle.
Take all day if you have to
with your mirror and your bracelet of song.)
Fact is, the invention of women under siege

...

Sometime I wish I had a piano
In a long list of wishes may be another addition
Or if my pen was a piano key
On lazy afternoons of summer
When touched softly
Its music would break the silence of this room
The languid humming of air conditioner
Would mellow in its sweet sound
The colors esoteric in nature
Ascending through air reaching to empyrean

...