Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

Felices ter et amplius
Quos irrupta tenet Copula, nec malis
Divulsus querimoniis,
Suprema citius solvet amor die.

What's Female Beauty, but an Art divine,
Through which the Mind's all gentle Graces shine?
They like the Sun irradiate all between;
The Body charms, because the Mind is seen.
...

Abani, are you home?

The neighbourhood lies in sleep with doors closed
But I keep hearing the night knocking at my door,
'Abani, are you home? '

Here it rains all the twelve months
Here the clouds roam like cows
Here the eager green grass
closes in on the door,

...

In the ocean deep and blue,
The rolling waves appear,
A sea crest running shore-ward,
To the sandy beaches near,

For is a wave just one or three,
Or ripples to the side,
Or is it all the ocean,
And the movement of the tide?


...

As once I sat upon the shore
There came to me a fairy boat,
A bark I never saw before,
Whose coming I had failed to note,
Wrapped in my studies conning rules of life by rote.
The stern was fashioned like a heart;
The curving sides like Cupid's bow.
And from the mast, which like a dart
Was winged above and barbed below,
A pennon like an airy stream of blood did flow.
Upon the prow on either side
Was carved a snowy Paphian dove.
Between, reflected in the tide
An arching swan's neck rose above
The deck o'erspread with broidered tapestries of love.
Against the mast the idle sail
Flapped like a lace-edged valentine.
It seemed a canvas all too frail,
Should winds arouse the sleeping brine.
A toy the boat appeared, for sport in weather fine.
And so I stepped, in idle mood,
Aboard the bark — when suddenly
A breeze sprang up: and while I stood
Uncertain, thinking I was free
To make retreat, the vessel bore me out to sea.
Silent and swift away from land
It cut the waves. No pilot steered.
No voice of captain gave command.
Yet to and fro it tacked and veered.
All day it flew. At eve a distant land appeared.

...

All week she's cleaned
someone else's house,
stared down her own face
in the shine of copper--
bottomed pots, polished
wood, toilets she'd pull
the lid to--that look saying

Let's make a change, girl.


...

It's said that loved ones' who have passed away.
Can visit us in other living form.
If you dismiss this as sheer fallacy,
My evidence will quickly reinform.
When death has caused the soul to fly away,
It oft returns with wings upon the air.
Disguised as bird or butterfly they say,
To reassure and show you that they care.
I can attest that I have witnessed this;
In honest truth such visits I have seen,

...

Sitting in a porchway cool,
Sunlight, I see, dying fast,
Twilight hastens on to rule.
Working hours have well-nigh past.
Shadows run across the lands:
But a sower lingers still,
Old, in rags, he patient stands.
Looking on, I feel a thrill.
Black and high, his silhouette
Dominates the furrows deep!
Now to sow the task is set.
Soon shall come a time to reap.
Marches he along the plain
To and fro, and scatters wide
From his hands the precious grain;
Muse I, as I see him stride.
Darkness deepens. Fades the light.
Now his gestures to mine eyes
Are august; and strange, - his height
Seems to touch the starry skies
...

I am the maker,
The builder, the breaker,
The eagle-winged helper,
The speedy forsaker!

The lance and the lyre,
The water, the fire,
The tooth of oppression,
The lip of desire!


...

She is the shade of a tree cold and profound,
She is every herb to my aching wound.
She dabs my forehead, putting in her lap
And her lap's warmth gives me a cozy nap.

The seventh heaven, in her feet divine,
A miraculous cure, from her stroking fine,
Her soothing fingers, passing through my hair
Energize my nerves and spirit fair.


...