James Vincent Cunningham Poems

Speak to her heart!
That manic force
When wits depart
Forbids remorse.
...

Allegiance is assigned
Forever when the mind
Chooses and stamps the will.
Thus, I must love you still
...

In the thirtieth year of life
I took my heart to be my wife,

And as I turn in bed by night
I have my heart for my delight.
...

After some years Bohemian came to this—
This Maenad with hair down and gaping kiss
Wild on the barren edge of under fifty.
She would finance his art if he were thrifty.
...

This Humanist whom no beliefs constrained
Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.
...

If wisdom, as it seems it is,
Be the recovery of some bliss
From the conditions of disaster—
Terror the servant, man the master—
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How time reverses
The proud in heart!
I now make verses
Who aimed at art.
...

Plato, despair!
We prove by norms
How numbers bear
Empiric forms,
...

I am no shepherd of a child's surmises.
I have seen fear where the coiled serpent rises,

Thirst where the grasses burn in early May
And thistle, mustard, and the wild oat stay.
...

You are the problem I propose,
My dear, the text my musings glose:
I call you for convenience love.
By definition you're a cause
...