Best Muscles Poems

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
...

I am Super Samson Simpson,
I'm superlatively strong,
I like to carry elephants,
I do it all day long,
...

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
...

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a might man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
...

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jays that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' teeth wicked?
...

'Dear friends, we surely all agree
There's almost nothing worse to see
Than some repulsive little bum
...

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
...

Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
...

The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
...

For Linda Foster


I
...

A young man of strong body, weakened by hunger, sat on the walker's portion of the street stretching his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating the sad song of his defeat in life, while suffering from hunger and from humiliation.

When night came, his lips and tongue were parched, while his hand was still as empty as his stomach.
...

Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air
and the beasts and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

I
...

Beloved of the rivers,beset
By azure water and transparent drops,
Like a tree of veins your spectre
Of dark goddess biting apples:
...

Sobs En Route to a Penitentiary


Good-by now to the streets and the clash of wheels and
...

1.

The dark socket of the year
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down
...

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The Smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
...

I. Insomnia

The bulb at the front door burns and burns.
If it were a white rose it would tire of blooming
...

I

In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal
sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky
...

The rain has stopped. The waterfall will roar like that all
night. I have come out to take a walk and feed. My body--foot,
that is--is wet and cold and covered with sharp gravel. It is
white, the size of a dinner plate. I have set myself a goal, a
...

The Difference between a Man and a Woman;

When Man needs your silver hugs and caressing kisses,
Woman needs your mind as well.
...

It takes a lot of a person's life
To be French, or English, or American
Or Italian. And to be at any age. To live at any certain time.
The Polish-born resident of Manhattan is not merely a representative of
...

He sees through stone
he has the secret
eyes this old black one
who under prison skies
...

Every day I saw him tied to the mango tree
Like man is held fast to life with the cord of endless ambition
I saw in those dying dusks affection glittering in his gazing eyes
...

I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown. All my oats are cradled.
But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them.
And I hunger.
...

A Pastorall Elegie vpon the death of the most Noble and valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney.

Dedicated To the most beautifull and vertuous Ladie, the Countesse of Essex.
...

I
MILES STANDISH

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims
...

It’s the Africa in me
that loves the forest in which I wake,
that sees and hears its fauna and flora and revels in their names.
...

I was not looking when you found me
you stopped just long enough to smile.
I felt your presence all around me
and hoped that you would stay awhile.
...

OF bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
...

Once more it begins
My mind focused
On the task
at hand
...

I need to get among the horses
I need to talk to them again
I need to feel their breath on my face
I need to feel the strength of their muscles
...

To be a boxer, or not to be there
at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds?
Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare
it's time to start this cultural affair.
...

Blind is the ocean to the sound of its motion
As it roars with momentum of immeasurable melody
Ushering its whitecaps of sinuous elocution
Against the gold Shorelines with foam balm fidelity
...

Her grip was firm, her muscles taut,
As she held onto the chain.
I tried to look the other way,
As I stood in the lane.
...

Dear God! Do you hear those prayers?
Millions calling you to take new Avatar
Let me recall; what you did aver
Whenever sins sour up and virtues downturn
...

Captive! Is there a hell to him like this?
A taunt more galling than the Huron's hiss?
He--proud and scornful, he--who laughed at law,
He--scion of the deadly Iroquois,
...

Coming out with your clutch of postcards
in a Tate gallery bag and another clutch
of images packed into your head you pause
on the steps to look across the river
...

"As certain also of your own poets have said"--
(Acts 17.28)
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea
...

NOW shone the morning star in bright array,
To vanquish night, and usher in the day:
The wind veers southward, and moist clouds arise,
That blot with shades the blue meridian skies.
...

A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.
...

pain surrounds you day to day
nothing helps it go away
pain in muscles pain in joints
pain so bad in trigger points.
...

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing
...

Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in,
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin,
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp,
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp;
...

Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
...

What incredible wonder is the human heart!
The great powerhouse that stores up blood
Through pipelines of arteries and veins
Blood is pumped unceasingly from head to foot
...

The dog barked; then the woman stood in the doorway, and hearing
iron strike stone down the steep road
...

I am Draupadi,

The human incarnation
...

BOOK FIRST.

I.
...

I was thinking of a son.
The womb is not a clock
nor a bell tolling,
but in the eleventh month of its life
...

Theseus requests the God to tell his woes,
Whence his maim'd brow, and whence his groans arose
Whence thus the Calydonian stream reply'd,
With twining reeds his careless tresses ty'd:
...

That Providence which had so long the care
Of Cromwell's head, and numbred ev'ry hair,
Now in its self (the Glass where all appears)
Had seen the period of his golden Years:
...

SWEAR by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.
...

Who is it lacks the knowledge? Who are the curs that dare
To whine and sneer that they do not fear the whelps in the Lion's lair?
But we of the North will answer, while life in the North remains,
Let the curs beware lest the whelps they dare are the Riders of the Plains;
...

When you are slightly drunk
Things are so close, so friendly.
The road asks to be walked upon,
The road rewards you for walking
...

This hand has touched Neera's face,
could I use this hand to commit a sin,
ever again?
In the late evening glow
...

I.

Here is the skull of a man: a man’s thoughts and emotions
Have moved under the thin bone vault like clouds
...

Under the spreading deficit,
The Fitzroy Smithy stands;
The smith, a spendthrift man is he,
With too much on his hands;
...

DAVID AND GOLIATH

David, the shepherd, a tender of sheep
Would pray to his God before he would sleep.
...

A big locomotive has pulled into town,
Heavy, humungus, with sweat rolling down,
A plump jumbo olive.
Huffing and puffing and panting and smelly,
...

At eighty he is still a coolie
Toiling in paddy lea
Reaping pods and
Heaping the seeds
...

I have been reading Pomfret's "Choice" this spring,
A pretty kind of--sort of--kind of thing,
Not much a verse, and poem none at all,
Yet, as they say, extremely natural.
...

Go Ahead....Laugh

They say..laughter is the best medicine
I say, laughter is a natural expression of joy
...

It was built of things that must not mix:
paint, cream, and water, fire and dusty oil.
You heard the water dreaming in its large
kneed pipes, up from the weir. And the cordwood
...

So neck to stubborn neck, and obstinate knee to knee,
Wrestled those two; and peerless Heracles
...

Whispering to each handhold, “I'll be back,”
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
...

Our Neighbour's Cat

Luna is a female cat from the neighbourhood
who drops in at our house
...

In the fairy tale the sky
makes of itself a coat
because it needs you
to put it
...

Teapots and Quails,
Snuffers and Snails,
Set him a sailing
and see how he sails!
...

Seen the cut surrounded by dry blood. Must have irritated it through the crashing all around me. Wipe it dry, clean, but where’s the fun in that. Avoid exacerbation yet still suffer in excess.

Why not make the pain, the sorrow poor out, hopefully there won’t be anything left inside. Gripping tightly, stab the wound over my heart back open; rip back quickly to greater irritate the skin.
...

'As like the Woman as you can' -
(Thus the New Adam was beguiled) -
'So shall you touch the Perfect Man' -
(God in the Garden heard and smiled).
...

In the sea of faces I saw a face
All in a haze, so filmy
Nothing did I see clearly
But a pair of love lit eyes
...

Drifting out of sight, fading into the night.
Times of frustration and depression.
An uncomfortably disturbing state of mind deriving from the darkness...
Thrown into a state of intense stress and desperation, how can I ease the pain in my aching heart?
...

Bearing a crown of thorns
Someone planted a kiss
Scarring my face, the spikes
Pricked deep, letting
...

he panted heavily
muscles twitching in his naked body
running frenzied, without looking back,
he shouted, "He is after me.... my life"
...

From hospital bed, I quietly slipped
determined and intent,
a quick look left, - a quick look right,
I sprinted to the gents.
...

What is poetry?
Poetry is many things
But there are far more things that poetry is not
Poetry is not a style of writing
...

I feel the air with a kind of tension
I stare at you standing close to the window
Smoking your cigarette in a peaceful way
Distant look in your eyes
...

I asked the mayor of Gary about the 12-hour day and the 7-day week.
And the mayor of Gary answered more workmen steal time on the job in Gary than any other place in the United States.
"Go into the plants and you will see men sitting around doing nothing--machinery does everything," said the mayor of Gary when I asked him about the 12-hour day and the 7-day week.
And he wore cool cream pants, the Mayor of Gary, and white shoes, and a barber had fixed him up with a shampoo and a shave and he was east and imperturbable though the government weather bureau thermometer said 96 and children were soaking their heads at bubbling fountains on the street corners.
...

Now with a general peace the world was blest,
While ours, a world divided from the rest,
A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far
...

The shock comes slowly
as an afterthought.
...

There's a gorilla in my back yard.
I'm making friends with him,
approaching cautiously,
as he moves toward my world.
...

'Twas a Venerable Person, whom I met one Sunday morning,
All appareled as a prophet of a melancholy sect;
And in a Jeremiad of objurgatory warning
...

SAID the Lion to the Lioness-'When you are amber dust,-
No more a raging fire like the heat of the Sun
(No liking but all lust)-
...

When I was a lad of twenty and was working in High Street, Ken.,
I made quite a pile in a very little while - I was a bustle maker then.
Then there was work in plenty, and I was a thriving man
But things have decayed in the bustle making trade, since the bustle making trade began.
...

I wish I’d known him better.
But our respect for him was such
that you only spoke to him
when you needed to.
...

You look so mysterious, at the first glance,
What you are, guessing has no chance,
Simple, rustic, thatched huts, surrounded by palms,
A Community haat, around a majestic dome!
...

GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720

The wind it wailed, the wind it moaned,
And the white caps flecked the sea;
...

I

Mr. Styrax 1
Mr. Hecatomb Styrax, the owner of a large estate and of
...

The former four now ending their discourse,
Ceasing to vaunt their good, or threat their force.
Lo other four step up, crave leave to show
...

'Twas Crisis—All the length had passed—
That dull—benumbing time
There is in Fever or Event—
And now the Chance had come—
...

My esteemed reader
Warm greetings welcome you
But ah! Something is missing
It should be between us
...

NOT thine where marble-still and white
Old statues share the tempered light
And mock the uneven modern flight,
But in the stream
...

Freedom, you're
Tagore's timeless poetry and everlasting lyrics.
Freedom, you're
Kazi Nazrul, the regally maned magnificent man,
rapturous in creation, oh joy.
...

Turning her head she finds his sleeping face
a few inches from hers. A moment to hold
in her mind’s gallery. Immobile, peaceful,
open to her calm inspection,
...

I
A night the half-moon was like a dancing-girl,
No, like a drunkard's last half-dollar
Shoved on the polished bar of the eastern hill-range,
...

A broken wing, and a broken bone
Of a bird, that met a stone
Lied helpless And was bit despair
Looked above If god was there.
...

Thread the nerves through the right holes;
Get out of my bones, you wormy souls.
Shut up my stomach, the ribs are full;
...

Yes, dear Enchantress,—­wandering far and long,
In realms unperfumed by the breath of song,
...

I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
...

Fairest and foremost of the train that wait
On man's most dignified and happiest state,
Whether we name thee Charity or Love,
...