To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he'd removed
...
Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on
the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.
downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking,
talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues
...
AS I sat alone, by blue Ontario's shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return'd, and the dead
that return no more,
...
Apparently with no surprise,
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play,
In accidental power.
...
Oh, my Beautiful! Oh, my Good!
Hideous fanfare where yet I do not stumble!
Oh, rack of enchantments!
For the first time, hurrah for the unheard-of work,
...
I prefer isolation and dark,
No disturbance from dog’s bark,
Easy escape from assassin’s mark,
No problem for vehicle’s park,
...
BLESSED be this place,
More blessed still this tower;
A bloody, arrogant power
Rose out of the race
...
When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs he forgot
the copperheads and the assassin . . . in the dust, in the
cool tombs.
...
(SAINT HELENA, 1821)
Take it away, and swallow it yourself.
...
A youth in apparel that glittered
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Attired all in garb of old days;
...
Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn
From his displeasure; in whose look serene,
When angry most he seemed and most severe,
What else but favour, grace, and mercy, shone?
...
Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
...
To Ianthe:
Not in those climes where I have late been straying,
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd;
...
Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood
Praying, for from the Mercie-seat above
Prevenient Grace descending had remov'd
The stonie from thir hearts, and made new flesh
...
Hover
the imagined center, our tongues
grew long to please it, licking
...
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
...
Abandoned summer,
Hotter than the desert sand,
My bare body,
Trembles in your arms,
...
He truly loved the purple sun, descending from the hills,
The ways through the woods, the singing blackbird
And the joys of green.
...
A youth in apparel that glittered
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
...
His death in Benares
Won't save the assassin
From certain hell,
...
Perfida, crudelis, victa et lymphata furore,
Non armis, laurum Gallia fraude petit.
Venalem pretio plebem conducit, et urit
...
As coins tinkled,
Many a virgin flower, defiled.
Brother turned brother’s assassin.
...
Repression is sill repression
Rising, it must flop
Blood is sill blood
Spilling it must clot.
...
The correct death is written in.
I will fill the need.
My bow is stiff.
My bow is in readiness.
...
I wait for you
ready to leap at you
from every corner
at every turn
...
One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
...
HOW very hard it is to be
A Christian! Hard for you and me,
—Not the mere task of making real
That duty up to its ideal,
...
Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the soil whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?
...
'How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh,
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
...
[A Report, though false, at that time generally believed.]
Fallen are thy towers, Byzantium! towers that stood
...
I wandered looking for an Abel and a Cain
Finally the journey ended in me.
As honey in a bee's comb and venom in its sting,
From man's heart, spring nectar and poison
...
He Ram
Tuesday,2nd October 2018
Millions of people across the globe
...
As the day ticks away into twilight dusk
The Sun in fathomless waters will plummet
The Earth will then wear an assassin's mask
This in endless succession shall repeat
...
Ye Jacobites by name, lend an ear, lend an ear!
Ye Jacobites by name, lend an ear,
Ye Jacobites by name,
...
There were still shards of an ancient pastoral
in those shires of the island where the cattle drank
their pools of shadow from an older sky,
surviving from when the landscape copied such objects as
...
One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a hired assassin.
-- John D. MacDonald
You would not recognize me.
...
One eventful week
Just one more ominous week
Three attempts on the life
Of the head of a nation.
...
I Les Ténèbres
Dans les caveaux d'insondable tristesse
Où le Destin m'a déjà relégué;
...
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's
burning-flower from Sparta, the beautiful sea-flower
Cut in clear stone, crowned with the fragrant golden mane, she
the ageless, the uncontaminable-
...
He fell, a slave of tinsel-honour,
A sacrifice to slander's lust;
The haughty Poet's head, the noblest,
Bowed on his wounded breast in dust.
...
That night, in a strange place
I was like a fly
Circling around a street lamp
Reeling…Reeling!
...
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
Count Francesco Cenci.
Giacomo, his Son.
...
. . . They caught him at the bend. He and his son
Sat in the car, revolvers in their laps.
From either side the stone-walled wintry road
...
Nisus, the guardian of the portal stood,
Eager to gild his arms with hostile blood
Well skill'd in fight the quivering lance to wield,
Or pour his arrow, through th' embattled field:
...
I.
BROWN Autumn cometh, with her liberal hand
Binding the Harvest in a thousand sheaves:
...
Don't drink, boys, don't!
There is nothing of happiness, pleasure, or cheer,
In brandy, in whiskey, in rum, ale, or beer.
...
COME then, let us at least know what's the truth.
Let us not blink our eyes and say
We did not understand; old age or youth
...
Oui, l'homme est responsable et rendra compte un jour.
Sur cette terre où l'ombre et l'aurore ont leur tour,
...
A WILD MOON riding high from cloud to cloud,
That sees and sees not, glimmering far beneath,
Hell’s children revel along the shuddering heath
...
I called to the wind of the Winter,
As he sped like a steed on his way,
'Oh! rest for awhile on thy journey,
And answer these questions, I pray.
...
Sailing unimpeded in the sea of joy
Sloshing over its expanding silver
Like a sailor addicted to the sea
Feeling the electric power of waves
...
(extraits)
... Les fleurs souffrent sous le ciseau,
Et se ferment ainsi que des paupières closes ;
...
'Mother, I hear a word
In the air!'
Play on, play on, my son,
The word thou hast heard is some bright sweet bird
...
How sweetly shines through azure skies,
The lamp of heaven on Lora's shore;
Where Alva's hoary turrets rise,
And hear the din of arms no more!
...
'HE holds a pistol to my head,
Swearing he will shoot me dead,
If he have not my purse instead,
The robber!'
...
The deer is humble, lovely as God made her
I watch her eyes and think of wonder owned
...
what happened to me!
The lunar dazzling moon has shined
the alone infatuated enthralled heart;
...
At Market-Hill, as well appears
By chronicle of ancient date,
There stood for many hundred years
A spacious thorn before the gate
...
At the bottom of your thoughts, this is the night you've chosen,
Prince, you must now make an end of things - the night is frozen
...
At length, my friend, the far-sent letters come,
Charged with thy kindness, to their destin'd home,
...
'Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine.
Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear
To feature me my Lord by rule and line.
...
(some information taken
from “American Profile”,
Feb.17-23,2008)
...
El Arabi! El Arabi! Burn in thy brilliance, mine own!
O Beautiful! O Barbarous! Seductive as a serpent is
That poises head and hood, and makes his body tremble to the drone
Of tom-tom and of cymbal wooed by love's assassin sorceries!
...
In two large columns on thy motley page
Where Roman wit is strip'd with English rage;
Where ribaldry to satire makes pretence,
And modern scandal rolls with ancient sense:
...
The stars were bright, the breeze was still,
The cicada and the whippoorwill,
Alone disturbed the scene;
...
'Why, Goldenson, you're looking very well.'
Said Death as, strolling through the County Jail,
He entered that serene assassin's cell
And hung his hat and coat upon a nail.
'I think that life in this secluded spot
Agrees with men of your trade, does it not?'
...
And since thou art no older, 'tis to-day!
And I, entranced,-with the wide sense of gods
Confronting Time-receive the equal touch
...
Behold; I have no fear of You
though You are everywhere conspicuously,
though every single moment the whole universe
is not empty from Your high excellency presence
...
I stood upon a hill. The setting sun
Was crimson with a curse and a portent,
And scarce his angry ray lit up the land
That lay below, whose lurid gloom appeared
Freaked with a moving mist, which, reeking up
...
Candle Power in Intensive Care
The unction cools my brow, the candle shines
and forms a line of sacramental brede;
the priest half-chants the text, and makes the signs,
...
A humble and fragile man
with a great heart
...
***A bedtime story for Frank James Ryan Jr. who has encouraged my writings, and inspired by the Forum discussions of what type of poetry is best and who should be allowed to judge.***
The Rider
...
Wordsmith’s word of the day, salmagundi
triggered a heterogeneous mixture of as-
sociations for me, Anastasia’s assassin,
‘Sal Monella’ who killed her aunt
...
You are confident
in your babywalker
gliding like a ballroom dancer
among the toddling two-year-olds.
...
'Twas in the bleary middle of the hard-boiled Arctic night,
I was lonesome as a loon, so if you can,
Imagine my emotions of amazement and delight
When I bumped into that Missionary Man.
...
The second moon had now begun to wane,
Since bold Valdivia left the southern plain;
Goal of his labours, Penco's port and bay,
...
Gandhiji had set high value on
His experiments with the Truth.
To describe Truth
In its pristine pure form was
...
I would like to re-submit this exhaustive list of terms associated with poetry and hope that members will make use of the list to understand different kinds of poetry in a better way.
...
The Count Orlando of the damsel bland
Who loves Zerbino, hears the piteous woes.
Next puts to death the felons with his hand
...
Zerbino for Gabrina, who a heart
Of asp appears to bear, contends. O'erthrown,
The Fleming falls upon the other part,
...
Ariodantes has, a worthy meed,
With his loved bride, the fief of Albany.
Meantime Rogero, on the flying steed,
...
So far Orlando wends, he comes to where
He of old Proteus' hears the cruel use
But feels such pity for Olympia fair,
...
Goldenson hanged! Well, Heaven forbid
That I should smile above him:
Though truth to tell, I never did
Exactly love him.
...
Lord, shed thy light upon his desert path,
And gild his branded brow, that no man spill
His forfeit life to balk thy holy will
That spares him for the ripening of wrath.
...
Dom Pedro, Emperor of far Brazil
(Whence coffee comes and the three-cornered nut),
They say that you're imperially ill,
And threatened with paralysis. Tut-tut!
Though Emperors are mortal, nothing but
A nimble thunderbolt could catch and kill
A man predestined to depart this life
By the assassin's bullet, bomb or knife.
...
I got out my document, then you started the argument
you finally realized the fault is all mine, I agreed, was
met with contempt, how dare I like doing some things
like creative writing – with no financial gain, given the
...
It is now two hundred years and more
Since first set foot on Canadian shore
That saint-like heroine, fair and pure,
...
I.
O Keeper of the Sacred Key,
And the Great Seal of Destiny,
Whose eye is the blue canopy,
...
The fleecy clouds had passed away
Before the bright approach of day,
...
The watchman on the tower his bugle blew,
And swelling to the morn the streamers flew;
The rampart-guns a dread alarum gave,
...
When you think of Poems written,
Of great Music once composed,
When you think of painters, artists,
All the Paintings they've exposed,
...
What a strange this evening twilight
Soft sunshine has spreaded all around
Soft sun shine has peeped through
The mango tree in the courtyardof the mournful house.
...
As Godse and Apte hooded, swung to the tune of the newly dead
Echo’s lingered on the Ambala walls of the gallows shed,
The pair’s verses sung, still lingered as if to defy reality
‘Akhand Bharat Amar Rah’, [‘India united, may it be forever, ’ ]
...
M.K.Gandhi, father of Indian Nation, fell to assassin’s bullet
The democracy and freedom had sealed his fate
He was done to death to be called martyr
The history was to record his death as human error
...
Hate the evil operators
Damn them sans honor
Who can witness such ghastly murders?
When people are ushered in for prayers
...
“Let me introduce myself
I am simple, I am ‘Green’
The planet’s very first,
Non-localized and multi-form,
...