Life's Tragedy
It may be misery not to sing at all,
And to go silent through the brimming day;
It may be misery never to be loved,
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.
To sing the perfect song,
And by a half-tone lost the key,
There the potent sorrow, there the grief,
The pale, sad staring of Life's Tragedy.
The Trouble With Snowmen
'The trouble with snowmen,'
Said my father one year
'They are no sooner made
than they just disappear.
I'll build you a snowman
And I'll build it to last
Add sand and cement
And then have it cast.
A Certain Lady
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
A Poet's Death Is His Life Iv
The dark wings of night enfolded the city upon which Nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; and men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth, while the north wind probed in contemplation of laying waste the gardens. There in the suburb stood an old hut heavily laden with snow and on the verge of falling. In a dark recess of that hovel was a poor bed in which a dying youth was lying, staring at the dim light of his oil lamp, made to flicker by the entering winds. He a man in the spring of life who foresaw fully that the peaceful hour of freeing himself from the clutches of life was fast nearing. He was awaiting Death's visit gratefully, and upon his pale face appeared the dawn of hope; and on his lops a sorrowful smile; and in his eyes forgiveness.
Winter
When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
My Dark Nights
At the distant verge of the horizon
slowly submerging is the weary Sun
with reddened face
bidding grudging adieus
to his day long drudging
brooding over mandatory next come!
I stood there staring at Him
I wanted to say "Don't depart! "
In The Park
She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.
Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.
A third draws aimless patterns in the dirt
Someone she loved once passed by – too late
to feign indifference to that casual nod.
“How nice” et cetera. “Time holds great surprises.”
From his neat head unquestionably rises
a small balloon…”but for the grace of God…”
The House With Nobody In It
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
A Desperate Cry
God's creation
Blessed to be born in this world
We all may feel that's the truth
Until I read this-
An abandoned baby
Malnourished, hardly an year old
Famine struck
Skin and bone
No food to feed
No water to have
The Man He Killed
Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
Vulture
I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling
high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit
narrowing,
I understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-
feathers
Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.
I could see the naked red head between the great wings
The Hard
Here on the Hard, you're welcome to pull up and stay;
there's a flat fee of a quid for parking all day.
And wandering over the dunes, who wouldn't die
for the view: an endless estate of beach, the sea
kept out of the bay by the dam-wall of the sky.
Notice the sign, with details of last year's high tides.
Walk on, drawn to the shipwreck, a mirage of masts
A Country Girl In Love
You don't have to go to the dale
To find her playing with a butterfly;
She would hide from you
As she is young and shy;
You can't see her among trees and bushes
For she does not stay in a place;
Just track down her in fields
On her head she has done a new lace;
Winged Words
Like a creature hibernating in its burrow
Waiting to come out with the first verdure of spring
The seed of a poem lay dormant in my heart
Through the long winter awaiting another spring
After staying torpid inside for long
At a time I expected it the least
Timidly came out the first word
As shaky as a calf getting up for the first time
Melancholia
the history of melancholia
includes all of us.
me, I writhe in dirty sheets
while staring at blue walls
and nothing.
I have gotten so used to melancholia
that
I greet it like an old
Child On Top Of A Greenhouse
The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty,
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers,
Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight,
A few white clouds all rushing eastward,
A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses,
And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!
To Be Written On The Mirror In Whitewash
I live only here, between your eyes and you,
But I live in your world. What do I do?
--Collect no interest--otherwise what I can;
Above all I am not that staring man.
Mr Snowman
All alone, a snowman stands, staring out at the world.
What a life!
Short, cold, freezing really,
rigidly waiting for the 'melting' feeling to arrive.
The children have made him as comfortable as they can.
A nice bright red check scarf, a carrot nose, which he can nibble on, if he gets a bit peckish!
Nice black velvet hat, which he feels is worth having, cos it makes him feel important, and keeps his head warm!
They usually build him a friend, someone he can chat to, but not this year.
Depression Isn'T Obvious Suicide Is
Depression isn't obvious but suicide is.
My pain nobody sees.
My my mangled body they shall see.
My head was all but a mess.
Depression overtaking me.
Suicide was to be my bid for freedom.
Becuase deppression isn't obvious but suicide is.
Depression is never obvious even when its staring them in the face.
But now suicide will be obvious how can it not?
Armies In The Fire
The lamps now glitter down the street;
Faintly sound the falling feet;
And the blue even slowly falls
About the garden trees and walls.
Now in the falling of the gloom
The red fire paints the empty room:
And warmly on the roof it looks,
And flickers on the back of books.