Poems

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading — treading — till it seemed

On Shakespeare. 1630

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,

The labor of an age in pilèd stones,

Or that his hallowed relics should be hid

I Am the People, the Mob

I am the people — the mob — the crowd — the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

Gitanjali 35

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into…

A Hymn to God the Father

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

Full Moon

My bands of silk and miniver

Momently grew heavier;

The black gauze was beggarly thin;

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;

Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,

Song

Go, lovely rose!

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

Susie Asado

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

    Susie Asado.

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

Amor Mundi

“Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing

On the west wind blowing along this valley track?”

“The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,

Other

Men prefer an island

With its beginning ended:

Undertones of waves

Trees overbended.

Men prefer a road

Circling, shell-like

Convex and fossiled

At Melville’s Tomb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge

The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath

An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,

The Days of the Unicorns

 I remember when the unicorns

roved in herds through the meadow

behind the cabin, and how they would

anyone lived in a pretty how town

anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down)

spring summer autumn winter

grass

grass is unusual

it was invented by the Romans

unlike most people grass stays where it grows

if grass had gone to the moon it would be there today

because grass looks luxurious

people put it wherever they can

The Princess: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.

The Maldive Shark

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,

Pale sot of the Maldive sea,

The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,

Flaxman

We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,

Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought,

And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

My Papa’s Waltz

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

You charm’d me not with that fair face

You charm’d me not with that fair face

Though it was all divine:

To be another’s is the grace,

How One Winter Came in the Lake Region

For weeks and weeks the autumn world stood still,

Clothed in the shadow of a smoky haze;

The fields were dead, the wind had lost its will,

The Potato Harvest

A high bare field, brown from the plough, and borne

Aslant from sunset; amber wastes of sky

Washing the ridge; a clamour…

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow,

Though thou be black as night

And she made all of light,

So, we’ll go no more a roving

So, we’ll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

To the Ladies

Wife and servant are the same,

But only differ in the name:

For when that fatal knot is tied,

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

Thoughtless Cruelty

There, Robert, you have kill’d that fly — ,

And should you thousand ages try

The life you’ve taken to supply,

Revenge

Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair,

And gaze upon her smile;

Seem as you drank the very air

To My Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.

If ever wife was happy in a man,

The Author to Her Book

Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,

Who after birth didst by my side remain,

Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,

Self-Portrait

He wants to be

a brutal old man,

an aggressive old man,

Invitation to Love

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

A Glass Tube Ecstasy

a glass tube

for my leg       says Hugo Ball

my hat a cylinder

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

Death of a Young Son by Drowning

He, who navigated with success

the dangerous river of his own birth

once more set forth

Saskatchewan Indians Were Dancing

60s pulled us from starvation into government jobs

antiquated Indians in Saskatchewan danced for rain

Manitoba Indian doings were hidden for a jealous

Fire in the Reeds

One night, fire fell into a reed bed

It burned like love falling onto a soul

As fire’s head warmed to its work

every reed turned into a candle at its own grave

La Figlia che Piange

O quam te memorem virgo...

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair —

Lean on a garden urn —