Term
As estimated, you died. Things marched,
sufficient, to that end. |
|
Definition
September Song.
Geoffrey Hill |
|
|
Term
Undesirable you may have been, untouchable
you were not. Not forgotten
or passed over at the proper time |
|
Definition
Geoffrey Hill
September Song |
|
|
Term
September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.
This is plenty. This is more than enough |
|
Definition
"September Song"
Geoffrey Hill |
|
|
Term
I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen. |
|
Definition
"Ovid in the Third Reich"
Geoffrey Hill |
|
|
Term
This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet, |
|
Definition
Theodore Roethke
"Cuttings" |
|
|
Term
I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones I feel it - |
|
Definition
Theodore Roethke
"Cuttings" |
|
|
Term
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.
|
|
Definition
"Cuttings"
Theodore Roethke |
|
|
Term
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
|
|
Definition
"In a Dark Time"
Theodore Roethke |
|
|
Term
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
|
|
Definition
"In a Dark Time"
Theodore Roethke |
|
|
Term
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade
|
|
Definition
"In a Dark Time"
Theodore Roethke |
|
|
Term
Dark, dark my lights, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
|
|
Definition
"In a Dark Time"
Theodore Roethke |
|
|
Term
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
|
|
Definition
"In a Dark Time"
Theodore Roethke |
|
|
Term
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. |
|
Definition
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
Randall Jarell |
|
|
Term
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. |
|
Definition
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
Randall Jarell |
|
|
Term
At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe,
I clambered to bed; up the globe's impossible sides |
|
Definition
"90 North"
Randall Jarell |
|
|
Term
—Here, the flag snaps in the glare and silence
Of the unbroken ice. I stand here,
The dogs bark, my beard is black, and I stare
At the North Pole . . . |
|
Definition
"90 North"
Randall Jarell |
|
|
Term
Turn as I please, my step is to the south.
The world—my world spins on this final point
Of cold and wretchedness: all lines, all winds
End in this whirlpool I at last discover. |
|
Definition
"90 North"
Randall Jarell |
|
|
Term
And it is meaningless. In the child's bed
After the night's voyage, in that warm world
Where people work and suffer for the end
That crowns the pain—in that Cloud-Cuckoo-Land |
|
Definition
"90 North"
Randall Jarell |
|
|
Term
I wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.
|
|
Definition
"90 North"
Randall Jarell |
|
|
Term
Here at the actual pole of my existence,
Where all that I have done is meaningless,
Where I die or live by accident alone—
|
|
Definition
"90 North"
Randall Jarell |
|
|
Term
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored. |
|
Definition
"Dream Song #14"
John Barrymore |
|
|
Term
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag. |
|
Definition
"Dream Song #14"
John Barrymore |
|
|
Term
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn, |
|
Definition
"Dream Song #14"
John Barryman |
|
|
Term
There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
|
|
Definition
"Dream Song #29"
John Barryman |
|
|
Term
But never did Henry, as he thought he did,
end anyone and hacks her body up
and hide the pieces, where they may be found.
|
|
Definition
"Dream Song 29"
Theodore Roethke |
|
|
Term
He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing.
Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.
Nobody is ever missing.
|
|
Definition
"Dream Song 29"
Theodore Roethke |
|
|
Term
Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green. |
|
Definition
"The Map"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under? |
|
Definition
"The Map"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
The names of seashore towns run out to sea,
the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains
-the printer here experiencing the same excitement
as when emotion too far exceeds its cause. |
|
Definition
"The Map"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Mapped waters are more quiet than the land is,
lending the land their waves' own conformation |
|
Definition
"The Map"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors?
-What suits the character or the native waters best.
Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West.
More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors. |
|
Definition
"The Map"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug
as if it were against his better judgment. |
|
Definition
"At the Fishhouses"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Bluish, associating with their shadows,
a million Christmas trees stand
waiting for Christmas. |
|
Definition
"At the Fishhouses"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame |
|
Definition
"At the Fishhouses"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
t is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown. |
|
Definition
"At the Fishhouses"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
and while I waited and read
the National Geographic
(I could read) and carefully
studied the photographs: |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Osa and Martin Johnson
dressed in riding breeches,
laced boots, and pith helmets. |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
A dead man slung on a pole
"Long Pig," the caption said. |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Their breasts were horrifying.
I read it right straight through.
I was too shy to stop. |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Suddenly, from inside,
came an oh! of pain
--Aunt Consuelo's voice--
not very loud or long.
I wasn't at all surprised |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
I might have been embarrassed,
but wasn't. What took me
completely by surprise
was that it was me:
my voice, in my mouth. |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
But I felt: you are an I,
you are an Elizabeth,
you are one of them. |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Edith Bishop |
|
|
Term
What similarities
boots, hands, the family voice
I felt in my throat, or even
the National Geographic
and those awful hanging breasts
held us all together
or made us all just one? |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Then I was back in it.
The War was on. Outside,
in Worcester, Massachusetts,
were night and slush and cold,
and it was still the fifth
of February, 1918. |
|
Definition
"In the Waiting Room"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster, |
|
Definition
"One Art"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster. |
|
Definition
"One Art"
Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster. |
|
Definition
"One Art"
ELizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Term
Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut. |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for. |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Or will he be my representative,
Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
|
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here; |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious, |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round. |
|
Definition
"Church Going"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out, |
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. |
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
At first, I didn't notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: |
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,
|
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms: |
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms |
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:
|
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; |
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain. |
|
Definition
"The Whitsun Weddings"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise |
|
Definition
"High Windows"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide |
|
Definition
"High Windows"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life; |
|
Definition
"High Windows"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. |
|
Definition
"High Windows"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately
|
|
Definition
"High Windows"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless. |
|
Definition
"High Windows"
Philip Larkin |
|
|
Term
Pike, three inches long, perfect
Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.
Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.
They dance on the surface among the flies. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
But silently cast and fished
With the hair frozen on my head
For what might move, for what eye might move.
The still splashes on the dark pond, |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Darkness beneath night's darkness had freed,
That rose slowly toward me, watching. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
What am I? Nosing here, turning leaves over
Following a faint stain on the air to the river’s edge
I enter water. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
What am I doing here in mid-air? Why do I find
this frog so interesting as I inspect its most secret
interior and make it my own? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I’ve no threads
fastening me to anything I can go anywhere
I seem to have been given the freedom
of this place what am I then? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I seem
separate from the ground and not rooted but dropped
out of nothing casually I’ve no threads |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
But what shall I be called am I the first
have I an owner what shape am I what
shape am I am I huge if I go |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
how everything
stops to watch me I suppose I am the exact centre
but there’s all this what is it roots
roots roots roots and here’s the water
again very queer but I’ll go on looking |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston's
"hardly passionate Marlborough Street, |
|
Definition
| "Memories of West Street and Lepke" |
|
|
Term
I have a nine months' daughter,
young enough to be my granddaughter.
Like the sun she rises in her flame-flamingo infants' wear. |
|
Definition
"Memories of West Street and Lempke"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
These are the tranquilized Fifties,
and I am forty. Ought I to regret my seedtime? |
|
Definition
"Memories of West Street and Lempke"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
I was a fire-breathing Catholic C.O.,
and made my manic statement,
telling off the state and president, |
|
Definition
"Memories of West Street and Lempke"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
| Like the sun she rises in her flame-flamingo infants' wear. |
|
Definition
"Memories of West Street and Lempke"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
Strolling, I yammered metaphysics with Abramowitz,
a jaundice-yellow ("it's really tan")
and fly-weight pacifist, |
|
Definition
"Memories of West Street and Lempke"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
He tried to convert Bioff and Brown,
the Hollywood pimps, to his diet.
Hairy, muscular, suburban,
wearing chocolate double-breasted suits,
they blew their tops and beat him black and blue. |
|
Definition
"Memories of West Street and Lempke"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
He taught me the "hospital tuck,"
and pointed out the T-shirted back
of Murder Incorporated's Czar Lepke |
|
Definition
"Memories of West Street and Lempke"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
Flabby, bald, lobotomized,
he drifted in a sheepish calm,
where no agonizing reappraisal
jarred his concentration on the electric chair
hanging like an oasis in his air
of lost connections....
|
|
Definition
"Memories of West Street and Lempke"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
Nautilus Island's hermit
heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage; |
|
Definition
"Skunk Hour"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
Thirsting for
the hierarchie privacy
of Queen Victoria's century,
she buys up all
the eyesores facing her shore,
and lets them fall. |
|
Definition
"Skunk Hour"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
And now our fairy
decorator brightens his shop for fall;
his fishnet's filled with orange cork,
orange, his cobbler's bench and awl;
there is no money in his work,
he'd rather marry. |
|
Definition
"Skunk Hour"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull;
I watched for love-cars. |
|
Definition
"Skunk Hour"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
"Skunk Hour"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
I myself am hell;
nobody's here--
only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat. |
|
Definition
"Skunk Hour"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church. |
|
Definition
"Skunk Hour"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not scare. |
|
Definition
"Skunk Hour"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry. |
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
my hand tingled to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the crowded, compliant fish.
|
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as they cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.
|
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
a girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders
braces the tingling Statehouse, |
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens' shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage's earthquake. |
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city's throat. |
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
Shaw's father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son's body was thrown
and lost with his 'niggers.'
The ditch is nearer. |
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
There are no statutes for the last war here;
on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph
shows Hiroshima boiling |
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
when I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons. |
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease. |
|
Definition
"For the Union Dead"
Robert Lowell |
|
|
Term
thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
it throbs in the teeth |
|
Definition
"The Ache of Marriage"
Denise Levertov |
|
|
Term
We look for communion
and are turned away, beloved,
each and each |
|
Definition
"The Ache of Marriage"
Denise Levertov |
|
|
Term
It is leviathan and we
in its belly
looking for joy, some joy
not to be known outside it |
|
Definition
"The Ache of Marriage"
Denise Levertov |
|
|
Term
two by two in the ark of
the ache of it. |
|
Definition
"The Ache of Marriage"
Denise Levertov |
|
|
Term
The cows
munched or stirred or were still. I
was at home and lonely,
both in good measure.
|
|
Definition
"Caedmon"
Denise Levertov |
|
|
Term
All others talked as if
talk were a dance.
|
|
Definition
"Caedmon"
Denise Levertov |
|
|
Term
to be with the warm beasts,
dumb among body sounds
of the simple ones.
|
|
Definition
"Caedmon"
Denise Levertov |
|
|
Term
nothing but I, as that hand of fire
touched my lips and scorched my tongue
and pulled my voice
into the ring of the dance.
|
|
Definition
"Caedmon"
Denise Levertov |
|
|
Term
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. |
|
Definition
"A Supermarket in California"
Allen Ginsberg |
|
|
Term
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! |
|
Definition
"A Supermarket in California"
Allen Ginsberg |
|
|
Term
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the
meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. |
|
Definition
"A Supermarket in California"
Allen Ginsberg |
|
|
Term
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does
your beard point tonight? |
|
Definition
"A Supermarket in America"
Allen Ginsberg |
|
|
Term
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. |
|
Definition
"A Supermarket in California"
Allen Ginsberg |
|
|
Term
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you
have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and
stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
|
|
Definition
"A Supermarket in America"
Allen Ginsberg |
|
|
Term
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded
soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and
simple
As false dawn. |
|
Definition
"Love Calls Us to the Things of the World"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
Now they are flying in place,
conveying
The terrible speed of their
omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; |
|
Definition
"Love Calls Us to the Things of the World"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
The soul shrinks
From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every
blessed day, |
|
Definition
"Love that Calls Us to the Things of the World"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
And cries,
"Oh, let there be nothing on
earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising
steam |
|
Definition
| "Love that Calls Us to the Things of the World" |
|
|
Term
The soul descends once more in bitter
love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns
and rises, |
|
Definition
"Love that Calls Us to the Things of the World"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
Let there be clean linen for the backs
of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be
undone, |
|
Definition
"Love that Calls Us to the Things of the World"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure
floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult
balance." |
|
Definition
"Love that Calls Us to the Things of the World"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
|
|
Definition
"A Barred Owl"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”
|
|
Definition
"A Barred Owl"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.
|
|
Definition
"A Barred Owl"
Richard Wilbur |
|
|
Term
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
|
|
Definition
"Lady Lazarus"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
|
|
Definition
"Lady Lazarus"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
|
|
Definition
"Lady Lazarus"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
|
|
Definition
"Lady Lazarus"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
|
|
Definition
Sylvia Plath
"Lady Lazarus" |
|
|
Term
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
|
|
Definition
"Lady Lazarus"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
|
|
Definition
"Lady Lazarus"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
| You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time-- |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew.
|
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. |
|
Definition
Sylvia Plath
"Morning Song" |
|
|
Term
| One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral In my Victorian nightgown. Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. |
|
Definition
"Morning Song"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
| In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. |
|
Definition
"Morning Song"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
| Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try Your handful of notes; The clear vowels rise like balloons. |
|
Definition
"Morning Cry"
Sylvia Plath |
|
|
Term
Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. |
|
Definition
"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. |
|
Definition
Adrienne Rich
"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" |
|
|
Term
Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand. |
|
Definition
"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by. |
|
Definition
"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid. |
|
Definition
"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
|
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
"Diving into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich |
|
|
Term
It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
|
|
Definition
"The Day Lady Died"
Frank O'Hara |
|
|
Term
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
|
|
Definition
"The Day Lady Died"
Frank O'Hara |
|
|
Term
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
|
|
Definition
"The Day Lady Died"
Frank O'Hara |
|
|
Term
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
|
|
Definition
"The Day Lady Died"
Frank O'Hara |
|
|
Term
| This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level. |
|
Definition
"Paradoxes and Oxymorons"
John Ashbury |
|
|
Term
You have it but you don’t have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.
|
|
Definition
"Paradoxes and Oxymorons"
John Ashbury |
|
|
Term
| The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot. |
|
Definition
"Paradoxes and Oxymorons"
John Ashbury |
|
|
Term
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.
|
|
Definition
"Paradoxes and Oxymorons"
John Ashbury |
|
|
Term
Bringing a system of them into play. Play?
Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be
A deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern,
|
|
Definition
"Paradoxes and Oxymorons"
John Ashbury |
|
|
Term
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, |
|
Definition
They feed, They Lion
Philip Levine |
|
|
Term
West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps, |
|
Definition
"They Feed, They Lion"
Philip Levine |
|
|
Term
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness,
From the furred ear and the full jowl come
The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose |
|
Definition
"They Feed, They Lion"
Philip Levine |
|
|
Term
Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels,
The grained arm that pulls the hands,
They Lion grow. |
|
Definition
"They Feed, They Lion"
Philip Levine |
|
|
Term
rom they sack and they belly opened
And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth
They feed they Lion and he comes. |
|
Definition
"They Feed, They Lion"
Philip Levine |
|
|
Term
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man. |
|
Definition
"Saint Judas"
James Wright |
|
|
Term
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. |
|
Definition
"Saint Judas"
James Wright |
|
|
Term
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms. |
|
Definition
"Saint Judas"
James Wright |
|
|
Term
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. |
|
Definition
"A Blessing"
James Wright |
|
|
Term
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness. |
|
Definition
"A Blessing"
James Wright |
|
|
Term
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs. |
|
Definition
James Wright
"A Blessing" |
|
|
Term
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom. |
|
Definition
"A Blessing"
James Wright |
|
|
Term
I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.
|
|
Definition
Gwendolyn Brooks
"A Song in the Front Yard" |
|
|
Term
I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
|
|
Definition
Gwendolyn Brooks
"A Song in the Front Yard" |
|
|
Term
They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
|
|
Definition
Gwendolyn Brooks
"A Song in the Front Yard" |
|
|
Term
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
|
|
Definition
Gwendolyn Brooks
"Song in the Front Yard" |
|
|
Term
But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
|
|
Definition
"A Song in the Front Yard"
Gwendolyn Brooks |
|
|
Term
We real cool. We
Left school. We
|
|
Definition
Gwendolyn Brooks
"We Real Cool" |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Gwendolyn Brooks
"We Real Cool" |
|
|
Term
How will it go, crumbling earthquake, towering inferno, juggernaut, volcano, smashup,
in reality, other than the feverish nearreal fantasy of the capitalist flunky film hacks
|
|
Definition
"A New Reality is Better than a NEw Movie"
Amirika Baraka |
|
|
Term
rhinestone set of boobies for special occasions when kissinger
drunkenly fumbles with her blouse, forgetting himself.
|
|
Definition
"A New Reality is better than a new movie"
Amirika Baraka
|
|
|
Term
That is the scalding scenario with a cast of
just under two billion that they dare not even whisper. Its called,
“We Want It All . . . The Whole World!”
|
|
Definition
"A New Reality is Better than a New Movie"
Amirika Baraka |
|
|
Term
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening-- |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
They've taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards, |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I can feel the tug
of the halter at the nape
of her neck, the wind
on her naked front |
|
Definition
"Punishment"
Seamus heaney |
|
|
Term
I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am your artful voyeur |
|
Definition
"Punishment"
Seamus Heaney |
|
|
Term
of your brain's exposed
and darkened combs,
your muscles webbing
and all your numbered bones |
|
Definition
"Punishment"
Seamus Heaney |
|
|
Term
I would have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings |
|
Definition
Seamus Heaney
"Punishment" |
|
|
Term
Yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge. |
|
Definition
Seamus HEaney
"Punishment" |
|
|
Term
but whether to guide
or be guided I could not be certain. |
|
Definition
Seamus Heaney
"Station Island XII" |
|
|
Term
saying, "Your obligation
is not discharged by any common rite.
What you must do be done on your own
so get back in the harness. |
|
Definition
Seamus Heaney
"Station Island XII" |
|
|
Term
"The main thing is to write
for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
that imagines its haven like your hands at night" |
|
Definition
Seamus Heaney
"Station Island XII" |
|
|
Term
It was as if I had stepped free into space
alonewith nothing that I had not known
already. Raindrops blew on my face |
|
Definition
"Station Island XII"
Seamus Heaney |
|
|
Term
You lose more of yourself than you redeem
doing the decent thing. Keep at a tangent. |
|
Definition
Seamus Heaney
"Station Island XII" |
|
|
Term
The shower broke in a cloud burst, the tarmac
fumed and sizzled. As he moved off quickly
the downpour loosed its screens round his straight walk. |
|
Definition
Seamus Heaney
"Station Island XII" |
|
|
Term
Shad paced th length of his studio
and stopped at the wall |
|
Definition
"Agosta the Winged Man and Rasha the Black Dove"
Rita Dove |
|
|
Term
He could not leave his skin -- once
he'd painted himself a new one,
silk green, worn
like a shirt. |
|
Definition
"Agosta the Winged Man and Rasha the Black Dove"
Rita Dove |
|
|
Term
how
the spectators gawked, exhaling
beer and sour hering sighs. |
|
Definition
"Agosta the WInged Man and Rasha the Black Dove"
Rita Dove |
|
|
Term
| Rasha went back to her trailer and plucked a chicken for dinner |
|
Definition
Agosta the winged man and rasha the black dove
rita dove |
|
|
Term
a cot, his torso
exposed its crests and fins
a colony of birds, trying
to get out... |
|
Definition
Agosta the winged man and rasha the black dove
Rita dove |
|
|
Term
Not
the canvas
but their gaze,
so calm,
was merciless. |
|
Definition
Agosta the winged man and rosha the black dove
rita black |
|
|
