All Poems

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Having it Out with Melancholy

© Jane Kenyon

When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks

© Jane Kenyon

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .

Wash

© Jane Kenyon

All day the blanket snapped and swelled
on the line, roused by a hot spring wind....
From there it witnessed the first sparrow,
early flies lifting their sticky feet,

Your love is like the folk-song's flaming rise
In cane-lipped southern people, like their soul
Which burst its bondage in a bold travail;
Your voice is like them singing, soft and wise,
Your face, sweetly effulgent of the whole,
Inviolate of ways that would fail.

Portrait in Georgia

© Jean Toomer

Hair--braided chestnut,
coiled like a lyncher's rope,
Eyes--fagots,
Lips--old scars, or the first red blisters,

A Portrait in Georgia

© Jean Toomer

Hair-braided chestnut,
coiled like a lyncher's rope,
Eyes-fagots,
Lips-old scars, or the first red blisters,

Conversion

© Jean Toomer

African Guardian of Souls,
Drunk with rum,
Feasting on strange cassava,
Yielding to new words and a weak palabra

The Lost Dancer

© Jean Toomer

Spatial depths of being survive
The birth to death recurrences
Of feet dancing on earth of sand;
Vibrations of the dance survive

A Certain Man

© Jean Toomer

A certain man wishes to be a prince
Of this earth; he also wants to be
A saint and master of the being-world.
Conscience cannot exist in the first:

People

© Jean Toomer

O people, if you but used
Your other eyes
You would see beings.

Fit the Fourth ( Hunting of the Snark )

© Lewis Carroll

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
"I informed you the day we embarked.

Fit the Seventh ( Hunting of the Snark )

© Lewis Carroll

But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,
A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh
And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,
For he knew it was useless to fly.

Phantasmagoria CANTO V ( Byckerment )

© Lewis Carroll

"DON'T they consult the 'Victims,' though?"
I said. "They should, by rights,
Give them a chance - because, you know,
The tastes of people differ so,
Especially in Sprites."

Hiawathas' photographing ( Part II )

© Lewis Carroll

Grand, heroic was the notion:
Yet the picture failed entirely:
Failed, because he moved a little,
Moved, because he couldn't help it.

Fit the Sixth ( Hunting of the Snark )

He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,
Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,
Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig
On the charge of deserting its sty.

Hiawathas' photographing ( Part III )

Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:
He suggested curves of beauty,
Curves pervading all his figure,
Which the eye might follow onward,

Hiawathas' photographing ( Part VI )

But my Hiawatha's patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.

Fit the First: ( Hunting of the Snark )

The crew was complete: it included a Boots--
A maker of Bonnets and Hoods--
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--
And a Broker, to value their goods.

Phantasmagoria CANTO IV ( Hys Nouryture )

"OH, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea."

Phantasmagoria CANTO III ( Scarmoges )

"AND did you really walk," said I,
"On such a wretched night?
I always fancied Ghosts could fly -
If not exactly in the sky,
Yet at a fairish height."