All Poems
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On The Porch At The Frost Place, Franconia, N. H.
© William Matthews
So here the great man stood,
fermenting malice and poems
we have to be nearly as fierce
against ourselves as he
Reapers
© Jean Toomer
Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones
Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones
Mingus At The Showplace
© William Matthews
I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen
and so I swung into action and wrote a poemand it was miserable, for that was how I thought
poetry worked: you digested experience shatliterature. It was 1960 at The Showplace, long since
defunct, on West 4th st., and I sat at the bar,casting beer money from a reel of ones,
The Harp Of Hoel
© William Lisle Bowles
It was a high and holy sight,
When Baldwin and his train,
With cross and crosier gleaming bright,
Came chanting slow the solemn rite,
To Gwentland's pleasant plain.
Misgivings
© William Matthews
"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,
The High-Heeled Boots
© Arthur Chapman
He stands upon the city street, keen-eyed, and brown of face,
He seems to bring a breath of air from some broad prairie space;
Hes perched upon a pair of heels that fit the stirrups curve,
That meet the bucking broncos plunge and counteract each swerve;
And of all the chaps with whom the gods are ever in cahoots
Give me the cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots.
Dire Cure
© William Matthews
"First, do no harm," the Hippocratic
Oath begins, but before she might enjoy
such balm, the docs had to harm her tumor.
It was large, rare, and so anomalous
No Return
© William Matthews
I like divorce. I love to compose
letters of resignation; now and then
I send one in and leave in a lemon-
hued Huff or a Snit with four on the floor.
Do you like the scent of a hollyhock?
To each his own. I love a burning bridge.
In May
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh to have you in May,
To talk with you under the trees,
Dreaming throughout the day,
Drinking the wine-like breeze,
A Poetry Reading At West Point
© William Matthews
I read to the entire plebe class,
in two batches. Twice the hall filled
with bodies dressed alike, each toting
a copy of my book. What would my
shrink say, if I had one, about
such a dream, if it were a dream?
Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased)
© William Matthews
The lump of coal my parents teased
I'd find in my Christmas stocking
turned out each year to be an orange,
for I was their sunshine.
Fit The First: The Landing
© Lewis Carroll
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.
Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog
© William Matthews
Most of the time he worked, a sort of sleep
with a purpose, so far as I could tell.
How he got from the dark of sleep
to the dark of waking up I'll never know;
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: CXIV
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
A LATER DEDICATION
To her the sweetest, fairest, worthiest one,
Who the inspirer is of my new praise,
Whom lately once, one Autumn afternoon,
Job Interview
© William Matthews
Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife
He would have written sonnets all his life?
DON JUAN, III, 63-4
Sunday Chimes in the City
© Louise Imogen Guiney
Forbid not these! Tho' no man heed, they shower
A subtle beauty on the empty hour,
>From all their dark throats aching and outblown;
Aye in the prayerless places welcome most,
Like the last gull that up a naked coast
Deploys her white and steady wing, alone.
Provisions
© Margaret Atwood
What should we have taken
with us? We never could decide
on that; or what to wear,
or at what time of
year we should make the journey
My Loss
© Augusta Davies Webster
IN the world was one green nook I knew,
Full of roses, roses red and white,
Reddest roses summer ever grew,
Whitest roses ever pearled with dew;
And their sweetness was beyond delight,
Was all love's delight.
The City Planners
© Margaret Atwood
give momentary access to
the landscape behind or under
the future cracks in the plaster
