All Poems
/ page 2292 of 3210 /
To A Lady
© George Gordon Byron
O! had my Fate been join'd with thine,
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
For, then, my peace had not been broken.
Dream Song 12: Sabbath
© John Berryman
There is an eye, there was a slit.
Nights walk, and confer on him fear.
The strangler tree, the dancing mouse
confound his vision; then they loosen it.
Henry widens. How did Henry House
himself ever come here?
Dream Song 5: Henry sats in de bar & was odd
© John Berryman
Henry sats in de bar & was odd,
off in the glass from the glass,
at odds wif de world & its god,
his wife is a complete nothing,
St Stephen
getting even.
Contusion
© Sylvia Plath
Color floods to the spot, dull purple.
The rest of the body is all washed-out,
The color of pearl.
Dream Song 46: I am, outside. Incredible
© John Berryman
I am, outside. Incredible panic rules.
People are blowing and beating each other without mercy.
Drinks are boiling. Iced
drinks are boiling. The worse anyone feels, the worse
treated he is. Fools elect fools.
A harmless man at an intersection said, under his breath, "Christ!"
Dream Song 62: That dark brown rabbit, lightness in his ears
© John Berryman
That dark brown rabbit, lightness in his ears
& underneath, gladdened our afternoon
munching a crab-'.
That rabbit was a fraud, like a black bull
prudent I admired in Zaragoza, who
certainly was brave as a demon
Dream Song 48: He yelled at me in Greek
© John Berryman
He yelled at me in Greek,
my God!âIt's not his language
and I'm no good atâhis Aramaic,
wasâI am a monoglot of English
(American version) and, say pieces from
a baker's dozen others: where's the bread?
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 11
© Conrad Aiken
As I walked through the lamplit gardens,
On the thin white crust of snow,
Dream Song 49: Blind
© John Berryman
Old Pussy-cat if he won't eat, he don't
feel good into his tum', old Pussy-cat.
He wants to have eaten.
Tremor, heaves, he sweaterings. He can't.
A dizzy swims of where is Henry at;
. . . somewhere streng verboten.
Dream Song 8: The weather was fine. They took away his teeth
© John Berryman
The weather was fine. They took away his teeth,
white & helpful; bothered his backhand;
halved his green hair.
They blew out his loves, his interests. 'Underneath,'
(they called in iron voices) 'understand,
is nothing. So there.'
Dream Song 131: Come touch me baby in his waking dream
© John Berryman
Come touch me baby in his waking dream
disordered Henry murmured. I'll read you Hegel
and that will hurt your mind
I can't remember when you were unkind
but I will clear that block, I'll set you on fire
along with our babies
Luke
© Francis Bret Harte
Wot's that you're readin'?--a novel? A novel!--well, darn my skin!
You a man grown and bearded and histin' such stuff ez that in--
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder you're thin ez a
knife.
Look at me--clar two hundred--and never read one in my life!
Dream Song 61: Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside
© John Berryman
Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside
and the land is celebrating men of war
more or less, less or more.
In valleys, thin on headlands, narrow & wide
our targets rest. In us we trust. Far, near,
the bivouacs of fear
Song
© Frances Anne Kemble
I sing the yellow leaf,
That rustling strews
The wintry path, where grief
Delights to muse.
Dream Song 130: When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought
© John Berryman
When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought
This is the end of the dream, now I'll wake up.
That was more years ago
than I care to reckon, and my friend is not
dying but adhering to an élite group
in California O.
El Retorno Malefico
© Ramon Lopez Velarde
Mejor será no regresar al pueblo,
Al edén subvertido que se calla
En la mutilación de la metralla.
Dream Song 47: April Fool's Day, or, St Mary of Egypt
© John Berryman
âThass a funny title, Mr Bones.
âWhen down she saw her feet, sweet fish, on the threshold,
she considered her fair shoulders
and all them hundreds who have them, all
the more who to her mime thickened & maled
from the supple stage,
Farewell
© Sir Henry Newbolt
Mother, with unbowed head
Hear thou across the sea
The farewell of the dead,
The dead who died for thee.
Greet them again with tender words and grave,
For saving thee, themselves they could not save.
