All Poems
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A Destiny
© Caroline Norton
And his two sons in careless beauty grew,
Like wild-flowers in his path: he mark'd them not,
Nor reck'd he what they needed, learnt, or knew,
Or what might be on earth their future lot;
But they died young--which is a thought of rest!
Unscorn'd, untempted, undefiled--so best.
Bayonet
© Anne Sexton
What can I do with this bayonet?
Make a rose bush of it?
Poke it into the moon?
Shave my legs with its silver?
Spear a goldfish?
No. No.
Courage
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
CARELESSLY over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!
Crossing The Atlantic
© Anne Sexton
Oh my Atlantic of the cracked shores,
those blemished gates of Rockport and Boothbay,
those harbor smells like the innards of animals!
Old childish Queen, where did you go,
you bayer at wharfs and Victorian houses?
Four Years
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
At the Midsummer, when the hay was down,
Said I mournful - Though my life be in its prime,
Bare lie my meadows all shorn before their time,
O'er my sere woodlands the leaves are turning brown;
The Exorcists
© Anne Sexton
And I solemnly swear
on the chill of secrecy
that I know you not, this room never,
the swollen dress I wear,
nor the anonymous spoons that free me,
nor this calendar nor the pulse we pare and cover.
On The Castle Of Dublin, Anno 1715
© Thomas Parnell
This House and Inhabitants both well agree,
And resemble each other as near can be;
One half is decay'd, and in want of a Prop,
The other new built, but not finish'd a-top.
The Doctor Of The Heart
© Anne Sexton
Take away your knowledge, Doktor.
It doesn't butter me up.You say my heart is sick unto.
You ought to have more respect!you with the goo on the suction cup.
You with your wires and electrodesfastened at my ankle and wrist,
The Earth Falls Down
© Anne Sexton
If I could blame it all on the weather,
the snow like the cadaver's table,
the trees turned into knitting needles,
the ground as hard as a frozen haddock,
The Gray Chief
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er,
And crown with honest praise
The gray old chief, who strikes no more
The blow of better days.
The Fury Of Jewels And Coal
© Anne Sexton
Many a miner has gone
into the deep pit
to receive the dust of a kiss,
an ore-cell.
The Assassin
© Anne Sexton
The correct death is written in.
I will fill the need.
My bow is stiff.
My bow is in readiness.
The Fall of Jock Gillespie
© Rudyard Kipling
This fell when dinner-time was done -
'Twixt the first an' the second rub -
That oor mon Jock cam' hame again
To his rooms ahist the Club.
The Break
© Anne Sexton
It was also my violent heart that broke,
falling down the front hall stairs.
It was also a message I never spoke,
calling, riser after riser, who cares
Raccoon
© Anne Sexton
Coon, why did you come to this dance
with a mask on? Why not the tin man
and his rainbow girl? Why not Racine,
his hair marcelled down to his chest?
"O sorrowful thought! But one more flying year"
© Robert Laurence Binyon
O sorrowful thought! But one more flying year,
And our ways part, perhaps no more to meet:
And must we, then, less dear
Grow to each other, as the swift days fleet?
The Consecrating Mother
© Anne Sexton
I am that clumsy human
on the shore
loving you, coming, coming,
going,
and wish to put my thumb on you
like The Song of Solomon.
Patmos
© Friedrich Hölderlin
The god
Is near, and hard to grasp.
But where there is danger,
A rescuing element grows as well.
Knee Song
© Anne Sexton
Being kissed on the back
of the knee is a moth
at the windowscreen and
yes my darling a dot
The Fury Of Sunrises
© Anne Sexton
Darkness
as black as your eyelid,
poketricks of stars,
the yellow mouth,
