Art poems
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June
© Denise Duhamel
The blue forest, chilled and blue, like the lips of the dead
if the lips were gone. The year has been cut in half
with dull scissors, the solstice still looking for its square
on the calendar. Perhaps the scissors were really
The Artist
© Sir Walter Raleigh
The Artist and his Luckless Wife
They lead a horrid haunted life,
Surrounded by the things he's made
That are not wanted by the trade.
The Lie
© Sir Walter Raleigh
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Saturday At The Border
© Hayden Carruth
Here I am writing my first villanelle
At seventy-two, and feeling old and tired--
"Hey, Pops, why dontcha give us the old death knell?"--
American Beauty
© Carolyn Kizer
As you described your mastectomy in calm detail
and bared your chest so I might see
the puckered scar,
"They took a hatchet to your breast!" I said. "What an
Amazon you are."
Jane and Eliza
© Ann Taylor
There were two little girls, neither handsome nor plain;
One's name was Eliza, the other's was Jane:
They were both of one height, as I've heard people say,
They were both of one age, I believe, to a day.
Denis
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Denis, whose motionable, alert, most vaulting wit
Caps occasion with an intellectual fit.
Yet Arthur is a Bowman: his three-heeled timber ll hit
The bald and b?ld bl?nking gold when ?ll s d?ne
Right rooting in the bare butts wincing navel in the sight of the sun.
. . . . . . . .
The Soldier
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Mark Christ our King. He knows war, served this soldiering through;
He of all can handle a rope best. There he bides in bliss
Now, and s?eing somewh?re some m?n do all that man can do,
For love he leans forth, needs his neck must fall on, kiss,
And cry 'O Christ-done deed! So God-made-flesh does too:
Were I come o'er again' cries Christ 'it should be this'.
Protus
© Robert Browning
Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great eye,
Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can
To give you the crown-grasper. What a man!
Cleon
© Robert Browning
"As certain also of your own poets have said"--
(Acts 17.28)
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea
And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")--
To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!
Abt Vogler
© Robert Browning
Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
The Flight Of The Duchess
© Robert Browning
You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;
So here's the tale from beginning to end,
My friend!
Old Pictures In Florence
© Robert Browning
I.The morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm March day,
Bishop Blougram's Apology
© Robert Browning
So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.
No deprecation,--nay, I beg you, sir!
Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know,
I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out,
We'd see truth dawn together?--truth that peeps
Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done,
Women And Roses
© Robert Browning
I dream of a red-rose tree.
And which of its roses three
Is the dearest rose to me?
A Lovers' Quarrel
© Robert Browning
I.Oh, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last night's rain,
The Grammar Lesson
© Steve Kowit
A noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.
An adjective is what describes the noun.
In "The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz"
Daisy
© Francis Thompson
Where the thistle lifts a purple crown
Six foot out of the turf,
And the harebell shakes on the windy hill--
O breath of the distant surf!--
Ode To Meaning
© Robert Pinsky
Untrusting I court you. Wavering
I seek your face, I read
That Crusoe's knife
Reeked of you, that to defile you
The soldier makes the rabbi spit on the torah.
"I'll drown my book" says Shakespeare.
Hey Baby
© Maggie Estep
I got a huge bucket of non-dairy creamer
and some time to kill
so let's do it
we'll make some foul-smelling artifical milk
and drink gallons and gallons and gallons of it
