Life poems
/ page 826 of 844 /
My Felisberto
© Edward Taylor
My felisberto is handsomer than your mergotroid,
although, admittedly, your mergotroid may be the wiser of the two.
Whereas your mergotroid never winces or quails,
my felisberto is a titan of inconsistencies.
The Wrong Way Home
© Edward Taylor
All night a door floated down the river.
It tried to remember little incidents of pleasure
from its former life, like the time the lovers
leaned against it kissing for hours
The Lost Pilot
© Edward Taylor
Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him
Shut Up And Eat Your Toad
© Edward Taylor
The disorganization to which I currently belong
has skipped several meetings in a row
which is a pattern I find almost fatally attractive.
Down at headquarters there's a secretary
The List of Famous Hats
© Edward Taylor
Napoleon's hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous
hat, but that's not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for
show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all hon-
esty wasn't much different than the one any jerk might buy at a
Loyalty
© Edward Taylor
This is the hardest part:
When I came back to life
I was a good family dog
and not too friendly to strangers.
Dream On
© Edward Taylor
Some people go their whole lives
without ever writing a single poem.
Extraordinary people who don't hesitate
to cut somebody's heart or skull open.
Pau-Puk-Keewis
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,
He, the handsome Yenadizze,
Whom the people called the Storm-Fool,
Vexed the village with disturbance;
Jugurtha
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
Cried the African monarch, the splendid,
As down to his death in the hollow
Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,
Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
Helen of Tyre
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What phantom is this that appears
Through the purple mist of the years,
Itself but a mist like these?
A woman of cloud and of fire;
It is she; it is Helen of Tyre,
The town in the midst of the seas.
Hiawatha's Fasting
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You shall hear how Hiawatha
Prayed and fasted in the forest,
Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Hiawatha's Friends
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Two good friends had Hiawatha,
Singled out from all the others,
Bound to him in closest union,
And to whom he gave the right hand
Hiawatha's Fishing
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Forth upon the Gitche Gumee,
On the shining Big-Sea-Water,
With his fishing-line of cedar,
Of the twisted bark of cedar,
Picture-Writing
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In those days said Hiawatha,
"Lo! how all things fade and perish!
From the memory of the old men
Pass away the great traditions,
The Son Of The Evening Star
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Can it be the sun descending
O'er the level plain of water?
Or the Red Swan floating, flying,
Wounded by the magic arrow,
The Peace-Pipe
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
Hiawatha's Wooing
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Hiawatha And The Pearl-Feather
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
Of the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose
And vanished,--we who are about to die,
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.
Hiawatha And Mudjekeewis
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Out of childhood into manhood
Now had grown my Hiawatha,
Skilled in all the craft of hunters,
Learned in all the lore of old men,
