Men poems
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The Statue and the Bust
© Robert Browning
There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do our townsmen tell.
Heretic's Tragedy, The
© Robert Browning
(It would seem to be a glimpse from the
burning of Jacques du Bourg-Mulay, at Paris,
A. D. 1314; as distorted by the refraction from
Flemish brain to brain, during the course of
a couple of centuries.)
By The Fire-Side
© Robert Browning
How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's November too!
Another Way Of Love
© Robert Browning
I.June was not over
Though past the fall,
And the best of her roses
Had yet to blow,
Caliban upon Setebos or, Natural Theology in the Island
© Robert Browning
'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:
Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.
The Lost Leader
© Robert Browning
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
A Pretty Woman
© Robert Browning
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!
The Singing
© C. K. Williams
I was walking home down a hill near our house
on a balmy afternoon
under the blossoms
Of the pear trees that go flamboyantly mad here
every spring with
their burgeoning forth
Shot? So Quick, So Clean an Ending?
© Alfred Edward Housman
Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?
Oh that was right, lad, that was brave:
Yours was not an ill for mending,
'Twas best to take it to the grave.
Fragment of a Greek Tragedy
© Alfred Edward Housman
CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
Oh Who Is That Young Sinner
© Alfred Edward Housman
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the color of his hair.
Emotional Idiot
© Maggie Estep
Emotional Idiocy is obviously
a theme close to my heart since I seem to use the phrase in novels and
CDs alike. My friend and mentor of sorts, Andrew Vachss, upon hearing me
read a rendition of this poem, stated that it ought to be the theme song
for borderline personality disorder. He's right.
A Way to Love God
© Robert Penn Warren
Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true.
And the line where the incoming swell from the sunset Pacific
First leans and staggers to break will tell all you need to know
About submarine geography, and your father's death rattle
Provides all biographical data required for the Who's Who of the dead.
Menses
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
(He speaks, but to himself, being aware how it is with her)
Think not I have not heard.
Well-fanged the double word
And well-directed flew.
The Lay Of The Mountain
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
To the solemn abyss leads the terrible path,
The life and death winding dizzy between;
In thy desolate way, grim with menace and wrath,
To daunt thee the spectres of giants are seen;
That thou wake not the wild one, all silently tread--
Let thy lip breathe no breath in the pathway of dread!
The Artists
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
Elegy On The Death Of A Young Man
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Mournful groans, as when a tempest lowers,
Echo from the dreary house of woe;
Death-notes rise from yonder minster's towers!
Bearing out a youth, they slowly go;
Hamlet Off-Stage: Snail Peels Off
© D. C. Berry
For quick mental hygiene, the snail's my white
mobile clinic, Dr. Hoodoo inside.
Seriously. The snail's my man. He's shy,
shows speedy patience and plays safe, keeps his
Endymion: Book II
© John Keats
He heard but the last words, nor could contend
One moment in reflection: for he fled
Into the fearful deep, to hide his head
From the clear moon, the trees, and coming madness.
