Society poems

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Suppose I take an arrogant bomber, stroke
By stroke, up to the frazzled sun to hear
Sun-ghostlings whisper: Yes, the capital yoke—
Remove it and there’s not a ghost to fear
This crucial day, whose decapitate joke
Languidly winds into the inner ear.

The Ghost

© Richard Harris Barham

There stands a City,- neither large nor small,

Its air and situation sweet and pretty;

The Times

© Charles Churchill

The time hath been, a boyish, blushing time,

When modesty was scarcely held a crime;

Another Feeling

© Ruth Stone

Once you saw a drove of young pigs

crossing the highway. One of them

Pernicious Weed!

© William Cowper

The pipe, with solemn interposing puff,

Makes half a sentence at a time enough;

Bel Canto

© Kenneth Koch

The sun is high, the seaside air is sharp,

And salty light reveals the Mayan School.

The Great Society

© Robert Bly

Dentists continue to water their lawns even in the rain:
Hands developed with terrible labor by apes
Hang from the sleeves of evangelists;
There are murdered kings in the light-bulbs outside movie theaters:
The coffins of the poor are hibernating in piles of new tires.

Paradise Lost: Book IX

© Patrick Kavanagh

So gloz'd the Tempter, and his proem tun'd.
Into the heart of Eve his words made way,
Though at the voice much marvelling; at length,
Not unamaz'd, she thus in answer spake:

A Winter Piece

© William Cullen Bryant

The time has been that these wild solitudes,
Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me
Oftener than now; and when the ills of life
Had chafed my spirit--when the unsteady pulse

The Recluse - Book First

© William Wordsworth

HOME AT GRASMERE
ONCE to the verge of yon steep barrier came
A roving school-boy; what the adventurer's age
Hath now escaped his memory--but the hour,

Fresh Air

© Kenneth Koch

3

Summer in the trees! “It is time to strangle several bad poets.”
The yellow hobbyhorse rocks to and fro, and from the chimney
Drops the Strangler! The white and pink roses are slightly agitated by the struggle,
But afterwards beside the dead “poet” they cuddle up comfortingly against their vase. They are safer now, no one will compare them to the sea.

It Isn't Enough

© Piet Hein

One paramount truth

our society smothers

from The Prelude: Book 2: School-time (Continued)

© André Breton

Fare Thee well!
Health, and the quiet of a healthful mind
Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men,
And yet more often living with Thyself,
And for Thyself, so haply shall thy days
Be many, and a blessing to mankind.