Travel poems
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A Day At Union Station
© Tiel Aisha Ansari
Discards
Unused tickets moulder in the grass.
Shed feathers scatter before the wind.
Echoes of hurried feet crowd the roof.
The Old Man's Calendar
© Jean de La Fontaine
THIS calendar o'erspread with rubrick days;
She soon forgot and learn'd the pirate's ways;
The matrimonial zone aside was thrown,
And only mentioned where the fact was known:
The Mandrake
© Jean de La Fontaine
OUR youth, Calimachus, no sooner came,
But he howe'er appeared to please the dame;
His camp he pitched and entered on the siege
Of fair Lucretia, faithful to her liege,
Who presently the haughty tigress played,
And sent him, like the rest, away dismayed.
The Magnificent
© Jean de La Fontaine
WITH handsome person and a pleasing mien,
Gallant, a polished air, and soul serene;
A certain fair of noble birth he sought,
Whose conquest, doubtless, brilliant would be thought;
Which in our lover doubly raised desire;
Renown and pleasure lent his bosom fire.
The Cudgelled And Contented Cuckold
© Jean de La Fontaine
OUR thoughtless rambler pleasures always sought:
From Rome this spark had num'rous pardons brought;
But,--as to virtues (this too oft we find),
He'd left them,--with his HOLINESS behind!
St. Julian's Prayer
© Jean de La Fontaine
MOST readily, replied the courteous fair,
We never use the garret:--lodge him there;
Some straw upon a couch will make a bed,
On which the wand'rer may repose his head;
Shut well the door, but first provide some meat,
And then permit him thither to retreat.
King Candaules And The Doctor Of Laws
© Jean de La Fontaine
IN life oft ills from self-imprudence spring;
As proof, Candaules' story we will bring;
In folly's scenes the king was truly great:
His vassal, Gyges, had from him a bait,
The like in gallantry was rarely known,
And want of prudence never more was shown.
Back From Australia
© John Betjeman
At home in Cornwall hurrying autumn skies
Leave Bray Hill barren, Stepper jutting bare,
And hold the moon above the sea-wet sand.
The very last of late September dies
In frosty silence and the hills declare
How vast the sky is, looked at from the land.
An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield
© John Betjeman
High dormers are rising
So sharp and surprising,
And ponticum edges
The driveways of gravel;
Inexpensive Progress
© John Betjeman
Encase your legs in nylons,
Bestride your hills with pylons
O age without a soul;
Away with gentle willows
And all the elmy billows
That through your valleys roll.
Guilt
© John Betjeman
The clock is frozen in the tower,
The thickening fog with sooty smell
Has blanketed the motor power
Which turns the London streets to hell;
And footsteps with their lonely sound
Intensify the silence round.
Le Manteau De Pascal
© Jorie Graham
I have put on my great coat it is cold.It is an outer garment.Coarse, woolen.Of unknown origin. *It has a fine inner lining but it is
as an exterior that you see it a grace. *I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully, something dark-true,
Salmon
© Jorie Graham
I watched them once, at dusk, on television, run,
in our motel room half-way through
Nebraska, quick, glittering, past beauty, past
the importance of beauty.,
Love's Usury
© John Donne
For every hour that thou wilt spare me now
I will allow,
Usurious God of Love, twenty to thee,
When with my brown my gray hairs equal be;
The Indifferent
© John Donne
I can love both fair and brown,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,
The City Is A Garment
© Michael Burch
A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,
the city is a garment stretched so thin
her festive colors bleed into the night,
and everywhere bright seams, unraveling,
Peach Blossom Journey
© Wang Wei
Fishing boat pursue water love hill spring
Both banks peach blossom arrive ancient river crossing
Travel look red tree not know far
Travel furthest blue stream not see people
Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World
© William Bronk
Whether what we sense of this world
is the what of this world only, or the what
of which of several possible worlds
--which what?--something of what we sense
On a young Lady Whose LORD was Travelling.
© Anne Killigrew
NO sooner I pronounced Celindas name,
But Troops of wing'd Pow'rs did chant the fame:
Not those the Poets Bows and Arrows lend,
But such as on the Altar do attend.
On Death.
© Anne Killigrew
No subtile Serpents in the Grave betray,
Worms on the Body there, not Soul do prey;
No Vice there Tempts, no Terrors there afright,
No Coz'ning Sin affords a false delight:
No vain Contentions do that Peace annoy,
No feirce Alarms break the lasting Joy.
