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Tag Archives: poetry

Sleek Chivalric Certainty

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen, Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. They do not fear the men beneath the tree; They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool Find even the ivory needle hard to pull. The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band Sits heavily upon […]

Nor You a Bunch of Grapes

There in the garden, a little fox Steals out at night, when no one is about, And under the shadow of the autumn vines He eats in secret the dewy bunch. Love is no fox, Nor you a bunch of grapes. But unbeknown my heart stole out And plucked you in secret, when no one […]

Applying Star Logic to Human Encounters

Halley’s comet appeared in 1910 (And I was born in the following year): Its period being seventy-six years and seven days, It is due to reappear in 1986 So I read, and my heart sunk. It is unlikely that I shall ever see that star And probably that is the case with human encounters. An […]

Time Cannot Alter It—And

We have the picture of you in mind, when you were young, posturing (for a photographer) in scarves (if you could have done it) but now, for none of you is immortal, ninety- three, the three, ninety and three, Mary, Ellen and Emily, what beauty is it clings still about you? Undying? Magical? For there […]

Crumble the Mouth-flower Fleet

my love is building a building around you,a frail slippery house,a strong fragile house (beginning at the singular beginning of your smile)a skillful uncouth prison,a precise clumsy prison(building thatandthis into Thus, Around the reckless magic of your mouth) my love is building a magic,a discrete tower of magic and(as i guess) when Farmer Death(whom fairies […]

Last Conversation With a Houseguest

Me up at does out of the floor quietly Stare a poisoned mouse still who alive is asking What have i done that You wouldn’t have E. E. Cummings

Minoan Spun Metal Or Intractable Amber

Luini in porcelain! The grand piano Utters a profane Protest with her clear soprano. The sleek head emerges From the gold-yellow frock As Anadyomene in the opening Pages of Reinach. Honey-red, closing the face-oval A basket-work of braids which seem as if they were Spun in King Minos’ hall From metal, or intractable amber; The […]

Used First to Praise the Sea or Sword

At fifty generations’ end (And such abysses time affords us all) I return to the further shore of a great river That the vikings’ dragons did not reach, To the harsh and arduous words That, with a mouth now turned to dust, I used in my Northumbrian, Mercian days Before I became a Haslam or […]

Tis Not Too Late To Seek A Newer World

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour […]

Un Pavo Real Delirado en Oro

La Tarde By Leopold Lugones. El cielo funde ya su piedra fina En el horno del sol, que tras del monte, Va esmaltando el metal del horizonte Con los más bellos cromos de su mina. Mordido de color en cada poro. Friega de oro el metal su pulimento, Y exorbita hasta el cénit un violento […]