Dictionary Poems

Humanity i love youbecause you would rather black the boots ofsuccess than enquire whose soul dangles from hiswatch-chain which would be embarrassing for both parties and because youunflinchingly applaud allsongs containing the words country home andmother when sung at the old howard Humanity i love you becausewhen you’re hard up you pawn yourintelligence to buy … Continued

A THOUGHT ay like a flower upon mine heart,And drew around it other thoughts like beesFor multitude and thirst of sweetnesses;Whereat rejoicing, I desired the artOf the Greek whistler, who to wharf and martCould lure those insect swarms from orange-treesThat I might hive with me such thoughts and pleaseMy soul so, always. foolish counterpartOf a … Continued

The little hedgerow birds, That peck along the roads, regard him not. He travels on, and in his face, his step, His gait, is one expression: every limb, His look and bending figure, all bespeak A man who does not move with pain, but moves With thought.–He is insensibly subdued To settled quiet: he is … Continued

Bring me all of your dreams,You dreamer,Bring me all yourHeart melodiesThat I may wrap themIn a blue cloud-clothAway from the too-rough fingersOf the world. – The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes

Tunnelling through the night, the trains passin a splendour of power, with a sound like thundershaking the orchards, wakingthe young from a dream, scattering like glassthe old mens’ sleep, layinga black trail over the still bloom of the orchards;the trains go north with guns. Strange primitive piece of flesh, the heart laid quiethearing their cry … Continued

I keep collecting books I knowI’ll never, never read;My wife and daughter tell me so,And yet I never head.Please make me, says some wistful tome,A wee bit of yourself.And so I take my treasure home,And tuck it in a shelf. And now my very shelves complain;They jam and over-spill.They say: Why don’t you ease our … Continued

The springtime’s pallid landscape Will glow like bright bouquet,Though drifted deep in parian The village lies to-day. The lilacs, bending many a year, With purple load will hang;The bees will not forget the tune Their old forefathers sang. The rose will redden in the bog, The aster on the hillHer everlasting fashion set, And covenant … Continued

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to … Continued

I AM singing to youSoft as a man with a dead child speaks;Hard as a man in handcuffs,Held where he cannot move: Under the sunAre sixteen million men,Chosen for shining teeth,Sharp eyes, hard legs,And a running of young warm blood in their wrists. And a red juice runs on the green grass;And a red juice … Continued

And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.The night turns on its invisible wheels,and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber. No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,we will go together, over the waters of time.No one … Continued