pocketfullofpoems-blog1

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

Delight in Disorder

Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dresse Kindles in cloathes a wantonnesse: A Lawne about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction: An erring Lace, which here and there Enthralls the Crimson Stomacher: A Cuffe neglectfull, and thereby Ribbands to flow confusedly: A winning wave (deserving Note) In the tempestuous petticote: A careless shooe-string, in whose tye I see a wilde civility: Doe more bewitch me, then when Art Is too precise in every part.

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Epigram on Rough Road

Robert Burns

I’m now arrived—thanks to the gods!— Thro’ pathways rough and muddy, A certain sign that makin roads Is no this people’s study: Altho’ Im not wi’ Scripture cram’d, I’m sure the Bible says That heedless sinners shall be damn’d, Unless they mend their ways.

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Untitled

Shido

There, by the crescent moon, the shark Has hid his head [beneath the wave].

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

Yourself the Sun

Arthur Gorges

Yourself the sun, and I the melting frost, Myself the flax and you the kindly fire, Yourself the maze wherein my self is lost, I your disdain, yet you my heart’s desire, Your love the port whereto my fancies sail, My hope the ship whose helm your fair hand guides, Your grace the wind that must my course avail My faith the flood, your frowns the ebbing tides, Yourself the spring and I the toiling bee. My thoughts in you, though yours elsewhere, do rest. You are the brook and I the deer embossed My heaven is you, yet you torment my ghost.

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

You! Inez!

Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Orange gleams athwart a crimson soul Lambent flames; purple passion lurks In your dusk eyes. Red mouth; flower soft, Your soul leaps up—and flashes Star-like, white, flame-hot. Curving arms, encircling a world of love, You! Stirring the depths of passionate desire!

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Wall Street at Night

Lola Ridge

Long vast shapes... cooled and flushed through with darkness... Lidless windows Glazed with a flashy luster From some little pert café chirping up like a sparrow. And down among iron guts Piled silver Throwing gray spatter of light... pale without heat... Like the pallor of dead bodies.

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

El Beso

Angelina Weld Grimké

Twilight—and you Quiet—the stars; Snare of the shine of your teeth, Your provocative laughter, The gloom of your hair; Lure of you, eye and lip; Yearning, yearning, Languor, surrender; Your mouth, And madness, madness, Tremulous, breathless, flaming, The space of a sigh; Then awakening—remembrance, Pain, regret—your sobbing; And again, quiet—the stars, Twilight—and you.

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

This Much and More

Djuna Barnes

If my lover were a comet Hung in air, I would braid my leaping body In his hair. Yea, if they buried him ten leagues Beneath the loam, My fingers they would learn to dig And I’d plunge home!

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

Meeting at Night

Robert Browning

The gray sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low: And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, through joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

August

Lizette Woodworth Reese

No wind, no bird. The river flames like brass. On either side, smitten as with a spell Of silence, brood the fields. In the deep grass, Edging the dusty roads, lie as they fell Handfuls of shriveled leaves from tree and bush. But ’long the orchard fence and at the gate, Thrusting their saffron torches through the hush, Wild lilies blaze, and bees hum soon and late. Rust-colored the tall straggling briar, not one Rose left. The spider sets its loom up there Close to the roots, and spins out in the sun A silken web from twig to twig. The air Is full of hot rank scents. Upon the hill Drifts the noon’s single cloud, white, glaring, still.

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

My Lantern

Marianne Moore

The banners unfurled by the warden Float Up high in the air and sink down; the Moat Is black as a plume on a casque; my Light, Like a patch of high light on a flask, makes Night A gibbering goblin that bars the way- So noisy, familiar, and safe by day.

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

Moonrise

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle, Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless, Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain; A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quit utterly. This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily, Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber.

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How Great My Grief

Thomas Hardy

How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee! - Have the slow years not brought to view How great my grief, my joys how few, Nor memory shaped old times anew, Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee?

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I Know My Soul

Claude McKay

I plucked my soul out of its secret place, And held it to the mirror of my eye, To see it like a star against the sky, A twitching body quivering in space, A spark of passion shining on my face. And I explored it to determine why This awful key to my infinity Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace. And if the sign may not be fully read, If I can comprehend but not control, I need not gloom my days with futile dread, Because I see a part and not the whole. Contemplating the strange, I’m comforted By this narcotic thought: I know my soul.

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

The Sun-Dial

Adelaide Crapsey

Every day, Every day, Tell the hours By their shadows, By their shadows.

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

Interim

Lola Ridge

The earth is motionless And poised in space... A great bird resting in its flight Between the alleys of the stars. It is the wind’s hour off... The wind has nestled down among the corn... The two speak privately together, Awaiting the whirr of wings.

[pocketfullofpoems-blog1]

Translation

Anne Spencer

He trekked into a far country, My friend and I. Our deeper content was never spoken, But each knew all the other said. He told me how calm his soul was laid By the lack of anvil and strife. “The wooing kestrel," I said, “mutes his mating-note To please the harmony of this sweet silence.” And when at the day’s end We laid tired bodies ‘gainst The loose warm sands, And the air fleeced its particles for a coverlet; When star after star came out To guard their lovers in oblivion — My soul so leapt that my evening prayer Stole my morning song!