Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

If souls should only sheen so bright
In heaven as in e'thly light,
An' nothen better wer the cease,
How comely still, in sheape an' feace,
Would many reach thik happy pleace, -
The hopevul souls that in their prime
Ha' seem'd a-took avore their time, -
The young that died in beauty.

But when woone's lim's ha' lost their strangth
A-tweilen drough a lifetime's langth,
An' over cheaks a-growen wold
The slowly-weasten years ha' roll'd
The deep'nen wrinkle's hollow vwold;
When life is ripe, then death do call
Vor less ov thought, than when do vall
On young vo'ks in their beauty.

But pinen souls, wi' heads a-hung
In heavy sorrow vor the young,
The sister ov the brother dead,
The father wi' a child a-vled,
The husband when his bride ha' laid
Her head at rest, noo mwore to turn,
Have all a-vound the time to murn
Vor youth that died in beauty.

An' yeet the church, where prayer do rise
Vrom thoughtvul souls, wi' downcast eyes,
An' village greens, a-beat half beare

...

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops

...

When a person moves through time,
They're reborn in form, but not in mind—
A new face, a brand-new start,
But the same old soul, the same old heart.

The body may change, the name may fade,
But essence and spirit remain the same.
Without the heart, the eyes can lie,
Drawn to beauty that quickly dies.


...

I examine
my skin

searching for
the pore

with EXIT
over it
...

'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,
A penny for three tries!'
Some threw and lost, some threw and won
A ten-a-penny prize.

She was a tawny gypsy girl,
A girl of twenty years,
I liked her for the lumps of gold
That jingled from her ears;


...

You're the queen, and I'm the clown
You call me friend with lips all crave around
I twist and turn inside with doubt
I see my mirror, want to shout
Your rosy blush still shines at sea
I try the same, they laugh at me
It isn't envy that I feel, just fear
I swear I don't cry out of shame, my dear
It's just that I saw you appear.
...

An ant on the tablecloth
Ran into a dormant moth
Of many times his size.
He showed not the least surprise.
His business wasn't with such.
He gave it scarcely a touch,
And was off on his duty run.
Yet if he encountered one
Of the hive's enquiry squad
Whose work is to find out God
And the nature of time and space,
He would put him onto the case.
Ants are a curious race;
One crossing with hurried tread
The body of one of their dead
Isn't given a moment's arrest-
Seems not even impressed.
But he no doubt reports to any
With whom he crosses antennae,
And they no doubt report
To the higher-up at court.
Then word goes forth in Formic:
'Death's come to Jerry McCormic,
Our selfless forager Jerry.
Will the special Janizary
Whose office it is to bury
The dead of the commissary
Go bring him home to his people.
Lay him in state on a sepal.
Wrap him for shroud in a petal.

...

Let us not talk philosophy, drop it, Jeanne.
So many words, so much paper, who can stand it.
I told you the truth about my distancing myself.
I've stopped worrying about my misshapen life.
It was no better and no worse than the usual human tragedies.

For over thirty years we have been waging our dispute
As we do now, on the island under the skies of the tropics.
We flee a downpour, in an instant the bright sun again,
And I grow dumb, dazzled by the emerald essence of the leaves.

...

I think of you and I ask why
How did we let this love just die?
I called you love, my dreams were yours
Now all that's left are broken doors

We dreamed of home and babies too
Now you're a stranger I once knew
I see you walking down the street
And hope again we'll never meet


...