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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: FERRY, DAVID Matches Found: 142 Ferry, David Poet's Biography 142 poems available by this author A CHARM Poem Text Recitation First Line: I have a twin who bears my name; Subject(s): Self A NIGHT-TIME RIVER ROAD Poem Text First Line: We were driving down a road Subject(s): Roads; Paths; Trails ABOUT SYLVIA'S STORIES AND TEACHING First Line: What's being taught Last Line: In feeling, in acting AFTER SPOTSYLVANIA COURT HOUSE First Line: I read the brown sentences of my great-grandfather Subject(s): American Civil War; United States - History AFTER SPOTSYLVANIA COURT HOUSE First Line: I read the brown sentences of my great-grandfather Last Line: The incense has the odor of old paper Subject(s): American Civil War; U.s. - History ALPHABET First Line: Abc %you and me Last Line: Yz %you and me ANCESTRAL LINES Poem Text Subject(s): Ancestors & Ancestry ANTAGONIST First Line: I saw a man come down to the furious sea AT A BAR First Line: While in a bar I bore Last Line: My fellow, my self, my fool %ignorant of our natures AT LAKE HOPATCONG First Line: A picture taken years before I was born Last Line: Perhaps because of the blankness of the sky %looks russian, foreign, of no country I know AT THE BUS STOP; EURYDICE First Line: The old lady's face Last Line: It took the old lady away AT THE HOSPITAL (1) First Line: How beautiful she had become Last Line: In the body's knowledge AT THE HOSPITAL (2) First Line: As with the soft authority of wings Last Line: Along the echoing channels of the night AUBADE First Line: If the early morning were like the dewy steaming %rising of cloudy brightness Last Line: Creation of your body's dear awakening AUGURY First Line: Beautiful alien light, the lovers lie Last Line: In icy configurations of the stars AUTUMN AFTERNOON First Line: The rich fume of autumn rises from the ground Last Line: As if to keep taking back what has just been said BACKYARD DOG First Line: Out in the winter moonlight Last Line: Written and rewritten %in the newly fallen snow BEACH AT EVENING First Line: The beach at this evening full Last Line: Things that belong to the sea BIRD First Line: Minding of itself, and mildly, in its finding Last Line: Attentive to the minutiae of its task BRUNSWICK, MAINE, EARLY WINTER, 2000 First Line: The day that suzie drove us out to get Last Line: To safety in the helicopter noise BY THE SEA SHORE First Line: Now the tree %that had been stone Last Line: To flower, and sea C.P. CAVAFY, THERMOPYLAE Poem Text First Line: Honor is due to those who are keeping watch, Subject(s): Cavafy, Constantine P. (1863-1933) CAPRIMULGIDAE First Line: Though caprimulgus can only totter or hop Last Line: Signaling something that understands its meaning CATULLUS I Poem Text First Line: Who is it I should give my little book to, Subject(s): Books & Reading CHARACTER ANALYSIS OF MARY IN EARLIER LIFE First Line: Her spinster eccentricity often Last Line: On a tight rope strung out over the abyss CHARM First Line: I have a twin who bears my name Last Line: He breathes the air of my nightmare CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS First Line: Under the burin's meditative gaze Last Line: And over all this the great embroidered trees COFFEE LIPS Poem Text COMMITTEE First Line: Coldly the sun shone down on the moonlit scene Last Line: Spoke volumes on the bookshelves of the room COUNTERPART First Line: The last poem in this section of the book Last Line: But give me quickly the cold water to drink %that flows from memory's source, from lebadeia COURTESY Poem Text First Line: It is an afternoon toward the end of august Subject(s): Weddings; Basketball COURTESY First Line: It is an afternoon toward the end of august Last Line: Giving and taking, perfectly understood CRIPPLED GIRL, THE ROSE First Line: It was as if a flower bloomed as if Last Line: Her beauty saying from its thorny stalk %that what it is is kept as it is given CYTHERA Poem Text First Line: There they go, down to the fatal ship Last Line: Look lovlier still compared to the angry children Subject(s): Abandonment; Art & Artists; Children; Paintings & Painters; Watteau, Antoine (1684-1721); Desertion; Childhood CYTHERA First Line: There they go, down to the fatal ship Last Line: Look lovelier still compared to the angry children Subject(s): Abandonment; Art And Artists; Children; Paintings And Painters; Watteau, Antoine (1684-1721) DESCRIPTIVE First Line: Alone, I looked down through the afternoon Last Line: Was the water that never fell, running away DIVES First Line: The dogheaded wildman sleeps in the back alley Last Line: Close by the tangled roll of wire screening %under a scribbled hieroglyphic sign DOG AND FOX First Line: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog Last Line: As true friends should, brave fair and stormy weather? DOWN BY THE RIVER First Line: The page is green. Like water words are drifting Last Line: Love on forever in somebody's heavenly picture ELLERY STREET First Line: How much too eloquent are the songs we sing Last Line: The snail crosses the garden in its dignified silence EMBARKATION FOR CYTHERA First Line: The picnic-goers beautified themselves Last Line: Touched at his sleeve for the ace he'd hidden there Subject(s): Art And Artists; Paintings And Painters; Watteau, Antoine (1684-1721) ENVOI (1) First Line: The ancient cup of tears, the pastoral legend Last Line: To utter a sorrow impersonal as legend? ENVOI (2) First Line: Let these not be the black, imaginary Last Line: No light but the light of the dead letter EPIGRAM First Line: As with the skill of verses properly managed Last Line: Disposed for intelligent pleasure, and for welcome EVENING NEWS 1 First Line: We have been there %and seen nothing Last Line: It is by such sights %the eye is instructed EVENING NEWS 2 First Line: The face looking into the room Last Line: Deflating; somewhere in the darkness %a murmuring let itself go EVENING NEWS II Poem Text First Line: The face looking into the room; Subject(s): News; Popular Culture FAREWELL First Line: Let the day fall like light out of the eye Last Line: How then will the day light knock at the lid in vain! FIRST NIGHT Poem Text First Line: A stump. A post. An effigy not made / as yet. A toe. A toe in the icy waters Last Line: I pray the lord my soul to take / timor mortis conturbat me Subject(s): Death; Dead, The FIRST NIGHT First Line: A stump. A post. An effigy not made %as yet. A toe. A toe in the icy waters Last Line: I pray the lord my soul to take Subject(s): Death GARDEN DOG First Line: In the winter, out in the winter Last Line: Unflourishing grass in the garden %out in the winter light GOODNIGHT Poem Text First Line: Lying in bed and waiting to find out Subject(s): Night; Babies; Bedtime; Infants GOODNIGHT First Line: Lying in bed and waiting to find out Last Line: Safely, at least for the rest of the night, I pray GRAVEYARD First Line: A writing I can't read myself: the picture Last Line: Written in a language only the dead speak GUEST ELLEN AT THE SUPPER FOR STREET PEOPLE First Line: The unclean spirits cry out in the body Last Line: Unclean is the nature and name of the enchantment HARVESTERS RESTING; AFTER MILLET Poem Text First Line: In the middle of the day, in the great shadow Last Line: The noontime / heat Subject(s): Millet, Jean Francois (1814-1875) HARVESTERS RESTING; AFTER MILLET First Line: In the middle of the day, in the great shadow Last Line: Spellbound in the noontime heat Subject(s): Millet, Jean Francois (1814-1875) HORACE: EPISTLE 1.16 TO QUINCTIUS HIRPINUS First Line: I'll answer your questions about my place in the country Last Line: Death is the finish line that everyone crosses HORSES First Line: It is true that, as he said, the horses Last Line: Possible a perfect delineation, %the houses' edges brimming with light IN EDEN Poem Text First Line: You lie in our bed as if an orchard were over us. Subject(s): Garden Of Eden IN EDEN First Line: You lie in our bed as if an orchard were over us Last Line: Where will we go when they send us away from here? IN THE DARK First Line: I wandered in my mind as in the dark Last Line: Outside of myself what a beautiful landscape lies! IN THE GARDEN First Line: The impatients in the tub, beside the wooden bench Last Line: Of motion and quiet sound and the changing light %a subtle, brilliant, and a shadowy idea IN THE READING ROOM Poem Text First Line: Alone in the library room, even when others Subject(s): Librarians & Libraries; Library; Librarians IN THE READING ROOM First Line: Alone in the library room, even when others Last Line: Misunderstandings of the sacred text INCUBUS Poem Text First Line: The young man who goes about all muffled up from harm, Subject(s): Homeless JOHNSON ON POPE; FROM THE LIVES OF THE POETS Poem Text First Line: He was protuberant behind, before Last Line: Composed itself; of folly he made beauty Subject(s): Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784); Pope, Alexander (1688-1744) JOHNSON ON POPE; FROM THE LIVES OF THE POETS First Line: He was protuberant behind, before Last Line: Composed itself; of folly he made beauty Subject(s): Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784); Pope, Alexander (1688-1744) LAKE WATER Recitation by Author LATE-HOUR POEM First Line: In an hour of furious clarity Last Line: My harp made everybody know %how brave I sounded! LEARNING FROM HISTORY Poem Text First Line: They said, my saints, my slogan-sayers sang, LEARNING FROM HISTORY First Line: They said, my saints, my slogan-sayers sang Last Line: As made of much of me a mystery LICENSE PLATE First Line: On the way back from the hospital we saw Last Line: The car went on its way ahead of us LITTLE VIETNAM FUTURIST POEM Poem Text Recitation First Line: She came into my view as vivid as LITTLE VIETNAM FUTURIST POEM First Line: She came into my view as vivid as Last Line: We know that way the story of what it was MARTIAL 1.101 Poem Text First Line: He, who had been the one to whom I had Subject(s): Death; Dead, The MARY IN OLD AGE: 1. MARY'S HOUSE First Line: The bruised eyes and diffused radiant Last Line: How like a night by night MARY IN OLD AGE: 2. MARY'S ROOM AT THE NURSING HOME First Line: The room was like a room in a rented house Last Line: Careless of everything, wanton, royal MARY IN OLD AGE: 3. THE TOWER OF BABEL First Line: She babbled barbarously and bravely Last Line: Bringing unto me %a tale of visionary hours MARY IN OLD AGE: 4. OF OTHERS WHO WERE THERE First Line: There was: the old lady in the nursing home Last Line: As if the ear could speak its secrets back MARY IN OLD AGE: 5. MARY INTERPRETER First Line: Not a babble exactly, but words carefully chosen Last Line: She was out on a plain crossed by steppewinds MARY IN OLD AGE: 6. MATTHEW 12: 43-45 First Line: When the unclean spirit goes out of a person Last Line: For her, much worse, than it had earlier been MORNING SONG First Line: A bird cried out among the first things of the morning Last Line: It was the bird's cry that startled up the stone MOVIE STAR PETER AT THE SUPPER FOR STREET PEOPLE Poem Text First Line: The style a form of concealment the way style is. Subject(s): Homeless; Actors & Actresses; Actresses MOVIE STAR PETER AT THE SUPPER FOR STREET PEOPLE First Line: The style a form of concealment the way style is Last Line: And glided whirling on a lonely tarn %far out away from everything there is MUSINGS OF MIND AND BODY First Line: I am that thing the sea cast up, a shell Last Line: But I will wash him down. And thou, my mind MY MOTHER'S DYING First Line: I listen at the door Last Line: Who knows about all this? NAME First Line: I wish I could recall now the lines written across the surface of my dream Last Line: Go off in the trash somewhere out of the city burning stinking %unrecoverable although not biodegrad NIGHT-TIME RIVER ROAD First Line: We were driving down a road Last Line: Could tell where we were going NOCTURNAL First Line: It is always among sleepers we walk Last Line: Moaning, over the edge of the cliff %the wind babble unintelligible OF RHYME First Line: The task is the discovering of a rhyme Last Line: In consequence of the completion of the rhyme OLD PEOPLE First Line: Their old skin has the marks in it of the sea Last Line: It is a nightmare of the high school lunchroom ON A POEM BY ARTHUR R. GOLD First Line: God, lights flashing, bells ringing, god on his tracks Last Line: With something like what seemed to be like pleasure ON A SUNDAY MORNING First Line: My child and I %are walking around the block Last Line: And nothing to me, this sunday ON HAYSTACK MOUNTAIN First Line: I stand here, on the top of the mountain, here Last Line: For once not anxious or sorry, contending for now %not at all with anger or ambition ON THE WAY TO THE ISLAND First Line: After we fled away from the shuddering dock Last Line: Their innocent frightening scales in the dark! OUT AT LANESVILLE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The five or six of them, sitting on the rocks Subject(s): Friendship OUT AT LANESVILLE First Line: The five or six of them, sitting on the rocks Last Line: So that her body, turned away, is more expressive %than her blank face, a pure reflector of light OUT IN THE COLD First Line: The sun shines in the ice of my country Last Line: We huddle over the ice, the two of us OUT OF THAT SEA First Line: As shepherd and shepherdess, how many summers had we PHOTOGRAPHS FROM A BOOK Poem Text First Line: A poem again, of several parts, each having to do Subject(s): Photography & Photographers; Eakins, Thomas (1844-1916) PHOTOGRAPHS FROM A BOOK: SIX POEMS First Line: A poem again, of several parts, each having to do Last Line: Flat south jersey landscape, treeless almost %almost featureless, stretches vaguely beyond PLATE 134. BY EAKINS. 'A COWBOY IN THE WEST ...' Poem Text First Line: His hat, his gun, his gloves, his chair, his place Last Line: Heartbreaking canteen, empty on the ground Subject(s): Art & Artists; Cowboys; Eakins, Thomas (1844-1916); Photography & Photographers PLATE 134. BY EAKINS. 'A COWBOY IN THE WEST ...' First Line: His hat, his gun, his gloves, his chair, his place Last Line: Heartbreaking canteen, empty on the ground Subject(s): Art And Artists; Cowboys; Eakins, Thomas (1844-1916); Photography And Photographers POEM ABOUT WALKING First Line: I knew once POEMS OF MARIANNE MOORE Poem Text First Line: Let her look at a stone / the stone becomes an apple Last Line: In her art's happiness Subject(s): Moore, Marianne (1887-1972) POEMS OF MARIANNE MOORE First Line: Let her look at a stone %the stone becomes an apple Last Line: And find how sweet it is %is her art's happiness Subject(s): Moore, Marianne (1887-1972) PROSELYTE First Line: A man the unclean spirits had gotten into Last Line: It was he said to us and the phone and the wall %and then he was gone away into the night REREADING OLD WRITING First Line: Looking back, the language scribbles Last Line: Writing a formula on a blackboard %something not to be understood ROOF First Line: Four or five men on the high roof Last Line: Like martyred souls made visible in the radiant air SCRIM Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: I sit here in a shelter behind the words Subject(s): Poetry & Poets SCULPTURES BY DIMITRI HADZI Poem Text First Line: This metal blooms in the dark of rome's / day light. Of how many deaths Last Line: Their brightness is dark with it Subject(s): Italy; Massacres; World War Ii - Atrocities; Italians SCULPTURES BY DIMITRI HADZI First Line: This metal blooms in the dark of rome's %day light. Of how many deaths Last Line: Their brightness is dark with it Subject(s): Italy; Massacres; World War Ii - Atrocities SEEN THROUGH A WINDOW Poem Text First Line: A man and a woman are sitting at a table. Subject(s): Man-woman Relationships; Male-female Relations SEEN THROUGH A WINDOW First Line: A man and a woman are sitting at a table Last Line: Such silence is the bird's cry of the stone SEVERAL VOICES First Line: Height scares me. I am always afraid of falling Last Line: I prayed I'd go to sleep in that pitch dark SHU SOLDIER First Line: Saturday afternoon. The barracks is almost empty Last Line: His own submissiveness. He is far from home STRABO READING MEGASTHENES First Line: According to megasthenes' own account Last Line: Or on the smell of faraway roasting meat TABLE TALK First Line: How can he stand it Last Line: God bless this house and all %those who live within it TELEPHONE CALL First Line: A strong smell of dog, of my dog's death Last Line: The sour breath of the telephone telling the truth THAT EVENING AT DINNER Poem Text First Line: By the last few times we saw her it was clear Subject(s): Soldiers THAT EVENING AT DINNER First Line: By the last few times we saw her it was clear Last Line: And fish from the nearby sea; and there were also %ashes to be eaten, and dirt to drink THE CHAIR Poem Text First Line: The chair left out in the garden night all winter Last Line: All winter long even behind the day Subject(s): Chairs; Winter THE CRIPPLED GIRL, THE ROSE Poem Text First Line: It was as if a flower bloomed as if Subject(s): Roses; Physical Disabilities; Handicapped; Handicaps; Physically Challenged; Cripples THE EMBARKATION FOR CYTHERA Poem Text First Line: The picnic-goers beautified themselves Last Line: He'd hidden there Subject(s): Art & Artists; Paintings & Painters; Watteau, Antoine (1684-1721) THE GUEST ELLEN AT THE SUPPER FOR STREET PEOPLE Poem Text First Line: The unclean spirits cry out in the body Subject(s): Homeless THE SOLDIER Poem Text First Line: Saturday afternoon. The barracks is almost empty TO SALLY Poem Text First Line: Now we/ve been sitting up all night Subject(s): Mothers TO SALLY First Line: Now we've been sitting up all night Last Line: Good people are punished %like all the rest TO WHERE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Wearing a tawny lion pelt upon Subject(s): Parents; Parenthood TOMB AT TARQUINIA First Line: The two of us, on the livingroom couch Last Line: The still air of the place UNAWKWARD SINGERS First Line: Self-praise is a wonderful thing! Last Line: Thick praise by a thick tongue %for its own limitation WAITING First Line: Someone hammering something somewhere outside Last Line: He speaks in a secret tongue understood by no other WALK IN THE WOODS First Line: Sweet bird, whose song, like all natural things Last Line: Spoke to say something as lovely as what the sweet bird sings %alone, in a green thicket WALLENDA First Line: I saw him in a coffeeshop in cambridge Last Line: Daredevil wallenda fell plummeting down to death WHAT IT DOES Poem Text First Line: The sea bit WHAT IT DOES First Line: The sea bit %as they said it would Last Line: Shake with the splendor %of the poem's pleasure WHAT'S PLAYING TONIGHT First Line: Not twenty feet away were the walls of the house next door Last Line: That bradley's mother's movie was playing on WILLOUGHBY SPIT First Line: The little fence around the tiny front yard Last Line: As conscious as fireflies of their situation WOLF WOMAN First Line: When I look into my mirror Last Line: Its look follows the other %anguish is my prey YOUNG WOMAN First Line: That she, with such gifts given Last Line: May she be blessed %in this faltering forward |
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