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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: WALCOTT, DEREK Matches Found: 340 Walcott, Derek Poet's Biography 340 poems available by this author A CITY'S DEATH BY FIRE Poem Text First Line: After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky A FAR CRY FROM AFRICA Poem Text First Line: A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Subject(s): Africa; African Americans - History; Ancestors & Ancestry; Black Heritage; Heritage; Heredity A LESSON FOR THIS SUNDAY Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The growing idleness of summer grass Subject(s): Summer A LETTER FROM BROOKLYN Poem Text First Line: An old lady writes me in a spidery style Subject(s): Fathers A SEA-CHANTEY Poem Text First Line: La, tout n'est qu'ordre et beaute Subject(s): West Indies; Caribbean Islands ACHILLE IN AFRICA First Line: Mangroves, their wrists in water, walked with the canoe ADAM'S SONG First Line: The adulteress stoned to death AFTER THE PLAGUE First Line: After the plague, the city-wall caked with flies, the smoke's amnesia Last Line: While the gods fade like thunder in the rattling mountains AIR First Line: The unheard, omnivorous %jaws of this rain forest ALBA First Line: Dawn breaking as I woke Last Line: I may have many sorrows %dawn is not one of them ALMOND TREES First Line: There's nothing here %this early Last Line: That grieves in silence, like parental love Subject(s): Environment; Trees ALPHAEUS PRINCE First Line: Alphaeus prince. What a name! He was one of the princes Last Line: In it, and who made death a gift that we quietly envied ANOTHER LIFE First Line: Verandahs, where the pages of the sea are a book left open by an absent master ARKANSAS TESTAMENT First Line: Over fayetteville, arkansas %a slope of memorial pines AS JOHN TO PATMOS Poem Text First Line: As john to patmos, among the rocks and the blue live air, hounded Last Line: To praise lovelong the living and the brown dead Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island); Home AS JOHN TO PATMOS AT THE END OF THIS LINE THERE IS AN OPENING DOOR Last Line: And folds this page over with a whitening wave AWAKING TO GRATITUDE IN THIS GENEROUS EDEN Last Line: Like white wings at coole, the beat of his clapping swans BAMBOO STANDS READY First Line: The bamboo stands ready as an army with its plumed banners Last Line: Of history, every object we named was not the correct noun BANYAN TREE, OLD YEAR'S NIGHT First Line: In the damp park, no larger than a stamp BEACHHEAD First Line: I come up to a break BECUNE POINT Poem Text First Line: Stunned heat of noon. In shade, tan, silken cows Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) BLEECKER STREET, SUMMER First Line: Summer for prose and lemons, for nakedness and langour Last Line: And laugh and dry your damp flesh if you came BLUES Poem Text First Line: Those five or six young guys Subject(s): Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians BLUES First Line: Those five or six young guys Last Line: About love. If it's so tough, %forget it Subject(s): Blues (music); Jazz; Music And Musicians BOUNTY II First Line: I cannot remember the name of that seacoast city Last Line: D.W. This place is good to die in. It really was BOUNTY: 1 First Line: Between the vision of the tourist board and the true Last Line: I behold their industry and they are giants Subject(s): Mothers BOUNTY: 2 First Line: There on the beach, in the desert, lies the dark well Last Line: Of cavalry under your cloak; come on now, enough Subject(s): Mothers BOUNTY: 3 First Line: Bounty! %in the bells of tree-frogs with their steady clamour Last Line: I showed her my first elegy, her husband's, and then her own Subject(s): Mothers BOUNTY: 4 First Line: But can she or can she not read this? Can you read this Last Line: But never your faith in the bounty which is his word Subject(s): Mothers BOUNTY: 5 First Line: All of these waves crepitate from the culture of ovid Last Line: Not stars or falling embers, not meteors, but tears BOUNTY: 6 First Line: The mango trees serenely rust when they are in flower Last Line: For good: wind shines white stones and the shallows' voices BOUNTY: 7 First Line: In spring, after the bear's self-burial, the stuttering Last Line: To the blackbird that hasn't forgotten her because it sings BRISE MARINE First Line: K with quick laughter, honey skin and hair CASTAWAY First Line: The starved eye devours the seascape for the morsel %of a sail CASTLE IN THE OLIVES First Line: I crossed my meridian. Rust terraces, olive trees CENTRAL AMERICA First Line: Helicopters are cutlassing the wild bananas Last Line: There is no distinction in these distances CHE First Line: In this dark-grained news photograph, whose glare CITY'S DEATH BY FIRE First Line: After that hot gospeller had levelled all but the Last Line: Blessing the death and the baptism by fire CLOUD First Line: And, laterally Last Line: And, as it moved, he named it tenderness Subject(s): Bible; Religion CODICIL Poem Text First Line: Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles, Subject(s): Writing & Writers CODICIL First Line: Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles Last Line: All its indifferenc is a different rage COLD SPRING HARBOR First Line: From feather-stuffed bolsters of cloud CORAL First Line: This coral's shape echoes the hand CRUSOE'S ISLAND Poem Text First Line: The chapel's cowbell / like god's anvil Subject(s): Saint Lucia, West Indies CRUSOE'S ISLAND First Line: The chapel's cowbell %like god's anvil Last Line: Can bless them as the bell's %transfiguring tongue can bless Subject(s): Saint Lucia, West Indies CRUSOE'S JOURNAL First Line: Once we have driven past mundo nuevo trace safely to this beach house CUL DE SAC VALLEY First Line: A panel of sunrise DARK AUGUST First Line: So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky DOWN SHORTCUTS First Line: Down shortcuts like wounds in the hills, into estate kitchens Last Line: Wake, cloaked by the sea-wind on my own coast again EARLY POMPEIAN First Line: In the first years, when your hair %was parted severely in the pompeian style EASTER First Line: Anna, my daughter %you have a black dog EGYPT, TOBAGO First Line: There is a shattered plain %on this fierce shore ELEGY First Line: Our hammock swung between americas ELSEWHERE First Line: Somewhere a white horse gallops with its mane ENDINGS First Line: Things do not explode EULOGY TO W. H. AUDEN Poem Text First Line: Assuredly, that fissured face Last Line: Shine with the wake that gives the / craftsman the gift of peace Subject(s): Auden, Wystan Hugh (1907-1973); Poetry & Poets EULOGY TO W. H. AUDEN First Line: Assuredly, that fissured face Last Line: Shine with the wake that gives the %craftsman the gift of peace Subject(s): Auden, Wystan Hugh (1907-1973); Poetry And Poets EUROPA Poem Text First Line: The full moon is so fierce that I can count the Subject(s): Mythology - Classical EUROPA First Line: The full moon is so fierce that I can count the Last Line: Like drops still quivering on his matted hide, %the hooves and horn-points anagrammed in stars Subject(s): Mythology - Classical FAR CRY FROM AFRICA First Line: A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Last Line: How can I face such slaughter and be cool? %how can I turn from africa and live Subject(s): Africa; African Americans - History; Ancestors And Ancestry FEEL OF THE VILLAGE First Line: The feel of the village in the afternoon heat, a torpor Last Line: Is nothing, and it is this nothingness that makes it great Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) FIST First Line: The fist clenched round my heart Last Line: Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live Subject(s): Love FIST CLENCHED ROUND MY HEART' FLOCK First Line: The grip of winter tightening, its thinned FOR ADRIAN; APRIL 14, 1986 First Line: Look, and you will see that the furniture is fading Last Line: As if his closing grave were the smile of the earth FOR THE ALTARPIECE OF THE ROSEAU VALLEY CHURCH, SAINT LUCIA Poem Text First Line: The chapel, as the pivot of this valley Subject(s): Churches; Saint Lucia (caribbean Island); Cathedrals FOR THE ALTARPIECE OF THE ROSEAU VALLEY CHURCH, SAINT LUCIA First Line: The chapel, as the pivot of this valley Last Line: The real faces of angels Subject(s): Churches; Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) FOREST OF EUROPE First Line: The last leaves fell like notes from a piano FORTUNATE TRAVELLER First Line: It was in winter. Steeples, spires Last Line: The leather-helmed locust FREDERIKSTED, DUSK First Line: Sunset, the cheapest of all picture-shows FRENCH COLONIAL. 'VERS DE SOCIETE.' First Line: I cannot look a veteran in the eye FROM THIS FAR First Line: The white almonds of a statue stare GLORY TRUMPETER First Line: Old eddie's face, wrinkled with river lights Last Line: For my own uncle in america, %that living there I never could look up Subject(s): African Americans - Song And Music; Jazz; Music And Musicians GOATS AND MONKEYS First Line: The owl's torches gutter. Chaos clouds the globe GOD REST YE MERRY GENTLEMEN First Line: Splitting from jack delaney's, sheridan square Last Line: The night was white. There was nowhere to hide GOD REST YE MERRY, GENTLEMAN: PART II First Line: Every street corner is christmas eve GREAT BURSTS OF EXALTATION First Line: Great bursts of exaltation crest the white breaker Last Line: To the cuatros of christmas, the orange tree against the blue hill GREENWICH VILLAGE, WINTER First Line: A book is a life, and this Last Line: Black footprints in the frightening snow GROS-ILET Poem Text First Line: From this village, soaked like a grey rag in salt water Last Line: The sea grapes bitter, the language is that of slaves. Subject(s): Slavery; Serfs GULF First Line: The airport coffee tastes less of america Last Line: Age after age, the uninstructing dead Subject(s): Air Travel; Texas; United States GUYANA First Line: The surveyor straightens from his theodolite HARBOUR First Line: The fishermen rowing homeward in the dusk HOMAGE TO EDWARD THOMAS Poem Text First Line: Formal, informal, by a country's cast Subject(s): Thomas, Edward (1878-1917) HOMAGE TO EDWARD THOMAS First Line: Formal, informal, by a country's cast Last Line: Harden in their indifference, like this elm. Subject(s): Thomas, Edward (1878-1917) HOMECOMING: 1 Poem Text First Line: My country heart, I am not home till sesenne sings Subject(s): Homecoming; Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) HOMECOMING: 1 First Line: My country heart, I am not home till sesenne sings Last Line: And the names of rivers whose bridges I used to know Subject(s): Homecoming; Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) HOMECOMING: 2 First Line: The blades of the olenader were rattling like green knives Last Line: Endured in their silence the dividing wind Subject(s): Homecoming; Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) HOMECOMING: 3 Poem Text First Line: When the violin whines its question and the banjo answers Subject(s): Homecoming; Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) HOMECOMING: 3 First Line: When the violin whines its question and the banjo answers Last Line: But my love of both wide as the atlantic is large Subject(s): Homecoming; Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) HOMECOMING: ANSE LA RAYE First Line: Whatever else we learned %at school, like solemn afro-greeks eager for grades HOMER IN THE UNDERGROUND First Line: In scorched summer light, from the circle of charing cross HOTEL NORMANDIE POOL First Line: Around the cold pool in the metal light Last Line: The fruit bat swings on its branch, a tongueless bell Subject(s): Blacks - History; Holidays; Middle Age; New Year HURUCAN First Line: Once branching light startles the hair of coconuts I AM CONSIDERING A SYNTAX THE COLOUR OF SLATE Last Line: I am considering a world without stars and opposites. When I SAW STONES First Line: I saw stones that shone with stoniness, I saw thorns Last Line: Silver and bountiful in the slow afternoon IF THESE WERE ISLANDS MADE FROM MYTHOLOGIES WHERE Last Line: Of the aegean, and the aegean of reversible seas IN A GREEN LIGHT, SELS. IN LATE-AFTERNNON LIGHT THE TOPS OF THE BREADFRUIT LEAVES First Line: In late-afternoon light the tops of the breadfruit leaves Last Line: Green and red lights droning where stars and fireflies breed Subject(s): Saint Lucia, West Indies IN LATE-AFTERNOON LIGHT THE TOPS OF THE BREADFRUIT LEAVES Poem Text First Line: In late-afternoon light the tops of the breadfruit leaves Last Line: Rooster crossing a yard blazes like a satrap Subject(s): Landscape IN MY EIGHTEENTH YEAR Poem Text First Line: Having measured the years today by the calendar Last Line: Shine from the perverse beauty of the dead Subject(s): Time; Teenagers IN THE VILLAGE Poem Text First Line: I came up out of the subway and there were Subject(s): New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple ISLANDS First Line: Merely to name them is the prose Last Line: Patience though it seems a waste IT DEPENDS First Line: It depends on how you look at the cream church on the cliff Last Line: Has lilt that lengthens 'the road' and makes it ireland's IT IS LOW TIDE Poem Text First Line: It is low tide, so the reef evolves into islands Last Line: But from its shacks and their fishnets these lines were made Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) IT IS LOW TIDE First Line: It is low tide, so the reef evolves into islands Last Line: But from its shacks and their fishnets these lines were made Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 1 Poem Text First Line: On the bright road to rome, beyond mantua Last Line: Because it is truth. Your polars spin in the sun Subject(s): Italy; Italians ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 1 First Line: On the bright road to rome, beyond mantua Last Line: Because it is truth. Your poplars spin in the sun Subject(s): Italy ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 2 Poem Text First Line: Whir of a pigeon's wings outside a wooden window Last Line: Of a book and stands at the end of perspective, waiting for me Subject(s): Italy; Italians ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 2 First Line: Whir of a pigeon's wings outside a wooden window Last Line: Of a book, and stands at the end of perspective, waiting for me Subject(s): Italy ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 3 Poem Text First Line: In this landscape of vines and hills you carried a theme Last Line: Into a coin that the fog's fingers rub together Subject(s): Italy; Italians ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 3 First Line: In this landscape of vines and hills you carried a theme Last Line: Into a coin that the fog's fingers rub together Subject(s): Italy ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 4 Poem Text First Line: The foam out on the sparkling strait muttering montale Last Line: To dissolve in a fiction greater than our lives, the sea, the un Subject(s): Italy; Italians ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 4 First Line: The foam out on the sparkling strait muttering montale Last Line: To dissolve in a fiction greater than our lives, the sea, the sun Subject(s): Italy ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 5 Poem Text First Line: My colonnade of cedars between whose arches the ocean Last Line: That your speck widens with elation, a dot that soars Subject(s): Italy; Italians ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 5 First Line: My colonnade of cedars between whose arches the ocean Last Line: That your speck widens with elation, a dot that soars Subject(s): Italy ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 6 Poem Text First Line: Now evening after evening after evening Subject(s): Italy; Italians ITALIAN ECLOGUES: 6 First Line: Now evening after evening after evening Last Line: Your voice, through the dark reeds of lines that shine with life Subject(s): Italy JEAN RHYS First Line: In their faint photographs KOENIG OF THE RIVER First Line: Koenig knew now there was no one on the river LAMPFALL First Line: Closest at lampfall %like children, like the moth-flame metaphor LANDFALL, GRENADA First Line: Where you are rigidly anchored LATIN PRIMER First Line: I had nothing against which LAVENTILLE (FOR V.S. NAIPAUL) First Line: It huddled here LESSON FOR THIS SUNDAY First Line: The growing idleness of summer grass LETTER FROM BROOKLYN First Line: An old lady writes me in a spidery style Last Line: So this old lady writes, and again I believe, %I believe it all, and for no man's death I grieve Subject(s): Fathers LETTER FROM THE OLD GUARD First Line: From a palm-stirred province in the antilles LETTER TO A PAINTER IN ENGLAND Poem Text First Line: Where you rot under the strict gray industry Last Line: That would inform the blind world of its flesh Subject(s): Paintings & Painters; Letters; Seasons; West Indies LIBERATOR First Line: In a blue bar at the crossroads, before you turn LIGHT OF THE WORLD First Line: Marley was rocking on the transport's stereo Subject(s): Marley, Robert Nesta (bob) (1945-1981) LIMITS AND FREEDOM First Line: The imagination wants its limits and delights in its limits. It finds Last Line: Its freedom in the definition of those limits LOVE AFTER LOVE Poem Text First Line: The time will come Subject(s): Food & Eating; Drinks & Drinking; Self-love; Wine LOVE AFTER LOVE First Line: The time will come Last Line: Sit. Feast on your life LOVE IN THE VALLEY First Line: The sun goes slowly blind MAN WHO LOVED ISLANDS; A TWO PAGE OUTLINE First Line: A man is leaning on a cold iron rail MAP OF EUROPE First Line: Like leonardo's idea Last Line: To see things as they are, halved by a darkness %from which they cannot shift MAP OF THE NEW WORLD: 1. ARCHIPELAGOES First Line: At the end of this sentence, rain will begin MARINA TSVETAEVA Poem Text First Line: Newspapers aged in an armchair, the sofa drowsed Last Line: Bellows your paper's stationary sails Subject(s): Tsvetayeva, Marina (1892-1941) MARINA TSVETAEVA First Line: Newspapers aged in an armchair, the sofa drowsed Subject(s): Tsvetayeva, Marina (1892-1941) MASS MAN First Line: Through a great lion's head clouded by mange MENELAUS First Line: Wood smoke smudges the sea Last Line: Under me, crusted in coral, %towers pass, and a small sea-horse MIDLSUMMER: XXXI First Line: Along cape cod, salt crannies of white harbors Last Line: Snow, mixed with steam, blurring the thought of islands MIDSUMMER 54 First Line: The midsummer sea, the hot pitch road, this grass, these shacks Last Line: The grateful grass will grow thick from his heart Subject(s): Summer MIDSUMMER, TOBAGO Poem Text First Line: Broad sun-stoned beaches Subject(s): Time MIDSUMMER, TOBAGO First Line: Broad sun-stoned beaches Last Line: Days that outgrow, like daughters, %my harbouring arms Subject(s): Time MIDSUMMER: 11 First Line: My double, tired of morning, closes the door MIDSUMMER: 14 First Line: With the frenzy of an old snake shedding its skin MIDSUMMER: 15 First Line: I can sense it coming from far, too, maman, the ride MIDSUMMER: 18 First Line: In the other 'eighties, a hundred midsummers gone MIDSUMMER: 19 First Line: On the quays of pappete, the dawdling white-ducked colonists Variant Title(s): Gaugi MIDSUMMER: 2 Poem Text First Line: Companion in rome, whom rome makes an old rome Last Line: Silver legions of mackerel race through our catacombs Subject(s): Rome, Italy; Summer MIDSUMMER: 2 First Line: Companion in rome, whom rome makes as old as rome MIDSUMMER: 20. WATTEAU First Line: The amber spray of trees feather-brushed with the dusk MIDSUMMER: 21. WATTEA First Line: A long, white, summer cloud, like a cleared linen table MIDSUMMER: 23 First Line: With the stampeding hiss and scurry of green lemmings MIDSUMMER: 25 First Line: The sun has fired my face to terra-cotta MIDSUMMER: 26 First Line: Before that thundercloud breaks from its hawsers MIDSUMMER: 27 Poem Text First Line: Certain things here are quietly american Subject(s): West Indies; Caribbean Islands MIDSUMMER: 27 First Line: Certain things here are quietly american Last Line: The quality of the dirt, the fealty changing under my foot Subject(s): West Indies MIDSUMMER: 28 First Line: Something primal in our spine makes the child swing MIDSUMMER: 3 Poem Text First Line: At the queen's park hotel, with its white, high-ceilinged rooms Last Line: A breeze strolls down to the docks, and the sea begins Subject(s): Hotels; Summer; Inns; Innskeepers; Motels; Boarding Houses MIDSUMMER: 3 First Line: At the queen's park hotel, with its white, high-ceilinged rooms Last Line: A breeze strolls down to the docks, and the sea begins Subject(s): Hotels MIDSUMMER: 30 First Line: Gold dung and urinous straw from the horse garages Last Line: Then jerks the reins of his brass-handled hearse MIDSUMMER: 33 First Line: Those grooves in that forehead of sand-coloured flesh MIDSUMMER: 35 First Line: Mid. Clods. The sucking heel of the rain-flinger MIDSUMMER: 36 Poem Text First Line: The oak inns creak in their joints as light declines Subject(s): Environment; Hotels; Trees; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation; Inns; Innskeepers; Motels; Boarding Houses MIDSUMMER: 36 First Line: The oak inns creak in their joints as light declines Last Line: Of shallow or silence in their fading garden Subject(s): Environment; Hotels; Trees MIDSUMMER: 38 First Line: The camps held their distance of brown chestnuts and grey smoke Last Line: Since this century's pastorals were already written %at auschwitz, buchenwald, at dachau, at sachsen Subject(s): Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Jews MIDSUMMER: 39 First Line: The grey english road hissed emptily under the tires MIDSUMMER: 4 Poem Text First Line: This spanish port, piractical in deverseness Last Line: The plaza's cracked by the jungle's furious seed Subject(s): Africa; Summer MIDSUMMER: 41 First Line: The camps hold their distance - brown chestnuts and grey smoke MIDSUMMER: 43. TROPIC ZONE First Line: A white dory, face down, its rusted keel staining MIDSUMMER: 44 First Line: A wind-scraped headland, a sludy, dishwater sea MIDSUMMER: 5 Poem Text First Line: The hemispheres lie sweating, flesh to flesh Last Line: Rolls his bullets like beads. Glued to his own transistor Subject(s): Summer; New York City; Hamptons, New York MIDSUMMER: 50 First Line: I once gave my daughters, separately, two conch shells MIDSUMMER: 51 First Line: Since all of your work was really an effort to appease MIDSUMMER: 52 First Line: I heard them marching the leaf-wet roads of my head MIDSUMMER: 53 First Line: There was one syrian, with his bicycle, in our town MIDSUMMER: 54 Poem Text First Line: The midsummer sea, the hot pitch road, this grass, these shacks Subject(s): Summer MIDSUMMER: 6 First Line: Midsummer stretches beside me with its cat's yawn Variant Title(s): Port Of Spai MIDSUMMER: 7 First Line: Our houses are one step from the gutter. Plastic curtains MIMI, THE NEAR-SUICIDE First Line: Somebody told her she had sad, interesting eyes MISSING THE SEA First Line: Something removed roars in the ears of this house Last Line: Incredulous, expecting occupancy MORNING MOON First Line: Still haunted by the cycle of the moon NAMES First Line: My race began as the sea began NEARING FORTY First Line: Insomniac since four, hearing this narrow NEGATIVES First Line: A news clip; the invasion of biafra NEVER GET USED TO THIS Poem Text First Line: Never get used to this: the feathery, swaying casuarinas Subject(s): Home; Nostalgia NEVER GET USED TO THIS First Line: Never get used to this: the feathery, swaying casuarinas Last Line: The yachts studying their reflections in black glass Subject(s): Home; Nostalgia NEVER PLOTTED, NEVER PROVIDED WITH THEIR PROPER METRE Last Line: Is as fresh as the salt wind that comes off its lines NEW CREATURES First Line: New creatures ease from earth, nostrils nibbling air Last Line: Over the headland's sphinx, for balance and justice NEW WORLD First Line: Then after eden %was there one surprise? NIGHT FISHING First Line: Line, trawl for each word NIGHTS IN THE GARDENS OF PORT OF SPAIN Poem Text First Line: Night, our black summer, simplifies her smells Subject(s): Trinidad And Tobago NIGHTS IN THE GARDENS OF PORT OF SPAIN First Line: Night, our black summer, simplifies her smells Last Line: As daylight breaks the coolie turns his tumbril %of hacked, beheaded coconuts towards home Subject(s): Trinidad And Tobago NN A GREEN NIGHT First Line: The orange tree, in various light NORTH AND SOUTH First Line: Now, at the rising of venus - the steady star NOT THE HORNED HEAD First Line: Not the horned head, the beaked visor, the threshing vans Last Line: Only a flute in the head, the note of a ground-dove calling OCEANO NOX First Line: What sort of moon will float up through the almonds ODDJOB, A BULL TERRIER First Line: You prepare for one sorrow OLD NEW ENGLAND First Line: Black clippers, tarred with whales' blood, fold their sails OMEROS, SELS. ORIENT AND IMMORTAL WHEAT First Line: Nature seemed monstrous to his thirteen years ORIGINS Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The flowering breaker detonates its surf] Subject(s): Columbus, Christopher (1451-1506); America - Exploration ORIGINS First Line: The flowering breaker detonates the surf OVER COLORADO Poem Text First Line: When whitman's beard unrolled like the pacific Last Line: Painting your leaves of grass Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Whitman, Walt (1819-1891) OVER COLORADO First Line: When whitman's beard unrolled like the pacific Last Line: Or why I see only this %through those democratic vistas %parting your leaves of grass Subject(s): Poetry And Poets; Whitman, Walt (1819-1891) PARADES, PARADES First Line: There's the wide desert, but no one marches PARANG First Line: Man, I suck me tooth when I hear PARANG: 1. CHRISTMAS EVE Poem Text First Line: Can you genuinely claim these, and do they reclaim you Last Line: Or tears that glint on night's face for every island Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) PARANG: 1. CHRISTMAS EVE First Line: Can you genuinely claim these, and do they reclaim you Last Line: Or tears that glint on night's face for every island Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) PARANG: 2 Poem Text First Line: Days change, the sunlight goes, then it returns, and wearily Last Line: That elate dissolution which goes beyond happiness Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) PARANG: 2 First Line: Days change, the sunlight goes, then it returns, and wearily Last Line: That elate dissolution which goes beyond happiness Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) PARANG: 3 Poem Text First Line: Remember childhood? Remember a faraway rain Last Line: Of la divina pastora, and a life of incredible errors Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) PARANG: 3 First Line: Remember childhood? Remember a faraway rain Last Line: Of la divina pastora, and a life of incredible errors Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) PENTECOST First Line: Better a jungle in the head PHRASES OF A PATOIS ROOTED IN THIS CLAY HILLSIDE Last Line: Then the dead, even in their silence, may still be breathing PIANO PRACTICE First Line: April, in another fortnight, metropolitan april POCOMANIA First Line: De shepherd shrieves in egyptian light POETRY AND PRAYER First Line: There are some things people avoid saying in interviews because Last Line: Lieving it is a vocation, a religious vocation POLISH RIDER First Line: The grey horse, death, in profile bears the young titus Last Line: The immortal image holds its murderer %in a clear gaze for the next age to read POLONAISE First Line: Acres of synonymous lights, black battery cells PRAISE TO THE RAIN Poem Text First Line: Praise to the rain, eraser ofr picnics, praise the grey cloud Subject(s): Rain PRAISE TO THE RAIN First Line: Praise to the rain, eraser ofr picnics, praise the grey cloud Last Line: Of the peaks of power, princes, and mountain slopes Subject(s): Rain PREPARING FOR EXILE First Line: Why do I imagine the death of mandelstam PRIVATE JOURNAL Poem Text First Line: We started from places that saw no gay carracks wrecked Last Line: Freedom from, not of, thought Subject(s): Schools; Childhood Memories PROPERTIUS QUARTET First Line: Sextus propertius saw his charred cynthia rise RETURN TO D'ENNERY; RAIN First Line: Imprisoned in these wires of rain, I watch RIVERS First Line: They roll as deaf as logs through foliage swollen Last Line: Deaths that cannot discolour the great sea ROMAN PEACE First Line: Declining fast as the leaves in germania's forest ROSEAU VALLEY First Line: A shoveful of blackbirds RUINS OF A GREAT HOUSE First Line: Stones only, the disjecta membra of this great house Last Line: As well as if a manor of thy friend's SABBATHS, W.I. First Line: Those villages stricken with the melancholia of sunday SADDHU OF COUVA First Line: When sunset, a brass gong %vibrate through couva SAFE CONDUCT First Line: Rilke was whirled into heaven SAINE LUCIE First Line: Laborie, choiseul, vieuxfort, dennery %from these sun-bleached villages SAINT LUCIA'S FIRST COMMUNION First Line: At dusk, on the edge of the asphalt's worn-out ribbon SALSA First Line: The morro has one eye, a slit SANTA ANA CRUZ QUARTET: 1 First Line: Races, in this rich valley, inevitably took root Last Line: Their history dimmed and vanished into fiction Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) SANTA ANA CRUZ QUARTET: 2 First Line: Let these lines shine like the rain's wires through santa cruz Last Line: And my peace in the place for whatever time is allowed Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) SANTA ANA CRUZ QUARTET: 3 First Line: The junction. Divina pastora. Napkin clouds over jean's Last Line: Into the myth of a heaven that gradually pardons Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) SANTA ANA CRUZ QUARTET: 4 First Line: Stand on the star-riddled lawn, then, its iron wet Last Line: Hidden under small clouds whose shadows predict their shapes Subject(s): Saint Lucia (caribbean Island) SCHOONER FLIGHT First Line: In idle august, while the sea soft Last Line: Shabine sang to you from the depths of the sea Subject(s): Sea Voyages; West Indies SEA CANES Poem Text First Line: Half my friends are dead Subject(s): Death; Dead, The SEA CANES First Line: Half my friends are dead Last Line: Brings those we love before us, as they were, %with faults and all, not nobler, just there Subject(s): Death SEA GRAPES First Line: That sail which leans on light SEA IS HISTORY First Line: Where are your monuments, your battles, your martyrs? Last Line: Like a rumour without any echo %of history, really beginning SEA SHOULD HAVE SETTLED HIM, BUT ITS NOISE IS NO HELP Last Line: And shawled women watching the fading of the stars SEA-CHANTEY First Line: Anguilla, adina %antigua, cannelles Last Line: The amen of calm waters Subject(s): West Indies SEASHELL First Line: This seashell is an ocean cove Last Line: Of the sea are really true SEASON OF PHANTASMAL PEACE First Line: Then all the nations of birds lifted together Last Line: But, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long Subject(s): Birds SELF PORTRAIT First Line: The loneliness of van gogh SHE RETURNS TO HER ROLE AS A SEAGULL. THE WIND Last Line: Than the years when she spread her wings wide for his pen SIGNS: 1 First Line: Europe fulfilled its silhouette in the nineteenth century Last Line: To the smoke that plumes from distant chimney stacks SIGNS: 2 First Line: Far from streets seething like novels with the century's sorrow Last Line: That are streaked with soot in wet cobbles and eaves SIGNS: 3 First Line: The cobbles huddle like shorn heads, gables are leaning Last Line: That forbade graven images makes indifferent sense SIGNS: 4 First Line: That cloud was europe, dissolving past the thorn branches Last Line: Walls riddled with bullet-holes that, like cotton-wool, close SIX FICTIONS: 1 First Line: This is the first fiction: the biblical plague of dragonflies Last Line: Grenade-eyed and dragonish; neither science nor fiction SIX FICTIONS: 2 First Line: He believed the pain of exile would have passed Last Line: Remembering the hills of the island as it gets dark SIX FICTIONS: 3 First Line: He carried his tenebrous thoughts in and out of shadows Last Line: Then a small crowd of hopping, opening vultures and the speckled hyenas SIX FICTIONS: 4 First Line: He endured a purgatorial november, but one Last Line: Behind fences, the fog thicken, but beyond them was the good island SIX FICTIONS: 5 First Line: He could hear the dogs in the distance, and their baying Last Line: And kind dogs came to the gate jostling for his voice SIX FICTIONS: 6/MANET IN MARTINIQUE First Line: The teak plant was as stiff as rubber near the iron railing Last Line: Unsheathed from her marble foot, a red satin slipper SPAIN 3. READNG MACHADO Poem Text First Line: The barren frangipani branches uncurl their sweet threat Last Line: All inferences, all echoes, associations Subject(s): Machado, Antonio (1875-1939) SPAIN: 1 Poem Text First Line: Near our ochre pastures with real bulls, your clay one Last Line: Along iron gorges whose springs glitter like knives Subject(s): Spain SPAIN: 1 First Line: Near our ochre pastures with real bulls, your clay one Last Line: Along iron gorges whose springs glitter like knives Subject(s): Spain SPAIN: 2. GRANADA Poem Text First Line: Red earth and raw, the olive clumps olive and silver Last Line: From the cypresses, the mountains, the olives turning silver? Subject(s): Granada, Spain; Olive Trees And Olives SPAIN: 2. GRANADA First Line: Red earth and raw, the olive clumps olive and silver Last Line: From the cypresses, the mountains, the olives turning silver Subject(s): Granada, Spain; Olive Trees And Olives SPAIN: 3. READING MACHADO First Line: The barren frangipani branches uncurl their sweet threat Last Line: All inferences, all echoes, associations SPAIN: 4 Poem Text First Line: Storks, ravens, cranes, what do these disparate auguries mean Last Line: From nerve-strings and arteries, and cloud-pages close in amen Subject(s): Spain SPAIN: 4 First Line: Storks, ravens, cranes, what do these disparate auguries mean Last Line: From nerve-strings and arteries, and cloud-pages close in amen Subject(s): Spain SPOILER'S RETURN First Line: I sit high on this bridge in lventille STAR First Line: If, in the light of things, you fade Last Line: With the passion of %plain day STAR-APPLE KINGDOM First Line: There were still shards of an ancient pastoral STEAM First Line: Shawled women shoosh black rooks from a STORM FIGURE First Line: The nineteenth century, like a hurricane lamp STREAMS First Line: Whenever the sunlit rain SUBLIME ALWAYS BEGINS WITH CHAORD 'AND I SAW' Last Line: Let it be written: the dark days also I have praised SUMMER ELEGIES: 1 First Line: Cynthia, the things we did SUMMER ELEGIES: 2 First Line: Nothing hurts so much as the word 'california.' SUNDAY IN THE OLD REPUBLIC First Line: Where a cathedral shows SUNDAY LEMONS First Line: Desolate lemons, hold SUNDAYS First Line: This is fame: sundays Variant Title(s): Fam SWAMP First Line: Gnawing the highway's edges, its black mouth TALES OF THE ISLAND: 1. LA RIVIERE DOREE First Line: The marl white road, the doree rushing cool Last Line: Rolled in the spray as I strolled upon the beach TALES OF THE ISLAND: 10. 'ADIEU FOULARD.' First Line: I watched the island narrowing the fine Last Line: When we set sail down at seawell it had rained TALES OF THE ISLAND: 2. 'QU'UN SANG IMPUR.' First Line: Cosimo de chretien controlled a boardinghouse Last Line: Peering from balconies for his tragic twist TALES OF THE ISLAND: 3. LA BELLE QUI FUT First Line: Miss rossingol lived in the lazaretto Last Line: Whose pride had paupered beauty to this witch %who was so fine once, whose were so soft TALES OF THE ISLAND: 4. 'DANCE OF DEATH.' First Line: Outside I said, 'he's a damned epileptic.' Last Line: Don't worry, kid, the wages of sin is birth TALES OF THE ISLAND: 5. 'MOEURS ANCIENNES.' First Line: The fete took place one morning in the heights Last Line: Great stuff, old boy; sacrifice, moments of truth TALES OF THE ISLAND: 6 First Line: Poopa, da' was a fete! I mean it had Last Line: But that was long before this jump and jive TALES OF THE ISLAND: 7. LOTUS EATER First Line: Maingot,' the fisherman called the pool blocked by Last Line: He shook himself. Must breed, drink, rot with motion TALES OF THE ISLAND: 8 First Line: In the hotel miranda, 10 grass st., who fought %the falangists Last Line: Above the children's street cries, a girl plays %a marching song not often sung these days TALES OF THE ISLAND: 9. 'LE LOUPGAROU.' First Line: A curious tale that threaded through the town Last Line: With blood back to its doorstep, almost dead TARPON First Line: At cedros, thudding the dead sand THANKSGIVING First Line: Miraculous as when a small cloud of cabbage-whites Last Line: On my island road, the sea's scales stuttering in the sun THE ALMOND TREES Poem Text First Line: There's nothing here / this early Subject(s): Environment; Trees; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation THE BOUNTY: 1 Poem Text First Line: Between the vision of the tourist board and the true Subject(s): Mothers THE BOUNTY: 2 Poem Text First Line: There on the beach, in the desert, lies the dark well Subject(s): Mothers THE BOUNTY: 3 Poem Text First Line: Bounty! / in the bells of tree-frogs with their steady clamour Subject(s): Mothers THE BOUNTY: 4 Poem Text First Line: But can she or can she not read this? Can you read this Subject(s): Mothers THE FISHERMEN ROWING HOWEWARD Poem Text First Line: The fishermen rowing homeward in the dusk Last Line: Hearing small rumors of paddlers drowned near stars Subject(s): Fish & Fishing THE FIST Poem Text First Line: The fist clenched round my heart Subject(s): Love THE GLORY TRUMPETER Poem Text First Line: Old eddie's face, wrinkled with river lights Subject(s): African Americans - Song And Music; Jazz; Music & Musicians THE GULF Poem Text First Line: The airport coffee tastes less of america Subject(s): Air Travel; Texas; United States; America THE HOTEL NORMANDIE POOL Poem Text First Line: Around the cold pool in the metal light Subject(s): Blacks - History; Holidays; Middle Age; New Year THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD Poem Text First Line: Marley was rocking on the transport's stereo Subject(s): Marley, Robert Nesta (bob) (1945-1981) THE LIGHTHOUSE Poem Text First Line: Under his photographer's shroud Last Line: Uncontradictable truth. Subject(s): Lighthouses THE SCHOONER FLIGHT Poem Text First Line: In idle august, while the sea soft Subject(s): Sea Voyages; West Indies; Caribbean Islands THE SEASON OF PHANTASMAL PEACE Poem Text First Line: Then all the nations of birds lifted together Subject(s): Birds THEN, AS IF THE EARTH'S WICK WERE BEING LOWERED Last Line: Where you stand like an exclamation on a page of white ground THERE IS NOTHING EXCEPT THE SUN AT THE END OF THE STREET Last Line: Of its wings and vanishes across the wild garden THESE LINES THAT I WRITE NOW, THAT LACK SALT AND MOTION First Line: These lines that I write now, that lack salt and motion Last Line: At the wide and chafing foam-fringed altar-cloth THREE MAGICIANS First Line: Once christmas coming TO NORLINE First Line: This beach will remain empty TO RECEDE LIKE A SNAIL First Line: To recede like a snail flattening its enquiring horns Last Line: As spray shatters against an indifferent boulder TO RETURN TO THE TREES First Line: Senex, an oak %senex, this old sea-almond TOMORROW, TOMORROW First Line: I remember the cities I have never seen TWO POEMS ON THE PASSING OF AN EMPIRE: 1 First Line: A heron flies across the morning marsh and brakes TWO POEMS ON THE PASSING OF AN EMPIRE: 2 First Line: In the small coffin of his house, the pensioner UPSTATE Poem Text First Line: A knife blade of cold air keeps prying Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social; Estrangement; Outcasts UPSTATE First Line: A knife blade of cold air keeps prying Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social VERANDA First Line: Grey apparitions at veranda ends Last Line: In a child's coffin VI Poem Text First Line: Midsummer stretches beside me with its cat's yawn. Subject(s): City & Town Life VILLA RESTAURANT First Line: That terra-cotta waitress VILLAGE LIFE First Line: Through the wide, grey loft window VOLCANO Poem Text First Line: Joyce was afraid of thunder, Subject(s): Joyce, James (1882-1941); Death; Dead, The VOLCANO First Line: Joyce was afraid of thunder WALES First Line: Those white flecks cropping up the ridges of snowdon Subject(s): Wales WALK First Line: After hard rain the eaves repeat their beads WATTEAU Poem Text First Line: The amber spray of trees feather-brushed Last Line: An empty chair echoing the emptiness Subject(s): Watteau, Antoine (1684-1721) WATTEAU, SELS. First Line: Nothing stays green Last Line: Of elephantine vegetation in baudelaire Subject(s): Art And Artists; Paintings And Painters; Watteau, Antoine (1684-1721) WHAT IS THIS VIRULENCE First Line: What is this virulence that eats at the cloth of the altar Last Line: Which your red mouth is part of now, with its loud, easy laughter WHELK GATHERERS First Line: Since hairy nettle, forked mandrake, and malign WHITE MAGIC First Line: The gens-gagee kicks off her wrinkled skin WINDING UP First Line: I love on the water Last Line: And harder than what passes there for life WINTER LAMPS First Line: Are they earlier, these %days without afternoons XLII First Line: Chicago's avenues, as white as poland. Last Line: Who slaps the snow from his sides and turns away as, %in lance-like birches, the horde's ponies whin Variant Title(s): Midsummer: 4 YOUNG POETS First Line: I teach classes, and most of the young writers have never had any Last Line: Young poets, who are taught this as almost an american law YOUNG WIFE First Line: Make all your sorrow neat |
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