A Crowded Trolley-Car
The rain's cold grains are silver-gray
Sharp as golden sands,
A bell is clanging, people sway
Hanging by their hands.
Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff,
Snatch and catch and grope;
That face is yellow-pale, as if
The fellow swung from rope.
Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives,
Glances strike and glare,
Fingers tangle, Bluebeard's wives
Dangle by the hair.
Orchard of the strangest fruits
Hanging from the skies;
Brothers, yet insensate brutes
Who fear each other's eyes.
One man stands as free men stand,
As if his soul might be
Brave, unbroken; see his hand
Nailed to an oaken tree.
poem by Elinor Morton Wylie
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Pre-Existence
I laid me down upon the shore
And dreamed a little space;
I heard the great waves break and roar;
The sun was on my face.
My idle hands and fingers brown
Played with the pebbles grey;
The waves came up, the waves went down,
Most thundering and gay.
The pebbles, they were smooth and round
And warm upon my hands,
Like little people I had found
Sitting among the sands.
The grains of sands so shining-small
Soft through my fingers ran;
The sun shone down upon it all,
And so my dream began:
How all of this had been before;
How ages far away
I lay on some forgotten shore
As here I lie to-day.
The waves came shining up the sands,
As here to-day they shine;
And in my pre-pelasgian hands
The sand was warm and fine.
I have forgotten whence I came,
Or what my home might be,
Or by what strange and savage name
I called that thundering sea.
I only know the sun shone down
As still it shines to-day,
And in my fingers long and brown
The little pebbles lay.
poem by Frances Darwin Cornford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Evening Song Of Senlin
from Senlin: A Biography
It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight,
Crash on a white sand shore.
It is moonlight. The garden is silent.
I stand in my room alone.
Across my wall, from the far-off moon,
A rain of fire is thrown . . .
There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under a sea:
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtain for me . . .
I wait in the dark once more,
Swung between space and space:
Before my mirror I lift my hands
And face my remembered face.
Is it I who stand in a question here,
Asking to know my name? . . .
It is I, yet I know not whither I go,
Nor why, nor whence I came.
It is I, who awoke at dawn
And arose and descended the stair,
Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun,—
In a woman's hands and hair.
It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones
I builded into a wall:
With a mournful melody in my brain
Of a tune I cannot recall . . .
There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss;
And the sharp-pained shadow of death.
I remember a rain-drop on my cheek,—
A wind like a fragrant breath . . .
And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven;
And the heavens are dark and steep . . .
I will forget these things once more
In the silence of sleep.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sugarfoot
Sugarfoots got two hands
Just as long as he can see
One hand in the birdfeed
And a hand in the apple tree
He stands in line, just a little behind
A yellow moon that hangs
Hes all tangled and he broke his sticks on the links
Of his own chain gang
You oughta see this home that he own
Its like a box of jewelry
Hes got his own church bell
And his bed it lays in a gallery
And all the colors they shine like flames
Coming in through the window pane
They end up getting checked over twice
For the reds of someones veins
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
He stands alone on the top of his home
Where all the blue birds flown
Sucks in on his cheeks and he cries
As he moans through a saxophone
He reaches high with his hands in the sky
And puts his fingers right into the storm
Always one to stand under the moon
And blow on his own horn
And anyone with anything has already begun to think
That somebody down there knows
Just how he sat down on his knees in the dirt
And buried someones rainbow
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
Well, I know you aint my enemy
The only ones inside of me
Hes killing me getting free
I hear he wants my head with an old ice pick
And fix me up on a stick
And all Ive ever got to be
Is everything I wanna be
And sugarfoot disagrees
He still stands tall underneath that apple tree
Man, hes still watching me
His chain gang is tryin to pull me down
Like the birds and the fireflies
They shoot arrows up into the skies
And they burn all the feathers dry
Well, he only wants to fill his belly up
With rocks till it hurts, then he stops
Well, he dont know what to do with love
If it dont fill his belly to the top
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
song performed by by Wallflowers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Sugarfoot
Sugarfoots got two hands
Just as long as he can see
One hand in the birdfeed
And a hand in the apple tree
He stands in line, just a little behind
A yellow moon that hangs
Hes all tangled and he broke his sticks on the links
Of his own chain gang
You oughta see this home that he own
Its like a box of jewelry
Hes got his own church bell
And his bed it lays in a gallery
And all the colors they shine like flames
Coming in through the window pane
They end up getting checked over twice
For the reds of someones veins
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
He stands alone on the top of his home
Where all the blue birds flown
Sucks in on his cheeks and he cries
As he moans through a saxophone
He reaches high with his hands in the sky
And puts his fingers right into the storm
Always one to stand under the moon
And blow on his own horn
And anyone with anything has already begun to think
That somebody down there knows
Just how he sat down on his knees in the dirt
And buried someones rainbow
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
Well, I know you aint my enemy
The only ones inside of me
Hes killing me getting free
I hear he wants my head with an old ice pick
And fix me up on a stick
And all Ive ever got to be
Is everything I wanna be
And sugarfoot disagrees
He still stands tall underneath that apple tree
Man, hes still watching me
His chain gang is tryin to pull me down
Like the birds and the fireflies
They shoot arrows up into the skies
And they burn all the feathers dry
Well, he only wants to fill his belly up
With rocks till it hurts, then he stops
Well, he dont know what to do with love
If it dont fill his belly to the top
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
Its so cold and blown all apart
Its so cold and needing of a heart
song performed by by Wallflowers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
But She Knew
But I know
she said
that you love me
and you were sitting
by the pond
you with that cheap fishing rod
which caught nothing
and she sitting there
her hands over her knees
gazing at the still surface
even if you don’t
say it often
she added
laying her chin
on her knees
her green skirt
just above her knees
and you caught
a glimpse of her thighs
where the skirt rose up
I do you love
you said
holding the rod
between hands
it’s just I don’t see the need
to keep on saying it
you added
stretching your eyes
to go as far
as they could
to get a better look
and she said
why do you come here
to fish when you catch
nothing except a cold
in the neck
and stiff joints
and do you want a smoke?
She pulled out
a pack of cigarettes
and you let a hand free
from the rod
and took one
and she put one
between her lips
and lit it with a pink
plastic lighter
then lit yours
and you both
inhaled and exhaled
the smoke rising
over the pond
seeming to sit there
in the still air
and she said
between drags
I do know you love me
I can feel it
in my bones
and in my tingling
flesh at night
as I lay abed
and you thought
of that image
knowing her mother
would be about
the house
with her stern features
and sharp tongue
and beady eyes
but the image was good
you thought
sitting there beside her
in silence
with the drifting smoke
over the pond
and her hand
touching you
and the sky
turning from
dull grey
to a soft blue.
poem by Terry Collett
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Spring Pastoral
Liza, go steep your long white hands
In the cool waters of that spring
Which bubbles up through shiny sands
The colour of a wild-dove's wing.
Dabble your hands, and steep them well
Until those nails are pearly white
Now rosier than a laurel bell;
Then come to me at candlelight.
Lay your cold hands across my brows,
And I shall sleep, and I shall dream
Of silver-pointed willow boughs
Dipping their fingers in a stream.
poem by Elinor Morton Wylie
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Medusa
I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, -- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.
When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.
This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.
The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.
And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.
poem by Louise Bogan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Hanging Garden
Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In the hanging garden
Please don't speak
In the hanging garden
No one sleeps
In the hanging garden
In the hanging garden
Catching haloes on the moon
Gives my hands the shapes of angels
In the heat of the night
The animals scream
In the heat of the night
Walking into a dream . . .
Fall fall fall fall
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals cry
In the hanging garden
In the hanging garden
Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In a hanging garden
Change the past
In a hanging garden
Wearing furs
And masks
Fall fall fall fall
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals die
In the hanging garden
As the animals die
Cover my face as the animals die
In the hanging garden
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Planting A Sequoia
All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
And the sky above us stayed the dull gray
Of an old year coming to an end.
In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son's birth--
An olive or a fig tree--a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.
I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my father's orchard,
A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs,
A promise of new fruit in other autumns.
But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,
Defying the practical custom of our fathers,
Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant's birth cord,
All that remains above earth of a first-born son,
A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.
We will give you what we can--our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.
And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,
Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,
His mother's beauty ashes in the air,
I want you to stand among strangers, all young and emphemeral to you,
Silently keeping the secret of your birth.
poem by Dana Gioia
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Dreamed.... (Hands)
i dreamed last night...
and all i could see were hands.
sometimes hard and calloused,
sometimes soft and feminine.
skilled hands, laborer's hands,
loving hands, nurturing hands....
fingers digging in the dirt,
fingers holding a pen.
fingers playing a piano,
fingers unbuttoning blouses.
hands extended, hands gripping the rope,
hands holding the shovel,
hands covered with resin.
hands folded in prayer,
hands balled into fists.
hands stuffed in empty pockets.
hands that define both history,
and destiny!
hands scarred and bruised,
hands covered with age spots.
hands that speak many languages.
hands that know mistakes, and failures.
hands that built fires,
hands that put fires out!
hands that wiped away tears,
that picked up trash,
and revealed souls....
whose hands?
my hands, your hands?
god's hands?
does it really matter?
hands engaged and involved,
in the very act of living!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Hanging Tree 2
The children play around the tree
Unbeknown to them of their fate to be
If the where to commit an ungodly crime
They would meet their end at a premature time
They play around the hanging tree
Where they strung up the man the say murdered three
The man’s soul could never truly die
When his death was caused by such a lie
They play around the hanging tree
Where I wait for my love still breathing to join me
So at my place of death I will stay
As I await that faithful day
They play around the hanging tree
Where I watch over her and save her for only me
But when she could finally bear it no more
She spilt her own blood upon the floor
They play around the hanging tree
Hoping that we will one day be free
To leave this world for the heavens above
To live a life purely of love
They play around the handing tree
Were a guilty conscience sets us free
The guilty one confessed to ending the life
Then took his own with a knife
poem by My Stolen Identity
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
All in a Hot and Copper Sky
Grilled golden grains glance through his restless hands,
strong suntanned fingers straining sandy rain.
Stranded on a strip of ocean land,
he lonely lingers. Glances once again
from his castaway kingdom’s salty strand,
where he remains in solitary reign
over seagulls banking on the sand
and mosquito clouds which whine, complain,
from morn till night amid the palm tree bands
which food and drink provide to ease his pain.
The cloudless compass round, on every hand,
north, south, east, west, his anxious eye has panned.
He scans the coral sea from sky to land,
stands screening, once again, the sun steeped main.
While distant sea lanes still he spans in vain,
the visions echo through his aching brain.
poem by Jonathan Robin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Motherhood
She sat on a shelf,
her breasts two bellies
on her poked-out belly,
on which the navel looked
like a sucked-in mouth—
her knees bent and apart,
her long left arm raised,
with the large hand knuckled
to a bar in the ceiling—
her right hand clamping
the skinny infant to her chest—
its round, pale, new,
soft muzzle hunting
in the brown hair for a nipple,
its splayed, tiny hand picking
at her naked, dirty ear.
Twisting its little neck,
with tortured, ecstatic eyes
the size of lentils, it looked
into her severe, close-set,
solemn eyes, that beneath bald
eyelids glared—dull lights
in sockets of leather.
She twitched some chin-hairs,
with pain or pleasure,
as the baby-mouth found and
yanked at her nipple;
its pink-nailed, jointless
fingers, wandering her face,
tangled in the tufts
of her cliffy brows.
She brought her big
hand down from the bar
with pretended exasperation
unfastened the little hand,
and locked it within her palm—
while her right hand
with snag-nailed forefinger
and short, sharp thumb, raked
the new orange hair
of the infant’s skinny flank—
and found a louse,
which she lipped, and
thoughtfully crisped
between broad teeth.
She wrinkled appreciative
nostrils which, without a nose,
stood open—damp holes
above the poke of her mouth.
She licked her lips, flicked
her leather eyelids—
then, suddenly flung
up both arms and grabbed
the bars overhead.
The baby‘s scrabbly fingers
instantly caught the hair—
as if there were metal rings there—
in her long, stretched armpits.
And, as she stately swung,
and then proudly, more swiftly
slung herself from corner
to corner of her cell—
arms longer than her round
body, short knees bent—
her little wild-haired,
poke-mouthed infant hung,
like some sort of trophy,
or decoration, or shaggy medal—
shaped like herself—but new,
clean, soft and shining
on her chest.
poem by May Swenson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Unbroken
(holly lamar, annie roboff)
How I ever lived and breathed before you loved me, I dont recall
If I walked around at all, it was in bits and pieces
Of a jagged heart
You kissed me and every piece went back in place, every pain got erased
You held me up to the light
No one ever left me out in the rain
Cold words still remain unspoken
And I never got lost, spent years in the dark
Youre here, now my hearts unbroken
When I see your smile fill my soul again
Im unbroken
If I doubted the power of love, baby now I understand
I thank God for every day I wake up to the soft touch
Of your magic hands
In this world sometimes the only thing thats real is the way you make me feel
Babe, the changes day and night
I swear its life
No one ever left me out in the rain
Cold words still remain unspoken
And I never got lost, spent years in the dark
Youre here, now my hearts unbroken
When I see your smile fill my soul again
Im unbroken
I still see the night, I fell into your eyes
And when we made love it felt like the first time
No one ever left me out in the rain
Cold words still remain unspoken
And I never got lost, spent years in the dark
Youre here, now my hearts unbroken
When I see your smile fill my soul again
Im unbroken
When I see your smile fill my soul again
Im unbroken
Im unbroken, oh yeah
Im unbroken
No one ever left me out in the rain
Cold words still remain unspoken
And I never got lost, spent years in the dark
Youre here, now my hearts unbroken
When I see your smile fill my soul again
Im unbroken
song performed by by Tim McGraw
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Chagrin
Caught still as Absalom,
Surely the air hangs
From the swayless cloud-boughs
Like hair of Absalom
Caught and hanging still.
From the imagined weight
Of spaces in a sky
Of mute chagrin my thoughts
Hang like branch-clung hair
To trunks of silence swung,
With the choked soul weighing down
Into thick emptiness.
Christ, end this hanging death,
For endlessness hangs therefrom !
Invisibly branches break
From invisible trees:
The cloud-woods where we rush
(Our eyes holding so much),
Which we must ride dim ages round
Ere the hands (we dream) can touch,
We ride, we ride-before the morning
The secret roots of the sun to tread-
And suddenly
We are lifted of all we know,
And hang from implacable boughs.
poem by Isaac Rosenberg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ballade of Summer's Sleep
Sweet summer is gone; they have laid her away-
The last sad hours that were touched with her grace-
In the hush where the ghosts of the dead flowers play;
The sleep that is sweet of her slumbering space
Let not a sight or a sound erase
Of the woe that hath fallen on all the lands:
Gather, ye dreams, to her sunny face,
Shadow her head with your golden hands.
The woods that are golden and red for a day
Girdle the hills in a jewelled case,
Like a girl's strange mirth, ere the quick death slay
The beautiful life that he hath in chase.
Darker and darker the shadows pace
Out of the north to the southern sands,
Ushers bearing the winter's mace:
Keep them away with your woven hands.
The yellow light lies on the wide wastes gray,
More bitter and cold than the winds that race,
From the skirts of the autumn, tearing away,
This way and that way, the woodland lace.
In the autumn's cheek is a hectic trace;
Behind her the ghost of the winter stands;
Sweet summer will moan in her soft gray place:
Mantle her head with your glowing hands.
Envoi.
Till the slayer be slain and the spring displace
The might of his arms with her rose-crowned bands,
Let her heart not gather a dream that is base:
Shadow her head with your golden hands.
poem by Archibald Lampman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Hanging Tree
are you are you coming to the tree
where they strung up a man they say
strange things did happen here
no stranger would it be
if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree
are you are you coming to the tree
where the dead called out for his love to flee
strange things did happen here
no stranger would it be
if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree
are you are you coming to the tree
where i told you to run so we'd both be free
strange things did hapen here
no stranger would it be
if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree
are you are you coming to the tree
wear a necklace of rope
side by side with me
strange things did happen here
no stranger would it be
if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree
poem by Jackson Idk
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Lover's Libation Pours Into A Silver Lake
A lover's libation pours into a silver lake
More silver than metal, it freezes into a mirror
Unscathed by human flesh, no impure hands doth take
The water of love, its purity streaming pure
Many lady like angels appear with eyes of gray
With skin pale, pale by the shadows of solitude
Whose hair is golden bright, like the sun of day
Dressing their bodies; exposed and delightfully nude
They peer into the mirror and see their lover's death
His yielding love, thy laugh and art gay
For his life he gives to their sweeten angelic breath
To live in his maiden's immortal, and in their beauty play
The wealthy cadence of love in their eyes of gray
Wert his love now hides and in them he now stay…..
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Jump (The Velvet Rope)
Some people get lucky
Born with a silver spoon
Other people got to work real hard
A whole life of paying dues
One man got a big old house
Fast car and swimming pool
Another man got a big old wife
Ten kids and one bathroom
[PRE-CHORUS]
Sometimes
We're just stuck
Behind
The velvet rope [x2]
[CHORUS]
You gotta jump up so high
Jump up jump over the rope
You gotta jump up so high
Jump up jump the rope
Some people get lucky
Take a chance to strike it rich
Other people wll they bet it all lose
Ain't life a bitch
One man's on the guest list
Arrives in a limousine
Another man got to stand on line
Outside in the pouring rain
[BRIDGE]
We got the world on a string
Wrapped around our fingers
We got everything we need
We don't need a thing
There ain't no rope that can hold us
Nothing keeps us down
There ain't a rope that can bind us
We're gonna jump up off the ground
song performed by by Seven And The Sun from Lee Ann Womack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Hanging from a Blood Soaked Tree
Hanging from a Blood Soaked Tree
By: Adam M. Snow
One morn as under a great tree I lay,
Misery held me in its pain-filled sway.
I dreamt of a life where I wasn't numb,
Sleepwalking my way toward the dusk to come.
I felt sweat drops that I thought were rain,
And opening my eyes, saw a man hung in pain.
His feet were crossed and his arms stretched wide;
I could see no life in this man. Had he died?
Arose a voice from the blood soaked tree,
'I died for you so that you are free.'
I sat there stunned in my ignorant sleep,
My curiosity teased by a tree that speaks.
I lingered in repose, knowing not what was said;
Clinging to the echoing voice in my head-
'I did this for you.'
With eyes of blue-
He wept.
His head was pierced with thorns claw-like,
And each hand was nailed by a rusty spike.
He calls to me by my name,
I couldn't help it but show my shame.
Words arose from his lips,
As his blood still drips.
His voice so dear,
So pure, so clear;
Spoken once more-
His voice was dear as it said to me,
'I died for you so that you are free.'
There then rose a light, blinding as the morn;
'Fear not, ' he said 'For I am reborn'
'Behold, ' he said, 'My blood is made pure,
I am not dead, I am dying's cure! '
His voice drew near, and whispered he:
'I died for you so that you are free.'
poem by Adam M. Snow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!