Poems Done On A Late Night Car
I. CHICKENS
I am The Great White Way of the city:
When you ask what is my desire, I answer:
"Girls fresh as country wild flowers,
With young faces tired of the cows and barns,
Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries,
Slender supple girls with shapely legs,
Lure in the arch of their little shoulders
And wisdom from the prairies to cry only softly at
the ashes of my mysteries."
II. USED UP
Lines based on certain regrets that come with rumination
upon the painted faces of women on
North Clark Street, Chicago
Roses,
Red roses,
Crushed
In the rain and wind
Like mouths of women
Beaten by the fists of
Men using them.
O little roses
And broken leaves
And petal wisps:
You that so flung your crimson
To the sun
Only yesterday.
III. HOME
Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry
in the darkness.
poem by Carl Sandburg
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Related quotes
Innocence blood
Country, beauty fills it
Home of mother nature
With all the Creature
The voices of children
Is the music of the roses
A child's smile
It is the roses sunlight
A child's laughter
Is nature's patter
Colorful faces
Is the City's rainbow
Now it is country, ugly fills it
Home of a mother warrior
With all the war
The screaming for help
is The Crying of the roses
A child's frown
Is the roses crown
A child's weeping
Is nature's sleeping
Pale faces
Is the City's clouds
Innocence blood
What they have done?
poem by michelle al G
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Solace
There was a rose that faded young;
I saw its shattered beauty hung
Upon a broken stem.
I heard them say, "What need to care
With roses budding everywhere?"
I did not answer them.
There was a bird, brought down to die;
They said, "A hundred fill the sky-
What reason to be sad?"
There was a girl, whose lover fled;
I did not wait, the while they said,
"There's many another lad."
poem by Dorothy Parker
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Harbury
All the men of Harbury go down to the sea in ships,
The wind upon their faces, the salt upon their lips.
The little boys of Harbury when they are laid to sleep,
Dream of masts and cabins and the wonders of the deep.
The women-folk of Harbury have eyes like the sea,
Wide with watching wonder, deep with mystery.
I met a woman: "Beyond the bar," she said,
"Beyond the shallow water where the green lines spread,
"Out beyond the sand-bar and the white spray,
My three sons wait for the Judgment Day."
I saw an old man who goes to sea no more,
Watch from morn till evening down on the shore.
"The sea's a hard mistress," the old man said;
"The sea is always hungry and never full fed.
"The sea had my father and took my son from me --
Sometimes I think I see them, walking on the sea!
"I'd like to be in Harbury on the Judgment Day,
When the word is spoken and the sea is wiped away,
"And all the drowned fisher boys, with sea-weed in their hair,
Rise and walk to Harbury to greet the women there.
"I'd like to be in Harbury to see the souls arise,
Son and mother hand in hand, lovers with glad eyes.
"I think there would be many who would turn and look with me,
Hoping for another glimpse of the cruel sea!
"They tell me that in Paradise the fields are green and still,
With pleasant flowers everywhere that all may take who will,
"And four great rivers flowing from out the Throne of God
That no one ever drowns in and souls may cross dry-shod.
"I think among those wonders there will be men like me,
Who miss the old salt danger of the singing sea.
"For in my heart, like some old shell, inland, safe and dry,
Any one who harks will still hear the sea cry."
poem by Louise Driscoll
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Venus in the Garden
'Twas at early morning,
The dawn was blushing in her purple bed,
When in a sweet, embowered garden
She, the fairest of the goddesses,
The lovely Venus,
Roamed amongst the roses white and red.
She sought for flowers
To make a garland
For her golden head.
Snow-white roses, blood-red roses,
In that sweet garden close,
Offered incense to the goddess:
Both the white and the crimson rose.
White roses, red roses, blossoming:
But the fair Venus knew
The crimson roses had gained their hue
From the hearts that for love had bled;
And the goddess made a garland
Gathered from the roses red.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
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Winter Sunset
Roses in the sky,
Roses in the sea
Bowers of scarlet sky-roses
Take my heart and me.
God was good to make,
This December weather,
All this sky a rose-garden,
Rose and fire together.
To the East are burning
Roses in a garden,
Roses in a rosy field,
Hesper for their warden.
Yonder to the West
Roses all afire,
Mirror now some rare splendid
Rose of their desire.
Pulsing deeper, deeper,
Waves of fire throb on,
Never were such red roses
At sunset or dawn.
Roses on the hills,
Roses in the hollow,
Roses on the wet hedges,
In the shining fallow.
West wind, blow and blow!
That has blown ajar
Gates of God's great rose-garden,
Where His Angels are,
Gathering up the rose-leaves
For a shower of roses
On the night the Lord Babe
His sweet eye uncloses.
All the sky is scarlet
Flaming on the azure.
O, there's fire in Heaven
My heart aches with pleasure.
Leagues of rose and scarlet,
Roses red as blood:
All the world's a rose-garden.
God is good, is good.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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Our Hero
"Flowers, only flowers -- bring me dainty posies,
Blossoms for forgetfulness," that was all he said;
So we sacked our gardens, violets and roses,
Lilies white and bluebells laid we on his bed.
Soft his pale hands touched them, tenderly caressing;
Soft into his tired eyes came a little light;
Such a wistful love-look, gentle as a blessing;
There amid the flowers waited he the night.
"I would have you raise me; I can see the West then:
I would see the sun set once before I go."
So he lay a-gazing, seemed to be at rest then,
Quiet as a spirit in the golden glow.
So he lay a-watching rosy castles crumbling,
Moats of blinding amber, bastions of flame,
Rugged rifts of opal, crimson turrets tumbling;
So he lay a-dreaming till the shadows came.
"Open wide the window; there's a lark a-singing;
There's a glad lark singing in the evening sky.
How it's wild with rapture, radiantly winging:
Oh it's good to hear that when one has to die.
I am horror-haunted from the hell they found me;
I am battle-broken, all I want is rest.
Ah! It's good to die so, blossoms all around me,
And a kind lark singing in the golden West.
"Flowers, song and sunshine, just one thing is wanting,
Just the happy laughter of a little child."
So we brought our dearest, Doris all-enchanting;
Tenderly he kissed her; radiant he smiled.
"In the golden peace-time you will tell the story
How for you and yours, sweet, bitter deaths were ours. . . .
God bless little children!" So he passed to glory,
So we left him sleeping, still amid the flow'rs.
poem by Robert William Service
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On a Wet Day
As I walked thinking through a little grove,
Some girls that gathered flowers came passing me,
Saying -- "Look here! look there!" delightedly.
"O here it is!" "What's that?" "A lily? love!"
"And there are violets!"
"Farther for roses! O the lovely pets!
The darling beauties! O the nasty thorn!
Look here, my hand's all torn!"
"What's that that jumps?" "O don't! It's a grasshopper!"
"Come, run! come, run!
Here's bluebells!" "O what fun!"
"Not that way! Stop her!"
"Yes! this way!" Pluck them then!"
"O, I've found mushrooms! O look here!" "O, I'm
Quite sure that farther on we'll get wild thyme."
"O, we shall stay too long; it's going to rain;
There's lightning; O! there's thunder!"
"O shan't we hear the vesper bell? I wonder."
"Why, it's not nones, you silly little thing!
And don't you hear the nightingales that sing --
Fly away, O die away?"
"O, I hear something; hush!"
"Why, where? what is it then?" "Ah! in that bush."
So every girl here knocks it, shakes and shocks it:
Till with the stir they make
Out scurries a great snake.
"O Lord! O me! Alack! Ah me! Alack!"
They scream, and then all run and scream again,
And then in heavy drops comes down the rain.
Each running at the other in a fright,
Each trying to get before the other, and crying,
And flying, and stumbling, tumbling, wrong or right; --
One sets her knee
There where her foot should be;
One has her hands and dress
All smothered up with mud in a fine mess;
And one gets trampled on by two or three.
What's gathered is let fall
About the wood, and not picked up at all.
The wreaths of flowers are scattered on the ground,
And still as, screaming, hustling, without rest,
They run this way and that and round and round,
She thinks herself in luck who runs the best.
I stood quite still to have a perfect view,
And never noticed till I got wet through.
poem by Franco Sacchetti
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A Child's Fancy
"Hush, hush! Speak softly, Mother dear,
So that the daisies may not hear;
For when the stars begin to peep,
The pretty daisies go to sleep.
"See, Mother, round us on the lawn,
With soft white lashes closely drawn,
They've shut their eyes so golden-gay,
That looked up through the long, long day.
"But now they're tired of all the fun--
Of bees and birds, of wind and sun
Playing their game at hide-and-seek;--
Then very softly let us speak."
A myriad stars above the child
Looked down from heaven and sweetly smiled;
But not a star in all the skies
Beamed on him with his Mother's eyes.
She stroked his curly chestnut head,
And whispering very softly, said,
"I'd quite forgotten they might hear;
Thank you for that reminder, dear.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Girls vs. Women
Girls are insecure; Women are confident.
Girls dress trashy; Women dress classy.
Girls are students; Women are teachers.
Girls are listeners; Women are preachers.
Girls makes babies; Women raise babies.
Girls have sex; Women make love.
Girls are weak; Women are strong.
Girls fight; Women walk away.
Girls argue; Women speak.
Girls give in; Women compromise.
Girls envy. Women appreciate.
Girls give up. Women strive.
Girls look. Women see.
Girls take. Women give.
Girls follow; Women influence.
poem by Christina E. Brown
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Haunted In Old Japan
I
Music of the star-shine shimmering o’er the sea
Mirror me no longer in the dusk of memory:
Dim and white the rose-leaves drift along the shore
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
II
All along the purple creek, lit with silver foam,
Silent, silent voices, cry no more of home;
Soft beyond the cherry-trees, o’er the dim lagoon,
Dawns the crimson lantern of the large low moon.
III
We that loved in April, we that turned away
Laughing, ere the wood-dove crooned across the May,
Watch the withered rose-leaves drift along the shore.
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
IV
We that saw the winter waste the weeping bower,
We that saw the young love perish like a flower,
We that saw the dark eyes deepening with tears,
Hear the vanished voices in the land beyond the years.
V
We that hurt the thing we loved; we that went astray,
We that in the darkness idly dreamed of day . . .
. . . Ah! The dreary rose-leaves drift along the shore.
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
VI
Lonely starry faces, wonderful and white,
Yearning with a cry across the dim sweet night,
All our dreams are blown a-drift as flowers before a fan,
All our hearts are haunted in the heart of old Japan.
VII
Haunted, haunted, haunted; we that mocked and sinned
Hear the vanished voices wailing down the wind,
Watch the ruined rose-leaves drift along the shore;
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
VIII
We, the sons of reason, we that chose to bride
Knowledge and rejected the Dream that we denied,
We that mocked the Holy Ghost and chose the Son of Man, [1]
Now must wander haunted in the heart of old Japan
IX
Haunted, haunted, haunted, by the sound of falling tears,
Haunted, haunted, haunted, by the yearning of the years;
Ah! the phantom rose-leaves drift along the shore;
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
X
All along the purple creek, lit with silver foam,
Sobbing, sobbing voices, cry no more of home:
Soft beyond the cherry trees, o’er the dim lagoon,
Dawns the crimson lantern of the large, low moon.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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To Muriel: at the Opera
Roses and rose-buds, red and white,
Nestled between your breasts to-night,
And, lying there with drowsy breath,
Sweetly resigned themselves to death.
Ah, cruel child! that would not so
Suffer the perfumed life to go,
But, hungering for the rose's heart
Of midmost sweetness, plucked apart
Petal from petal: 'Ah!' you said
(With lips that kissed white roses red)
'To live on love and roses!'
Well,
But if the rose were Muriel?
poem by Arthur Symons
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The Painter on Silk
There was a man
Who made his living
By painting roses
Upon silk.
He sat in an upper chamber
And painted,
And the noises of the street
Meant nothing to him.
When he heard bugles, and fifes, and drums,
He thought of red, and yellow, and white roses
Bursting in the sunshine,
And smiled as he worked.
He thought only of roses,
And silk.
When he could get no more silk
He stopped painting
And only thought
Of roses.
The day the conquerors
Entered the city,
The old man
Lay dying.
He heard the bugles and drums,
And wished he could paint the roses
Bursting into sound.
poem by Amy Lowell
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The End
It is time for me to go, mother; I am going.
When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out
your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, "Baby is not
here!"-mother, I am going.
I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and
I shall be ripples in the water when you bathe, and kiss you and
kiss you again.
In the gusty night when the rain patters on the leaves you
will hear my whisper in your bed, and my laughter will flash with
the lightning through the open window into your room.
If you lie awake, thinking of your baby till late into the
night, I shall sing to you from the stars, "Sleep, mother, sleep."
One the straying moonbeams I shall steal over your bed, and
lie upon your bosom while you sleep.
I shall become a dream, and through the little opening of your
eyelids I shall slip into the depths of your sleep; and when you
wake up and look round startled, like a twinkling firefly I shall
flit out into the darkness.
When, on the great festival of puja, the neighbours' children
come and play about the house, I shall melt into the music of the
flute and throb in your heart all day.
Dear auntie will come with puja-presents and will ask,"Where
is our baby, sister?" Mother, you will tell her softly, "He is in
the pupils of my eyes, he is in my body and in my soul."
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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London Roses
'ROWSES, Rowses! Penny a bunch!' they tell you--
Slattern girls in Trafalgar, eager to sell you.
Roses, roses, red in the Kensington sun,
Holland Road, High Street, Bayswater, see you and smell you--
Roses of London town, red till the summer is done.
Roses, roses, locust and lilac, perfuming
West End, East End, wondrously budding and blooming
Out of the black earth, rubbed in a million hands,
Foot-trod, sweat-sour over and under, entombing
Highways of darkness, deep gutted with iron bands.
'Rowses, rowses! Penny a bunch!' they tell you,
Ruddy blooms of corruption, see you and smell you,
Born of stale earth, fallowed with squalor and tears--
North shire, south shire, none are like these, I tell you,
Roses of London perfumed with a thousand years.
poem by Willa Sibert Cather
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Cumulatives
Storms have beaten on this point of land
And ships gone to wreck here
and the passers-by remember it
with talk on the deck at night
as they near it.
Fists have beaten on the face of this old prize-fighter
And his battles have held the sporting pages
and on the street they indicate him with their
right fore-finger as one who once wore
a championship belt.
A hundred stories have been published and a thousand rumored
About why this tall dark man has divorced two beautiful
young women
And married a third who resembles the first two
and they shake their heads and say, "There he
goes,"
when he passes by in sunny weather or in rain
along the city streets.
poem by Carl Sandburg
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Roses In Madrid
Roses, Senors, roses!
Love is subtly hid
In the fragrant roses,
Blown in gay Madrid.
Roses, Senors, roses!
Look, look, look, and see
Love hanging in the roses,
Like a golden bee!
Ha! ha! shake the roses--
Hold a palm below;
Shake him from the roses,
Catch the vagrant so!
High I toss the roses
From my brown palm up;
Like the wine that bubbles
From a golden cup.
Catch the roses, Senors,
Light on finger tips;
He who buys red roses,
Dreams of crimson lips!
Tinkle! my fresh roses,
With the rare dews wet;
Clink! my crisp, red roses,
Like a castanet!
Roses, Senors, roses,
Come, Hidalgo, buy!
Proudly wait my roses
For thy rose's eye
Be thy rose as stately
As a pacing deer;
Worthy are my roses
To burn behind her ear.
Ha I ha! I can see thee,
Where the fountains foam,
Twining my red roses
In her golden comb!
Roses, Donnas, roses,
None so fresh as mine,
Pluck'd at rose of morning
By our Lady's shrine.
Those that first I gather'd
Laid I at her feet,
That is why my roses
Still are fresh and sweet.
Roses, Donnas, roses!
Roses waxen fair!
Acolytes my roses,
Censing ladies' pray'r!
Roses, roses, roses!
Hear the tawny bull
Thund'ring in the circus--
Buy your arms full.
Roses by the dozen!
Roses by the score!
Pelt the victor with them--
Bull or Toreador!
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Velvet Green
Walking on velvet green. scots pine growing.
Isnt it rare to be taking the air, singing.
Walking on velvet green.
Walking on velvet green. distant cows lowing.
Never a care: with your legs in the air, loving.
Walking on velvet green.
Wont you have my company, yes, take it in your hands.
Go down on velvet green, with a country man.
Whos a young girls fancy and an old maids dream.
Tell your mother that you walked all night on velvet green.
One dusky half-hours ride up to the north.
There lies your reputation and all that youre worth.
Where the scent of wild roses turns the milk to cream.
Tell your mother that you walked all night on velvet green.
And the long grass blows in the evening cool.
And augusts rare delight may be aprils fool.
But think not of that, my love,
Im tight against the seam.
And Im growing up to meet you down on velvet green.
Now I may tell you that its love and not just lust.
And if we live the lie, lets lie in trust.
On golden daffodils, to catch the silver stream
That washes out the wild oat seed on velvet green.
Well dream as lovers under the stars ---
Of civilizations raging afar.
And the ragged dawn breaks on your battle scars.
As you walk home cold and alone upon velvet green.
Walking on velvet green. scots pine growing.
Isnt it rare to be taking the air, singing.
Walking on velvet green.
Walking on velvet green. distant cows lowing.
Never a care: with your legs in the air, loving.
Walking on velvet green.
song performed by by Jethro Tull
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Over The Range
Little bush maiden, wondering-eyed,
Playing alone in the creek-bed dry,
In the small green flat on every side
Walled in by the Moonbi ranges high;
Tell me the tale of your lonely life
'Mid the great grey forests that know no change.
"I never have left my home," she said,
"I have never been over the Moonbi Range.
"Father and mother are long since dead,
And I live with granny in yon wee place."
"Where are your father and mother?" I said.
She puzzled awhile with thoughtful face,
Then a light came into the shy brown face,
And she smiled, for she thought the question strange
On a thing so certain -- "When people die
They go to the country over the range."
"And what is this country like, my lass?"
"There are blossoming trees and pretty flowers
And shining creeks where the golden grass
Is fresh and sweet from the summer showers.
They never need work, nor want, nor weep;
No troubles can come their hearts to estrange.
Some summer night I shall fall asleep,
And wake in the country over the range."
Child, you are wise in your simple trust,
For the wisest man knows no more than you.
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust:
Our views by a range are bounded too;
But we know that God hath this gift in store,
That, when we come to the final change,
We shall meet with our loved ones gone before
To the beautiful country over the range.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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I have heard the sunset song of the birches
"I have heard the sunset song of the birches,
A white melody in the silence,
I have seen a quarrel of the pines.
At nightfall
The little grasses have rushed by me
With the wind men.
These things have I lived," quoth the maniac,
"Possessing only eyes and ears.
But you --
You don green spectacles before you look at roses."
poem by Stephen Crane
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Blue Roses
Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love's delight.
She would none of all my posies--
Bade me gather her blue roses.
Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew.
Half the world unto my quest
Answered me with laugh and jest.
Home I came at wintertide,
But my silly love had died
Seeking with her latest breath
Roses from the arms of Death.
It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.
Mine was but an idle quest--
Roses white and red are best!
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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