Another Song
by Philip Levine
Words go on travelling from voice
to voice while the phones are still
and the wires hum in the cold. Now
and then dark winter birds settle
slowly on the crossbars, where huddled
they caw out their loneliness. Except
for them the March world is white
and barely alive. The train to Providence
moans somewhere near the end
of town, and the churning of metal
on metal from so many miles away
is only a high thin note trilling
the frozen air. Years ago I lived
not far from here, grown to fat
and austerity, a man who came
closely shaven to breakfast and ate
in silence and left punctually, alone,
for work. So it was I saw it all
and turned away to where snow
fell into snow and the wind spoke
in the incomprehensible syllable
of wind, and I could be anyone:
a man whose life lay open before him,
a book with no ending, a widow
bearing white carnations at dusk
to a hillside graveyard turned
to blank rubble, a cinder floating
down to earth and blinking slowly out,
too small to mean a thing, too tired
to even sigh. If life comes back,
as we are told it does, each time one
step closer to the edge of truth,
then I am ready for the dawn
that calls a sullen boy from sleep
rubbing his eyes on a white window
and knowing none of it can last the day.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Verses Left by Mr. Pope poem – Alexander Pope
- Why Did I Laugh Tonight? No Voice Will Tell poem – John Keats poems
- And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time by William Blake
- Evenèn, An’ Maidens Out At Door by William Barnes
- Ode poem – Amr ibn Kulthum poems | Poems and Poetry
- Never Give All The Heart by William Butler Yeats
- Advice to the Ladies by William Somervile
- An Elegy poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Олег Григорьев – Увязался М. за Ж.
- Николай Заболоцкий – Жена
- Омар Хайям – Если жизнь все равно неизбежно пройдет
- The 9th Inning poem – Ygor Noblott poems | Poetry Monster
- Whispers of Heavenly Death. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Маяковский – Сердитый дядя
- Николай Огарев – Расстались мы
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
Philip Levine ( 1928 – 2015) was an American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for more than thirty years in the English department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He served on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets from 2000 to 2006, and was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012