A Story At Dusk
An evening all aglow with summer light And autumn colour-fairest of the year. The wheat-fields, crowned with shocks of tawny gold, All interspersed with rough sowthistle roots, And interlaced with white convolvulus, Lay, flecked with purple shadows, in the sun. The shouts of little children, gleaning there The scattered ears and wild blue-bottle flowers- […]
A Sigh In The Night
O sweet darkness, still, and calm, and lonely! Spread thy downy pinions round about. Spare me from thy hidden riches only One dream-face; blot all the others out. Bring him now, for thou hast power to free him, From that ugly garb he wears by day; Bring him now-my darling!-let me see him Ere […]
A Sermon
Midsummer, 1867. We have heard many sermons, you and I, And many more may hear, When sitting quiet in cathedral nave, With folded palms and faces meek and grave;- But few like this one, dear. We ofttimes watch together ‘fore the veil, With reverent, gleaming eyes, While priestly hands are busy with the folds,- […]
A Prayer
Spirit and Breath of Life, whate’er Thy name! Bear with Thy creature, Man, That makes his dwelling-place a blot of shame Upon the Ordered Plan. Not Thy hand, O Divine Designer, hurled Athwart the starlit skies One blood-stained, greed-diseased, hate-eaten world, To shock celestial eyes. Not Thy default, O Beautiful, this crust Of fratricidal […]
A Dream Of Venice
Numb, half asleep, and dazed with whirl of wheels, And gasp of steam, and measured clank of chains, I heard a blithe voice break a sudden pause, Ringing familiarly through the lamp-lit night, “Wife, here’s your Venice!” I was lifted down, And gazed about in stupid wonderment, Holding my little Katie by the hand- […]
Water Strider
Water-Strider by Aaron Baker Though winged, he walks on water. Skates between elements, skitters like thought through the cattails. A snake slips unseen through the underbrush. The forest shifts and sighs, once again won’t speak its secret. Between the trees, my father glides through sunlight, then shadow. Surface tension: the strider rows forward with middle […]
The Infernal Regions
The Infernal Regions by Aaron Baker Relax. No more the thinness of ceremony. Largemouth bass at the bottom of Kapowsin Lake grow still as his thoughts. No swish and silt, no father and flail. And once perfectly still, they grow even stiller. Nothing’s wasted, says the Lord of the Underworld. Stillness is economy, and economy […]
Honeycomb
Honeycomb by Aaron Baker Here is the dream where dust, gathered and blowing over the field, turns suddenly against the wind and moves with the shape of a body. Here the shape of a body forms and reforms as it crosses the sky, and then you hear it, the hum of the swarm, the resurrection […]
Dark Matter
Dark Matter by Aaron Baker We say the heart is sick, meaning something else. But when we say the body is broken, and it is, the poem, like a great engine long given up to the weather, begins to move. Outside, fireweed among the ruins. We’ve known the seed of failure in action, how […]
Wet City Night
Wet City Night by A. S. J. Tessimond Light drunkenly reels into shadow; Blurs, slurs uneasily; Slides off the eyeballs: The segments shatter. Tree-branches cut arc-light in ragged Fluttering wet strips. The cup of the sky-sign is filled too full; It slushes wine over. The street-lamps dance a tarentella And zigzag down the street: They […]
Unlyric Love Song
Unlyric Love Song by A. S. J. Tessimond It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and […]
Tube Station
Tube Station by A. S. J. Tessimond The tube lift mounts, sap in a stem, And blossoms its load, a black, untidy rose. The fountain of the escalator curls at the crest, breaks and scatters A winnow of men, a sickle of dark spray. Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems: External links […]
To Be Blind
To Be Blind by A. S. J. Tessimond Is it sounds converging, Sounds nearing, Infringement, impingement, Impact, contact With surfaces of the sounds Or surfaces without the sounds: Diagrams, skeletal, strange? Is it winds curling round invisible corners? Polyphony of perfumes? Antennae discovering an axis, erecting the architecture of a world? Is it orchestration of […]
The Man In The Bowler Hat
The Man In The Bowler Hat by A. S. J. Tessimond I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man: The man who sat on your right in the morning train: The man who looked through like a windowpane: The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting Morning pipe smoke. I […]
the_children_look_at_the_parents.html
The Children Look At The Parents by A. S. J. Tessimond We being so hidden from those who Have quietly borne and fed us, How can we answer civilly Their innocent invitations? How can we say “we see you As but-for-God’s-grace-ourselves, as Our caricatures (we yours), with Time’s telescope between us”? How can we say […]
The British
The British by A. S. J. Tessimond We are a people living in shells and moving Crablike; reticent, awkward, deeply suspicious; Watching the world from a corner of half-closed eyelids, Afraid lest someone show that he hates or loves us, Afraid lest someone weep in the railway train. We are coiled and clenched like a […]
symphony_in_red.html
Symphony In Red by A. S. J. Tessimond Within the church The solemn priests advance, And the sunlight, stained by the heavy windows, Dyes a yet richer red the scarlet banners And the scarlet robes of the young boys that bear them, And the thoughts of one of these are far away, With carmined lips […]
seaport.html
Seaport by A. S. J. Tessimond Green sea-tarnished copper And sea-tarnished gold Of cupolas. Sea-runnelled streets Channelled by salt air That wears the white stone. The sunlight-filled cistern Of a dry-dock. Square shadows. Sun-slatted smoke above meticulous stooping of cranes. Water pressed up by ships’ prows Going, coming. City dust turned Back by the sea-wind’s […]
sea.html
Sea by A. S. J. Tessimond 1 (Windless Summer) Between the glass panes of the sea are pressed Patterns of fronds, and the bronze tracks of fishes. 2 (Winter) Foam-ropes lasso the seal-black shiny rocks, Noosing, slipping and noosing again for ever. 3 (Windy Summer) Over-sea going, under returning, meet And make a wheel, a […]
quickstep.html
Quickstep by A. S. J. Tessimond Acknowledge the drum’s whisper. Yield to its velvet Nudge. Cut a slow air- Curve. Then dip (hip to hip): Sway, swing, pedantically Poise. Now recover, Converting the coda To prelude of sway-swing- Recover. Acknowledge The drum-crack’s alacrity; Acrid exactitude – Catch it, then slacken, Then catch as cat catches […]
polyphony_in_a_cathedral.html
Polyphony In A Cathedral by A. S. J. Tessimond Music curls In the stone shells Of the arches, and rings Their stone bells. Music lips Each cold groove Of parabolas’ laced Warp and woof, And lingers round nodes Of the ribbed roof Chords open Their flowers among The stone flowers; blossom; Stalkless hang. Poetry Monster […]
one_almost_might.html
One Almost Might by A. S. J. Tessimond Wouldn’t you say, Wouldn’t you say: one day, With a little more time or a little more patience, one might Disentangle for separate, deliberate, slow delight One of the moment’s hundred strands, unfray Beginnings from endings, this from that, survey Say a square inch of the ground […]
nursery_rhyme_for_a_twenty_first_birthday.html
Nursery Rhyme For A Twenty-First Birthday by A. S. J. Tessimond You cannot see the walls that divide your hand From his or hers or mine when you think you touch it. You cannot see the walls because they are glass, And glass is nothing until you try to pass it. Beat on it if […]
not_love_perhaps.html
Not Love Perhaps by A. S. J. Tessimond This is not Love, perhaps, Love that lays down its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, But something written in lighter ink, said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own. A need, at times, to be together and talk, And then […]
night_piece.html
Night Piece by A. S. J. Tessimond Climb, claim your shelf-room, far Packed from inquisitive moon And cold contagious stars. Lean out, but look no longer, No further, than to stir Night with extended finger. Now fill the box with light, Flood full the shining block, Masonry against night. Let window, curtain, blind Soft-sieve and […]
never.html
Never by A. S. J. Tessimond Suddenly, desperately I thought, “No, never In millions of minutes Can I for one second Calm-leaving my own self Like clothes on a chair-back And quietly opening The door of one house (No, not one of all millions) Of blood, flesh and brain, Climb the nerve-stair and look From […]
music.html
Music by A. S. J. Tessimond This shape without space, This pattern without stuff, This stream without dimension Surrounds us, flows through us, But leaves no mark. This message without meaning, These tears without eyes This laughter without lips Speaks to us but does not Disclose its clue. These waves without sea Surge over us, […]
meeting.html
Meeting by A. S. J. Tessimond Dogs take new friends abruptly and by smell, Cats’ meetings are neat, tactual, caressive. Monkeys exchange their fleas before they speak. Snakes, no doubt, coil by coil reach mutual knowledge. We then, at first encounter, should be silent; Not court the cortex but the epidermis; Not work from inside […]
last_word_to_childhood.html
Last Word To Childhood by A. S. J. Tessimond Ice-cold fear has slowly decreased As my bones have grown, my height increased. Though I shiver in snow of dreams, I shall never Freeze again in a noonday terror. I shall never break, my sinews crumble As God-the-headmaster’s fingers fumble At the other side of unopening […]
june_sick_room.html
June Sick Room by A. S. J. Tessimond The birds’ shrill fluting Beats on the pink blind, Pierces the pink blind At whose edge fumble the sun’s Fingers till one obtrudes And stirs the thick motes. The room is a close box of pink warmth. The minutes click. A man picks across the street With […]
houses.html
Houses by A. S. J. Tessimond People who are afraid of themselves Multiply themselves into families And so divide themselves And so become less afraid. People who might have to go out Into clanging strangers’ laughter, Crowd under roofs, make compacts To no more than smile at each other. People who might meet their own […]
flight_of_stairs.html
Flight Of Stairs by A. S. J. Tessimond Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their […]
epitaph_on_a_disturber_of_his_times.html
Epitaph On A Disturber Of His Times by A. S. J. Tessimond We expected the violin’s finger on the upturned nerve; Its importunate cry, too laxly curved: And you drew us an oboe-outline, clean and acute; Unadorned statement, accurately carved. We expected the screen, the background for reverie Which cloudforms usefully weave: And you built […]
epitaph_for_our_children.html
Epitaph For Our Children by A. S. J. Tessimond Blame us for these who were cradled and rocked in our chaos; Watching our sidelong watching, fearing our fear; Playing their blind-man’s-bluff in our gutted mansions, Their follow-my-leader on a stair that ended in air. Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems: External links […]
cats.html
Cats by A. S. J. Tessimond Cats no less liquid than their shadows Offer no angles to the wind. They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes Less than themselves; will not be pinned To rules or routes for journeys; counter Attack with non-resistance; twist Enticing through the curving fingers And leave an angered empty fist. They […]
Attack On The Ad-Man
Attack On The Ad-Man by A. S. J. Tessimond This trumpeter of nothingness, employed To keep our reason dull and null and void. This man of wind and froth and flux will sell The wares of any who reward him well. Praising whatever he is paid to praise, He hunts for ever-newer, smarter ways […]
Wind on the Hill by A. A. Milne
Wind on the Hill by A. A. Milne No one can tell me, Nobody knows, Where the wind comes from, Where the wind goes. It’s flying from somewhere As fast as it can, I couldn’t keep up with it, Not if I ran. But if I stopped holding The string of my kite, It would […]
Us Two by AA Milne
Us Two by A. A. Milne Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh, There’s always Pooh and Me. Whatever I do, he wants to do, “Where are you going today?” says Pooh: “Well, that’s very odd ‘cos I was too. Let’s go together,” says Pooh, says he. “Let’s go together,” says Pooh. “What’s twice eleven?” I […]
twinkletoes.html
Twinkletoes by A. A. Milne When the sun Shines through the leaves of the apple-tree, When the sun Makes shadows of the leaves of the apple-tree, Then I pass On the grass From one leaf to another, From one leaf to its brother, Tip-toe, tip-toe! Here I go! Read all poems by A.A. Milne AA […]
The Morning Walk
The Morning Walk by A. A. Milne When Anne and I go out a walk, We hold each other’s hand and talk Of all the things we mean to do When Anne and I are forty-two. And when we’ve thought about a thing, Like bowling hoops or bicycling, Or falling down on Anne’s balloon, […]