Less Time poem – Andre Breton poems
Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I’ve taken account of everything, there you have it. I’ve made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and some others; I’ve distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to […]
Freedom of Love poem | L’Union Libre (Ma Femme) – Andre Breton poems
(Translated from the French by Edouard Rodti) My wife with the hair of a wood fire With the thoughts of heat lightning With the waist of an hourglass With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of […]
Le Verbe Etre poem – Andre Breton poems
Je connais le désespoir dans ses grandes lignes. Le désespoir n’a pas d’ailes, il ne se tient pas nécessairement à une table desservie sur une terrasse, le soir, au bord de la mer. C’est le désespoir et ce n’est pas le retour d’une quantité de petits faits comme des graines qui quittent à la […]
Five Ways To Kill A Man poem – Andre Breton poems
There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man. You can make him carry a plank of wood to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this properly you require a crowd of people wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and […]
Always for the first time
Always for the first time Hardly do I know you by sight You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window A wholly imaginary house It is there that from one second to the next In the inviolate darkness I anticipate once more the fascinating rift […]
Putin, Our Savior and Dear Friend
Putin, you are our savior and friend, You bring joy to children and adults. Oh, your laurels of fame and success, You give wise guidance to everyone. Great leader of our wretched people, Your shoulders bear the burden of fatherly care. You led our country to peace and prosperity, So, we have become a […]
Shame
In twisted hues of purple and blue, A feeling creeps that I once knew, Shame, oh how you haunt me still, A ghostly presence that chills my will. Your whispers echo through my mind, “You’re not enough,” your voice so unkind, With each step, my heart entwined, I falter, lost in self-despised shrine. The world […]
About Wedding Dress
In the realm of love’s sacred dance, Where two souls unite in a chance, Lies the tale of a sacred dress, Woven of dreams and tenderness. A fabric spun with blushing silk, Embracing hope that time can’t wilt, With ivory threads, a tapestry, Of a love with pure transparency. Behold, the wedding dress divine, A […]
Villonaud for This Yule poem – Ezra Pound poems
Towards the Noel that morte saison (Christ make the shepherds’ homage dear!) Then when the grey wolves everychone Drink of the winds their chill small-beer And lap o’ the snows food’s gueredon Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer (Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!) Wineing the ghosts of yester-year. Ask […]
Villanelle: The Psychological Hour poem – Ezra Pound poems
I had over prepared the event, that much was ominous. With middle-ageing care I had laid out just the right books. I had almost turned down the pages. Beauty is so rare a thing. So few drink of my fountain. So much barren regret, So many hours wasted! And now I watch, from the […]
Ts’ai Chi’h poem – Ezra Pound poems
The petals fall in the fountain, the orange-coloured rose-leaves, Their ochre clings to the stone. *** Ezra Pound Poems by Ezra Pound Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) is one of the most influential but […]
These Fought in Any Case poem – Ezra Pound poems
These fought in any case, and some believing pro domo, in any case ….. Died some, pro patria, walked eye-deep in hell believing in old men’s lies, then unbelieving came home, home to a lie, home to many deceits, home to old lies and new infamy; usury age-old and age-thick and liars in public […]
The Tree poem – Ezra Pound poems
I stood still and was a tree amid the wood, Knowing the truth of things unseen before; Of Daphne and the laurel bow And that god-feasting couple old that grew elm-oak amid the wold. ‘Twas not until the gods had been Kindly entreated, and been brought within Unto the hearth of their heart’s home […]
The Summons poem – Ezra Pound poems
I can not bow to woo thee With honey words and flower kisses And the dew of sweet half-truths Fallen on the grass of old quaint love-tales Of broidered days foredone. Nor in the murmurous twilight May I sit below thee, Worshiping in whispers Tremulous as far-heard bells. All these things have I known […]
The Seeing Eye poem – Ezra Pound poems
The small dogs look at the big dogs; They observe unwieldy dimensions And curious imperfections of odor. Here is the formal male group: The young men look upon their seniors, They consider the elderly mind And observe its inexplicable correlations. Said Tsin-Tsu: It is only in small dogs and the young That we find […]
The Seafarer poem – Ezra Pound poems
(From the early Anglo-Saxon text) May I for my own self song’s truth reckon, Journey’s jargon, how I in harsh days Hardship endured oft. Bitter breast-cares have I abided, Known on my keel many a care’s hold, And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship’s head While she tossed […]
The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter poem – Ezra Pound poems
After Li Po While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played at the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or […]
The Return poem – Ezra Pound poems
See, they return; ah, see the tentative Movements, and the slow feet, The trouble in the pace and the uncertain Wavering! See, they return, one, and by one, With fear, as half-awakened; As if the snow should hesitate And murmur in the wind, and half turn back; These were the “Wing’d-with-Awe,” Inviolable. Gods of […]
The Plunge poem – Ezra Pound poems
I would bathe myself in strangeness: These comforts heaped upon me, smother me! I burn, I scald so for the new, New friends, new faces, Places! Oh to be out of this, This that is all I wanted – save the new. And you, Love, you the much, the more desired! Do I not […]
The Needle poem – Ezra Pound poems
Come, or the stellar tide will slip away. Eastward avoid the hour of its decline, Now! for the needle trembles in my soul! Here we have had our vantage, the good hour. Here we have had our day, your day and mine. Come now, before this power That bears us up, shall turn against […]
The Lake Isle poem – Ezra Pound poems
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop, With the little bright boxes piled up neatly upon the shelves And the loose fragment cavendish and the shag, And the bright Virginia loose under the bright glass cases, And a pair of scales […]
The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance poem – Ezra Pound poems
The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew, It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings, And I let down the crystal curtain And watch the moon through the clear autumn. *** Ezra Pound Poems by Ezra Pound […]
The Garret poem – Ezra Pound poems
Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are. Come, my friend, and remember that the rich have butlers and no friends, And we have friends and no butlers. Come, let us pity the married and the unmarried. Dawn enters with little feet like a gilded Pavlova And I am near […]
The Garden poem – Ezra Pound poems
En robe de parade. Samain Like a skien of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anaemia. And round about there is a rabble Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. […]
The Fault of It poem – Ezra Pound poems
Some may have blamed us that we cease to speak Of things we spoke of in our verses early, Saying: a lovely voice is such as such; Saying: that lady’s eyes were sad last week, Wherein the world’s whole joy is born and dies; Saying: she hath this way or that, this much Of […]
The Encounter poem – Ezra Pound poems
All the while they were talking the new morality Her eyes explored me. And when I rose to go Her fingers were like the tissue Of a Japanese paper napkin. *** Ezra Pound Poems by Ezra Pound Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis […]
The Bath-Tub poem – Ezra Pound poems
As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady. *** Ezra Pound Poems by Ezra Pound Ezra PoundEzra Weston […]
Tame Cat poem – Ezra Pound poems
It rests me to be among beautiful women Why should one always lie about such matters? I repeat: It rests me to converse with beautiful women Even though we talk nothing but nonsense, The purring of the invisible antennae Is both stimulating and delightful. *** Ezra Pound […]
Taking Leave of a Friend poem – Ezra Pound poems
Blue mountains to the north of the walls, White river winding about them; Here we must make separation And go out through a thousand miles of dead grass. Mind like a floating wide cloud, Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance. Our horses neigh to […]
Sub Mare poem – Ezra Pound poems
It is, and is not, I am sane enough, Since you have come this place has hovered round me, This fabrication built of autumn roses, Then there’s a goldish colour, different. And one gropes in these things as delicate Algæ reach up and out, beneath Pale slow green surgings of the underwave, ‘Mid these […]
Statement of Being poem – Ezra Pound poems
I am a grave poetic hen That lays poetic eggs And to enhance my temperament A little quiet begs. We make the yolk philosophy, True beauty the albumen. And then gum on a shell of form To make the screed sound human. *** Ezra Pound Poems […]
Song of the Bowmen of Shu poem – Ezra Pound poems
Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots And saying: When shall we get back to our country? Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen, We have no comfort because of these Mongols. We grub the soft fern-shoots, When anyone says “Return,” the others are full of sorrow. Sorrowful minds, sorrow […]
Song in the Manner of Housman poem – Ezra Pound poems
O woe, woe, People are born and die, We also shall be dead pretty soon Therefore let us act as if we were dead already. The bird sits on the hawthorn tree But he dies also, presently. Some lads get hung, and some get shot. Woeful is this human lot. Woe! woe, etcetera . […]
Song poem – Ezra Pound poems
Winter is icummen in, Lhude sing Goddamm, Raineth drop and staineth slop, and how the wind doth ramm, Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham. Freezeth river, turneth liver, Damn you, sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm, So ‘gainst the winter’s balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing […]
Silet poem – Ezra Pound poems
When I behold how black, immortal ink Drips from my deathless pen; ah, well-away! Why should we stop at all for what I think? There is enough in what I chance to say. It is enough that we once came together; What is the use of setting it to rime? When it is autumn […]
Sestina: Altaforte poem – Ezra Pound poems
LOQUITUR: En Bertans de Born. Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a stirrer up of strife. Eccovi! Judge ye! Have I dug him up again? The scene is at his castle, Altaforte. “Papiols” is his jongleur. “The Leopard,” the device of Richard Coeur de Lion. I Damn it all! […]
Salutation poem – Ezra Pound poems
O generation of the thoroughly smug and thoroughly uncomfortable, I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun, I have seen them with untidy families, I have seen their smiles full of teeth and heard ungainly laughter. And I am happier than you are, And they were happier than I am; And the fish swim […]
Quies poem – Ezra Pound poems
This is another of our ancient loves. Pass and be silent, Rullus, for the day Hath lacked a something since this lady passed; Hath lacked a something. ‘Twas but marginal. *** Ezra Pound Poems by Ezra Pound Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis […]
Portrait d’Une Femme poem – Ezra Pound poems
Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea, London has swept about you this score years And bright ships left you this or that in fee: Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things, Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. Great minds have sought you- lacking someone else. You have been second […]
In Tempore Senectutis poem – Ezra Pound poems
When I am old I will not have you look apart From me, into the cold, Friend of my heart, Nor be sad in your remembrance Of the careless, mad-heart semblance That the wind hath blown away When I am old. When I am old And the white hot wonder-fire Unto the world seem […]