Charlotte Mew – Fin de Fête

Sweetheart, for such a day

     One mustn’t grudge the score;

Here, then, it’s all to pay,

     It’s Good-night at the door.

 

Good-night and good dreams to you,—

     Do you remember the picture-book thieves

Who left two children sleeping in a wood the long night through,

     And how the birds came down and covered them with leaves?

 

So you and I should have slept,—But now,

     Oh, what a lonely head!

With just the shadow of a waving bough

     In the moonlight over your bed.

Emily Dickinson – I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (Poem 340)

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -

Emily Dickinson – Now I knew I lost her (Poem 1274)

Now I knew I lost her —
Not that she was gone —
But Remoteness travelled
On her Face and Tongue.

Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race —
Traversed she though pausing
Latitudeless Place.

Elements Unaltered —
Universe the same
But Love's transmigration —
Somehow this had come —

Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for —
His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom
Or for Family
But the Restitution
Of Idolatry.

Anne Spencer – Requiem

Oh, I who so wanted to own some earth,

Am consumed by the earth instead:

Blood into river

Bone into land

The grave restores what finds its bed.

Oh, I who did drink of Spring’s fragrant clay,

Give back its wine for other men:

Breath into air

Heart into grass

My heart bereft — I might rest then.

Charles Bukowski – Rhyming Poem

the goldfish sing all night with guitars,
and the whores go down with the stars,
the whores go down with the stars
I'm sorry, sir, we close at 4:30,
besides your mother's neck is dirty,
and the whores go down with the etc.
the whores. go down. with the etc.
I'm sorry jack you can't come back,
I've fallen in love with another sap,
34 Italian and 1 2 Jap,
and the whores go
the whores go
etc.