The End Of The Library by Weldon Kees
The End Of The Library by Weldon Kees When the coal Gave out, we began Burning the books, one by one; First the set Of Bulwer-Lytton And then the Walter Scott. They gave a lot of warmth. Toward the end, in February, flames Consumed the Greek Tragedians and Baudelaire, Proust, Robert Burton And the Po-Chu-i. […]
Late Evening Song by Weldon Kees
Late Evening Song by Weldon Kees For a while Let it be enough: The responsive smile, Though effort goes into it. Across the warm room Shared in candlelight, This look beyond shame, Possible now, at night, Goes out to yours. Hidden by day And shaped by fires Grown dead, gone gray, That burned in other […]
La Vita Nuova by Weldon Kees
La Vita Nuova by Weldon Kees Last summer, in the blue heat, Over the beach, in the burning air, A legless beggar lurched on calloused fists To where I waited with the sun-dazed birds. He said, “The summer boils away. My life Joins to another life; this parched skin Dries and dies and flakes away, […]
Interregnum by Weldon Kees
Interregnum by Weldon Kees Butcher the evil millionaire, peasant, And leave him stinking in the square. Torture the chancellor. Leave the ambassador Strung by his thumbs from the pleasant Embassy wall, where the vines were. Then drill your hogs and sons for another war. Fire on the screaming crowd, ambassador, Sick chancellor, brave millionaire, And […]
Dead March by Weldon Kees
Dead March by Weldon Kees Under the bunker, where the reek of kerosene Prepared the marriage rite, leader and whore, Imperfect kindling even in this wind, burn on. Someone in uniform hums Brahms. Servants prepare Eyewitness stories as the night comes down, as smoking coals await Boots on the stone, the occupying troops. Howl ministers. […]
Covering Two Years by Weldon Kees
Covering Two Years by Weldon Kees This nothingness that feeds upon itself: Pencils that turn to water in the hand, Parts of a sentence, hanging in the air, Thoughts breaking in the mind like glass, Blank sheets of paper that reflect the world Whitened the world that I was silenced by. There were two years […]
Colloquy by Weldon Kees
Colloquy by Weldon Kees In the broken light, in owl weather, Webs on the lawn where the leaves end, I took the thin moon and the sky for cover To pick the cat’s brains and descend A weedy hill. I found him groveling Inside the summerhouse, a shadowed bulge, Furred and somnolent.—”I bring,” I said, […]
A Pastiche For Eve by Weldon Kees
A Pastiche For Eve by Weldon Kees Unmanageable as history: these Followers of Tammuz to the land That offered no return, where dust Grew thick on every bolt and door. And so the world Chilled, and the women wept, tore at their hair. Yet, in the skies, a goddess governed Sirius, the Dog, Who shines […]
A Musician’s Wife by Weldon Kees
A Musician’s Wife by Weldon Kees Between the visits to the shock ward The doctors used to let you play On the old upright Baldwin Donated by a former patient Who is said to be quite stable now. And all day long you played Chopin, Badly and hauntingly, when you weren’t Screaming on the porch […]
1926 by Weldon Kees
1926 by Weldon Kees The porchlight coming on again, Early November, the dead leaves Raked in piles, the wicker swing Creaking. Across the lots A phonograph is playing Ja-Da. An orange moon. I see the lives Of neighbors, mapped and marred Like all the wars ahead, and R. Insane, B. with his throat cut, Fifteen […]
Woods by Wendell Berry
Woods by Wendell Berry I part the out thrusting branches and come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent there is singing around me. Though I am dark there is vision around me. Though I am heavy there is flight around me. ————— The End And that’s the End of […]
What We Need Is Here by Wendell Berry
What We Need Is Here by Wendell Berry Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and […]
Water by Wendell Berry
Water by Wendell Berry I was born in a drouth year. That summer my mother waited in the house, enclosed in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind, for the men to come back in the evenings, bringing water from a distant spring. veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank. And all my life I […]
The Wish to be Generous by Wendell Berry
The Wish to be Generous by Wendell Berry ALL that I serve will die, all my delights, the flesh kindled from my flesh, Garden and field, the silent lilies standing in the woods, the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all will burn in man’s evil, or dwindle in its own age. Let the world […]
The Silence by Wendell Berry
The Silence by Wendell Berry Though the air is full of singing my head is loud with the labor of words. Though the season is rich with fruit, my tongue hungers for the sweet of speech. Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it mute, but must say “It is golden,” while the […]
The Real Work by Wendell Berry
The Real Work by Wendell Berry It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is […]
The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry
The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry When despair grows in me and I wake in the middle of the Night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and […]
The Man Born to Farming by Wendell Berry
The Man Born to Farming by Wendell Berry The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, […]
The Lilies by Wendell Berry
The Lilies by Wendell Berry Amid the gray trunks of ancient trees we found the gay woodland lilies nodding on their stems, frail and fair, so delicately balanced the air held or moved them as it stood or moved. The ground that slept beneath us woke in them and made a music of the light, […]
The Country Of Marriage by Wendell Berry
The Country Of Marriage by Wendell Berry I. I Dream of you walking at Night along the streams of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs of birds opening around you as you walk. You are holding in your Body the dark seed of my sleep. II. This comes after silence. Was […]
Testament by Wendell Berry
Testament by Wendell Berry 1. Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath Grows large and free in air, don’t call it death — A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire His surly art of imitating life; conspire Against him. Say that my Body cannot now Be improved upon; it has no fault to […]
Sabbaths 2001 by Wendell Berry
Sabbaths 2001 by Wendell Berry I He wakes in darkness. All around are sounds of stones shifting, locks unlocking. As if some one had lifted away a great weight, light falls on him. He has been asleep or simply gone. He has known a long suffering of himself, himself sharpen by the pain of his […]
Ripening by Wendell Berry
Ripening by Wendell Berry The longer we are together the larger death grows around us. How many we know by now who are dead! We, who were young, now count the cost of having been. And yet as we know the dead we grow familiar with the world. We, who were young and loved each […]
A Warning To My Readers by Wendell Berry
A Warning To My Readers by Wendell Berry Do not think me gentle because I speak in praise of gentleness, or elegant because I honor the grace that keeps this world. I am a man crude as any, gross of speech, intolerant, stubborn, angry, full of fits and furies. That I may have spoken well […]
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will […]
Like The Water by Wendell Berry
Like The Water by Wendell Berry Like the water of a deep stream, love is always too much. We did not make it. Though we drink till we burst, we cannot have it all, or want it all. In its abundance it survives our thirst. In the evening we come down to the shore to […]
In this World by Wendell Berry
In this World by Wendell Berry The hill pasture, an open place among the trees, tilts into the valley. The clovers and tall grasses are in bloom. Along the foot of the hill dark floodwater moves down the river. The sun sets. Ahead of nightfall the birds sing. I have climbed up to water the […]
In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams by Wendell Berry
In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams by Wendell Berry I. The poem is important, but not more than the people whose survival it serves, one of the necessities, so they may speak what is true, and have the patience for beauty: the weighted grainfield, the shady street, the well-laid stone and the […]
For The Future by Wendell Berry
For The Future by Wendell Berry Planting trees early in spring, we make a place for birds to sing in time to come. How do we know? They are singing here now. There is no other guarantee that singing will ever be. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. […]
Do not be ashamed by Wendell Berry
Do not be ashamed by Wendell Berry You will be walking some night in the comfortable dark of your yard and suddenly a great light will shine round about you, and behind you will be a wall you never saw before. It will be clear to you suddenly that you were about to escape, and […]
A Meeting by Wendell Berry
A Meeting by Wendell Berry In a Dream I meet my dead friend. He has, I know, gone long and far, and yet he is the same for the dead are changeless. They grow no older. It is I who have changed, grown strange to what I was. Yet I, the changed one, ask: “How […]
1991-II by Wendell Berry
1991-II by Wendell Berry The ewes crowd to the mangers; Their bellies widen, sag; Their udders tighten. Soon The little voices cry In morning cold. Soon now The Garden must be worked, Laid off in rows, the seed Of life to come brought down Into the dark to rest, Abide awhile alone, And rise. Soon, […]
1991-I by Wendell Berry
1991-I by Wendell Berry The year begins with war. Our bombs fall day and night, Hour after hour, by death Abroad appeasing wrath, Folly, and greed at home. Upon our giddy tower We’d oversway the world. Our hate comes down to kill Those whom we do not see, For we have given up Our sight […]
Up The Line by Will McKendree Carleton
Through blinding storm and clouds of night, We swiftly pushed our restless flight; With thundering hoof and warning neigh, We urged our steed upon his way Up the line. Afar the lofty head-light gleamed; Afar the whistle shrieked and screamed; And glistening bright, and rising high, Our flakes of fire bestrewed the sky, Up the […]
Uncle Sammy by Will McKendree Carleton
Some men were born for great things, Some were born for small; Some–it is not recorded Why they were born at all; But Uncle Sammy was certain he had a legitimate call. Some were born with a talent, Some with scrip and land; Some with a spoon of silver, And some with a different brand; […]
The New Church Organ by Will McKendree Carleton
They ‘ve got a brand-new organ, Sue, For all their fuss and search; They’ve done just as they said they’d do, And fetched it into church. They’re bound the critter shall be seen, And on the preacher’s right They’ve hoisted up their new machine, In every body’s sight. They’ve got a chorister and choir, Ag’in’ […]
The Littlle Black-Eyed Rebel by Will McKendree Carleton
A boy drove into the city, his wagon loaded down With food to feed the people of the British-governed town; And the little black-eyed rebel, so innocent and sly, Was watching for his coming from the corner of her eye. His face looked broad and honest, his hands were brown and tough, The clothes he […]
The House Where We Were Wed by Will McKendree Carleton
I’ve been to the old farm-house, good-wife, Where you and I were wed; Where the love was born to our two hearts That now lies cold and dead. Where a long-kept secret to you I told, In the yellow beams of the moon, And we forged our vows out of love’s own gold, To be […]
The Fading Flower by Will McKendree Carleton
There is a chillness in the air– A coldness in the smile of day; And e’en the sunbeam’s crimson glare Seems shaded with a tinge of gray. Weary of journeys to and fro, The sun low creeps adown the sky; And on the shivering earth below, The long, cold shadows grimly lie. But there will […]
The Editor’s Guests by Will McKendree Carleton
The Editor sat in his sanctum, his countenance furrowed with care, His mind at the bottom of business, his feet at the top of a chair, His chair-arm an elbow supporting, his right hand upholding his head, His eyes on his dusty old table, with different documents spread: There were thirty long pages from Howler, […]