Sitting on the dock of the bay
Early in the morning,
the sea’s grammar
and diction please me,
exceeding all joy.
I weary of company.
The papers thin.
Contemplative poems
Contemplative poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
That old-time religion
A poor
bacon, the church.
I knew a ridge.
We sat together
a great while.
The dying ocean
A most pleasant ark
is the sea, which
did not seem ill,
there or here, but
like a king that knew
nothing of the world.
Babel
Tower of marl, homely
in a chess set.
Fuddled, talking, the others fell.
The tower we made is quiet.
Overcome with drink, I ride in.
The tower stood waiting.
A man respects the discourse
of so many cavaliers.
Selective vision
Another thin dinner to heat—
few know the full mask.
Some jeer making a common count.
To see so little
is one of the greatest arts.
Double take
O my fat snow,
turn my great neglect to joy.
I have seen that I did not see
the home I made and the home I sat in,
a pair of gloves and a pair of stockings,
an art, her gift…
Public works
We saw the city
build scaffolds
for all who read books.
Clarity
ice all morning
making a clear world
Rosebush
Great company
is the rosebush,
hip to fine-dressed hip
like a queen, with
the strictness of the poor
who cannot buy a crown.
Joinery
The master joiner agreed about
the many pretty pleasures
in a glass house.
Since he was married to drink,
we parted, I home
to my paper bed.
Force of Habit
How to know all my habits?
Strange creatures
with a kind of love.
Oysters, which eat to understand:
water is a spice,
and the surgeon and his wife
work in my bed.
Water way
Water is a door
to a thin religion:
see a sea change
and learn the way
of being worse.
Art is in arrears.
Tell me, what furniture
am I to be?
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
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