Search

Search results

William Dickey, sea, in English Clear filters

DreamyWilliam Dickey

The Easy House

We look for the easy house By a productive sea, Seals carrying messages, An army of birds awake To our least necessity. We joke of the subject in The overdressed hotel. In the airport limousine Repair imperfections, hope The fracture is knitting well. In transits of cities, word Reaches us from the shore. A wave has uttered our name. The single-voiced rocks have asked What we are waiting for. In the cornered nightclub, where
DreamyWilliam Dickey

Islands

I imagine, beyond fog, a sea of islands, Grave with the celebrations of the young Learning responsible voice, who naked stand, Shafts of clear being, in the wind's repose. I imagine, clothed in pattern, a free land Of equal gifts, where the increasing tree Affords its nourishment gladly, in ripe wisdom, And is made sacred by the accepting hand. How in that place of known formalities, Those accurate islands sheathed in harmonious sea, The purposes of occasion daily quicken To the center of the fruit, to the bright seed. I imagine, beyond the promiscuous water That sucks at my step, beyond the driftwood-smeared State of these tides, a community of islands,
ContemplativeWilliam Dickey

Noon

Suddenly, in the sunlight's bitter glare On a marketplace of white, belligerent stone, The sea so blue it petrifies the air, Suddenly, in the most securely known Fixed objects, when the shift of the wind has died And form is form past ambiguity, On the deliberate stroke of a real noontide The scene is less than it was meant to be. And in the merchant's flat, coined-metal eyes Some face before the Caesar face appears, Reflecting past the millenial market-days Time out of hope of measurement by years, Reflecting past the navel of the town, That catches in its cup the ripest sun, A glade by orderly branches overgrown Into a greener equilibrium
SadWilliam Dickey

Not This

What I intended was not this Grey absence when the heart declines Like a spent flower upon its stalk, The bent, the reprimanded head. What I intended was to say, Not in all things perfection lies, Nor are our human reasons pure— But you set out, as from some shore Obsidian-sharp, at once to sea, Where the most drowning waters are. It was not meant so finally. Meant as a thesis, not yet proved, A speculation, hardly said, The merest whisper of a voice— But at the sound you bowed your head. The universal darkness fell
ContemplativeWilliam Dickey

Antiquity

It is a day of full Antiquity. The land to a greener surface rearranges Its rows of vines, the plain white temple changes Its Doric force to amiability. Nothing disturbs the lip or the pursed loin. Speech is a honeyed bubble; it rests light On the flashing tongue, and any moment might Translate the imprisoned goddess from the stone. To move either hand into this sacred air Is to meet an answering motion of the wind Beyond which, nothing moves. The sea is kind, And gathers quiet on the empty shore. The light's complete. The lovers, side by side, Ease to the holy center of the kiss. The temple finds its sacrifice in this. The olives leaf. The vines are multiplied.

Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem

Or try: