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Partisanal
heart carried in a basket
lest it should break
or ease my burial
we are displacing ourselves with money
we close hands and continue
as factions
against the children
against one another
and away to bed
Poems on the topic: children
Poems on the topic “children” on Poets.by.
TO MY FUTURE CHILDREN
I maybe not perfect
But I will do my best
If something went wrong
Just come & tell me.
If I may say no
That means I protected you
& We can talk about.
If I may say yes
That means I know what's good enough
Not the best.
If I can't like your partner
That means I've seen something suspicious
& We can talk.
If your upset about me, friends & love
Come near me
& Talk about
Call Me Not Back
call me not back
thru loveless dirt-strewn streets
thru eddying pools of summer want
i go not that way again/
call me not back
with eyes diamond-glazed by silent hallway lusts
with dark pubic pressures on sheets of fire
with the tender heat of small rose-nippled breasts
i go not that way again/
for now is winter
and i have seen blind children weep
on bruised knees
around a frozen pond/
with this sight my heart and feet are ice
and i can
go not that way again/
Children at Play
I hear a merry noise indeed:
Is it the geese and ducks that take
Their first plunge in a quiet pond
That into scores of ripples break--
Or children make this merry sound?
I see an oak tree, its strong back
Could not be bent an inch though all
Its leaves were stone, or iron even:
A boy, with many a lusty call,
Rides on a bough bareback through Heaven.
I see two children dig a hole
And plant in it a cherry-stone:
"We'll come to-morrow," one child said--
"And then the tree will be full grown,
And all its boughs have cherries red."
Ah, children, what a life to lead:
Barter
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.
Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.
Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
The Interne
O the agony of having too much power!
In my passive palm are hundreds of lives.
Strange alchemy, they drain my blood.
My heart becomes iron; my brain copper; my eyes silver; my lips brass.
Merely by twitching a supple finger, I twirl lives from me,
Strong-winged or fluttering and broken.
They are my children: I am their mother and father.
I watch them live and die.
Broadway
With sardonic futility
The multi-coloured crowd,
Hurried by fervent sensuality,
Flees from something carried on its back.
Endlessly subdued, a sound
Pours up from the crowd,
Like some one ever gasping for breath
To utter releasing words.
Through the artificial valley
Made by gaudy evasions,
The stifled crowd files up and down,
Stabbing thought with rapid noises.
Women strutting dulcetly,
Embroider their unappeased hungers,
And men stumble toward a flitting opiate.
Sometimes a moment breaks apart
She Plans Her Funeral
Bring to me then all passionate, crimson flowers
And lay them on my breast.
They shall be symbols of the love-lit hours —
And Love is best.
Folk who believe in Immortality,
Why should they pass in panoply of woe?
I would be linked with colour and ecstacy
That day I go.
Linked with glad dancers, their white limbs set free,
And rhythmical through veils of filmy green,
With children, rose-flushed with a mystic glee —
All these I mean
To leave as wishes for my funeral day.
But, lest I burden those I leave behind,
Let me add, hastily, that any way
They care to manage —
Praise
O friends of mine, if men mock at my name,
Say “Children loved him.”
Since by that word you will have far removed him
From any bitter shame.
The Little Children
Hunger points a bony finger
To the workhouse on the hill,
But the little children linger
While there's flowers to gather still
For my sunny window sill.
In my hands I take their faces,
Smiling to my smiles they run.
Would that I could take their places
Where the murky bye-ways shun
The benedictions of the sun.
How they laugh and sing returning
Lightly on their secret way.
While I listen in my yearning
Their laughter fills the windy day
With gladness, youth and May.
The Picnic
They had a picnic in the woods,
And Mother couldn't go that day,
But the twins and Brother and I could go;
We rode on the wagon full of hay.
There were more little girls than ten, I guess.
And the boy that is Joe B. Kirk was there.
He found a toad and a katydid,
And a little girl came whose name was Clare.
Miss Kate-Marie made us play a song
Called "Fare-you-well, says Johnny O'Brown."
You dance in a ring and sing it through,
And then some one kneels down.
She kissed us all and Joe B. Kirk;
But Joe B. didn't mind a bit.
He walked around and swung his arms
And seemed to be very glad of it.
Washington McNeely
Rich, honored by my fellow citizens,
The father of many children, born of a noble mother,
All raised there
In the great mansion—house, at the edge of town.
Note the cedar tree on the lawn!
I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford,
The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors—
Resting under my cedar tree at evening.
The years went on.
I sent the girls to Europe;
I dowered them when married.
I gave the boys money to start in business.
They were strong children, promising as apples
Before the bitten places show.
But John fled the country in disgrace.
Jenny died in child-birth—
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