Les plus lus ▸
Edwin Arlington Robinson
They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.
Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.
Why is it then we stray
Around that sunken sill?
They are all gone away,
And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.
There is ruin and decay
dead before we die
the decay sweet as nightlife
singing without sleep
in the mutinous body
a raven on the road
studious in the business of decay
the secret to life is being
no use at all
fleet as decay
the arson’s child
where I am in all
knowledge and experience
like a well
some far ripple shall decay
so much every day
and make an end of us
rarefy the very body of glass
bolt head cold
as an old castle
a land without reason
shall prevail
death is a miracle
making in the body (that is not finished)
most rare things
how could it be locked up
between two hopes
let us believe in the ruined
gardens of imagination
even in autumn rain
there’s still such radiance
leaves underfoot whisper
my wishbone song
really just a rhythm imposed
on the slow fires of decay
but now church bells
make for a glistening listen
the dead have nothing
and everything to do
with the emptiness
of numbers
their carnival is upon us
scarlet oaks glowing
missing heads and shrivelled petals
orotund with seed
corn-fed on extra syllables
trapped between the teeth
nearly reptilian our rictus
of gratitude for another sun
let us trust the rust within us
to paint our noble ruins red
as knotweed blossoms into lace
and devil’s-tail brandishes blue fruit
immune to anything that ravishes
without or within
they spread like miracules
their missionary impositions
as we lower our last dreams
into the earth
A corrugated pipe
that stopped carrying water 20 years ago
after the hillside was clear-cut,
north side green with algae,
south side red as the center of Australia
& the only rust holes on top
where the rain has sought admittance:
I have been of little use
these past few decades
but I’m as full of holes as a flute
only the rarest wind can play
& in the right light
can almost be said to glow.
I will surrender to dissolution
but not right away.
I will give myself over to the patient
A forest .
A dammed forest .
A concrete forest .
All that enters shall decay .
All shall slowly lose purpose and succomb to the inevitable decay .
Decaying flesh .
Withering bones .
Only dust remains .
Wind takes the dust away . A forest .
A dammed forest .
A concrete forest .
All that enter shall decay .
And no longer remain .
.End.
Catastrophe is about how I get angry when I don't mean it. How I say words I don't mean, then regret them later.
That's a lie.
This poem does not have a meaning.
Really nothing has a meaning, if you think about it.
Everything withers and dies eventually.
The strongest rock, the sharpest blade.
The rock will crack and disintegrate.
The blade will rust and crumble.
The mind will rot and tear itself apart.
The only thing that is truly eternal is time.
Time is forever.
from the sunsets
to the rubbish on the Harbor bottom
fermenting so bubbles
of the gas formed from the putrefaction
keep coming up and you watch them break
on the surface and imagine the odor
which is true
at low-tide that you can't stand the smell
if you live with the Harbor Cove or the Inner
Harbor to your side