First Fig
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
Dikter om ämnet: defiance
Dikter om ämnet ”defiance” på Poets.by.
For One Who Gayly Sowed His Oats
My days were a thing for me to live,
For others to deplore;
I took of life all it could give:
Rind, inner fruit, and core.
America
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
Gargoyle
I SAW a mouth jeering. A smile of melted red iron ran
over it. Its laugh was full of nails rattling. It
was a child's dream of a mouth.
A fist hit the mouth : knuckles of gun-metal driven by an
electric wrist and shoulder. It was a child's dream
of an arm.
The fist hit the mouth over and over, again and again.
The mouth bled melted iron, and laughed its laughter
of nails rattling.
And I saw the more the fist pounded the more the mouth
laughed. The fist is pounding and pounding, and
the mouth answering.
Aseptic
To live on a sterile hill
Suits not my mood,
I'll walk in towns my fill,
With strong resisting blood.
There is no virtue in stark fear.
Whether it be of Sin or Death,
But there is pride in walking clear,
Through Plague's contaminating breath.
Fate Defied
As it
Were tissue of silver
I'll wear, O fate, thy grey,
And go mistily radiant, clad
Like the moon.