Bare Winter Prairie &
bare winter prairie &
a little smoke rises
from an empty field
Poems on the topic: smoke
Poems on the topic “smoke” on Poets.by.
Chinatown Skyline
Windows burnt into hard surfaces,
the territory of monoliths.
Empty rooms, dissipated presences,
blank ceilings seeing all we were.
The shades conceal cries, a restless moan.
The clocks tell our story,
kill it softly.
All the while
the smoke marks the sky
like a kiss on parted flesh.
Smoke
They stood like men that hear immortal speech
Moving among their branches, and like trees
We stood and watched them, and in our still branches
Echoes of that immortal music stirred.
October days had touched their breasts with light,
With yellow light and red light and wan green;
And the gray cloud that grew from low to high
Made the warm light more warm, the green more wan.
We stood and watched them and in our still branches
We felt the warm light glow, though now the rain
Was loud upon the leaves.
And standing there
You cried, "O, that sweet smell, where is the fire?
Where is the fire?" For sharp upon the rain
The smell came of a wood fire and clung round
Hanging upon our branches, till we saw
The Foundry
Two monsters,
Iron and Coal,
Sleep in the darkness.
A poisonous scarlet breath blows over them,
And they awake hissing and writhing,
And spew forth blood-red vomit
In streams like fiery serpents.
Then from the reeking pools
A monstrous brood is born,
Black, strong, beautiful.
But we turn away our tired eyes,
And try to find the sky above the smoke-clouds.
The Merry Maid
Oh, I am grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
I set my throat against the air,
I laugh at simple folk!
There's little kind and little fair
Is worth its weight in smoke
To me, that's grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
Lass, if to sleep you would repair
As peaceful as you woke,
Best not besiege your lover there
For just the words he spoke
To me, that's grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
Sorrow
Why does the thin grey strand
Floating up from the forgotten
Cigarette between my fingers,
Why does it trouble me?
Ah, you will understand;
When I carried my mother downstairs,
A few times only, at the beginning
Of her soft-foot malady,
I should find, for a reprimand
To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
On the breast of my coat; and one by one
I let them float up the dark chimney.
Sixteen Months
On the lips of the child Janet float changing dreams.
It is a thin spiral of blue smoke,
A morning campfire at a mountain lake.
On the lips of the child Janet,
Wisps of haze on ten miles of corn.
Young light blue calls to young light gold of morning.
A Burnt Offering
Because there was no wind.
The smoke of your letters hung in the air
For a long time ;
And its shape
Was the shape of your face.
My Beloved.
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