Nehaveigur

Category: Verse

  • The Funny Side of Cancer

    He – literally – dove into danger to study life’s mysteries, from the depths of the sea to the edge of the stars. His mind unraveled the secret code of evolution while his heart laughed at fear. He once said: The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, but…

  • Playing With the Sun As With a Little Brook

    Girl lithe and tawny, the sun forms the fruits, that plumps the grains, that curls seaweeds filled your body with joy, and your luminous eyes and your mouth that has the smile of the water. A black yearning sun is braided into the strands of your black mane, when you…

  • Where the Mountains are Nameless

    There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There’s a land – oh, it…

  • Give Me My Task and Let Me Do It Right

    Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh Grave, where is thy victory? Oh Life, you are a shining path And hope springs eternal Just over the rise When I see my redeemer Beckoning me Just let me sail in To your harbor of lights And there and forever To cast…

  • Star Bowl Spinning Overhead

    Writing by starlight Can’t see the words Fill a page Nothing there Waterfall distant sound Tree against stars Milky Way Juniper Jupiter white rock Wind dying my heart At peace a Friday night Big Dipper sits on the mountain Friends lie in their tents I sit against rock Star bowl…

  • All That Is Earth Has Once Been Sky

    Among the hills a meteorite Lies huge; and moss has overgrown, And wind and rain with touches light Made soft, the contours of the stone. Thus easily can Earth digest A cinder of sidereal fire, And make her translunary guest The native of an English shire. Nor is it strange…

  • Open Day and Night

    O goddess-born of great Anchises’ line, The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies. Virgil: AeneidJohn Dryden Translation

  • Everybody Sees That I Am Old But You

    Seventeen years ago you said Something that sounded like Good-bye; And everybody thinks that you are dead, But I. So I, as I grow stiff and cold To this and that say Good-bye too; And everybody sees that I am old But you. And one fine morning in a sunny…

  • When Adventure’s Lost its Meaning

    In the quiet misty morning When the moon has gone to bed When the sparrows stop their singing And the sky is clear and red When the summer’s ceased its gleaming When the corn is past its prime When adventure’s lost its meaning I’ll be homeward bound in time Bind…

  • Drinking With a Little Bird

    This is a poem by Austrian actor Kurt Sowinetz. You can watch him recite it here but I as far as I know, it hasn’t been transcribed or translated anywhere. Below is my attempt at an English rendition. I’d like to toast a little birdthen be astute enough to understand…

  • What Stirs the Life in You?

    The Garden’s scent is a messenger, arriving again and again, inviting us in. Hidden exchanges, hidden cycles stir life underground. What stirs the life in you? The garden asks. The garden thrives. Invites us to do the same. Saplings break through darkness -ladders set against the sky. Mysteries ascend. Rumi,…

  • Smooth Between Sea and Land

    Here, on the level sand, Between the sea and land, What shall I build or write Against the fall of night? Tell me of runes to grave That hold the bursting wave, Or bastions to design For longer date than mine. A. E. Housman

  • Fred?

    From out of the cold Caribbean Into the Desert Libyan There crawled a strange amphibian, And we shall call him “Fred”! You say you want to call him “Ted”? But I want to call him “Fred”! You like “Maurice” instead? Or “Barnaby” or “Red”? Or “Lucifer” or “Ned”? Well, anyway,…

  • Sick

    “I cannot go to school today!” Said little Peggy Ann McKay “I have the measles and the mumps A gash, a rash, and purple bumps My mouth is wet, my throat is dry I’m going blind in my right eye My tonsils are as big as rocks I’ve counted sixteen…

  • Santa and the Reindeer

    “This is the hour,” said Santa Claus, “The bell rings merrily.” Then on his back he slung his pack, And into his sleigh climbed he. “On, Dancer! On, Prancer! On, Donner and Blitzen! On, Comet and Cupid!” cried he. And all the reindeers leaped but one, And that one stood…

  • Point of View

    Thanksgiving dinner’s sad and thankless Christmas dinner’s dark and blue When you stop and try to see it From the turkey’s point of view. Sunday dinner isn’t sunny Easter fests are just bad luck When you see it from the viewpoint Of a chicken or a duck. Oh how I…

  • Skin Stealer

    This evening I unzipped my skin And carefully unscrewed my head, Exactly as I always do When I prepare myself for bed. And while I slept a coo-coo came As naked as could be And put on the skin And screwed on the head That once belonged to me. Now…

  • Shel Silverstein

    Writing for both young kids and for Playboy, Shel Silverstein has one of the most interesting biographies I’ve come across. He also wrote the Johnny Cash song A Boy Named Sue, lived on a houseboat in San Francisco Bay, and had sex with “hundreds, perhaps thousands of women”. Here he’s…

  • The Night is Darkening Round Me

    The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow, And the storm is fast descending And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me,…

  • Tree House

    A tree house, a free house, A secret you and me house, A high up in the leafy branches Cozy as can be house. A street house, a neat house, Be sure and wipe your feet house Is not my kind of house at all – Let’s go live in…

  • This is Just to Say

    I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold William Carlos Williams: This is Just to Say

  • Early Bird

    Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird And catch the worm for your breakfast plate. If you’re a bird, be an early early bird – But if you’re a worm, sleep late.Shel Silverstein

  • Never Kissed At All

    Strephon kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all. Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest, Robin’s lost in play, But the kiss in Colin’s eyes Haunts me night and day. Sara Teasdale: The Look

  • Wild Nights!

    Wild nights – Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile – the winds – To a Heart in port – Done with the Compass – Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden – Ah – the Sea! Might I but moor – tonight -…

  • If He Worried He Hid It

    Somebody said that it couldn’t be done But he with a chuckle replied That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried. So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin On his face. If he worried he hid it. He…

  • In Praise of Mystery

    In a few days, the Europa Clipper spacecraft is going to launch towards Jupiter. After a journey of six years, it will arrive at Jupiter’s moon Europa, surveying it for signs of habitability. Europa is one of the few places in the solar system with liquid water and the most…

  • The Malady of the Quotidian

    The time of year has grown indifferent. Mildew of summer and the deepening snow Are both alike in the routine I know. I am too dumbly in my being pent. The wind attendant on the solstices Blows on the shutters of the metropoles, Stirring no poet in his sleep, and…

  • Lose No More Time In Sighing

    Gather ye roses while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; A world where beauty fleets away Is no world for denying. Come lads and lasses, fall to play Lose no more time in sighing The very flowers you pluck to-day To-morrow will be dying; And all the flowers are…

  • Imperially Slim

    Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good-morning,”…

  • I Thank Whatever Gods May Be

    Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond…

  • There Is No Magic Any More

    There is no magic any more, We meet as other people do, You work no miracle for me Nor I for you. You were the wind and I the sea – There is no splendor any more, I have grown listless as the pool Beside the shore. But though the…

  • Love Is Not All

    Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor…

  • Oh I Am Sick of Brick and Stone

    A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels, I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels; I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limit of the land, Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand. Oh I’ll be going, leaving the noises…

  • Fog

    The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. Carl Sandburg: Fog

  • Content to See, Glad to Remember

    He hears with gladdened heart the thunder Peal, and loves the falling dew; He knows the earth above and under – Sits and is content to view. He sits beside the dying ember, God for hope and man for friend, Content to see, glad to remember, Expectant of the certain…

  • Look, and Despair!

    I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read…

  • The Silent Men Who Do Things

    Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on, Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon, Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar? Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,…

  • More Than Music

    Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your…

  • Nothing Gold Can Stay

    Nature’s first green is gold Her hardest hue to hold Her early leaf’s a flower But only holds an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf So Eden sank to grief So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay. Robert Frost

  • The Earth Used to be God’s Body

    One of the scenes in All That is Sacred, a short film about the artists and writers who got their start in 1970s Key West, shows the last words Jim Harrison wrote as he died. I wasn’t able to decipher the poem but found a transcription here. In unease the…

  • Beloved Dust

    And you as well must die, beloved dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead, This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, This body of flame and steel, before the gust Of Death, or under his autumnal frost, Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead Than…

  • Rage Against the Dying of the Light

    Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that…

  • Lovely in Her Bones

    I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on…

  • Make Bright the Arrows

    Make bright the arrows Gather the shields: Conquest narrows The peaceful fields. Stock well the quiver With arrows bright: The bowman feared Need never fight. Make bright the arrows, O peaceful and wise! Gather the shields Against surprise. Edna St. Vincent Millay: Make bright the arrows

  • One Who Would Resign Gladly His Lot

    Man alive, that mournst thy lot, Desiring what thou hast not got, Money, beauty, love, what not; Deeming it blesseder to be A rotted man, than live to see So rude a sky as covers thee; Deeming thyself of all unblest And wretched souls the wretchedest, Longing to die and…

  • Fire and Ice

    Some say the world will end in fire; Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To know that for destruction ice Is also great And would…

  • Peace Comes Dropping Slow

    I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows I will have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping…

  • Ten Thousand Years From Now

    Brother, that breathe the August air Ten thousand years from now, And smell – if still your orchards bear Tart apples on the bough – The early windfall under the tree, And see the red fruit shine, I cannot think your thoughts will be Much different from mine. Should at…

  • To See The Land I Love

    Now as the train bears west, Its rhythm rocks the earth, And from my Pullman berth I stare into the night While others take their rest. Bridges of iron lace, A suddenness of trees, A lap of mountain mist All cross my line of sight, Then a bleak wasted place,…

  • The Woods are Lovely, Dark, and Deep

    Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it’s queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The…

  • There Exists No Loom

    Upon this age, that never speaks its mind, This furtive age, this age endowed with power To wake the moon with footsteps, fit an oar Into the rowlocks of the wind, and find What swims before his prow, what swirls behind – Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,…

  • Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad

    Why should not old men be mad? Some have known a likely lad That had a sound fly fisher’s wrist Turn to a drunken journalist; A girl that knew all Dante once Live to bear children to a dunce; A Helen of social welfare dream Climb on a wagonette to…

  • They Do Not Sweat or Whine or Weep

    I think I could turn and live with animals,They are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me…

  • Gagarin

    Gagarin says, in ecstasy, he could have gone on forever he floated ate and sang and when he emerged from that one hundred eight minutes off the surface of the earth he was smiling Then he returned to take his place among the rest of us from all that division…

  • A Harder Thing Than Triumph

    Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honor bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shame in his own Nor in his neighbors’ eyes; Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn…

  • Our Fathers Also

    Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Peoples, Kings, Are changing ‘neath our hand. Our fathers also see these things But they do not understand. All Profit, all Device, all Truth, Written it was or said By the mighty men of their mighty youth,Which is mighty being dead. Rudyard Kipling: Our Fathers Also

  • Love and Friendship

    Love is like the wild rose-briar, Friendship like the holly-tree – The holly is dark when the rose-briar  blooms But which will bloom most constantly? The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring, Its summer blossoms scent the air; Yet wait till winter comes again And who will call the…

  • Hope and History

    History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave. But then once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme. Seamus Heaney: The Cure at Troy

  • All the Magic

    Sandra’s seen a leprechaun, Eddie touched a troll Laurie danced with witches once, Charlie found some goblins’ gold. Donald heard a mermaid sing, Susy spied an elf, But all the magic I have known I’ve had to make myself. Shel Silverstein: Magic

  • The Purpose of Poetry

    Poetry is not conceptual thought … poetry, even if it’s about big issues, is always about a particular case. And so, a poet uses words in such a way that they don’t address primarily your intellect … The purpose of poetry is not to understand it but to experience it.…

  • A Tall Ship

    I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s…

  • Devouring Time

    Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws, And burn the long-liv’d Phoenix in her blood; Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the…

  • Not Man the Less, but Nature More

    There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more George Byron

  • A Microscopic Topic

    I am a paramecium That cannot do a simple sum And it’s a rather well known fact I’m quite unable to subtract If I’d an eye, I’d surely cry About the way I multiply For though I’ve often tried and tried I do it backwards… And divide. Jack Pelutsky: A…

  • Central Limit Theorem

    Plato, despair! We prove by norms How numbers bear Empiric forms, How random wrong Will average right If time be long And error slight; But in our hearts Hyperbole Curves and departs To infinity. Error is boundless. Nor hope nor doubt, Though both be groundless, Will average out. J.V. Cunningham:…

  • Exploration

    We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time T. S. Eliot: Exploration

  • Placebo

    No can do. I am doctor not of medicine, but Latinity. I am the future, singular, indicative. The first person. What do you take me for? If is a real condition. If I’m a pill, then you are double blind. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Spoonful of sugar,…

  • Early Bird

    Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird And catch the worm for your breakfast plate. If you’re a bird, be an early early bird – But if you’re a worm, sleep late. Shel Silverstein: Early Bird

  • Nature’s Infinite Book of Secrecy

    In nature’s infinite book of secrecy A little I can read. William Shakespeare

  • The Battle of the Bulge

    To hell with you, ignoble paunch, abhorrent in my sight! I gaze at your rotundity, and savage is my frown. I’ll rub you and I’ll scrub you and I’ll drub you day and night, But by the gods of symmetry I swear I’ll get you down. Your smooth and smug…

  • The Witch

    Toil and grow rich,What’s that but to lieWith a foul witchAnd after, drained dry,To be broughtTo the chamber whereLies one long soughtWith despair?William Butler Yeats: The witch

  • Revenge is Sour

    The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish daydream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates…

  • The Thing With Feathers

    “Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops – at all And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard And sore must be the storm That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm…

  • The First Snowfall

    The snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl.…

  • Three Nights Song

    He waits to happen with the clearreality of what he thinks about-to be a child who wakes beautifully,a man always in the state of wakingto a new room, or at night, wakingto a strange room with snow outside,and the moon beyond glass,in a net of branches,so bright and clear and…

  • Tree House

    A tree house, a free house, A secret you and me house, A high up in the leafy branches Cozy as can be house. A street house, a neat house, Be sure and wipe your feet house Is not my kind of house at all – Let’s go live in…

  • The Alphabet of American Animals

    The armadillo, the armadillo has armor above but not below The bear, the bear has a lot of hair everywhere The coyote, the coyote can never let the chickens be The deer, the deer are always full of fear The eagle, the eagle, to hunt it is illegal The frog,…

  • Acquainted With the Night

    I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain – and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.…