Kenneth Patchen Poems

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• Best Kenneth Patchen Poems
• Kenneth Patchen Quotes

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 As we are so wonderfully done with each other 
We can walk into our separate sleep 
on floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood 
lies 

oh my love, my golden lark, my soft long doll 
Your lips have splashed my dull house with print of flowers 
My hands are crooked where they spilled over your dear 
curving...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 Wherever the dead are there they are and
Nothing more. But you and I can expect
To see angels in the meadowgrass that look
Like cows -
And wherever we are in paradise
in furnished room without bath and
six flights up
Is all God! We read
To one another, loving the sound of the s’s
Slipping up on the f’s and much is good
Enough to raise the...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 Speak softly; sun going down
Out of sight. Come near me now.

Dear dying fall of wings as birds
complain against the gathering dark...

Exaggerate the green blood in grass;
the music of leaves scraping space;

Multiply the stillness by one sound;
by one syllable of your name...

And all that is little is soon giant,
all that is rare grows in common beauty

To rest with my mouth...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 In the footsteps of the walking air
Sky's prophetic chickens weave their cloth of awe
And hillsides lift green wings in somber journeying.

Night in his soft haste bumps on the shoulders of the abyss
And a single drop of dark blood covers the earth.

Now is the China of the spirit at walking
In my reaches.
A sable organ sounds in my gathered will
And love's...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 I believe that a young woman
Is standing in a circle of lions
In the other side of the sky.

In a little while I must carry her the flowers
Which only fade here; and she will not cry
If my hands are not very full.

±

Fiery antlers toss within the forests of heaven
And ocean’s plaintive towns
Echo the tread of celestial feet.
O the beautiful eyes...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 Let us have madness openly. 
O men Of my generation. 
Let us follow 
The footsteps of this slaughtered age: 
See it trail across Time's dim land 
Into the closed house of eternity 
With the noise that dying has, 
With the face that dead things wear-- 
nor ever say 
We wanted more; we looked to find
An open door, an utter...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 The Dove walks with sticky feet
Upon the green crowns of the almond tree,
Its feathers smeared over with warmth
Like honey
That dips lazily down into the shadow ...

Anyone standing in that orchard.So filled with peace and sleep,
Would hardly have noticed the hill
Nearby
With its three strange wooden arms
Lifted above a throng of motionless people
- Above the helmets of Pilate's soldiers
Flashing like silver...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 Tiny green birds skate over the surface of the room.
A naked girl prepares a basin with steaming water,
And in the corner away from the hearth, the red wheels
Of an up-ended chariot slowly turn.
After a long moment, the door to the other world opens
And the golden figure of a man appears. He stands
Ruddy as a salmon beside the niche where...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
To establish problem
To ignore solutions
To listen to no one
To omit nothing
To contradict everything
To generate the free brain
To bear no cross
To take part in no crucifixion
To tinkle a warning when mankind strays
To...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 And all that is this day. . . 
The boy with cap slung over what had been a face. .. 

Somehow the cop will sleep tonight, will make love to his
wife... 
Anger won't help. I was born angry. Angry that my father was
being burnt alive in the mills; Angry that none of us knew
anything but filth, and poverty. Angry...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 A beast stands at my eye.

I cook my senses in a dark fire.
The old wombs rot and the new mother
Approaches with the footsteps of a world.

Who are the people of this unscaled heaven?
What beckons?
Whose blood hallows this grim land?
What slithers along the watershed of my human sleep?

The other side of knowing ...
Caress of unwaking delight ... O start
A sufficient...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 The Orange bears with soft friendly eyes
Who played with me when I was ten,
Christ, before I'd left home they'd had
Their paws smashed in the rolls, their backs
Seared by hot slag, their soft trusting
Bellies kicked in, their tongues ripped
Out, and I went down through the woods
To the smelly crick with Whitman
In the Haldeman-Julius edition,
And I just sat there worrying my...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 That should be obvious
Of course it won't
Any fool knows that.
Even in the winter.
Consider for a moment.
What?
Consider what!
They never have.
Why now?
Certainly it means nothing.
It's all a lie.
What else could it be?
That's right.
Sure.
Any way you look at it.
A silk hat.
A fat belly.
A nice church to squat in.
My holy ass...
What should they care about?
It's quaint.
Twelve kids on the fire escape...
Flowers on the...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 To leave the earth was my wish, and no will stayed my rising.
Early, before sun had filled the roads with carts
Conveying folk to weddings and to murders;
Before men left their selves of sleep, to wander
In the dark of the world like whipped beasts.

I took no pack. I had no horse, no staff, no gun.
I got up a little way...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a
temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest.

For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the
world. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I
cover her against any hurt.

Using the pen of rivers and mountaintops I store her
pillow with singing.

Upon her hair I...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 We go out together into the staring town
And buy cheese and bread and little jugs with
flowered labels

Everywhere is a tent where we put on our whirling 
show

A great deal has been said of the handless serpents
Which war has set loose in the gay milk of our
heads

But because you braid your hair and taste like
honey of heaven
We go together into...Read more of this...

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by Patchen, Kenneth

 when we were here together in a place we did not know, nor one
another.
A bit of grass held between the teeth for a moment, bright hair on the 
wind.
What we were we did not know, nor even the grass or the flame of 
hair turning to ash on the wind.
But they lied about that. From the beginning they lied....Read more of this...

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