Famous Long Absence Poems

Famous Long Absence Poems. Long Absence Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Absence long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog
Uncurling over the tainted city river,
A young girl rowing and her anxious father
Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever
Abandoned orphan. The great athletic killer
Sulking in his tent. As though all stories began
With someone dying.

 When her mother died,
My mother refused to attend the funeral--
In fact, she sulked in her tent all through the year
Of the old lady's dying. I don't know why:
She said, because she loved her mother so much
She couldn't bear to see the way the doctors,
Or her father, or--someone--was letting her mother die.
"Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet;
Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet."

She fogs things up, she scavenges the taint.
Possibly that's the reason I write these poems.

But they did speak: on the phone. Wept and argued,
So fiercely one or the other often cut off
A sentence by hanging up in rage--like lovers,
But all that year she never saw her face.

They lived on the same block, four doors apart.
"Absence my presence is; strangeness my grace;
With them that walk against me is my sun."

"Synagogue" is a word I never heard,
We called it shul, the Yiddish word for school.
Elms, terra-cotta, the ocean a few blocks east.
"Lay institution": she taught me we...
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 You ladies of merry England
Who have been to kiss the Duchess's hand,
Pray, did you not lately observe in the show
A noble Italian called Signior Dildo?

This signior was one of the Duchess's train
And helped to conduct her over the main;
But now she cries out, 'To the Duke I will go,
I have no more need for Signior Dildo.'

At the Sign of the Cross in St James's Street,
When next you go thither to make yourselves sweet
By buying of powder, gloves, essence, or so,
You may chance to get a sight of Signior Dildo.

You would take him at first for no person of note,
Because he appears in a plain leather coat,
But when you his virtuous abilities know,
You'll fall down and worship Signior Dildo.

My Lady Southesk, heaven prosper her for't,
First clothed him in satin, then brought him to court;
But his head in the circle he scarcely durst show,
So modest a youth was Signior Dildo.

The good Lady Suffolk, thinking no harm,
Had got this poor stranger hid under her arm.
Lady Betty by chance came the secret to know
And from her own mother stole Signior Dildo.

The Countess of Falmouth, of whom people tell
Her footmen wear shirts of a guinea an ell,
Might save that expense, if she did but...
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 A lantern light from deeper in the barn
Shone on a man and woman in the door
And threw their lurching shadows on a house
Near by, all dark in every glossy window.
A horse's hoof pawed once the hollow floor,
And the back of the gig they stood beside
Moved in a little. The man grasped a wheel,
The woman spoke out sharply, "Whoa, stand still!"
"I saw it just as plain as a white plate,"
She said, "as the light on the dashboard ran
Along the bushes at the roadside--a man's face.
You must have seen it too."
"I didn't see it.
Are you sure----"
"Yes, I'm sure!"
"--it was a face?"
"Joel, I'll have to look. I can't go in,
I can't, and leave a thing like that unsettled.
Doors locked and curtains drawn will make no difference.
I always have felt strange when we came home
To the dark house after so long an absence,
And the key rattled loudly into place
Seemed to warn someone to be getting out
At one door as we entered at another.
What if I'm right, and someone all the time--
Don't hold my arm!"
"I say it's someone passing."
"You speak as if this were a travelled road.
You forget where we are. What is beyond
That he'd be going to or coming from
At such an hour...
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 It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down, 
When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town; 
`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it -- 'tis a fitting name, I think -- 
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink. 

'Neath the public-house verandah I was resting on a bunk 
When a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was drunk; 
He apologised for speaking; there was no offence, he swore; 
But he somehow seemed to fancy that he'd seen my face before. 

`No erfence,' he said. I told him that he needn't mention it, 
For I might have met him somewhere; I had travelled round a bit, 
And I knew a lot of fellows in the bush and in the streets -- 
But a fellow can't remember all the fellows that he meets. 

Very old and thin and dirty were the garments that he wore, 
Just a shirt and pair of trousers, and a boot, and nothing more; 
He was wringing-wet, and really in a sad and sinful plight, 
And his hat was in his left hand, and a bottle in his right. 

His brow was broad and roomy, but its lines were...
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 I. Soon 

Of all the springtimes of the world 
This one is the ugliest 
Of all of my ways of being 
To be trusting is the best 

Grass pushes up snow 
Like the stone of a tomb 
But I sleep within the storm 
And awaken eyes bright 

Slowness, brief time ends 
Where all streets must pass 
Through my innermost recesses 
So that I would meet someone 

I don’t listen to monsters 
I know them and all that they say 
I see only beautiful faces 
Good faces, sure of themselves 
Certain soon to ruin their masters 

II. The women’s role 

As they sing, the maids dash forward 
To tidy up the killing fields 
Well-powdered girls, quickly to their knees 

Their hands -- reaching for the fresh air -- 
Are blue like never before 
What a glorious day! 

Look at their hands, the dead 
Look at their liquid eyes 

This is the toilet of transience 
The final toilet of life 
Stones sink and disappear 
In the vast, primal waters 
The final toilet of time 

Hardly a memory remains 
the dried-up well of virtue 
In the long, oppressive absences 
One surrenders to tender flesh 
Under the spell of weakness 

III. As deep...
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 Achievin' sech distinction with his moddel tabble dote
Ez to make his Red Hoss Mountain restauraw a place uv note,
Our old friend Casey innovated somewhat round the place,
In hopes he would ameliorate the sufferin's uv the race;
'Nd uv the many features Casey managed to import
The most important wuz a Steenway gran' pianny-fort,
An' bein' there wuz nobody could play upon the same,
He telegraffed to Denver, 'nd a real perfesser came,--
The last an' crownin' glory uv the Casey restauraw
Wuz that tenderfoot musicianer, Perfesser Vere de Blaw!

His hair wuz long an' dishybill, an' he had a yaller skin,
An' the absence uv a collar made his neck look powerful thin:
A sorry man he wuz to see, az mebby you'd surmise,
But the fire uv inspiration wuz a-blazin' in his eyes!
His name wuz Blanc, wich same is Blaw (for that's what Casey said,
An' Casey passed the French ez well ez any Frenchie bred);
But no one ever reckoned that it really wuz his name,
An' no one ever asked him how or why or whence he came,--
Your ancient history is a thing the Coloradan hates,
An' no one asks another what his name wuz in the States!

At evenin', when the work wuz done, an' the miners rounded up
At Casey's,...
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 SECTION ONE

"Give the engines room,
Give the engines room."
Louder, faster
The little band-master
Whips up the fluting,
Hurries up the tooting.
He thinks that he stands,
[*] The reins in his hands, 
In the fire-chief's place 
In the night alarm chase. 
The cymbals whang, 
The kettledrums bang: —
"Clear the street, 
Clear the street, 
Clear the street — Boom, boom. 
In the evening gloom, 
In the evening gloom,
Give the engines room,
Give the engines room.
Lest souls be trapped
In a terrible tomb."
The sparks and the pine-brands
Whirl on high
From the black and reeking alleys
To the wide red sky.
Hear the hot glass crashing,
Hear the stone steps hissing.
Coal black streams
Down the gutters pour.
There are cries for help
From a far fifth floor.
For a longer ladder
Hear the fire-chief call.
Listen to the music
Of the firemen's ball.
Listen to the music
Of the firemen's ball.
"'Tis the 
NIGHT 
Of doom,"
Say the ding-dong doom-bells.
"NIGHT
Of doom,"
Say the ding-dong doom-bells.

Faster, faster
The red flames come.
"Hum grum," say the engines,
"Hum grum grum."
"Buzz, buzz,"
Says the crowd.
"See, see,"
Calls the crowd.
And the high walls fall:—
Listen to the music
Of the firemen's ball
"'Tis the
NIGHT
Of doom,"
Say the ding-dong doom-bells.
NIGHT
Of doom,
Say the ding-dong doom-bells.
Whangaranga, whangaranga,
Whang, whang, whang,
Clang, clang, clangaranga,
Clang, clang, clang. 
Clang—a—ranga—
Clang—a—ranga—
Clang,
Clang,
Clang.
Listen—to—the—music—
Of the firemen's ball—


SECTION TWO

"Many's the heart that's breaking
If we could read them all
After the ball is over."

(An old...
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 1
We are reading the story of our lives
which takes place in a room.
The room looks out on a street.
There is no one there,
no sound of anything.
The tress are heavy with leaves,
the parked cars never move.
We keep turning the pages, hoping for something,
something like mercy or change,
a black line that would bind us
or keep us apart.
The way it is, it would seem
the book of our lives is empty.
The furniture in the room is never shifted,
and the rugs become darker each time
our shadows pass over them.
It is almost as if the room were the world.
We sit beside each other on the couch,
reading about the couch.
We say it is ideal.
It is ideal.

2
We are reading the story of our lives,
as though we were in it,
as though we had written it.
This comes up again and again.
In one of the chapters
I lean back and push the book aside
because the book says
it is what I am doing.
I lean back and begin to write about the book.
I write that I wish to move beyond the book.
Beyond my life into another life.
I put the pen down.
The book says: "He put the pen down
and turned and watched her reading
the part about herself falling in love."
The book is more accurate...
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Five years have passed; five summers, with the length 
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.  Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone. 

                               These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and...
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CANZONE IV. Si è debile il filo a cui s' attene. HE GRIEVES IN ABSENCE FROM LAURA.  The thread on which my weary life dependsSo fragile is and weak,If none kind succour lends,Soon 'neath the painful burden will it break;Since doom'd to take my sad farewell of her,In whom begins and endsMy bliss, one hope, to stirMy sinking spirit from its black despair,Whispers, "Though lost awhileThat form so dear and fair,Sad soul! the trial bear,For thee e'en yet the sun may brightly shine,And days more happy smile,Once more the lost loved treasure may be thine."This thought awhile sustains me, but againTo fail me and forsake in worse excess of pain. Time flies apace: the silent hours and swiftSo urge his journey on,Short span to me is leftEven to think how quick to death I run;Scarce, in the orient heaven, yon mountain crestSmiles in the sun's first ray,When, in the adverse west,His long round run, we see his light decay[Pg 41]So small of life the space,So frail...
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 I have put on my great coat it is cold.

It is an outer garment.

Coarse, woolen.

Of unknown origin.

 *

It has a fine inner lining but it is 
as an exterior that you see it — a grace.

 *

I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully, something dark-true,
as the evening calls the bird up into
the branches of the shaven hedgerows,
to twitter bodily
a makeshift coat — the boxelder cut back stringently by the owner 
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know — 
the birds tucked gestures on the inner branches — 
and space in the heart, 
not shade-giving, not 
chronological...Oh transformer, logic, where are you here in this fold, 
my name being called-out now but back, behind, 
in the upper world....

 *

I have a coat I am wearing I was told to wear it.
Someone knelt down each morning to button it up.
I looked at their face, down low, near me.
What is longing? what is a star?
Watched each button a peapod getting tucked back in. 
Watched harm with its planeloads folded up in the sleeves. 
Watched grappling hooks trawl through the late-night waters. 
Watched bands...
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 AMERICA always! 
Always our own feuillage! 
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the
 cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas! 
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New
 Mexico!
 Always soft-breath’d Cuba! 
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes
 drain’d
 by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the eighty-third year of These States—the three and a half millions of
 square
 miles; 
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main—the thirty
 thousand
 miles of
 river navigation, 
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always
 these,
 and
 more, branching forth into numberless branches; 
Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy! 
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows;
Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge
 oval
 lakes; 
Always the West, with strong native persons—the increasing density there—the
 habitans,
 friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders; 
All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times, 
All characters, movements, growths—a few noticed, myriads unnoticed, 
Through Mannahatta’s streets I walking, these things gathering;
On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pine knots,...
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 --The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
 --for my brother

Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck
In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it.
But the city was hours away, beyond the hills
Shaped like the bodies of sleeping women.
Often I had to slow down for herds of goats
Or cattle milling on those narrow roads, & for
The narrower, lost, stone streets of villages
I passed through. The pains in my stomach had grown
Gradually sharper & more frequent as the day
Wore on, & now a fever had set up house.
In the villages there wasn't much point in asking
Anyone for help. In those places, where tanks
Were bivouacked in shade on their way back
From some routine exercise along
The Danube, even food was scarce that year.
And the languages shifted for no clear reason
From two hard quarries of Slavic into German,
Then to a shred of Latin spliced with oohs
And hisses. Even when I tried the simplest phrases,
The peasants passing over those uneven stones
Paused just long enough to look up once,
Uncomprehendingly. Then they turned
Quickly away, vanishing quietly into that
Moment, like bark chips whirled downriver.
It was...
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 1 Sometime now past in the Autumnal Tide,
2 When Ph{oe}bus wanted but one hour to bed,
3 The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride,
4 Were gilded o're by his rich golden head.
5 Their leaves and fruits seem'd painted but was true
6 Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hew,
7 Rapt were my senses at this delectable view. 

2 

8 I wist not what to wish, yet sure thought I,
9 If so much excellence abide below,
10 How excellent is he that dwells on high?
11 Whose power and beauty by his works we know.
12 Sure he is goodness, wisdom, glory, light,
13 That hath this under world so richly dight.
14 More Heaven than Earth was here, no winter and no night. 

3 

15 Then on a stately Oak I cast mine Eye,
16 Whose ruffling top the Clouds seem'd to aspire.
17 How long since thou wast in thine Infancy?
18 Thy strength and stature, more thy years admire,
19 Hath hundred winters past since thou wast born?
20 Or thousand since thou brakest thy shell of horn?
21 If so, all these as nought, Eternity doth scorn. 

4 

22 Then higher on the glistering Sun I gaz'd,
23 Whose beams was shaded by the leafy Tree.
24 The...
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 'The mist is resting on the hill;
The smoke is hanging in the air;
The very clouds are standing still:
A breathless calm broods everywhere.
Thou pilgrim through this vale of tears,
Thou, too, a little moment cease
Thy anxious toil and fluttering fears,
And rest thee, for a while, in peace.' 

'I would, but Time keeps working still
And moving on for good or ill:
He will not rest or stay.
In pain or ease, in smiles or tears,
He still keeps adding to my years
And stealing life away.
His footsteps in the ceaseless sound
Of yonder clock I seem to hear,
That through this stillness so profound
Distinctly strikes the vacant ear.
For ever striding on and on,
He pauses not by night or day;
And all my life will soon be gone
As these past years have slipped away.
He took my childhood long ago,
And then my early youth; and lo,
He steals away my prime!
I cannot see how fast it goes,
But well my inward spirit knows
The wasting power of time.' 

'Time steals thy moments, drinks thy breath,
Changes and wastes thy mortal frame;
But though he gives the clay to death,
He cannot touch the inward flame.
Nay, though he steals thy years away,
Their memory is left thee still,
And every month and every day
Leaves some effect of good or ill.
The...
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