Louise Gluck Short Poems
Famous Short Louise Gluck Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Louise Gluck. A collection of the all-time best Louise Gluck short poems
by
Louise Gluck
The great man turns his back on the island.
Now he will not die in paradise
nor hear again
the lutes of paradise among the olive trees,
by the clear pools under the cypresses.
Time
begins now, in which he hears again
that pulse which is the narrative
sea, ar dawn when its pull is stongest.
What has brought us here
will lead us away; our ship
sways in the tined harbor water.
Now the spell is ended.
Giove him back his life,
sea that can only move forward.
by
Louise Gluck
Long ago, I was wounded.
I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was--
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.
by
Louise Gluck
Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.
I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me.
I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--
afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy
in the raw wind of the new world.
by
Louise Gluck
The stars are soft as flowers, and as near;
The hills are webs of shadow, slowly spun;
No separate leaf or single blade is here-
All blend to one.
No moonbeam cuts the air; a sapphire light
Rolls lazily.
and slips again to rest.
There is no edged thing in all this night,
Save in my breast.
by
Louise Gluck
Softly lie down
and close your eyes so blue
worry no more
for tonight I'll watch over you
Gently rest your head
against my soothing chest
for here in my arms
you've found a safe place to rest
Sleep sweet child
in peaceful undisturbed dreams
and don't awake
until the morning beams
June 25, 2006
©2006 Fenny
by
Louise Gluck
for kelly
happiness is the stuff of birthdays
and the coming of sweet things
when they are not expected
happiness is when the moment
catches the sunlight and a giggle
comes out of darkness to take a look
happiness is when the body
rhymes with the heart and the whole
self flows like a mountain stream
happiness is when mischief
dances like stars in the fingers
and adults are nowhere in sight
happiness has its own clock
it comes in short ticks - then
it tocks where no one can find it
by
Louise Gluck
Look, a butterfly.
Did you make a wish?
You don't wish on butterflies.
You do so.
Did you make one?
Yes.
It doesn't count.
by
Louise Gluck
To say I'm without fear--
It wouldn't be true.
I'm afraid of sickness, humiliation.
Like anyone, I have my dreams.
But I've learned to hide them,
To protect myself
From fulfillment: all happiness
Attracts the Fates' anger.
They are sisters, savages--
In the end they have
No emotion but envy.
by
Louise Gluck
In the end, I made myself
Known to your wife as
A god would, in her own house, in
Ithaca, a voice
Without a body: she
Paused in her weaving, her head turning
First to the right, then left
Though it was hopeless of course
To trace that sound to any
Objective source: I doubt
She will return to her loom
With what she knows now.
When
You see her again, tell her
This is how a god says goodbye:
If I am in her head forever
I am in your life forever.
by
Louise Gluck
Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken.
The oxen
Sleep in their blue yoke,
The fields having been
Picked clean, the sheaves
Bound evenly and piled at the roadside
Among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:
This is the barrenness
Of harvest or pestilence
And the wife leaning out the window
With her hand extended, as in payment,
And the seeds
Distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one
And the soul creeps out of the tree.
by
Louise Gluck
The great thing
is not having
a mind.
Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me.
I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do.
I speak
because I am shattered.
by
Louise Gluck
waiting for death
like a cat
that will jump on the
bed
I am so very sorry for
my wife
she will see this
stiff
white
body
shake it once, then
maybe
again
"Hank!"
Hank won't
answer.
it's not my death that
worries me, it's my wife
left with this
pile of
nothing.
I want to
let her know
though
that all the nights
sleeping
beside her
even the useless
arguments
were things
ever splendid
and the hard
words
I ever feared to
say
can now be
said:
I love
you.
by
Louise Gluck
In the empty field, in the morning,
the body waits to be claimed.
The spirit sits beside it, on a small rock--
nothing comes to give it form again.
Think of the body's loneliness.
At night pacing the sheared field,
its shadow buckled tightly around.
Such a long journey.
And already the remote, trembling lights of the village
not pausing for it as they scan the rows.
How far away they seem,
the wooden doors, the bread and milk
laid like weights on the table.
by
Louise Gluck
As I perceive
I am dying now and know
I will not speak again, will not
survive the earth, be summoned
out of it again, not
a flower yet, a spine only, raw dirt
catching my ribs, I call you,
father and master: all around,
my companions are failing, thinking
you do not see.
How
can they know you see
unless you save us?
In the summer twilight, are you
close enough to hear
your child's terror? Or
are you not my father,
you who raised me?
by
Louise Gluck
The garden admires you.
For your sake it smears itself with green pigment,
The ecstatic reds of the roses,
So that you will come to it with your lovers.
And the willows--
See how it has shaped these green
Tents of silence.
Yet
There is still something you need,
Your body so soft, so alive, among the stone animals.
Admit that it is terrible to be like them,
Beyond harm.
by
Louise Gluck
She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.
by
Louise Gluck
"You saved me, you should remember me.
The spring of the year; young men buying tickets for the ferryboats.
Laughter, because the air is full of apple blossoms.
When I woke up, I realized I was capable of the same feeling.
I remember sounds like that from my childhood,
laughter for no cause, simply because the world is beautiful,
something like that."