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Best Famous Old Man Poems

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Written by Matthew Arnold | Create an image from this poem

To A Friend

 Who prop, thou ask'st in these bad days, my mind?--
He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men,
Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,
And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind.

Much he, whose friendship I not long since won,
That halting slave, who in Nicopolis
Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son
Cleared Rome of what most shamed him. But be his

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul,
 From first youth tested up to extreme old age,
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;

Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole;
The mellow glory of the Attic stage,
Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.


Written by Charles Bukowski | Create an image from this poem

A Man

 George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T.V. His
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash
from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning.
Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing
it away. There was a knock on the trailer door. He got slowly to his feet and answered the
door. It was Constance. She had a fifth of unopened whiskey in a bag. 
"George, I left that son of a *****, I couldn't stand that son of a *****
anymore." 
"Sit down."
George opened the fifth, got two glasses, filled each a third with whiskey, two thirds
with water. He sat down on the bed with Constance. She took a cigarette out of her purse
and lit it. She was drunk and her hands trembled. 
"I took his damn money too. I took his damn money and split while he was at work.
You don't know how I've suffered with that son of a *****." "
Lemme have a smoke," said George. She handed it to him and as she leaned near,
George put his arm around her, pulled her over and kissed her. 
"You son of a *****," she said, "I missed you." 
"I miss those good legs of yours , Connie. I've really missed those good
legs." 
"You still like 'em?" 
"I get hot just looking."
"I could never make it with a college guy," said Connie. "They're too
soft, they're milktoast. And he kept his house clean. George , it was like having a maid.
He did it all. The place was spotless. You could eat beef stew right off the crapper. He
was antisceptic, that's what he was." 
"Drink up, you'll feel better." 
"And he couldn't make love." 
"You mean he couldn't get it up?" 
"Oh he got it up, he got it up all the time. But he didn't know how to make a
woman happy, you know. He didn't know what to do. All that money, all that education, he
was useless." 
"I wish I had a college education." 
"You don't need one. You have everything you need, George." 
"I'm just a flunkey. All the **** jobs." 
"I said you have everything you need, George. You know how to make a woman
happy." 
"Yeh?" 
"Yes. And you know what else? His mother came around! His mother! Two or three
times a week. And she'd sit there looking at me, pretending to like me but all the time
she was treating me like I was a whore. Like I was a big bad whore stealing her son away
from her! Her precious Wallace! Christ! What a mess!" "He claimed he loved me.
And I'd say, 'Look at my pussy, Walter!' And he wouldn't look at my pussy. He said, 'I
don't want to look at that thing.' That thing! That's what he called it! You're not afraid
of my pussy, are you, George?"
"It's never bit me yet." "But you've bit it, you've nibbled it, haven't
you George?"
"I suppose I have." 
"And you've licked it , sucked it?" 
"I suppose so." 
"You know damn well, George, what you've done." 
"How much money did you get?" 
"Six hundred dollars." 
"I don't like people who rob other people, Connie." 
"That's why you're a fucking dishwasher. You're honest. But he's such an ass,
George. And he can afford the money, and I've earned it... him and his mother and his
love, his mother-love, his clean l;ittle wash bowls and toilets and disposal bags and
breath chasers and after shave lotions and his little hard-ons and his precious
love-making. All for himself, you understand, all for himself! You know what a woman
wants, George." 
"Thanks for the whiskey, Connie. Lemme have another cigarette." 
George filled them up again. "I missed your legs, Connie. I've really missed those
legs. I like the way you wear those high heels. They drive me crazy. These modern women
don't know what they're missing. The high heel shapes the calf, the thigh, the ass; it
puts rythm into the walk. It really turns me on!"
"You talk like a poet, George. Sometimes you talk like that. You are one hell of a
dishwasher."
"You know what I'd really like to do?" 
"What?" 
"I'd like to whip you with my belt on the legs, the ass, the thighs. I'd like to
make you quiver and cry and then when you're quivering and crying I'd slam it into you
pure love." 
"I don't want that, George. You've never talked like that to me before. You've
always done right with me." 
"Pull your dress up higher." 
"What?" 
"Pull your dress up higher, I want to see more of your legs." 
"You like my legs, don't you, George?" 
"Let the light shine on them!" 
Constance hiked her dress.
"God christ ****," said George. 
"You like my legs?"
"I love your legs!" Then george reached across the bed and slapped Constance
hard across the face. Her cigarette flipped out of her mouth.
"what'd you do that for?" 
"You fucked Walter! You fucked Walter!" 
"So what the hell?" 
"So pull your dress up higher!" 
"No!" 
"Do what I say!" George slapped again, harder. Constance hiked her skirt. 
"Just up to the panties!" shouted George. "I don't quite want to see the
panties!" 
"Christ, george, what's gone wrong with you?" 
"You fucked Walter!" 
"George, I swear, you've gone crazy. I want to leave. Let me out of here,
George!"
"Don't move or I'll kill you!" 
"You'd kill me?" 
"I swear it!" George got up and poured himself a shot of straight whiskey,
drank it, and sat down next to Constance. He took the cigarette and held it against her
wrist. She screamed. HE held it there, firmly, then pulled it away. 
"I'm a man , baby, understand that?" 
"I know you're a man , George."
"Here, look at my muscles!" george sat up and flexed both of his arms. 
"Beautiful, eh ,baby? Look at that muscle! Feel it! Feel it!" 
Constance felt one of the arms, then the other. 
"Yes, you have a beautiful body, George." 
"I'm a man. I'm a dishwasher but I'm a man, a real man." 
"I know it, George." "I'm not the milkshit you left." 
"I know it."
"And I can sing, too. You ought to hear my voice." 
Constance sat there. George began to sing. He sang "Old man River." Then he
sang "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." He sang "The St. Louis
Blues." He sasng "God Bless America," stopping several times and laughing.
Then he sat down next to Constance. He said, "Connie, you have beautiful legs."
He asked for another cigarette. He smoked it, drank two more drinks, then put his head
down on Connie's legs, against the stockings, in her lap, and he said, "Connie, I
guess I'm no good, I guess I'm crazy, I'm sorry I hit you, I'm sorry I burned you with
that cigarette." 
Constance sat there. She ran her fingers through George's hair, stroking him, soothing
him. Soon he was asleep. She waited a while longer. Then she lifted his head and placed it
on the pillow, lifted his legs and straightened them out on the bed. She stood up, walked
to the fifth, poured a jolt of good whiskey in to her glass, added a touch of water and
drank it sown. She walked to the trailer door, pulled it open, stepped out, closed it. She
walked through the backyard, opened the fence gate, walked up the alley under the one
o'clock moon. The sky was clear of clouds. The same skyful of clouds was up there. She got
out on the boulevard and walked east and reached the entrance of The Blue Mirror. She
walked in, and there was Walter sitting alone and drunk at the end of the bar. She walked
up and sat down next to him. "Missed me, baby?" she asked. Walter looked up. He
recognized her. He didn't answer. He looked at the bartender and the bartender walked
toward them They all knew eachother.
Written by Ben Jonson | Create an image from this poem

His Excuse for Loving

Let it not your wonder move, 
Less your laughter, that I love. 
Though I now write fifty years, 
I have had, and have, my peers. 
Poets, though divine, are men; 
Some have loved as old again. 
And it is not always face, 
Clothes, or fortune gives the grace, 
Or the feature, or the youth; 
But the language and the truth, 
With the ardor and the passion, 
Gives the lover weight and fashion. 
If you then would hear the story, 
First, prepare you to be sorry 
That you never knew till now 
Either whom to love or how; 
But be glad as soon with me 
When you hear that this is she 
Of whose beauty it was sung, 
She shall make the old man young, 
Keep the middle age at stay, 
And let nothing hide decay, 
Till she be the reason why 
All the world for love may die. 
Written by William Butler Yeats | Create an image from this poem

The Phases Of The Moon

 An old man cocked his car upon a bridge;
 He and his friend, their faces to the South,
 Had trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled,
 Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape;
 They had kept a steady pace as though their beds,
 Despite a dwindling and late-risen moon,
 Were distant still. An old man cocked his ear.

Aherne. What made that Sound?

Robartes. A rat or water-hen
Splashed, or an otter slid into the stream.
We are on the bridge; that shadow is the tower,
And the light proves that he is reading still.
He has found, after the manner of his kind,
Mere images; chosen this place to live in
Because, it may be, of the candle-light
From the far tower where Milton's Platonist
Sat late, or Shelley's visionary prince:
The lonely light that Samuel Palmer engraved,
An image of mysterious wisdom won by toil;
And now he seeks in book or manuscript
What he shall never find.

Ahernc. Why should not you
Who know it all ring at his door, and speak
Just truth enough to show that his whole life
Will scarcely find for him a broken crust
Of all those truths that are your daily bread;
And when you have spoken take the roads again?

Robartes. He wrote of me in that extravagant style
He had learnt from pater, and to round his tale
Said I was dead; and dead I choose to be.

Aherne. Sing me the changes of the moon once more;
True song, though speech: "mine author sung it me.'

Robartes. Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon,
The full and the moon's dark and all the crescents,
Twenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and-twenty
The cradles that a man must needs be rocked in:
For there's no human life at the full or the dark.
From the first crescent to the half, the dream
But summons to adventure and the man
Is always happy like a bird or a beast;
But while the moon is rounding towards the full
He follows whatever whim's most difficult
Among whims not impossible, and though scarred.
As with the cat-o'-nine-tails of the mind,
His body moulded from within his body
Grows comelier. Eleven pass, and then
Athene takes Achilles by the hair,
Hector is in the dust, Nietzsche is born,
Because the hero's crescent is the twelfth.
And yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must,
Before the full moon, helpless as a worm.
The thirteenth moon but sets the soul at war
In its own being, and when that war's begun
There is no muscle in the arm; and after,
Under the frenzy of the fourteenth moon,
The soul begins to tremble into stillness,
To die into the labyrinth of itself!

Aherne. Sing out the song; sing to the end, and sing
The strange reward of all that discipline.

Robartes. All thought becomes an image and the soul
Becomes a body: that body and that soul
Too perfect at the full to lie in a cradle,
Too lonely for the traffic of the world:
Body and soul cast out and cast away
Beyond the visible world.

Aherne. All dreams of the soul
End in a beautiful man's or woman's body.

Robartes, Have you not always known it?

Aherne. The song will have it
That those that we have loved got their long fingers
From death, and wounds, or on Sinai's top,
Or from some bloody whip in their own hands.
They ran from cradle to cradle till at last
Their beauty dropped out of the loneliness
Of body and soul.

Robartes. The lover's heart knows that.

Aherne. It must be that the terror in their eyes
Is memory or foreknowledge of the hour
When all is fed with light and heaven is bare.

Robartes. When the moon's full those creatures of the
 full
Are met on the waste hills by countrymen
Who shudder and hurry by: body and soul
Estranged amid the strangeness of themselves,
Caught up in contemplation, the mind's eye
Fixed upon images that once were thought;
For separate, perfect, and immovable
Images can break the solitude
Of lovely, satisfied, indifferent eyes.

 And thereupon with aged, high-pitched voice
 Aherne laughed, thinking of the man within,
 His sleepless candle and lahorious pen.

Robartes. And after that the crumbling of the moon.
The soul remembering its loneliness
Shudders in many cradles; all is changed,
It would be the world's servant, and as it serves,
Choosing whatever task's most difficult
Among tasks not impossible, it takes
Upon the body and upon the soul
The coarseness of the drudge.

Aherne. Before the full
It sought itself and afterwards the world.

Robartes. Because you are forgotten, half out of life,
And never wrote a book, your thought is clear.
Reformer, merchant, statesman, learned man,
Dutiful husband, honest wife by turn,
Cradle upon cradle, and all in flight and all
Deformed because there is no deformity
But saves us from a dream.

Aherne. And what of those
That the last servile crescent has set free?

Robartes. Because all dark, like those that are all light,
They are cast beyond the verge, and in a cloud,
Crying to one another like the bats;
And having no desire they cannot tell
What's good or bad, or what it is to triumph
At the perfection of one's own obedience;
And yet they speak what's blown into the mind;
Deformed beyond deformity, unformed,
Insipid as the dough before it is baked,
They change their bodies at a word.

Aherne. And then?

Rohartes. When all the dough has been so kneaded up
That it can take what form cook Nature fancies,
The first thin crescent is wheeled round once more.

Aherne. But the escape; the song's not finished yet.

Robartes. Hunchback and Saint and Fool are the last
 crescents.
The burning bow that once could shoot an arrow
Out of the up and down, the wagon-wheel
Of beauty's cruelty and wisdom's chatter -
Out of that raving tide - is drawn betwixt
Deformity of body and of mind.

Aherne. Were not our beds far off I'd ring the bell,
Stand under the rough roof-timbers of the hall
Beside the castle door, where all is stark
Austerity, a place set out for wisdom
That he will never find; I'd play a part;
He would never know me after all these years
But take me for some drunken countryman:
I'd stand and mutter there until he caught
"Hunchback and Sant and Fool,' and that they came
Under the three last crescents of the moon.
And then I'd stagger out. He'd crack his wits
Day after day, yet never find the meaning.

 And then he laughed to think that what seemed hard
 Should be so simple - a bat rose from the hazels
 And circled round him with its squeaky cry,
 The light in the tower window was put out.
Written by Allen Ginsberg | Create an image from this poem

Death and Fame

 When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in 
 Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother 
 96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-
 in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters 
 their grandchildren,
companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche, 
 there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting 
 America, Satchitananda Swami 
Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche, 
 Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms
Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau 
 Roshis, Lama Tarchen --
Then, most important, lovers over half-century
Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich
young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each 
 other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
 day retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he 
 loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly 
 arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my 
 skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my bum with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then 
 sleep in his captain's bed."
"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"
"I was lonely never in bed nude with anyone before, he was so gentle my 
 stomach
shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen nipple to hips-- "
"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth 
 & fingers along my waist"
"He gave great head"
So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commin-
 gling with flesh and youthful blood of 1997
and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"
"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."
"I forgot whether I was straight gay ***** or funny, was myself, tender 
 and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head,
my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my prick, 
 tickled with his tongue my behind"
"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged 
 chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a 
 pillow --"
Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear
"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his 
 walk-up flat,
seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him 
 again never wanted to... "
"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made 
 sure I came first"
This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--
Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock 
 star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical con-
 ductors, unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trum-
 peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger 
 fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-
 harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India, 
 Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massa-
 chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty 
 sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American 
 provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-
 philes, sex liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either sex
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved 
 him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me 
 from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my 
 studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas 
 City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized 
 others like me out there"
Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures
Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photo-
 graphy aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural 
 historians come to witness the historic funeral
Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-
 hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased
who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive

 February 22, 1997


Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

The Living Dead

 Since I have come to years sedate
I see with more and more acumen
The bitter irony of Fate,
The vanity of all things human.
Why, just to-day some fellow said,
As I surveyed Fame's outer portal:
"By gad! I thought that you were dead."
Poor me, who dreamed to be immortal!

But that's the way with many men
Whose name one fancied time-defying;
We thought that they were dust and then
We found them living by their dying.
Like dogs we penmen have our day,
To brief best-sellerdom elected;
And then, "thumbs down," we slink away
And die forgotten and neglected.

Ah well, my lyric fling I've had;
A thousand bits of verse I've minted;
And some, alas! were very bad,
And some, alack! were best unprinted.
But if I've made my muse a bawd
(Since I am earthy as a ditch is),
I'll answer humbly to my God:
Most men at times have toyed with bitches.

Yes, I have played with Lady Rhyme,
And had a long and lovely innings;
And when the Umpire calls my time
I'll blandly quit and take my winnings.
I'll hie me to some Sleepydale,
And feed the ducks and pat the poodles,
And prime my paunch with cakes and ale,
And blether with the village noodles.

And then some day you'll idly scan
The Times obituary column,
And say: "Dear me, the poor old man!"
And for a moment you'll look solemn.
"So all this time he's been alive -
In realms of rhyme a second-rater . . .
But gad! to live to ninety-five:
Let's toast his ghost - a sherry, waiter!"
Written by Alexander Pushkin | Create an image from this poem

The Water-Nymph

 In lakeside leafy groves, a friar
Escaped all worries; there he passed
His summer days in constant prayer,
Deep studies and eternal fast.
Already with a humble shovel
The elder dug himself a grave -
As, calling saints to bless his hovel,
Death - nothing other - did he crave.

So once, upon a falling night, he
Was bowing by his wilted shack
With meekest prayer to the Almighty.
The grove was turning slowly black;
Above the lake a mist was lifting;
Through milky clouds across the sky
The ruddy moon was softly drifting,
When water drew the friar's eye...

He's looking puzzled, full of trouble,
Of fear he cannot quite explain,
He sees the waves begin to bubble
And suddenly grow calm again.
Then -- white as first snow in the highlands,
Light-footed as nocturnal shade,
There comes ashore, and sits in silence
Upon the bank, a naked maid.

She eyes the monk and brushes gently
Her hair, and water off her arms.
He shakes with fear and looks intently
At her, and at her lovely charms.
With eager hand she waves and beckons,
Nods quickly, smiles as from afar
And shoots, within two flashing seconds,
Into still water like a star.

The glum old man slept not an instant;
All day, not even once he prayed:
Before his eyes still hung and glistened
The wondrous, the relentless shade...
The grove puts on its gown of nightfall;
The moon walks on the cloudy floor;
And there's the maiden - pale, delightful,
Reclining on the spellbound shore.

She looks at him, her hair she brushes,
Blows airy kisses, gestures wild,
Plays with the waves - caresses, splashes -
Now laughs, now whimpers like a child,
Moans tenderly, calls louder, louder...
"Come, monk, come, monk! To me, to me!.."
Then - disappears in limpid water,
And all is silent instantly...

On the third day the zealous hermit
Was sitting by the shore, in love,
Awaiting the delightful mermaid,
As shade was covering the grove...
Dark ceded to the sun's emergence;
Our monk had wholly disappeared -
Before a crowd of local urchins,
While fishing, found his hoary beard.

Translated by: Genia Gurarie, summer of 1995
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator.
Written by Allen Ginsberg | Create an image from this poem

America

 America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. 
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 
 17, 1956. 
I can't stand my own mind. 
America when will we end the human war? 
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb. 
I don't feel good don't bother me. 
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. 
America when will you be angelic? 
When will you take off your clothes? 
When will you look at yourself through the grave? 
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites? 
America why are your libraries full of tears? 
America when will you send your eggs to India? 
I'm sick of your insane demands. 
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I 
 need with my good looks? 
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not 
 the next world. 
Your machinery is too much for me. 
You made me want to be a saint. 
There must be some other way to settle this argument. 
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back 
 it's sinister. 
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical 
 joke? 
I'm trying to come to the point. 
I refuse to give up my obsession. 
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing. 
America the plum blossoms are falling. 
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday 
 somebody goes on trial for murder. 
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies. 
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid 
 I'm not sorry. 
I smoke marijuana every chance I get. 
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses 
 in the closet. 
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid. 
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble. 
You should have seen me reading Marx. 
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. 
I won't say the Lord's Prayer. 
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations. 
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle 
 Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you. 
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by 
 Time Magazine? 
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. 
I read it every week. 
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner 
 candystore. 
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. 
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
 men are serious. Movie producers are serious. 
 Everybody's serious but me. 
It occurs to me that I am America. 
I am talking to myself again. 

Asia is rising against me. 
I haven't got a chinaman's chance. 
I'd better consider my national resources. 
My national resources consist of two joints of 
 marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable 
 private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour 
 and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions. 
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of 
 underprivileged who live in my flowerpots 
 under the light of five hundred suns. 
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers 
 is the next to go. 
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that 
 I'm a Catholic. 
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly 
 mood? 
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as 
 individual as his automobiles more so they're 
 all different sexes. 
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 
 down on your old strophe 
America free Tom Mooney 
America save the Spanish Loyalists 
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die 
America I am the Scottsboro boys. 
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
 munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a 
 handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the 
 speeches were free everybody was angelic and 
 sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
 cere you have no idea what a good thing the 
 party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand 
 old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me 
 cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody 
 must have been a spy. 
America you don't really want to go to war. 
America it's them bad Russians. 
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. 
 And them Russians. 
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power 
 mad. She wants to take our cars from out our 
 garages. 
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers' 
 Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. 
 Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
 tions. 
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. 
 Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us 
 all work sixteen hours a day. Help. 
America this is quite serious. 
America this is the impression I get from looking in 
 the television set. 
America is this correct? 
I'd better get right down to the job. 
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes 
 in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and 
 psychopathic anyway. 
America I'm putting my ***** shoulder to the wheel. 

 Berkeley, January 17, 1956
Written by Edward Field | Create an image from this poem

Frankenstein

 The monster has escaped from the dungeon
where he was kept by the Baron,
who made him with knobs sticking out from each side of his neck
where the head was attached to the body
and stitching all over
where parts of cadavers were sewed together.

He is pursued by the ignorant villagers,
who think he is evil and dangerous because he is ugly
and makes ugly noises.
They wave firebrands at him and cudgels and rakes,
but he escapes and comes to the thatched cottage
of an old blind man playing on the violin Mendelssohn's "Spring Song."

Hearing him approach, the blind man welcomes him:
"Come in, my friend," and takes him by the arm.
"You must be weary," and sits him down inside the house.
For the blind man has long dreamed of having a friend
to share his lonely life.

The monster has never known kindness ‹ the Baron was cruel --
but somehow he is able to accept it now,
and he really has no instincts to harm the old man,
for in spite of his awful looks he has a tender heart:
Who knows what cadaver that part of him came from?

The old man seats him at table, offers him bread,
and says, "Eat, my friend." The monster
rears back roaring in terror.
"No, my friend, it is good. Eat -- gooood"
and the old man shows him how to eat,
and reassured, the monster eats
and says, "Eat -- gooood,"
trying out the words and finding them good too.

The old man offers him a glass of wine,
"Drink, my friend. Drink -- gooood."
The monster drinks, slurping horribly, and says,
"Drink -- gooood," in his deep nutty voice
and smiles maybe for the first time in his life.

Then the blind man puts a cigar in the monster's mouth
and lights a large wooden match that flares up in his face.
The monster, remembering the torches of the villagers,
recoils, grunting in terror.
"No, my friend, smoke -- gooood,"
and the old man demonstrates with his own cigar.
The monster takes a tentative puff
and smiles hugely, saying, "Smoke -- gooood,"
and sits back like a banker, grunting and puffing.

Now the old man plays Mendelssohn's "Spring Song" on the violin
while tears come into our dear monster s eyes
as he thinks of the stones of the mob the pleasures of meal-time,
the magic new words he has learned
and above all of the friend he has found.

It is just as well that he is unaware --
being simple enough to believe only in the present --
that the mob will find him and pursue him
for the rest of his short unnatural life,
until trapped at the whirlpool's edge
he plunges to his death.
Written by William Wordsworth | Create an image from this poem

Resolution And Independence

 I 

There was a roaring in the wind all night; 
The rain came heavily and fell in floods; 
But now the sun is rising calm and bright; 
The birds are singing in the distant woods; 
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; 
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; 
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters. 

II 

All things that love the sun are out of doors; 
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth; 
The grass is bright with rain-drops;--on the moors 
The hare is running races in her mirth; 
And with her feet she from the plashy earth 
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun, 
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. 

III 

I was a Traveller then upon the moor, 
I saw the hare that raced about with joy; 
I heard the woods and distant waters roar; 
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy: 
The pleasant season did my heart employ: 
My old remembrances went from me wholly; 
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy. 

IV 

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might 
Of joy in minds that can no further go, 
As high as we have mounted in delight 
In our dejection do we sink as low; 
To me that morning did it happen so; 
And fears and fancies thick upon me came; 
Dim sadness--and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name. 

V 

I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky; 
And I bethought me of the playful hare: 
Even such a happy Child of earth am I; 
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare; 
Far from the world I walk, and from all care; 
But there may come another day to me-- 
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty. 

VI 

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, 
As if life's business were a summer mood; 
As if all needful things would come unsought 
To genial faith, still rich in genial good; 
But how can He expect that others should 
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call 
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all? 

VII 

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, 
The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; 
Of Him who walked in glory and in joy 
Following his plough, along the mountain-side: 
By our own spirits are we deified: 
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; 
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness. 

VIII 

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, 
A leading from above, a something given, 
Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place, 
When I with these untoward thoughts had striven, 
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven 
I saw a Man before me unawares: 
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs. 

IX 

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie 
Couched on the bald top of an eminence; 
Wonder to all who do the same espy, 
By what means it could thither come, and whence; 
So that it seems a thing endued with sense: 
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf 
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself; 

X 

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead, 
Nor all asleep--in his extreme old age: 
His body was bent double, feet and head 
Coming together in life's pilgrimage; 
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage 
Of sickness felt by him in times long past, 
A more than human weight upon his frame had cast. 

XI 

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face, 
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood: 
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace, 
Upon the margin of that moorish flood 
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood, 
That heareth not the loud winds when they call 
And moveth all together, if it move at all. 

XII 

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond 
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look 
Upon the muddy water, which he conned, 
As if he had been reading in a book: 
And now a stranger's privilege I took; 
And, drawing to his side, to him did say, 
"This morning gives us promise of a glorious day." 

XIII 

A gentle answer did the old Man make, 
In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew: 
And him with further words I thus bespake, 
"What occupation do you there pursue? 
This is a lonesome place for one like you." 
Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise 
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes, 

XIV 

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, 
But each in solemn order followed each, 
With something of a lofty utterance drest-- 
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach 
Of ordinary men; a stately speech; 
Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use, 
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues. 

XV 

He told, that to these waters he had come 
To gather leeches, being old and poor: 
Employment hazardous and wearisome! 
And he had many hardships to endure: 
From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor; 
Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance, 
And in this way he gained an honest maintenance. 

XVI 

The old Man still stood talking by my side; 
But now his voice to me was like a stream 
Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide; 
And the whole body of the Man did seem 
Like one whom I had met with in a dream; 
Or like a man from some far region sent, 
To give me human strength, by apt admonishment. 

XVII 

My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills; 
And hope that is unwilling to be fed; 
Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills; 
And mighty Poets in their misery dead. 
--Perplexed, and longing to be comforted, 
My question eagerly did I renew, 
"How is it that you live, and what is it you do?" 

XVIII 

He with a smile did then his words repeat; 
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide 
He travelled; stirring thus about his feet 
The waters of the pools where they abide. 
"Once I could meet with them on every side; 
But they have dwindled long by slow decay; 
Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may." 

XIX 

While he was talking thus, the lonely place, 
The old Man's shape, and speech--all troubled me: 
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace 
About the weary moors continually, 
Wandering about alone and silently. 
While I these thoughts within myself pursued, 
He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed. 

XX 

And soon with this he other matter blended, 
Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind, 
But stately in the main; and when he ended, 
I could have laughed myself to scorn to find 
In that decrepit Man so firm a mind. 
"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure; 
I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!"

Book: Reflection on the Important Things