Best Famous Spines Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Spines poems. This is a select list of the best famous Spines poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Spines poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of spines poems.

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• All Famous Spines Poems

Written by Adrienne Rich | Victory Something spreading underground won't speak to us under skin won't declare itself not all life-forms want dialogue with the machine-gods in their drama hogging down the deep bush clear-cutting refugees from ancient or transient villages into our opportunistic fervor to search crazily for a host a lifeboat Suddenly instead of art we're eyeing organisms traced and stained on cathedral transparencies cruel blues embroidered purples succinct yellows a beautiful tumor • I guess you're not alone I fear you're alone There's, of course, poetry: awful bridge rising over naked air: I first took it as just a continuation of the road: "a masterpiece of engineering praised, etc." then on the radio: "incline too steep for ease of, etc." Drove it nonetheless because I had to this being how— So this is how I find you: alive and more • As if (how many conditionals must we suffer?) I'm driving to your side —an intimate collusion— packed in the trunk my bag of foils for fencing with pain glasses of varying spectrum for sun or fog or sun-struck rain or bitterest night my sack of hidden poetries, old glue shredding from their spines my time exposure of the Leonids over Joshua Tree As if we're going to win this O because • If you have a sister I am not she nor your mother nor you my daughter nor are we lovers or any kind of couple except in the intensive care of poetry and death's master plan architecture-in-progress draft elevations of a black-and-white mosaic dome the master left on your doorstep with a white card in black calligraphy: Make what you will of this As if leaving purple roses • If (how many conditionals must we suffer?) I tell you a letter from the master is lying on my own doorstep glued there with leaves and rain and I haven't bent to it yet if I tell you I surmise he writes differently to me: Do as you will, you have had your life many have not signing it in his olden script: Meister aus Deutschland • In coldest Europe end of that war frozen domes iron railings frozen stoves lit in the streets memory banks of cold the Nike of Samothrace on a staircase wings in blazing backdraft said to me : : to everyone she met Displaced, amputated never discount me Victory indented in disaster striding at the head of stairs for Tory Dent

Written by Pablo Neruda | Enigmas You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with his golden feet? I reply, the ocean knows this. You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent bell? What is it waiting for? I tell you it is waiting for time, like you. You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms? Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know. You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal, and I reply by describing how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies. You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers, which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides? Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on the crystal architecture of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now? You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean spines? The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks? The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out in the deep places like a thread in the water? I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its jewel boxes is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure, and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the petal hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl. I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead of human eyes, dead in those darknesses, of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes on the timid globe of an orange. I walked around as you do, investigating the endless star, and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

Written by Charles Baudelaire | I Love The Naked Ages Long Ago I love the naked ages long ago When statues were gilded by Apollo, When men and women of agility Could play without lies and anxiety, And the sky lovingly caressed their spines, As it exercised its noble machine. Fertile Cybele, mother of nature, then, Would not place on her daughters a burden, But, she-wolf sharing her heart with the people, Would feed creation from her brown nipples. Men, elegant and strong, would have the right To be proud to have beauty named their king; Virgin fruit free of blemish and cracking, Whose flesh smooth and firm would summon a bite! The Poet today, when he would convey This native grandeur, would not be swept away By man free and woman natural, But would feel darkness envelop his soul Before this black tableau full of loathing. O malformed monsters crying for clothing! O ludicrous heads! Torsos needing disguise! O poor writhing bodies of every wrong size, Children that the god of the Useful swaths In the language of bronze and brass! And women, alas! You shadow your heredity, You gnaw nourishment from debauchery, A virgin holds maternal lechery And all the horrors of fecundity! We have, it is true, corrupt nations, Beauty unknown to the radiant ancients: Faces that gnaw through the heart's cankers, And talk with the cool beauty of languor; But these inventions of our backward muses Are never hindered in their morbid uses Of the old for profound homage to youth, —To the young saint, the sweet air, the simple truth, To the eye as limpid as the water current, To spread out over all, insouciant Like the blue sky, the birds and the flowers, Its perfumes, its songs and its sweet fervors.

Written by Pablo Neruda | Ode To a Chestnut on the Ground From bristly foliage you fell complete, polished wood, gleaming mahogany, as perfect as a violin newly born of the treetops, that falling offers its sealed-in gifts, the hidden sweetness that grew in secret amid birds and leaves, a model of form, kin to wood and flour, an oval instrument that holds within it intact delight, an edible rose. In the heights you abandoned the sea-urchin burr that parted its spines in the light of the chestnut tree; through that slit you glimpsed the world, birds bursting with syllables, starry dew below, the heads of boys and girls, grasses stirring restlessly, smoke rising, rising. You made your decision, chestnut, and leaped to earth, burnished and ready, firm and smooth as the small breasts of the islands of America. You fell, you struck the ground, but nothing happened, the grass still stirred, the old chestnut sighed with the mouths of a forest of trees, a red leaf of autumn fell, resolutely, the hours marched on across the earth. Because you are only a seed, chestnut tree, autumn, earth, water, heights, silence prepared the germ, the floury density, the maternal eyelids that buried will again open toward the heights the simple majesty of foliage, the dark damp plan of new roots, the ancient but new dimensions of another chestnut tree in the earth.

Written by Robert Frost | The Mountain The mountain held the town as in a shadow I saw so much before I slept there once: I noticed that I missed stars in the west, Where its black body cut into the sky. Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall Behind which I was sheltered from a wind. And yet between the town and it I found, When I walked forth at dawn to see new things, Were fields, a river, and beyond, more fields. The river at the time was fallen away, And made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones; But the signs showed what it had done in spring; Good grass-land gullied out, and in the grass Ridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark. I crossed the river and swung round the mountain. And there I met a man who moved so slow With white-faced oxen in a heavy cart, It seemed no hand to stop him altogether. "What town is this?" I asked. "This? Lunenburg." Then I was wrong: the town of my sojourn, Beyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain, But only felt at night its shadowy presence. "Where is your village? Very far from here?" "There is no village--only scattered farms. We were but sixty voters last election. We can't in nature grow to many more: That thing takes all the room!" He moved his goad. The mountain stood there to be pointed at. Pasture ran up the side a little way, And then there was a wall of trees with trunks: After that only tops of trees, and cliffs Imperfectly concealed among the leaves. A dry ravine emerged from under boughs Into the pasture. "That looks like a path. Is that the way to reach the top from here?-- Not for this morning, but some other time: I must be getting back to breakfast now." "I don't advise your trying from this side. There is no proper path, but those that have Been up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd's. That's five miles back. You can't mistake the place: They logged it there last winter some way up. I'd take you, but I'm bound the other way." "You've never climbed it?" "I've been on the sides Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There's a brook That starts up on it somewhere--I've heard say Right on the top, tip-top--a curious thing. But what would interest you about the brook, It's always cold in summer, warm in winter. One of the great sights going is to see It steam in winter like an ox's breath, Until the bushes all along its banks Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles-- You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!" "There ought to be a view around the world From such a mountain--if it isn't wooded Clear to the top." I saw through leafy screens Great granite terraces in sun and shadow, Shelves one could rest a knee on getting up-- With depths behind him sheer a hundred feet; Or turn and sit on and look out and down, With little ferns in crevices at his elbow. "As to that I can't say. But there's the spring, Right on the summit, almost like a fountain. That ought to be worth seeing." "If it's there. You never saw it?" "I guess there's no doubt About its being there. I never saw it. It may not be right on the very top: It wouldn't have to be a long way down To have some head of water from above, And a good distance down might not be noticed By anyone who'd come a long way up. One time I asked a fellow climbing it To look and tell me later how it was." "What did he say?" "He said there was a lake Somewhere in Ireland on a mountain top." "But a lake's different. What about the spring?" "He never got up high enough to see. That's why I don't advise your trying this side. He tried this side. I've always meant to go And look myself, but you know how it is: It doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain You've worked around the foot of all your life. What would I do? Go in my overalls, With a big stick, the same as when the cows Haven't come down to the bars at milking time? Or with a shotgun for a stray black bear? 'Twouldn't seem real to climb for climbing it." "I shouldn't climb it if I didn't want to-- Not for the sake of climbing. What's its name?" "We call it Hor: I don't know if that's right." "Can one walk around it? Would it be too far?" "You can drive round and keep in Lunenburg, But it's as much as ever you can do, The boundary lines keep in so close to it. Hor is the township, and the township's Hor-- And a few houses sprinkled round the foot, Like boulders broken off the upper cliff, Rolled out a little farther than the rest." "Warm in December, cold in June, you say?" "I don't suppose the water's changed at all. You and I know enough to know it's warm Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm. But all the fun's in how you say a thing." "You've lived here all your life?" "Ever since Hor Was no bigger than a----" What, I did not hear. He drew the oxen toward him with light touches Of his slim goad on nose and offside flank, Gave them their marching orders and was moving.

Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Hiawathas Fishing Forth upon the Gitche Gumee, On the shining Big-Sea-Water, With his fishing-line of cedar, Of the twisted bark of cedar, Forth to catch the sturgeon Nahma, Mishe-Nahma, King of Fishes, In his birch canoe exulting All alone went Hiawatha. Through the clear, transparent water He could see the fishes swimming Far down in the depths below him; See the yellow perch, the Sahwa, Like a sunbeam in the water, See the Shawgashee, the craw-fish, Like a spider on the bottom, On the white and sandy bottom. At the stern sat Hiawatha, With his fishing-line of cedar; In his plumes the breeze of morning Played as in the hemlock branches; On the bows, with tail erected, Sat the squirrel, Adjidaumo; In his fur the breeze of morning Played as in the prairie grasses. On the white sand of the bottom Lay the monster Mishe-Nahma, Lay the sturgeon, King of Fishes; Through his gills he breathed the water, With his fins he fanned and winnowed, With his tail he swept the sand-floor. There he lay in all his armor; On each side a shield to guard him, Plates of bone upon his forehead, Down his sides and back and shoulders Plates of bone with spines projecting Painted was he with his war-paints, Stripes of yellow, red, and azure, Spots of brown and spots of sable; And he lay there on the bottom, Fanning with his fins of purple, As above him Hiawatha In his birch canoe came sailing, With his fishing-line of cedar. "Take my bait," cried Hiawatha, Dawn into the depths beneath him, "Take my bait, O Sturgeon, Nahma! Come up from below the water, Let us see which is the stronger!" And he dropped his line of cedar Through the clear, transparent water, Waited vainly for an answer, Long sat waiting for an answer, And repeating loud and louder, "Take my bait, O King of Fishes!" Quiet lay the sturgeon, Nahma, Fanning slowly in the water, Looking up at Hiawatha, Listening to his call and clamor, His unnecessary tumult, Till he wearied of the shouting; And he said to the Kenozha, To the pike, the Maskenozha, "Take the bait of this rude fellow, Break the line of Hiawatha!" In his fingers Hiawatha Felt the loose line jerk and tighten, As he drew it in, it tugged so That the birch canoe stood endwise, Like a birch log in the water, With the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Perched and frisking on the summit. Full of scorn was Hiawatha When he saw the fish rise upward, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, Coming nearer, nearer to him, And he shouted through the water, "Esa! esa! shame upon you! You are but the pike, Kenozha, You are not the fish I wanted, You are not the King of Fishes!" Reeling downward to the bottom Sank the pike in great confusion, And the mighty sturgeon, Nahma, Said to Ugudwash, the sun-fish, To the bream, with scales of crimson, "Take the bait of this great boaster, Break the line of Hiawatha!" Slowly upward, wavering, gleaming, Rose the Ugudwash, the sun-fish, Seized the line of Hiawatha, Swung with all his weight upon it, Made a whirlpool in the water, Whirled the birch canoe in circles, Round and round in gurgling eddies, Till the circles in the water Reached the far-off sandy beaches, Till the water-flags and rushes Nodded on the distant margins. But when Hiawatha saw him Slowly rising through the water, Lifting up his disk refulgent, Loud he shouted in derision, "Esa! esa! shame upon you! You are Ugudwash, the sun-fish, You are not the fish I wanted, You are not the King of Fishes!" Slowly downward, wavering, gleaming, Sank the Ugudwash, the sun-fish, And again the sturgeon, Nahma, Heard the shout of Hiawatha, Heard his challenge of defiance, The unnecessary tumult, Ringing far across the water. From the white sand of the bottom Up he rose with angry gesture, Quivering in each nerve and fibre, Clashing all his plates of armor, Gleaming bright with all his war-paint; In his wrath he darted upward, Flashing leaped into the sunshine, Opened his great jaws, and swallowed Both canoe and Hiawatha. Down into that darksome cavern Plunged the headlong Hiawatha, As a log on some black river Shoots and plunges down the rapids, Found himself in utter darkness, Groped about in helpless wonder, Till he felt a great heart beating, Throbbing in that utter darkness. And he smote it in his anger, With his fist, the heart of Nahma, Felt the mighty King of Fishes Shudder through each nerve and fibre, Heard the water gurgle round him As he leaped and staggered through it, Sick at heart, and faint and weary. Crosswise then did Hiawatha Drag his birch-canoe for safety, Lest from out the jaws of Nahma, In the turmoil and confusion, Forth he might be hurled and perish. And the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Frisked and chatted very gayly, Toiled and tugged with Hiawatha Till the labor was completed. Then said Hiawatha to him, "O my little friend, the squirrel, Bravely have you toiled to help me; Take the thanks of Hiawatha, And the name which now he gives you; For hereafter and forever Boys shall call you Adjidaumo, Tail-in-air the boys shall call you!" And again the sturgeon, Nahma, Gasped and quivered in the water, Then was still, and drifted landward Till he grated on the pebbles, Till the listening Hiawatha Heard him grate upon the margin, Felt him strand upon the pebbles, Knew that Nahma, King of Fishes, Lay there dead upon the margin. Then he heard a clang and flapping, As of many wings assembling, Heard a screaming and confusion, As of birds of prey contending, Saw a gleam of light above him, Shining through the ribs of Nahma, Saw the glittering eyes of sea-gulls, Of Kayoshk, the sea-gulls, peering, Gazing at him through the opening, Heard them saying to each other, "'T is our brother, Hiawatha!" And he shouted from below them, Cried exulting from the caverns: "O ye sea-gulls! O my brothers! I have slain the sturgeon, Nahma; Make the rifts a little larger, With your claws the openings widen, Set me free from this dark prison, And henceforward and forever Men shall speak of your achievements, Calling you Kayoshk, the sea-gulls, Yes, Kayoshk, the Noble Scratchers!" And the wild and clamorous sea-gulls Toiled with beak and claws together, Made the rifts and openings wider In the mighty ribs of Nahma, And from peril and from prison, From the body of the sturgeon, From the peril of the water, They released my Hiawatha. He was standing near his wigwam, On the margin of the water, And he called to old Nokomis, Called and beckoned to Nokomis, Pointed to the sturgeon, Nahma, Lying lifeless on the pebbles, With the sea-gulls feeding on him. "I have slain the Mishe-Nahma, Slain the King of Fishes!" said he' "Look! the sea-gulls feed upon him, Yes, my friends Kayoshk, the sea-gulls; Drive them not away, Nokomis, They have saved me from great peril In the body of the sturgeon, Wait until their meal is ended, Till their craws are full with feasting, Till they homeward fly, at sunset, To their nests among the marshes; Then bring all your pots and kettles, And make oil for us in Winter." And she waited till the sun set, Till the pallid moon, the Night-sun, Rose above the tranquil water, Till Kayoshk, the sated sea-gulls, From their banquet rose with clamor, And across the fiery sunset Winged their way to far-off islands, To their nests among the rushes. To his sleep went Hiawatha, And Nokomis to her labor, Toiling patient in the moonlight, Till the sun and moon changed places, Till the sky was red with sunrise, And Kayoshk, the hungry sea-gulls, Came back from the reedy islands, Clamorous for their morning banquet. Three whole days and nights alternate Old Nokomis and the sea-gulls Stripped the oily flesh of Nahma, Till the waves washed through the rib-bones, Till the sea-gulls came no longer, And upon the sands lay nothing But the skeleton of Nahma.

Written by James Tate | Days of Pie and Coffee A motorist once said to me, and this was in the country, on a county lane, a motorist slowed his vehicle as I was walking my dear old collie, Sithney, by the side of the road, and the motorist came to a halt mildly alarming both Sithney and myself, not yet accustomed to automobiles, and this particular motorist sent a little spasm of fright up our spines, which in turn panicked the driver a bit and it seemed as if we were off to a bad start, and that's when Sithney began to bark and the man could not be heard, that is, if he was speaking or trying to speak because I was commanding Sithnewy to be silent, though, indeed I was sympathetic to his emotional excitement. It was, as I recall, a day of prodigious beauty. April 21, 1932--clouds like the inside of your head explained. Bluebirds, too numerous to mention. The clover calling you by name. And fields oozing green. And this motorist from nowhere moving his lips like the wings of a butterfly and nothing coming out, and Sithney silent now. He was no longer looking at us, but straight ahead where his election was in doubt. "That's a fine dog," he said. "Collies are made in heaven." Well, if I were a voting man I'd vote for you, I said. "A bedoozling day to be lost in the country, I say. Leastways, I am a misplaced individual." We introduced ourselves and swapped a few stories. He was a veteran and a salesmen who didn't believe in his product-- I've forgotten what it was--hair restorer, parrot feed--and he enjoyed nothing more then a a day spent meandering the back roads in his jalopy. I gave him directions to the Denton farm, but I doubt that he followed them, he didn't seem to be listening, and it was getting late and Sithney had an idea of his own and I don't know why I am remembering this now, just that he summed himself up by saying "I've missed too many boats" and all these years later I keep thinking that was a man who loved to miss boats, but he didn't miss them that much.

Written by Natasha Trethewey | Letter Home --New Orleans, November 1910 Four weeks have passed since I left, and still I must write to you of no work. I've worn down the soles and walked through the tightness of my new shoes calling upon the merchants, their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking my plain English and good writing would secure for me some modest position Though I dress each day in my best, hands covered with the lace gloves you crocheted--no one needs a girl. How flat the word sounds, and heavy. My purse thins. I spend foolishly to make an appearance of quiet industry, to mask the desperation that tightens my throat. I sit watching-- though I pretend not to notice--the dark maids ambling by with their white charges. Do I deceive anyone? Were they to see my hands, brown as your dear face, they'd know I'm not quite what I pretend to be. I walk these streets a white woman, or so I think, until I catch the eyes of some stranger upon me, and I must lower mine, a negress again. There are enough things here to remind me who I am. Mules lumbering through the crowded streets send me into reverie, their footfall the sound of a pointer and chalk hitting the blackboard at school, only louder. Then there are women, clicking their tongues in conversation, carrying their loads on their heads. Their husky voices, the wash pots and irons of the laundresses call to me. I thought not to do the work I once did, back bending and domestic; my schooling a gift--even those half days at picking time, listening to Miss J--. How I'd come to know words, the recitations I practiced to sound like her, lilting, my sentences curling up or trailing off at the ends. I read my books until I nearly broke their spines, and in the cotton field, I repeated whole sections I'd learned by heart, spelling each word in my head to make a picture I could see, as well as a weight I could feel in my mouth. So now, even as I write this and think of you at home, Goodbye is the waving map of your palm, is a stone on my tongue.

Written by Amy Lowell | An Aquarium Streaks of green and yellow iridescence, Silver shiftings, Rings veering out of rings, Silver -- gold -- Grey-green opaqueness sliding down, With sharp white bubbles Shooting and dancing, Flinging quickly outward. Nosing the bubbles, Swallowing them, Fish. Blue shadows against silver-saffron water, The light rippling over them In steel-bright tremors. Outspread translucent fins Flute, fold, and relapse; The threaded light prints through them on the pebbles In scarcely tarnished twinklings. Curving of spotted spines, Slow up-shifts, Lazy convolutions: Then a sudden swift straightening And darting below: Oblique grey shadows Athwart a pale casement. Roped and curled, Green man-eating eels Slumber in undulate rhythms, With crests laid horizontal on their backs. Barred fish, Striped fish, Uneven disks of fish, Slip, slide, whirl, turn, And never touch. Metallic blue fish, With fins wide and yellow and swaying Like Oriental fans, Hold the sun in their bellies And glow with light: Blue brilliance cut by black bars. An oblong pane of straw-coloured shimmer, Across it, in a tangent, A smear of rose, black, silver. Short twists and upstartings, Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles: Sunshine playing between red and black flowers On a blue and gold lawn. Shadows and polished surfaces, Facets of mauve and purple, A constant modulation of values. Shaft-shaped, With green bead eyes; Thick-nosed, Heliotrope-coloured; Swift spots of chrysolite and coral; In the midst of green, pearl, amethyst irradiations. Outside, A willow-tree flickers With little white jerks, And long blue waves Rise steadily beyond the outer islands.

Written by Robert Lowell | The Withdrawal 1 Only today and just for this minute, when the sunslant finds its true angle, you can see yellow and pinkish leaves spangle our gentle, fluffy tree— suddenly the green summer is momentary... Autumn is my favorite season— why does it change clothes and withdraw? This week the house went on the market— suddenly I woke up among strangers; when I go into a room, it moves with embarrassment, and joins another room. I don't need conversation, but you to laugh with— you and a room and a fire, cold starlight blowing through an open window— whither? 2 After sunfall, heaven is melodramatic, a temporary, puckering, burning green. The patched-up oak and blacker, indelible pines have the indigestible meagerness of spines. One wishes heaven had less solemnity: a sensual table with five half-filled bottles of red wine set round the hectic carved roast— Bohemia for ourselves and the familiars of a lifetime charmed to communion by resurrection— running together in the rain to mail a single letter, not the chafe and cling of this despondent chaff. 3 Yet for a moment, the children could play truant from their tuition. 4 When I look back, I see a collapsing accordion of my receding houses, and myself receding to a boy of twenty-five or thirty, too shopworn for less, too impressionable for more— blackmaned, illmade in a washed blue workshirt and coalblack trousers, moving from house to house, still seeking a boy's license to see the countryside without arrival. Hell? Darling, terror in happiness may not cure the hungry future, the time when any illness is chronic, and the years of discretion are spent on complaint— until the wristwatch is taken from the wrist.