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Best Famous Twenty Four Hours Poems

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Shake The Superflux!

 I like walking on streets as black and wet as this one
now, at two in the solemnly musical morning, when everyone else
in this town emptied of Lestrygonians and Lotus-eaters
is asleep or trying or worrying why
they aren't asleep, while unknown to them Ulysses walks
into the shabby apartment I live in, humming and feeling
happy with the avant-garde weather we're having,
the winds (a fugue for flute and oboe) pouring
into the windows which I left open although
I live on the ground floor and there have been
two burglaries on my block already this week,
do I quickly take a look to see
if the valuables are missing? No, that is I can't,
it's an epistemological quandary: what I consider
valuable, would they? Who are they, anyway? I'd answer that
with speculations based on newspaper accounts if I were
Donald E.
 Westlake, whose novels I'm hooked on, but
this first cigarette after twenty-four hours
of abstinence tastes so good it makes me want
to include it in my catalogue of pleasures
designed to hide the ugliness or sweep it away
the way the violent overflow of rain over cliffs
cleans the sewers and drains of Ithaca
whose waterfalls head my list, followed by
crudites of carrots and beets, roots and all,
with rained-on radishes, too beautiful to eat,
and the pure pleasure of talking, talking and not knowing
where the talk will lead, but willing to take my chances.

Furthermore I shall enumerate some varieties of tulips
(Bacchus, Tantalus, Dardanelles) and other flowers
with names that have a life of their own (Love Lies Bleeding,
Dwarf Blue Bedding, Burning Bush, Torch Lily, Narcissus).

Mostly, as I've implied, it's the names of things
that count; still, sometimes I wonder and, wondering, find
the path of least resistance, the earth's orbit
around the sun's delirious clarity.
 Once you sniff
the aphrodisiac of disaster, you know: there's no reason
for the anxiety--or for expecting to be free of it;
try telling Franz Kafka he has no reason to feel guilty;
or so I say to well-meaning mongers of common sense.

They way I figure, you start with the names
which are keys and then you throw them away
and learn to love the locked rooms, with or without
corpses inside, riddles to unravel, emptiness to possess,
a woman to wake up with a kiss (who is she?
no one knows) who begs your forgiveness (for what?
you cannot know) and then, in the authoritative tone
of one who has weathered the storm of his exile, orders you
to put up your hands and beg the rain to continue
as if it were in your power.
 And it is,
I feel it with each drop.
 I am standing
outside at the window, looking in on myself
writing these words, feeling what wretches feel, just
as the doctor ordered.
 And that's what I plan to do,
what the storm I was caught in reminded me to do,
to shake the superflux, distribute my appetite, fast
without so much as a glass of water, and love
each bite I haven't taken.
 I shall become the romantic poet
whose coat of many colors smeared
with blood, like a butcher's apron, left
in the sacred pit or brought back to my father
to confirm my death, confirms my new life
instead, an alien prince of dungeons and dreams
who sheds the disguise people recognize him by
to reveal himself to his true brothers at last
in the silence that stuns before joy descends, like rain.

Written by Carl Sandburg |

Manitoba Childe Roland

 LAST night a January wind was ripping at the shingles over our house and whistling a wolf
song under the eaves.


I sat in a leather rocker and read to a six-year-old girl the Browning poem, Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came.


And her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful to her and she could not
understand.


A man is crossing a big prairie, says the poem, and nothing happens—and he goes on and
on—and it’s all lonesome and empty and nobody home.


And he goes on and on—and nothing happens—and he comes on a horse’s skull, dry bones of a 
dead horse—and you know more than ever it’s all lonesome and empty and nobody home.


And the man raises a horn to his lips and blows—he fixes a proud neck and forehead toward 
the empty sky and the empty land—and blows one last wonder-cry.


And as the shuttling automatic memory of man clicks off its results willy-nilly and 
inevitable as the snick of a mouse-trap or the trajectory of a 42-centimeter projectile,

I flash to the form of a man to his hips in snow drifts of Manitoba and Minnesota—in the 
sled derby run from Winnipeg to Minneapolis.


He is beaten in the race the first day out of Winnipeg—the lead dog is eaten by four team 
mates—and the man goes on and on—running while the other racers ride—running while the 
other racers sleep—

Lost in a blizzard twenty-four hours, repeating a circle of travel hour after hour—fighting 
the dogs who dig holes in the snow and whimper for sleep—pushing on—running and walking 
five hundred miles to the end of the race—almost a winner—one toe frozen, feet blistered 
and frost-bitten.


And I know why a thousand young men of the Northwest meet him in the finishing miles and 
yell cheers—I know why judges of the race call him a winner and give him a special prize 
even though he is a loser.


I know he kept under his shirt and around his thudding heart amid the blizzards of five 
hundred miles that one last wonder-cry of Childe Roland—and I told the six-year-old girl 
all about it.


And while the January wind was ripping at the shingles and whistling a wolf song under the 
eaves, her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful to her and she could not 
understand.

Written by William Topaz McGonagall |

A Soldiers Reprieve

 'Twas in the United States of America some years ago
An aged father sat at his fireside with his heart full of woe,
And talking to his neighbour, Mr Allan, about his boy Bennie
That was to be shot because found asleep doing sentinel duty.
 

"Inside of twenty-four hours, the telegram said,
And, oh! Mr Allan, he's dead, I am afraid.

Where is my brave Bennie now to me is a mystery.
"
"We will hope with his heavenly Father," said Mr Allen, soothingly.
 

"Yes, let us hope God is very merciful," said Mr Allan.

"Yes, yes," said Bennie's father, "my Bennie was a good man.

He said, 'Father, I'll go and fight for my country.

Go, then, Bennie,' I said, 'and God be with ye.
' " 

Little Blossom, Bennie's sister, sat listening with a blanched cheek,
Poor soul, but she didn't speak,
Until a gentle tap was heard at the kitchen door,
Then she arose quickly and tripped across the floor.
 

And opening the door, she received a letter from a neighbour's hand,
And as she looked upon it in amazement she did stand.

Then she cried aloud, "It is from my brother Bennie.

Yes, it is, dear father, as you can see.
" 

And as his father gazed upon it he thought Bennie was dead,
Then he handed the letter to Mr Allan and by him it was read,
And the minister read as follows: "Dear father, when this you see
I shall be dead and in eternity.
 

"And, dear father, at first it seemed awful to me
The thought of being launched into eternity.

But, dear father, I'm resolved to die like a man,
And keep up my courage and do the best I can.
 

"You know I promised Jemmie Carr's mother to look after her boy,
Who was his mother's pet and only joy.

But one night while on march Jemmie turned sick,
And if I hadn't lent him my arm he'd have dropped very quick.
 

"And that night it was Jemmie's turn to be sentry,
And take poor Jemmie's place I did agree,
But I couldn't keep awake, father, I'm sorry to relate,
And I didn't know it, well, until it was too late.
 

"Good-bye, dear father, God seems near me,
But I'm not afraid now to be launched into eternity.

No, dear father, I'm going to a world free from strife,
And see my Saviour there in a better, better life.
" 

That night, softly, little Blossom, Bennie's sister, stole out
And glided down the footpath without any doubt.

She was on her way to Washington, with her heart full of woe,
To try and save her brother's life, blow high, blow low.
 

And when Blossom appeared before President Lincoln,
Poor child, she was looking very woebegone.

Then the President said, "My child, what do you want with me?"
"Please, Bennie's life, sir," she answered timidly.
 

"Jemmie was sick, sir, and my brother took his place.
"
"What is this you say, child? Come here and let me see your face.
"
Then she handed him Bennie's letter, and he read if carefully,
And taking up his pen he wrote a few lines hastily.
 

Then he said to Blossom, "To-morrow, Bennie will go with you.
"
And two days after this interview
Bennie and Blossom took their way to their green mountain home,
And poor little Blossom was footsore, but she didn't moan.



And a crowd gathered at the mill depot to welcome them back,
And to grasp the hand of his boy, Farmer Owen wasn't slack,
And tears flowed down his cheeks as he said fervently,
"The Lord be praised for setting my dear boy free.
"