Robert Creeley Poems
A collection of select Robert Creeley famous poems that were written by Robert Creeley or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
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I have come far enough
from where I was not before
to have seen the things
looking in at me from through the open door
and have walked tonight
by myself
to see the moonlight
and see it as trees
and shapes more fearful
because I feared
what I did not know
but have wanted to know.
My facd is my own, I thought.
But you have seen it
turn into a thousand...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
My lady
fair with
soft
arms, what
can I say to
you-words, words
as if all
worlds were there....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
Comes the time when it's later
and onto your table the headwaiter
puts the bill, and very soon after
rings out the sound of lively laughter--
Picking up change, hands like a walrus,
and a face like a barndoor's,
and a head without any apparent size,
nothing but two eyes--
So that's you, man,
or me. I make it as I can,
I pick up, I go
faster than they...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
Most explicit--
the sense of trap
as a narrowing
cone one's got
stuck into and
any movement
forward simply
wedges once more--
but where
or quite when,
even with whom,
since now there is no one
quite with you--Quite? Quiet?
English expression: Quait?
Language of singular
impedance? A dance? An
involuntary gesture to
others not there? What's
wrong here? How
reach out to the
other side all
others live on as
now you see the
two doctors, behind
you, in mind's eye,
probe into...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.
Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world
you thought of first but do not
own, or keep like a convenience.
People are your own word, you
invented that locus and term.
Here, you said and say, is
where we are. Give back
what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
My wife and I lived all alone,
contention was our only bone.
I fought with her, she fought with me,
and things went on right merrily.
But now I live here by myself
with hardly a damn thing on the shelf,
and pass my days with little cheer
since I have parted from my dear.
Oh come home soon, I write to her.
Go **** yourself, is her...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
1)
Sleeping birds, lead me,
soft birds, be me
inside this black room,
back of the white moon.
In the dark night
sight frightens me.
2)
Who is it nuzzles there
with furred, round headed stare?
Who, perched on the skin,
body's float, is holding on?
What other one stares still,
plays still, on and on?
3)
Stand upright, prehensile,
squat, determined,
small guardians of the painful
outside coming in --
in stuck in vials with needles,
bleeding life...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
Window's tree trunk's predominant face
a single eye-leveled hole where limb's torn off
another larger contorts to swell growing in around
imploding wound beside a clutch of thin twigs
hold to one two three four five six dry twisted
yellowish brown leaves flat against the other
gray trees in back stick upright then the glimpse
of lighter still grayish sky behind the close
welted solid large trunk...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
She stood at the window. There was
a sound, a light.
She stood at the window. A face.
Was it that she was looking for,
he thought. Was it that
she was looking for. He said,
turn from it, turn
from it. The pain is
not unpainful. Turn from it.
The act of her anger, of
the anger she felt then,
not turning to him....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,--John, I
sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,
drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
As I was walking
I came upon
chance walking
the same road upon.
As I sat down
by chance to move
later
if and as I might,
light the wood was,
light and green,
and what I saw
before I had not seen.
It was a lady
accompanied
by goat men
leading her.
Her hair held earth.
Her eyes were dark.
A double flute
made her move.
"O love,
...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
I approach with such
a careful tremor, always
I feel the finally foolish
question of how it is,
then, supposed to be felt,
and by whom. I remember
once in a rented room on
27th street, the woman I loved
then, literally, after we
had made love on the large
bed sitting across from
a basin with two faucets, she
had to pee but was nervous,
embarrassed I suppose I
would watch her...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
What I took in my hand
grew in weight. You must
understand it
was not obscene.
Night comes. We sleep.
Then if you know what
say it.
Don't pretend.
Guises are
what enemies wear. You
and I live
in a prayer.
Helpless. Helpless,
should I speak.
Would you.
What do you think of me.
No woman ever was,
was wiser
than you. None is
more true.
But fate, love, fate
scares me. What
I took in my hand
grows in weight....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
Whereas the man who hits
the gong dis-
proves it, in all its
simplicity --
Even so the attempt
makes for triumph, in
another man.
Likewise in love I
am not foolish or in-
competent. My method is not a
tenderness, but hope
defined....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
You send me your poems,
I'll send you mine.
Things tend to awaken
even through random communication
Let us suddenly
proclaim spring. And jeer
at the others,
all the others.
I will send a picture too
if you will send me one of you....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
Seeing is believing.
Whatever was thought or said,
these persistent, inexorable deaths
make faith as such absent,
our humanness a question,
a disgust for what we are.
Whatever the hope,
here it is lost.
Because we coveted our difference,
here is the cost....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quite, persistent rain.
What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it
that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me
something other than this,
something not so insistent--
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.
Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out
of...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
My love's manners in bed
are not to be discussed by me,
as mine by her
I would not credit comment upon gracefully.
Yet I ride by the margin of that lake in
the wood, the castle,
and the excitement of strongholds;
and have a small boy's notion of doing good.
Oh well, I will say here,
knowing each man,
let you find a good wife too,
and love her...Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
The words are a beautiful music.
The words bounce like in water.
Water music,
loud in the clearing
off the boats,
birds, leaves.
They look for a place
to sit and eat--
no meaning,
no point....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert
for Mark Peters
Not just nothing,
Not there's no answer,
Not it's nowhere or
Nothing to show for it -
It's like There's no past like
the present. It's
all over with us.
There are no doors...
Oh my god! Like
I wish I had a dog.
Oh my god!
I had a dog but he's gone.
His name was Zero,
something for nothing!
You like dog biscuits?
Fill in the blank....Read more of this...
by
Creeley, Robert