Kenneth Patchen Short Poems
Famous Short Kenneth Patchen Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Kenneth Patchen. A collection of the all-time best Kenneth Patchen short poems
by
Kenneth Patchen
The Dove walks with sticky feet
Upon the green crowns of the almond tree,
Its feathers smeared over with warmth
Like honey
That dips lazily down into the shadow ...
Anyone standing in that orchard.So filled with peace and sleep,
Would hardly have noticed the hill
Nearby
With its three strange wooden arms
Lifted above a throng of motionless people
- Above the helmets of Pilate's soldiers
Flashing like silver teeth in the sun.
by
Kenneth Patchen
Let us have madness openly.
O men Of my generation.
Let us follow
The footsteps of this slaughtered age:
See it trail across Time's dim land
Into the closed house of eternity
With the noise that dying has,
With the face that dead things wear--
nor ever say
We wanted more; we looked to find
An open door, an utter deed of love,
Transforming day's evil darkness;
but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,
and within the head
A rotting bog of lean huge graves.
by
Kenneth Patchen
A beast stands at my eye.
I cook my senses in a dark fire.
The old wombs rot and the new mother
Approaches with the footsteps of a world.
Who are the people of this unscaled heaven?
What beckons?
Whose blood hallows this grim land?
What slithers along the watershed of my human sleep?
The other side of knowing ...
Caress of unwaking delight ... O start
A sufficient love! O gently silent forms
Of the last spaces.
by
Kenneth Patchen
We go out together into the staring town
And buy cheese and bread and little jugs with
flowered labels
Everywhere is a tent where we put on our whirling
show
A great deal has been said of the handless serpents
Which war has set loose in the gay milk of our
heads
But because you braid your hair and taste like
honey of heaven
We go together into town to buy wine and
yellow candles.