Explore Poems: Assonance

Withstand pandemonium
and scandalous
nightstands
commanding candlelight

         and
         quicksand

and zinfandel
clandestine landmines
candy handfuls
and contraband

         and
         handmade

commandments
and merchandise
secondhand husbands
philandering

         and
         landless

and vandal
bandwagons slandered
and branded
handwritten reprimands

     ...

The letter A is awesome!
It simply is the best.
Without an A, you could not get
an A+ on a test.
You’d never see an acrobat
or eat an apple pie.
You couldn’t be an astronaut
or kiss your aunt goodbye.
An antelope would not exist.
An ape...

My brother is dying and I am not.
I drag him behind me like a spiritless balloon, like the first robot,
like the last clown-car clown, his ridiculous Fiat, his lot
to be crushed, left for dead, covered in snot,
his puffy hands, his...

            We real cool. We   
            Left school. We

            Lurk late. We
            Strike straight. We

            Sing sin. We   
     ...

Back in those days, when he told me about his adventures
in sex clubs it wasn't the whys and wherefores

but technical details, like going rafting
down the Colorado River; and when he wrote

about a gay male friend whose first sexual experience
was with...

I thought I was so tough,
But gentled at your hands,
Cannot be quick enough
To fly for you and show
That when I go I go
At your commands.

Even in flight above
I am no longer free:
You seeled me with your love,
I am blind to...

Come leave the loathéd stage,
         And the more loathsome age,
Where pride and impudence in faction knit
         Usurp the chair of wit,
Indicting and arraigning, every day,
         Something they call a play.
     Let their...

They were the local Ohio palm, tropic in the heat of trains.
They could grow in anything—pitch, whole grain,
cinders, ash and rust, the dirt
dumped back of the foundry, what

the men wore home. Little willows,
they were made to be brushed back by...

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travellers journey is done. 

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: 
Arise from their...

Moses, from whose loins I sprung,
Lit by a lamp in his blood
Ten immutable rules, a moon
For mutable lampless men.

The blonde, the bronze, the ruddy,
With the same heaving blood,
Keep tide to the moon of...

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see...

I

What’s unseen may not exist—   
Or so those secret powers insist   
            That prowl past nightfall,   
Enabled by the brain’s blacklist   
            To fester out of sight,   

So we streak from bad to worse,   
Through an expanding universe   
            And see no evil.   
On my rounds like a...

Can't tell your oh from your ah? Go, go or else
go ga-ga. What, were you born in a barn? Oh.
Ah. What do you say when the dentist asks?
No novacaine? Nah. Then joke's on us, Jack:
...

Heartworn happiness, fine line that winds
among the tapestry’s old blacks and blues,
bright hair blazing in the theater,
red hair raving in the bar—as now
the little leaves shoot veils of gold
across the trees’ bones, shroud of spring,
ghost of summer, shadblow snow, blood-
russet...

Some nights, blank nothing:

The ice-box, milk-purling in the kitchen.

The eye-of-pine floorboards ticking, clicking, planking themselves cool.

Take a statement, the same as yesterday’s dictation:
         Lately pain has been there waiting when I awake.
Creative despair and failure have made their patient.
         Anyway, I’m afraid I have nothing to say.
Those crazy phrases I desecrated the paper
         With against the grain ......

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
   O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
   The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
The grey lawns...

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day...

Any sky-bird sings,
Ring, ring!
Any church-chime rings,
Dong ding!
Any cannon says,
Boom bang!
Any whirlwind says,
Whing whang!
The bell-buoy hums and...

Whether or not shadows are of the substance
such is the expectation I can
wait to surprise my vision as a wind
enters the valley: sudden and silent
in its arrival, drawing to full cry
the whorled invisibilities, glassen towers...