Poems

Poems List

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Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad

The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad
The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:

346
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

The Plot Against the Giant

The Plot Against the Giant
First Girl
When this yokel comes maundering,
Whetting his hacker,
I shall run before him,
Diffusing the civi…

302
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm

The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the consciou…

344
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches da…

311
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Poem Written at Morning

Poem Written at Morning
A sunny day's complete Poussiniana
Divide it from itself. It is this or that
And it is not.
By metaphor you paint

329
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Sunday Morning

Sunday Morning

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a ru…

316
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Nomad Exquisite

Nomad Exquisite
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth
The big-finned palm
And green vine angering for life,
As the immense dew of Fl…

216
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Of Modern Poetry

Of Modern Poetry
The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what

316
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Gray Room

Gray Room
Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or…

304
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Madame la Fleurie

Madame la Fleurie
Weight him down, O side-stars, with the great weightings of
the end.
Seal him there. He looked in a glass of the earth and thought

310
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Continual Conversation With A Silent Man

Continual Conversation With A Silent Man
The old brown hen and the old blue sky,
Between the two we live and die--
The broken cartwheel on the hill.

373
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Domination Of Black

Domination Of Black
At night, by the fire,
The colors of the bushes
And of the fallen leaves,
Repeating themselves,
Turned in the room, <…

340
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Anecdote of the Jar

Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The w…

264
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. …

331
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

Song 'Coast Starlight'

Song 'Coast Starlight'

Some days I feel a sadness not of grief
The shadows lengthen on the earth's relief
Salinas flows by like a silver shawl

555
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

Time Zones

Time Zones

I willed my love to dream of me last night, that we might lie
at peace, if not beneath a single sheet, under one sky.
I dreamed of her…

691
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

Protocols

Protocols


What can I say to you? How can I retract
All that that fool my voice has spoken -
Now that the facts are plain, the placid surfa…

617
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

Round and Round

Round and Round

After a long and wretched flight
That stretched from daylight into night,
Where babies wept and tempers shattered
And the…

937
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

Octet

Octet


You don't love me at all? O God. O Shit.
You still 'respect me.' Thanks. I value it
About as much as one who's asked to use

631
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

Progress Report

Progress Report

My need has frayed with time; you said it would.
It has; I can walk again across the flood
Of gold sil popples on the straw-gold …

1,184
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

Interpretation

Interpretation


Somewhere within your loving look I sense,
Without the least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,

620
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

Mistaken

Mistaken


I smiled at you because I thought that you
Were someone else; you smiled back; and there grew
Between two strangers in a library…

844
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

From California

From California

Sunday night in the house.
The blinds drawn, the phone dead.
The sound of the kettle, the rain.
Supper: cheese, celery, b…

654
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth

At Evening

At Evening

Let me now sleep, let me not think, let me
Not ache with inconsistent tenderness.
It was untenable delight; we are free--
Separ…

646