T.L. Morrisey

Showing posts with label Kenneth Patchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenneth Patchen. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

"The Snow Is Deep on the Ground" by Kenneth Patchen

 


The snow is deep on the ground.   
Always the light falls
Softly down on the hair of my belovèd.

This is a good world.
The war has failed.
God shall not forget us.
Who made the snow waits where love is.

Only a few go mad.
The sky moves in its whiteness
Like the withered hand of an old king.   
God shall not forget us.
Who made the sky knows of our love.

The snow is beautiful on the ground.   
And always the lights of heaven glow   
Softly down on the hair of my belovèd.

Friday, February 11, 2022

Two poems by Kenneth Patchen

 


A Vision for the People of America

O the poets with death on their tongues
shall come to address you.


The fat nonsense will end.
You will drown in your rot.



The poets with death on their tongues
shall come to address you.


The slimy hypocrisy will end.
You will go down in your filth.



O the poets with death on their tongues
shall come to address you.



O Fiery River

O fiery river
Flow out over the land
Men have destroyed the roads of wonder,
And their cities squat like black toads
In the orchards of life.
Nothing is clean, or real, or as a girl,
Naked to love, or to be a man with.
The arts of this American land
Stink in the air of mountains;
What has made these men sick rats
That they find out every cheap hole?

How can these squeak of greatness?
Push your drugstore-culture into the sewer
With the rest of your creation.
The bell wasn't meant to toll for you.
Keep your filthy little hands off it.

O fiery river
Spread over this American land.
Drown out the falsity, the smug contempt
For what does not pay . . .
What would you pay Christ to die again?

Note: Both poems are from Kenneth Patchen's Selected Poems, published by New Directions.