Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser
Page 67
Launching themselves, 509
Let her be seen, a voice on a platform, heard, 191
Let poems and bodies love and be given to air, 252
Let the wounds change. Let them not cry aloud, 292
Let us be introduced to our superiors, the voting men, 26
Lie still, be still, love, be thou not shaken, 155
Lie there, in sweat and dream, I do, and “there”, 421
Life the announcer, 466
The light tumbles in cubes, boxes of light through my window, 586
Like ivy the creeper with a thousand hands, 363
Long after you beat down the powerful hand, 111
Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the, 480
Long ago, soon after my son's birth, 567
The long-ago garden is green deepened on green, 496
“Long enough. Long enough”, 351
A long road and a village, 228
“Look!” he said, “all green!” but she, 118
“Look,” the city child said, “they have built over the river”, 581
Love, 422
Lucid at dusk the city lies revealed, 44
Lying, 467
Lying here among grass, am I dead am I sleeping, 420
Lying in daylight, in the strong, 542
Lying in the grass, 270
Lying in the moment, she climbs white snows, 546
Lying in the sun, 19
Make and be eaten, the poet says, 345
Make me well, I said.—And the delighted touch, 117
A man is walking toward me across the water, 450
A man riding on the meaning of rivers, 379
A man who is bones is close to me, 451
Many of us Each in his own life waiting, 408
The marker at Auschwitz, 526
M-Day's child is fair of face, 177
Microscopically, the ground moves. Dark creases in the soil, 586
Middle of May, when the iris blows, 490
The moon revolves outside; possibly, black air, 53
The moon is not a crescent, 577
More lovely this, 574
Morning cried by the bed, 57
Mother and listener she is, but she does not listen, 477
Mother, because you never spoke to me, 479
The motive of all of it was loneliness, 259
The mountains and the shadows move away, 439
The mountains rear, and are deathly terrifying, 584
The mountaintop stands in silence a minute after the murder, 287
Mouth looking directly at you, 463
Mr.T. S. Eliot knows the potency of music, 580
Much later, I lie in a white seaport night, 242
Murmurs from the earth of this land, from the caves and craters, 380
My body is set against disorder. Risen among enigmas, 278
My eyes are closing, my eyes are opening, 428
My father groaned; my mother wept, 337
My large back tooth, without a mate for years, 555
My limits crowd around me, 260
My night awake, 467
My son as child saying, 440
My thoughts through yours refracted into speech, 13
A name's a name but, 367
Near Mexico, near April, in the morning, 156
Near the end now, morning. Sleepers cover the decks, 148
Near the waterfront, 557
Never to hear, I know in myself complete, 259
Nevertheless the moon, 354
The new friend comes into my hotel room, 562
The night is covered with signs. The body and face of man, 454
Night. What do you know about the light?, 548
Niobe, 422
No longer speaking, 465
No one ever walking this our only earth, various, very clouded, 398
No one will ever understand that evening, 237
No pagan gods are dancing in these fields, 577
NO WORK is master of the mine today, 31
Nothing was less than it seemed, my darling, 232
Now green, now burning, I make a way for peace, 328
Now he has become one who upon that coast, 257
Now that I am fifty-six, 479
Now the ideas all change to animals, 281
now the world stands visible through your body, 366
O for God's sake, 538
O my singing lover, 273
Of all green trees, I love a nevergreen, 539
Oh I know, 502
On a ground beaten gold by running and, 235
on a spring morning of young wood, green wood, 526
On all the streetcorners the children are standing, 447
On the hour he shuts the door and walks out of town, 78
On the roads at night I saw the glitter of eyes, 253
On your journey you will come to a time of waking, 389
One cornstalk is all cornfields, 362
One o'clock in the letter-box, 213
Only there is a wound that cries all night, 291
Open war with its images of love and death, 278
Open with care the journal of those years, 48
The opening of the doors. Dark, 547
Oranges smell of the south. Chestnuts are warm. The paint, 579
Organize the full results of that rich past, 5
Over the water, where I lie alive, 255
Passage to godhead, fitfully glared upon, 25
Past the darkness a lashing of color, 547
Peddler, drowned pier, birdcage—images, 591
Pieces of animals, pieces of all my friends, 325
Playing a phonograph record of a windy morning, 174
Plush lines the metal train, making the steel, 582
Poem white page white page poem, 549
The potflower on the windowsill says to me, 430
Power never dominion, 387
The power of war leads to a plan of lives, 381
A procession of caresses alters the ancient sky, 209
PROOF OF AMERICA! A fire on the sea, 201
The Proud colors and brittle cloths, the supple smoke rising, 12
The quick sun brings, exciting mountains warm, 96
Rabbits breed, flies breed, said the virgin lady, 342
Raging from every quarter, 217
The randy old, 478
A red bridge fastening this city to the forest, 386
Red leaf. And beside it, a red leaf alive, 256
remembering movies love, 551
Returns to punishment as we all return, in agonized initiation proving America, 188
Revolution shall be a toy of peace to you, 53
Rider of dream, the body as an image, 283
The risen image shines, its force escapes, we are all named, 181
Risen in a, 356
The river flows past the city, 467
Rumor, stir of ripeness, 463
Running from death, 526
Running to me, 519
Sand nailed down, 510
Sands have washed, sea has flown over us, 449
The sand's still blue with receding water, sky topples, 122
The sea dances its morning, 232
The sea has opened, the limit of his dream, 382
The sea produced that town : Sète, which the boat turns to, 150
A seacoast late at night and a wheel of wind, 344
The sea-coast looks at the sea, and the cities pour, 500
Searching/not searching. To make closeness, 486
Sea-shouldering Ithaca, 544
Seawave, 510
The secret child walks down the street, 261
Seething, and falling black, a sea of stars, 147
Seize structure, 418
A shadowy arch calling the clouds of the sun, 236
Sharp clouds and a sea-moon sang to me, 369
She said to me, He lay there sleeping, 347
She tells, 348
She was unloaded a
nd delivered to us, glory be!, 520
Shifting of islands on this horizon, 449
The sickness poured through the roads, 558
Silence of the air, of the light, of sky, 268
Silver, 511
Simply because of a question, my life is implicated, 277
Since very soon it is required of you, 168
The sky behind the farthest shore, 253
The sky is as black as it was when you lay down, 388
So I became very dark very large, 568
some flushed-earth-color pueblo, 511
Something is over and under this deep blue, 490
A song I sing, strong I sing, 514
Song-calling, 512
A sound lying on the fantastic air, 131
Sounds of night in the country of the opposites, 395
The South is green with coming spring ; revival, 29
Space to the mind, the painted cave of dream, 208
Sparks of fishes, 269
Speak to it, says the light, 450
Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?, 9
Speed, we say of our time: racing my writing word, 355
Speeding back from the border, 443
Speeding from city, feeling day, 128
Spinning on his heel, the traveller, 111
Spirals and fugues, the power most like music, 427
Spotlight her face her face has no light in it, 60
St. Thomas' House:“And now I will believe”, 580
Stallions go leap, and rimfire knows, 334
Standing against the gorge, he sees the slides of light, 385
Standing high on the shoulders of all things, all things, 357
The star in the nets of heaven blazed past your breastbone, 423
The state of fire and the state of air, 360
Stillness during war, the lake, 465
Storm and disorder and the giant emotions, 342
Stroke by stroke, in the country of the fragile, 440
A structure is rising. It takes on shape, it takes on meaning, 383
The subcommittee submits, 104
The sun climbs, hot and burning overhead, 272
Sunday shuts down on this twentieth-century evening, 119
Sunlight the tall women may never have seen, 353
Surely it is time for the true grace of women, 246
Tell the jury your name, 89
That first green night of their dreaming, asleep beneath the Tree, 354
That night, a flute, 564
That summer midnight under her aurora, 414
Then full awake you will recognize the voice, 396
There is a place. There is a miracle, 280
There was always a murder within another murder, 482
There was frost on my window, 576
There was I led by a maternal hand, 477
There was no place on that plain for a city, 170
There were poems all over Broadway that morning, 551
There were three of them that night, 419
These are our brave, these with their hands in on the work, 62
These are roads to take when you think of your country, 73
These are the lines on which a committee is formed, 79
These coins and calendars stood for the moon, strong boys, 350
These creatures, 510
These images will parade until the morning, 216
These roads will take you into your own country, 106
These things are the heart of Autumn, 577
They are pouring the city, 482
They began to breathe and glitter. Morning, 534
They called us to a change of heart, 240
They came to me and said, “There is a child”, 280
They come into our lives, Melville and Whitman who, 500
They escape before, but their shadows walk behind, 58
They face us in sea-noon sun, just as he saw them waiting, 367
They found him in the fields and called him back to music, 434
They have asked me to speak in public, 484
They saw rivers flow west and hoped again, 74
They think I answer and strangle. They are wrong, 279
The thin, black fingers of the ash-tree, 576
This has nothing, 414
This is a dark woman at a telephone, 179
This is a lung disease. Silicate dust makes it, 86
This is a tall woman walking through a square, 132
This is the cripples' hour on Seventh Avenue, 169
This is the dream-journey, knowing the earth slips under, 157
This is the life of a Congressman, 102
This is the most audacious landscape. The gangster's, 95
This is the music of the cities of the morning, 573
This is the net of begetting and belief, 389
This is the word our lips caress, our teeth bite, 12
This journey is exploring us. Where the child stood, 409
This sky is unmistakable. Not lurid, not low, not black, 333
Time comes into it, 467
A time of destruction. Of the most rigid powers in ascendance, 432
To be a Jew in the twentieth century, 243
To the poem. Alice, you left a sheet, 593
To enter that rhythm where the self is lost, 403
To keep and conceal may be, in times of crisis, 229
To this bridge the pale river and flickers away in images of blue, 265
Today I asked Aileen, 555
Tonight I will try again for the music of truth, 535
Torrent that rushes down, 432
Touch me! Love me! Speak to me!, 292
Trapped, blinded, led; and in the end betrayed, 223
A tree of rivers flowing through our lives, 382
The tree of rivers seen and forgotten, 380
A true confession!, 272
Two bodies face to face, 269
Two on the stairs in a house where they had loved, 6
Two or three lines across; the black ones, down, 262
Two years ago, 578
Two years of my sister's bitter illness, 490
Tyranny of method! the outrageous smile, 304
Under the tall black sky you look out of your body, 445
Up against the mountain-side, 519
Up in the second balcony, 59
A voice flew out of the river as morning flew, 405
Voices of all our voices, running past an imagined race, 475
Waiting. A good deal like real life, 548
Waiting to leave all day I hear the words, 561
Waking this morning, 471
Walking the world to find the poet of these cries, 562
Wars between wars, laughter behind the lines, 166
Wary of time O it seizes the soul tonight, 276
Wave of the sea, 449
We all had a good time, 17
We all traveled into that big room, 538
We are the antlers of that white animal, 507
We are the seas through whom the great fish passed, 550
We in our season like progress and inventions, 553
We look through our lives at each other, 591
“Well,” he said, “George, I never thought you were with us”, 41
Well, if he treats me like a young girl still, 540
Well, I'm back again, 517
We set great wreaths of brightness on the graves of the passionate, 5
We started to walk but it was wading-slow, 113
We stood around the raw new-planted garden, 358
Westward from Sète, 442
What did I miss as I went searching?, 485
What did I see? What did I not see?, 486
What do I give you? This memory, 413
What have you brought, 437
What hill can ever hold us?, 63
What is the skill of this waking? Heard the singing, 545
What kind of woman goes searching and searching?, 480<
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What was it? What was it?, 441
Whatever roams the air is traveling, 333
What's over England? A cloud. What's over France? A flame, 124
The wheel in the water, green, behind my head, 149
When a magnet is, 487
When a man's body is young, 274
When after the screens of the evening of defeat, 396
When at last he was well enough to take the sun, 230
When Barcelona fell, the darkened glass, 165
When his death confronted him, it had the face of his friend, 458
When I am dead, even then, 561
When I stand with these three, 528
When I think of him, midnight, 207
When I wrote of the women in their dances and wildness, 413
When the exposed spirit, busy in daytime, 123
When the half-body dies its frightful death, 545
When the hero of the threshold enters our lives and our houses, 346
When they're decent about women, they're frightful about, 472
When this hand is gone to earth, 540
When those who can never again forgive them selves, 127
When you imagine trumpet-faced musicians, 115
Whenever you wake, you will find journeying, 357
Where are they, not those young men, not those, 543
Wherever, 498
Wherever I walked I went green among young growing, 556
Whether it is a speaker, taut on a platform, 61
While this my day and my people are a country not yet born, 474
Who in one lifetime sees all causes lost, 228
Who is the witness? What voice moves across time, 459
Who will speak to the wounds? Who will have grace, 290
Whoever despises the clitoris despises the penis, 465
Wildflowers withering with the same death, 447
The wind is an insolent braggart, 577
Wine and oil gleaming within their heads, 534
Woman as gates, saying, 461
A woman has been begging for ninety-seven years, 439
A woman looks at the sea, 501
Woman seen as a slender instrument, 565
The woman to the man, 496
Women and poets see the truth arrive, 239
The word in the bread feeds me, 537
Words? Yes, made of air, 363
Working with these students. This, 592
The world is full of loss; bring, wind, my love, 215
The wounds : Love me!, 290
The wounds : Speak to me!, 290
The wounds : Touch me! Love me! Speak to me!, 289
The wounds : Touch me! Speak to me! Love me!, 289
The wreck of the Tiger, the early pirate, the blood-clam's, 453
The year in its cold beginning, 224
The year was river-throated, with the stare of legend, 336
Years before action when the wish alone, 120