ELEPHANT POEMS

The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell

THE ARGUMENT

RINTRAH roars and shakes his
fires in the burdenM air,
.....

William Blake

A Burdock'clawed My Gown

229

A Burdock-clawed my Gown-
Not Burdock's-blame-
.....

Emily Dickinson

You Can't Can Love

I don't know how the fishes feel, but I can't help thinking it odd,
That a gay young flapper of a female eel should fall in love with a cod.
Yet-that's exactly what she did and it only goes to prove,
That' what evr you do you can't put the lid on that crazy feeling Love.
.....

Robert Service

Is This Democracy

*IS THIS DEMOCRACY?*

Even in the mist of griefs and pains,
When the story shall be divulged,
.....

Paciolo Pen Saint

Satire I

Away thou fondling motley humorist,
Leave mee, and in this standing woodden chest,
Consorted with these few bookes, let me lye
In prison, and here be coffin'd, when I dye;
.....

John Donne

Jumbo Jet

I saw a little elephant standing in my garden,
I said 'You don't belong in here', he said 'I beg you pardon?',
I said 'This place is England, what are you doing here?',
He said 'Ah, then I must be lost' and then 'Oh dear, oh dear'.
.....

Spike Milligan

Afar In The Desert

Afar in the Desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the Present, I cling to the Past;
.....

Thomas Pringle

Heliograph

(Self-Portrait) Omens and Astrology. A desert flat and undisturbed, stupid and forlorn. Sunless. a caravan of failures. Pons Asinorum and the Feast of the Ass and revolt against standardized American childhood.
War and Violence.
Catapults and Torches and the first stray thrusts of Sun into the Soul. Bombardments and Bordels. Heraldry and High Walls. Too rigid to crumble but not too strong to fracture.

.....

Harry Crosby

Endymion: Book Iii

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
.....

John Keats

An Essay On Man: Epistle I.

THE DESIGN.

Having proposed to write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to men's business and bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering man in the abstract, his nature and his state; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

.....

Alexander Pope

Proverbs Of Hell

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
.....

William Blake

From A German War Primer

AMONGST THE HIGHLY PLACED
It is considered low to talk about food.
The fact is: they have
Already eaten.
.....

Bertolt Brecht

Elegy

Here rests beneath this hospitable spot
A youth to flats and flatties not unknown.
The Plymouth Brethren gave it to him hot;
Trinity, Cambridge, claimed him for her own.
.....

Aleister Crowley

The Elephant Is Slow To Mate

The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait
.....

D. H. Lawrence

Oonts

(Northern India Transport Train)



.....

Rudyard Kipling

Metaphors

I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
.....

Sylvia Plath

The Keys

Broken ivories
playing
the blue piano
of the sea.
.....

Erica Jong

The Irish Avatar

'And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant,
kneeling to receive the paltry rider.'~Curran.


.....

George Gordon Byron

To Pablo Neruda

Again & again
I have read your books
without ever wishing to know you.

.....

Erica Jong

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
.....

William Stafford

Look At All Those Monkeys!

Look at all those monkeys
Jumping in their cage.
Why don't they all go out to work
And earn a decent wage?
.....

Spike Milligan

The Visitor

it came today to visit
and moved into the house
it was smaller than an elephant
but larger than a mouse
.....

Jack Prelutsky

Why Mira Can't Come Back To Her Old House

The colors of the Dark One have penetrated Mira's body; all the other colors washed out.
Making love with the Dark One and eating little, those are my pearls and my carnelians.
Meditation beads and the forehead streak, those are my scarves and my rings.
That's enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher taught me this.
.....

Mirabai

Here's To The Mice!

(Written with the hope that the socialists might yet
dethrone Kaiser and Czar.)


.....

Vachel Lindsay

Tea

When the elephant's-ear in the park
Shrivelled in frost,
And the leaves on the paths
Ran like rats,
.....

Wallace Stevens

In Memory Of My Feelings

My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent
and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets.
He has several likenesses, like stars and years, like numerals.

.....

Frank O'hara

A Strange Wild Song

He thought he saw an Elephant
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
.....

Lewis Carroll

The Himalayas

O Himalah! O rampart of the realm of India!
Bowing down, the sky kisses your forehead

Your condition does not show any signs of old age
.....

Allama Muhammad Iqbal

The Old General

Little Annabelle to please,
(Lacking grace, I grant),
Grandpa down on hands and knees
Plays the elephant.
.....

Robert William Service

Mercury And The Elephant

As Merc'ry travell'd thro' a Wood,
(Whose Errands are more Fleet than Good)
An Elephant before him lay,
That much encumber'd had the Way:
.....

Anne Kingsmill Finch

Ghost Elephants

In the elephant field tall green ghost elephants
with your cargo of summer leaves
at night I heard you breathing
at the window Don't you ever
.....

Jean Valentine

The Bestiary: Or Orpheus-s Procession

(Le Bestiaire ou Cortège dâ??Orphée)

Orpheus

.....

Guillaume Apollinaire

Tails

A lion has a tail and a very fine tail,
And so has an elephant, and so has a whale,
And so has a crocodile, and so has a quailâ??
Theyâ??ve all got tails but me.
.....

Alan Alexander Milne

The Tale Of The Tiger Tree

A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver
Henderson, ten years old.

The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in
.....

Vachel Lindsay

The Oneness Of The Philosopher With Nature.

I love to see the little stars
All dancing to one tune;
I think quite highly of the Sun,
And kindly of the Moon.
.....

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

At The "atlantic" Dinner

I suppose it's myself that you're making allusion to
And bringing the sense of dismay and confusion to.
Of course some must speak, - they are always selected to,
But pray what's the reason that I am expected to?
.....

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Elephants Are Different To Different People

Wilson and Pilcer and Snack stood before the zoo elephant.

Wilson said, 'What is its name? Is it from Asia or Africa? Who feeds
it? Is it a he or a she? How old is it? Do they have twins? How much does
.....

Carl Sandburg

Chapter Headings - Just-so Stories

When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship'goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
.....

Rudyard Kipling

The Snake That Dances

How I love to watch, dear indolence,
like a bright shimmer,
of fabric, the skin of your elegant
body glimmer!
.....

Charles Baudelaire

The Dancing Serpent

How I adore, dear indolent,
Your lovely body, when
Like silken cloth it shimmers
Your sleek and glimmering skin!
.....

Charles Baudelaire

Tender Buttons [a Light In The Moon]

A LIGHT IN THE MOON

A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday. What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even notwithstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing, not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion, not even withstanding more cultivation and some seasoning, not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling, not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution, not even more likely to be pleasing. The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain.

.....

Gertrude Stein

The Ring And The Book

Do you see this Ring?
'Tis Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
.....

Robert Browning

The Incubus

Who wants a nice white elephant,
Quite fit in wind and limb?
An ornament for any gent
Who can find use for him.
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Laos

Dear girl, your cheeks are soft and tender,
And your breasts, like little hills, are slender,

Fall in love with me and from this instance
.....

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev

Seasonal Cycle - Chapter 01 - Summer

"Oh, dear, this utterly sweltering season of the highly rampant sun is drawing nigh, and it will always be good enough to go on taking daytime baths, as the lakes and rivers will still be with plenteous waters, and at the end of the day, nightfall will be pleasant with fascinating moon, and in such nights Love-god can somehow be almost mollified...[who tortured us in the previous vernal season... but now without His sweltering us, we can happily enjoy the nights devouring cool soft drinks and dancing and merrymaking in outfields...]

"Oh, beloved one, somewhere the moon shoved the blackish columns of night aside, somewhere else the palace-chambers with water [showering, sprinkling and splashing] machines are highly exciting, and else where the matrices of gems, [like coolant pearls and moon-stone, etc.,] are there, and even the pure sandalwood is liquefied [besides other coolant scents,] thus this season gets an adoration from all the people...

.....

Kalidasa

When Dacey Rode The Mule

'Twas to a small, up-country town,
When we were boys at school,
There came a circus with a clown,
Likewise a bucking mule.
.....

Banjo Paterson (andrew Barton)

The Song Of The Little Baltung: A.d. 395

A harper came over the Danube so wide,
And he came into Alaric's hall,
And he sang the song of the little Baltung
To him and his heroes all.
.....

Charles Kingsley

The Witch Of Atlas

Before those cruel twins whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
.....

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ch 03 On The Excellence Of Contentment Story 28

It is related that an athlete had been reduced to the greatest distress by adverse fortune. His throat being capacious and his hands unable to fill it, he complained to his father and asked him for permission to travel as he hoped to be hoped to be able to gain a livelihood by the strength of his arm.

Excellence and skill are lost unless exhibited.
Lignum aloes is placed on fire and musk rubbed.
.....

Saadi Shirazi

Chapter Headings - Many Inventions

'Less you want your toes trod off you'd better get back at once,
For the bullocks are walking two by two,
The byles are walking two by two,
And the elephants bring the guns.
.....

Rudyard Kipling