John Malcolm Brinnin

Have they at last escaped Into memoriams, Those grandfathers who shaped This era of the drums? Where is the famous cheek With the painted sabre-cut? Where in that scenic wreck The drunken patriot? Their scarlet interim Takes to the weeping page Whe [...]

You too heave moved, your gestures bent with elegies Among the sad misplacements of the late known world, Life in your hands, strict defeat in your eyes. The metaphor is your apology; your days withhold From happy accidents of chance or formal cho [...]

Death of this death Bring yet another orchid for the corpse Whose beauty, taut in uniform, must fail As soon as morning's casual eye usurps The vigil-light; not rouge, not even oil Under the poet's or the painter's touch, Not the archaic leech, Ma [...]