Karl Shapiro
Karl Shapiro
Karl Jay Shapirowas an American poet. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth10 November 1913
CountryUnited States of America
expedient invites knew physics wicked
But this invites the occult mind, Cancels our physics with a sneer, And spatters all we knew of denouement,Across the expedient and wicked stones.
curb hard legs rooms silk slip warm whose
I see slip to the curb the long machines, Out of whose warm and windowed rooms pirouette, Shellacked with silk and light, The hard legs of our women.
american-poet dirty ignorant incredibly neat puberty
Oh, it is I, Incredibly skinny, stooped, and neat as pie, Ignorant as dirt, erotic as an ape, Dreamy as puberty - with dirty hair!
fortune subject surrounded war
There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war. Cervantes Every war has its own excuse. That's why they're all surrounded with ideals. That's why they're all crusades.
ashes dream hear promised record service simple thoughts watch wholly whose wiped youth
We too are ashes as we watch and hear The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise, Of one whose promised thoughts of other days, Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed, The service record of his youth wiped out, His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.
american-poet god good hold human poet realm sticks tries within
The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.
belly fear punched sat sow
The doctor punched my vein, the captain called me Cain, upon my belly sat the sow of fear.
american-poet belly tight
In the tight belly of the dead, Burrow with hungry head, And inlay maggots like a jewel.
dream sleep gold
Lawyers love paper. They eat, sleep and dream paper. They turn paper into gold, and their files are colorful and their language neoclassical and calli-graphically bewigged.
two-sides answers maxims
The proverbist knows nothing of the two sides of a question. He knows only the roundness of answers.
innocence innocent unspoken
Already old, the question Who shall die? Becomes unspoken Who is innocent?