And we Come in the buckle, a Vanquished distinguished Secret festival, relieving flights Of the black brave ocean. I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut That will solve a murder case unsolved for years Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window Through which he saw her head, connecting with Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red Roof in her heart.
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For this we live a thousand years; For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow Of a ship which sails From Hartford to Miami, and I love you Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun Receives me in the questions which you always pose. Ah, the Greeks Thought of that! Well, what if They Did?
We have no Gods Of the wind! And therefore Must use Silence! From The Art of Love: I have a bird in my head and a pig in my stomach And a flower in my genitals and a tiger in my genitals And a lion in my genitals and I am after you but I have a song in my heart And my song is a dove I have man in my hands I have a woman in my shoes I have a landmark decision in my reason I have a death rattle in my nose I have summer in my brain water I have dreams in my toes This is the matter with me and the hammer of my mother and father Who created me with everything But I lack clam I lack rose Though I do not lack extreme delicacy of rose petal Who is it that I wish to astonish?
In the birdcall I found a reminder of you But it was thin and brittle and gone in an instant Has nature set out to be a great entertainer? Obviously not a great reproducer? So here I am I have a pheasant in my reminders I have a goshawk in my clouds Whatever is it which has led all these animals to you? I have a baby in my landscape and I have a wild rat in my secrets from you. Out the window, the cow out the window The steel frame out the window, the rusted candlestand; Out the window the horse, the handle-less pan, Real things.
Inside the window my heart That only beats for you - a verse of Verlaine. Inside the window of my heart is a style And a showplace of onion-like construction. Inside the window is a picture of a cat And outside the window is the cat indeed Jumping up now to the top of the Roof of the garage; its paws help take it there. Inside this window is a range Of things which outside the window are like stars Arranged but huge in fashion.
The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch
Outside the window is a car, is the rusted wheel of a bicycle. Inside it are words and paints; outside, smooth hair Of a rabbit, just barely seen. Inside the glass Of this window is a notebook, with little marks, They are words. Outside this window is a wall With little parts - they are stones. Inside this window Is the start, and outside is the beginning. The room is light, the sun is almost blinding. Inside this body is a woman, inside whom is a star Of some kind or other, which is like a uterus; and Outside the window a farm machine starts.
Sweeping past the florist's came the baby and the girl I am the girl! I am the baby! I am the florist who is filled with mood! I am the mood. I am the girl who is inside the baby For it is a baby girl. I am old style of life. I am the new Everything as well. I am the evening in which you docked your first kiss. And it came to the baby. And I am the boyhood of the girl Which she never has. I am the florist's unknown baby He hasn't had one yet.
The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch by Kenneth Koch | theranchhands.com: Books
The florist is in a whirl So much excitement, section, outside his shop Or hers. Where goes the baby? She Is immensely going to grow up. How much Does this rent for? It's more than a penny. It's more Than a million cents. My dear, it is life itself.
If you can't buy them I'll give Them for nothing. Oh no, I can't. Maybe my baby is allergic to their spores. So then the girl and her baby go away. Florist stands whistling Neither inside nor outside thinking about the mountains of Peru. I could never have had anything Quite as radical as all this Was by reason of having known it Was very soon to go away As that movie went away from the little theatre Crossed by our liberal eyes The other glass by the beam Orphaning the house with its bulbs Its way-walks like tusks And the cut-up scenes That straightened the glasses The steam that shows is knowing everything Is the fax to a fax of itself At daytime water came unsyphoned Spoofing our house I wore a net necktie a button Or trees with a breeze for a mouth But nothing could prevent it As nothing north or south A bagpipe failed you like Elijah Women came forth Reading and tacking fishnets to a port An old woman rode in a hansom Beer was an invidious sport Idiot agreement - and summer tide These seemed like works to be taught One kept walking "Yours to tour but mine to seek from birth" Cadillac wrecked Forgotten and evenings Boat-flat similar and signed: At dusk light you come to bat As Georg Trakl might put it.
How are you doing Aside from that, aside from the fact That you are at bat? What balls are you going to hit Into the outfield, what runs will you score, And do you think you ever will, eventually, Bat one out of the park? That would be a thrill To you and your contemporaries!
Your mighty posture Takes its stand in my chest and swing swing swing Your warm up, then you take a great step Forward as the ball comes smashing toward you, home Plate.
The Collected Poems
And suddenly it is evening. Pure finality of bedding - Intellectual life - This article to reassure me - Others are alive - Then unexpectedly awake Middle of the night - What are they thinking - Afraid? Likely - All night Breathing, rain.
- Project MUSE - The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch (review).
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Jan 06, Christina M Rau rated it liked it Shelves: I like Kenneth Koch because he's so very different. Some of his stuff reminded me of the Beats. Some other poems were just insane and out of this world and good. Some were, er, uh, different. So to help you out with the K-man, I've narrowed down his over pages to just a few poems you should check out if you want to read him: Hopefully, I'll be writing into the wee hours soon enough. Jul 27, Jillian rated it liked it Shelves: There were moving phrases like, "I am crazier than shirttails in the wind when you're near," [in the poem To You], and interesting advice, "Someone who excites you should be told so, and loved, if you can, but no one should be able to shake you so much that you wish to give up," but overall Or what did I lose of my life?
I put you in everything I wrote," and "You were the perfection of my life and I couldn't have you. That is, I didn't. I wrote, instead," and "Thinking about you, grieving about you. It is the end. I write poems about you, to you. But then I read poems like The Art of Love creepy!! In conclusion, if you're a romantic read To Marina and return it to the library. Dec 24, Rodney rated it it was amazing Shelves: I have something important to say. Apr 13, A. There aren't, however, pages worth: A selected Koch is probably where to start, and treat this as the B-sides for whatever you liked best mine, for their humor and O'Hara-like madcap descriptions: Apr 29, Maya Rock rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: I was really impressed by how many of these poems I actually read.
As everyone knows I really fell in love with To Marina, but there are a bunch of other good ones and Kenneth Koch's sense of humor is adorable. However sometimes he should have just stopped.
There's a lot of bad stuff in here too and you definitely get the impression he did not have to work hard at a day job and had oodles of oodles of time to write and was very cognizant there was a receptive audience who would lap up everything I was really impressed by how many of these poems I actually read. There's a lot of bad stuff in here too and you definitely get the impression he did not have to work hard at a day job and had oodles of oodles of time to write and was very cognizant there was a receptive audience who would lap up everything he did.
Below is my favorite part from To Marina: And oh well you said we walk along Your white dress your blue dress your green Blouse with sleeves then one without Sleeves and we are speaking Of things but not of very much because underneath it I am raving I am boiling I am afraid You ask me Kenneth what are you thinking If I could say It all then I thought if I could say Exactly everything and have it still be as beautiful Billowing over, riding over both our doubts Some kind of perfection and what did I actually Say? Or else, What's this street? You were the perfection of my life And I couldn't have you.
I would have had To think hard, to figure everything out About how I could be with you, Really, which I couldn't do In those moments of permanence we had As we walked along. Apr 27, Jane rated it it was amazing. I recently was asked to lecture in China on "What is American about American poetry? I especially love his book of second person poems, New Addresses, but you might as well get the full set.
Reading this book is like walking a beach with a metal detector and striking treasure every yard or so. For a poetry of the full human being, going along in his life and telling you about what he s Kenneth Koch For a poetry of the full human being, going along in his life and telling you about what he sees, hears, finds, thinks, feels May 01, Eddie Watkins rated it really liked it. Koch is or was, I never know how to refer to deceased authors, but I naturally view authors as always existing, and so always in the present tense one of the most entertaining poets, but boy can he get cloying!
Maybe the book's just too thick! Maybe Koch was just too facile! He's also one of the funniest phrase artists around, especially in his earlier books, and sometimes master of the exclamation point! Jun 11, Tia rated it it was amazing Shelves: If you're a fan, read his plays as well. And that's not even all of it. Jan 04, Gina rated it it was amazing Shelves: It is also a HUGE book--one that is fun to return to, flip open at random, and enjoy. Oct 11, Ofelia Hunt rated it it was amazing. In the process Koch transformed himself from a minor poet who seemed too in love with his own high jinks to a major spirit of the age, one of those rare poets who excite you with a feeling of life almost the moment you step onto the page.
Like his hero Vladimir Mayakovsky, Koch believed in a poetry of excitement. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," for the most part, Or so it seems to me. Koch is easily the funniest poet in the language. And his humor should not be regarded merely as a childish indulgence, a distraction from the real purpose of the art; it is a supremely liberating force, akin to the power of metaphor.
Koch's humor, in other words, does not just amuse; it transforms.
The Missouri Review
At any moment while reading a Koch poem an irrepressible smile can break out on your face, regardless of your mood. Take these two moments from "Some General Instructions" and "Straits": When Pleasure is mild, you should enjoy it, and When it is violent, permit it, as far as You can, to enjoy you.
As was the case with Christ, his name designated what, not who, he was. This brand of humor, like the stand-up of Mitch Hedberg, jolts you into life. Suddenly the world seems full of charm and wonder again.
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Single lines are often sublime in their silliness; they make you shake your head at the wonder of a man who thinks like this:. O Labrador, you are the sexual Pennsylvania of our times! Koch can be too silly, and a great many poems in this book are throwaways, tedious in their excitability. Koch probably used more exclamation points than any writer in history, and when the writing is not inspired, it can seem like he's trying to rev a bad poem into a great one simply by using more excited punctuation.