Swimming Poems
The Cinnamon Peeler
by Michael Ondaatje
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
......
Save The Wildlife
by Lucy Doyles
See the seals swimming away
The little foxes as happy as ady
The baby birds flying above
The lions resting with their cubs
The animals seem all so free
untill the humans kill as much as can be
why all this cruelty can't it stop
What have they done, what is up?
......
Mulga Bill's Bicycle
by Banjo Paterson
'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"
"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.
......
Casabianca
by Elizabeth Bishop
Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite 'The boy stood on
the burning deck.' Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.
Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
......
A Man Young And Old: Iii. The Mermaid
by William Butler Yeats
A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.
Sink, Float, Swim
by Benjamin Wolf
I kept it to myself
And while you slept I witnessed things that words can not give life to.
You know me oh so well
But I can’t bear to place this weight into your hands, my burdens are just for me to carry.
We laughed just for a moment.
You smiled through tears after that,
But you don’t look at me the same.
......
A Calf Love Crisis
by Carl Halling
I couldn’t be more sure
Of all the nostalgia I’d endure,
If I were to explore
A calf love crisis
That was so hard to cure,
How your mummy, she knew mine,
They’d been friends
For a little time,
And the time that you explained,
......
A Woman Waits For Me
by Walt Whitman
A WOMAN waits for me--she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the
right man were lacking.
Sex contains all,
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results,
promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal
milk;
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,
......
Leaves Of Grass. A Carol Of Harvest For 1867
by Walt Whitman
A SONG of the good green grass!
A song no more of the city streets;
A song of farms--a song of the soil of fields.
A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers
handle the pitch-fork;
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk'd maize.
For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself,
Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
......
I Sing The Body Electric
by Walt Whitman
I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the
Soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal
themselves;
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the
dead?
......
