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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SMALL POEM, by JAMES HARRISON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: There's something I've never known
Last Line: A shepherd's crook of love.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Despair
First Line: There's something I've never known
Last Line: A shepherd's crook of love.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Despair
There's something I've never known
when I get up in the morning.
Dead children fly off in the shape
of question marks, the doe's backward
glance at the stillborn fawn.
I don't know what it is
in the morning, as if incomprehension
beds down with me on waking.
What is the precise emotional temperature
when the young man hangs himself
in the jail cell with his father's belt?
What is the foot size of the Beast of Belsen?
This man in his overremembered life
needs to know the source of the ache
which is an answer without a question,
his fingers wrapped around the memory
of life, as Cleopatra's around the snake's neck,
a shepherd's crook of love.
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
Other Poems of Interest...
THE DAY THAT WAS THAT DAY by AMY LOWELL
MAN IN THE STREET OR HAND OVER MOUTH by HEATHER MCHUGH
BURIAL RITES by HAYDEN CARRUTH
THE CAMPS; FOR MARILYN HACKER by HAYDEN CARRUTH
THE IDEA OF BALANCE IS TO BE FOUND IN HERONS AND LOONS by JAMES HARRISON