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Author: ANANIA, MICHAEL
Matches Found: 143


Anania, Michael    Poet's Biography
143 poems available by this author


A HANGING SCREEN    Poem Text    
First Line: In warm sunlight jade
Last Line: The line out of reach
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Dreams; Nightmares


A SECOND-HAND ELEGY; FOR DOUGLAS DICKEY, PFC., USMC    Poem Text    
First Line: How can I be bitter?'
Last Line: Exhaust the evening, waiting for something to happen
Subject(s): Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975; Heroism


A STRATAGEM    Poem Text    
First Line: Geography matters
Last Line: And it is purple night
Subject(s): Nature


AFTER A DRAWING ON PAPYRUS       
First Line: Dark lady in the pale
Last Line: A purer form of hunger


AFTER NERUDA       
First Line: Against blue moving
Last Line: And perhaps %some yellow flowers


AFTER-MILKING       
First Line: (burden of that hyphenation
Last Line: Swallow it back and start all over


AFTERNOONS    Poem Text    
First Line: Quick passage into
Last Line: The wide world circling
Subject(s): Mdemory; Time


AFTERNOONS       
First Line: Quick passage into
Last Line: The wide world circling


AND SO       
First Line: You were saying, weren't you
Last Line: Like music arching into song


AND THIS IS FREE       
First Line: In this film, now thirty years old
Last Line: Then I guess I got a touch of the blues


APPLES       
First Line: The news -- precious little
Last Line: Of news and weather invisibly %symmetrical and lost among the leaves


APRIL SNOW: AN IMPROVISATION       
First Line: Light tricks us sometimes
Last Line: Remember, she might have said, remember me


ARBOR LODGE       
First Line: Make it a monument
Last Line: And are planted at the roadside


AS EVER       
First Line: In or among %the gray unsettling
Last Line: Words like gauds spun and spinning


AS IN A POUR TRACT       
First Line: Early lilacs %husks gathered like
Last Line: In sea water and song


AS SEMBLANCE, THOUGH       
First Line: The nothing -- or the not -- supposes, of course
Last Line: Lilt, silt swirl, the earth's long hush humming


AS THOUGH       
First Line: As though the pine sap
Last Line: Still playing -- what is %remembered as forgetfulness


AUTUMN MORNNG, 1989       
First Line: Avianca, an explosive device
Last Line: Videotape unspooled and passed around


AVANT COURIER       
First Line: How the dust gathered in drifts
Last Line: A measure of an obliterated shape


BELL SOUNDS       
First Line: Angled in, crevacing %the edged places where
Last Line: Wind and water have not made


BLIND PEW       
First Line: Nowhere to go, nothing to see'
Last Line: Places, dreaming of gold and silver


BORROWED MUSIC       
First Line: The water is blue and not turquoise
Last Line: Conjecture, adroit leaves signing leaf veined mud


CANTICLE       
First Line: And now we want'
Last Line: Have been breathing


CANTILENA       
First Line: Buds, husks, leaves and flowers gone
Last Line: Top-of-the-charts, only the strong survive


COMPLAINT       
First Line: Why must you sleep like that
Last Line: Like a fan hidng a smile


CONSOLATION       
First Line: Whatever you want
Last Line: Beneath a breaking wave


CONSTRUCTIONS       
First Line: This is how the lines run
Last Line: In a scattering of leaves


DARKER COLORS       
First Line: Sit and spin, things
Last Line: With you and curl like smoke


DE KOONING       
First Line: How is it the light %grows furious once again
Last Line: In music silence %drives the song


DECEMBER COMMONPLACE       
First Line: Bare foxglove stems
Last Line: Branch through crystals %and course and grow


DEMI-ODE: BINOMIAL QUANTITIES       
First Line: One adds or subtracts
Last Line: And there the dance, quenching fire


DIVERSIONS UPON AN OLD REFRAIN       
First Line: One, the pebble %gathering in several places
Last Line: Implicit war or a dreamer intent on loss %one, the pebble


DOCUMENT       
First Line: Ellis island and the confusion
Last Line: Hope of change was given in explanation


DRIFTS       
First Line: Dissonant, drawn out
Last Line: The street I track %with chaotic song


ECLOGUE       
First Line: How sudden they seem
Last Line: Taking as you always %do, the a train


EDGE OF AUTUMN       
First Line: The wind, a rustle of leaves
Last Line: The lasting rhythms of an insistent dance


EDVARD MUNCH       
First Line: They gather into their own secrets
Last Line: Aswirl in whatever she might have imagined


ELMWOOD       
First Line: The walk curves downward
Last Line: At the fission of light


EPODE       
First Line: I can say only that this comes back from seeing yesterday
Last Line: And, as hey say, speak for themselves


ESTHETIQUE DU RALE       
First Line: What we are confused by
Last Line: And blue quaker ladies, le dernier cri


FAIR MAID OF RIBBLESDALE       
First Line: The stone, she thought
Last Line: Like waves, defining the shore


FALL       
First Line: Sunday in the snow
Last Line: The streetlights and neon are %falling together in the snow


FIFTY-TWO DEFINITE ARTICLES       
First Line: The footfall %exactly what you want to start
Last Line: And you soar like a bi-plane %through its sentence together


FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE       
First Line: In the space between
Last Line: Bearing substance into time


FINALITY OF A POEM       
First Line: All day, that %is forever
Last Line: It is that's ending


FIVE PROPER NOUNS: 1. OSTRA BRAMA       
First Line: Wherever rivers move
Last Line: A snarled castastrophe


FIVE PROPER NOUNS: 2. NOVGOROD       
First Line: The cloister and the cloister
Last Line: Leaves widening itself away


FIVE PROPER NOUNS: 3. TSCHERNIGOW       
First Line: As dance imposes itself
Last Line: Going down in a hiss of steam


FIVE PROPER NOUNS: 4. KAUNAS       
First Line: Branches over the river
Last Line: Spins off into an early dark


FIVE PROPER NOUNS: 5. PUSTOSHKA (1941)       
First Line: These plains run off the edge
Last Line: Keep your ear to the ground


FIVE SONGS IN SEQUENCE       
First Line: Begins there %among hands
Last Line: Into an already %interrupted night


FOR EZRA POUND, OLD       
First Line: Of a new vintage proffered
Last Line: In new light the graving hand


FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY POEM, AUGUST 6, 1985       
First Line: Light on moving water
Last Line: Blue bunsen votive flames


FOUR EXEMPLARY TEXTS: 1.       
First Line: Living in a circle proposes
Last Line: That waking always fashions there


FOUR EXEMPLARY TEXTS: 2       
First Line: Villagers pass by like figures
Last Line: After shrine. We wait for your blessing


FOUR EXEMPLARY TEXTS: 3       
First Line: However we return, these shapes
Last Line: Insisteing we are what we were here before


FOUR EXEMPLARY TEXTS: 4       
First Line: I wanted to tell you a dream
Last Line: Heels, flatwater plainsong, this laughter


FOUR POSTULATES    Poem Text    
First Line: What is most valued,
Last Line: The long land rests against our feet
Subject(s): Home; Iowa


FOUR POSTULATES       
First Line: What is most valued
Last Line: The long land rests against our feet


FRAGMENT       
First Line: The golden stand'
Last Line: In every detail


GEORGIC       
First Line: Virgil talked of corn, of farmers
Last Line: War's lightnings at the high euphrates


GIN MUSIC       
First Line: You listen for a long time, half-listen, even
Last Line: Into damp soil and take leaf and flower


HANGING SCREEN       
First Line: In warm sunlight jade
Last Line: The line out of reach


IN HER OWN DEFENSE       
First Line: The witness takes the stand
Last Line: Drowning in sharp water


INCIDENTAL MUSIC       
First Line: Stylus bobbing %above dark vinyl %like a dragonfly
Last Line: Petals opening iridescent %birdflowers city singers %are blowing in their hands
Variant Title(s): Incidental Music; For A. K. Ramanujan, 1929-199


INTERSTATE 80       
First Line: The detail, of course
Last Line: A quiet air, transgressed


JOURNEY; FOR TED MALLORY (WHO DIED, DECEMBER 1963)       
First Line: Just north of clark street
Last Line: We pass in the dead of august


JUDY TRAVAILLO VARIATIONS       
First Line: There is always the other one
Last Line: His devotion and her eyes when they parted


KING DRIVE       
First Line: Sometimes south parkway
Last Line: Morning's blue jitneys %catfishing by


LE JARDIN DE CLAUDE MONET       
First Line: It is not the hand
Last Line: Bridge, pond and steeple -- keep time


LINES FOR GRACE SLICK       
First Line: Hit was a ladie
Last Line: She had no refrain


LUCY TO THE DRIVER       
First Line: My sister lotte lived
Last Line: To live in a warm place


LUMEN       
First Line: Yearning and dying'
Last Line: Flesh and vesture still


MANDAN       
First Line: This is my own wilderness
Last Line: The dark stains of their covered fires


MATERIALS OF JUNE    Poem Text    
First Line: Clear vials of cloudy
Last Line: With hair-thin tubercles extended
Subject(s): Flowers


MATERIALS OF JUNE       
First Line: Clear vials of cloudy
Last Line: With hair-thin tubercles extended


MAUDE       
First Line: What with one thing and another, angels
Last Line: A quiet place inside, and angels tending it


MEMORIAL DAY    Poem Text    
First Line: It is easily forgotten, year to
Last Line: And walking, our own sway and balance, fails us
Subject(s): Memorial Day; Declaration Day


MEMORIAL DAY       
First Line: It is easily forgotten, year to
Last Line: And walking, our own sway and balance, fails us


MISSING MATTER       
First Line: Of course, it is improbable
Last Line: So certain it ripples like water across blank spaces


MISSOURI AMONG RIVERS       
First Line: The river I commend to you so often
Last Line: Give no emblem's figured name


MOTET    Poem Text    
First Line: At odds again
Last Line: Flex of possibility
Subject(s): Life; Love; Transience


MOTET       
First Line: At odds again'
Last Line: Hands moving, the certain %flex of possibility


MT. VERNON GARDENS, 1978       
First Line: Nothing goes on
Last Line: Years beneath our skin


NEWS NOTES, 1970       
First Line: And the bottles -- rocks flew
Last Line: Tread into a widening slag


NIGHTS AT THE BON TON       
First Line: Good old red and blue
Last Line: Diamonds and pearls at the sweat rings shine


NOT THAT FAIR FIELD       
First Line: There is a vertigo in every order
Last Line: Pomegranate and ink smudge bursting with seed


NOVEMBER OR ELSE: AN ODE       
First Line: S'posing it was %pine needles
Last Line: With their fierce monochrome in tact


NOVEMBER REQUIEM TO OURSELVES       
First Line: Erie %where slate planes
Last Line: An old fire %was autumn


OCTOBER EVENING       
First Line: West of the near west side
Last Line: A thousand years of snow


OCTOBER TRIPTYCH       
First Line: It begins with %lake-gulls, white and silent
Last Line: Soft stuff of an autumn michigan


OF THE RIVER ITSELF       
First Line: This is my advice to foreigners
Last Line: We do not lose our place


ON THE CONDITIONS OF PLACE       
First Line: Loitered, you might say
Last Line: The probable line of what is seen


ORANGES AND LEMONS       
First Line: It hardly matters &there at the easel
Last Line: Occasion of light through %sun-streaked tall windows


OURSELVES       
First Line: This gathering of chance
Last Line: Something is passing through


OUT & ABOUT       
First Line: A whale of a good time he had, all things considered; the
Last Line: Apparent, twin infinities, love's old sweet song, a %proposed axis between us


OUT OF DAZZLEMENT; FOR ELIZABETH STREB       
First Line: Two notes unevenly %played as shore and sea
Last Line: Along the salt edge of song


OUT WEST       
First Line: Clara held her hand against the sky
Last Line: Rememberng my other self in you


PARK ABOVE ALL OTHERS CALLED, RIVERVIEW       
First Line: Bust of schiller on a hillside
Last Line: Demanding the voice that speaks through


PASTORAL (FROM A NATION OF FURNISHED ROOMS)       
First Line: So ike says, what ya got ya got
Last Line: Started going down behind the five-and-dime


PETRARCHAN FOLIO (42R), SELS       
First Line: In the land of the original scribe, %an inverted triangle-it says
Last Line: Letter and the tongue lifts itself %to the voiceless onset of her name
Variant Title(s): From The Petrarchan Folio (42r


PINE TREES WITH CHILD       
First Line: Waft, wave %the pine fronds
Last Line: Of this day's moving


PLACE THAT'S KNOWN       
First Line: Out on the front step fifty years ago
Last Line: Their faces, so many stomachs clutched in pain %your father, she said, my mother and sleep


POCHADES       
First Line: Across a narrow lake, cottonwood
Last Line: And glass sectioned into bangles


PRIMARY EXEGESIS       
First Line: Nothing more than was
Last Line: Its palm opening the day


PSYCHE AND EROS       
First Line: His sepal wings and her arms petalled
Last Line: Lip to lip, then stone to stone. Ah eros


RATHER LIKE       
First Line: Plays on and on
Last Line: Home wounded and ashamed


REEVING       
First Line: Tricks of the weather
Last Line: Winnowings of a long winter


RETURN       
First Line: The distance back is greater
Last Line: You, carry those distances, also


RIVERSONGS OF ARION, 1-10       


SECOND-HAND ELEGY; FOR DOUGLAS DICKEY, PFC., USMC       
First Line: How can I be bitter?'
Last Line: Exhaust the evening, waiting for something to happen
Subject(s): Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975


SEQUENCE COMPOSED ON GRAY PAPER       
First Line: Mid-january mums %and white statice
Last Line: Scrum gurried to an eighteen %wheeler: vamp to chorus!


SET/SORTS: SET       
First Line: Like accidents, surely
Last Line: Skin moistens skin


SET/SORTS: SORTS       
First Line: In spaces where %touch begins, fails,
Last Line: By our absence divided


SEVEN PIECES FOR UNACCOMPANIED VOICE       
First Line: Like tapwater in your hand
Last Line: And what is still impending


SHADOW PUPPETS       
First Line: Against a room's neutrality
Last Line: Gaping, a play of grace and need


SHEAR FACE       
First Line: This bluff face, brown and yellow clay
Last Line: And you say it's beautiful


SKY AT ASHLAND       
First Line: Dust-colored water, golden
Last Line: Haloed, imperturbable western sky


SOME OTHER SPRING       
First Line: You know how it goes,' he said
Last Line: Certainties, the right airborne, at play


SOMEWHAT GRAY AND GRACEFUL; FOR REGINALD SHEPHERD       
First Line: Left behind. Consider the frayed %horizon and the likelihood
Last Line: Like breath anticipating speech


SONGE VERT(E)       
First Line: As quick as anything
Last Line: Is a fact of distance


SONGS FROM AN INSTITUTION #2       
First Line: Lovejoy %my heart goes out to
Last Line: High on the mountain


SONGS FROM AN INSTITUTION: 1       
First Line: Wreck of a pearl-diver, old bastard
Last Line: Deep down where it used to be


SONGS FROM AN INSTITUTION: 3       
First Line: I was at iwo
Last Line: And did a deadly dance


SONGS INTENDED FOR FAMILIAR PLACES       
First Line: Light along an edge
Last Line: It is here names and their %implicit voices matter


SQUARE: BUM'S PARK       
First Line: Smells of urine
Last Line: There's no such thing as reform


STRATAGEM       
First Line: Geography matters
Last Line: And it is purple night


STUDY WITH SEVERAL FIGURES, INCOMPLETELY RECALLED       
First Line: In the curious vase painting, denise martin
Last Line: Almost the exclusive property of the stage


SUCH SUMMERS       
First Line: Knee and twilight
Last Line: In search of accident


SUMS       
First Line: Whatever bends or breaks
Last Line: Ascendng your spine


TEMPER       
First Line: I think of you all
Last Line: Steerage in striped pants, to this river, my face in the glass


THE FINALITY OF A POEM    Poem Text    
First Line: All day, that
Last Line: It is that’s ending
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


THINGS AINT WHAT THEY USED TO BE       
First Line: Heel and toe
Last Line: Locked into %moist fingers


TO MYSELF AND FOR AUGUST 5, 1964       
First Line: I have a new tie from france
Last Line: Am I a songster or a dealer


TOUCHING THE GROUND       
First Line: Nothing we know of seems
Last Line: But ourselves we celebrate and save


TRACINGS       
First Line: Nothing but this continent
Last Line: That fronted on the open west


VALEETA       
First Line: Once more %and then
Last Line: Morning valeeta %not goodnight


VARIATIONS FOR A SUMMER EVENING    Poem Text    
First Line: Thank you and goodbye'
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Roach, Max (b. 1924); Young, Lester ('prez') (1909-1959)


VARIATIONS ON STRYK'S BASHO       
First Line: Like the old oak
Last Line: This dust to be a firmament


WAITING THERE    Poem Text    
First Line: Nothing but this continent
Last Line: That fronted on the open west
Subject(s): West - U.s.; Ancestors & Ancestry; Heritage; Heredity


WAITING THERE       
First Line: As others or ourselves
Last Line: Own turnings overgrown


WAR STORY       
First Line: (at this date exact order is impossible)
Last Line: My thigh as examples of pain


WHAT ARE ISLANDS TO ME NOW       
First Line: Carved wood, bronzes, tracings ice %crystals leave on the windowpane
Last Line: Red picot cream colored petals recalled %more than seen, the moment teetering there