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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: BAKER, DAVID Matches Found: 302 Baker, David Poet's Biography 302 poems available by this author 1962 First Line: 1962 or 1963 - but unmistakable among the tepid and long 8-BALL AT THE TWILITE Poem Text First Line: The team of budweiser horses Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Popular Culture - United States; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons 8-BALL AT THE TWILITE First Line: The team of budweiser horses Last Line: Running hard for the far green corners Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders; Popular Culture - United States ABANDONED BARN Poem Text First Line: Someone's left the heavy door ajar Subject(s): Barns ABANDONED BARN: 1 First Line: Someone's left the heavy door ajar Last Line: The floor's aged boards ABANDONED BARN: 2 First Line: Maybe someone's come to chase the fox Last Line: As it happens, the barn ABANDONED BARN: 3 First Line: Has grown weary of its kind, so much Last Line: His dark, slow tune? ABANDONED DEPOT, CANADA GEESE First Line: 2:02. We had seldom been so alone Last Line: The sound through our loss--counting as memory moves %those who pause, from two backwards toward one ACCIDENT First Line: He had come to tell us everything, come Last Line: All any of us could do was stand there, %while the locusts rocked the trees in response AFFAIR First Line: Then the long fencerow, that years ago had Last Line: It was not even cold. It was only cool AFTER RAIN First Line: You have to turn your back to the animals Last Line: Break into flight, hoofprints filling with rain AFTER THE REUNION First Line: To finish by picking up pieces of cake and small clutter Last Line: Pressed her kiss into--delicate red, already %powdered, doomed as a rose AFTERWARDS Poem Text First Line: A short ride in the van, then the eight of us Subject(s): Funerals; Burials AFTERWARDS First Line: A short ride in the van, then the eight of us Last Line: And whether from heat or sadness, waving ALONG THE STORM FRONT First Line: I didn't tell you. In the night's deep heart Last Line: Only the usual calm-- %then the plane going down in the storm AMONG MEN First Line: Some chore had taken me down the gravel and dust Last Line: It was as I always knew it would be in the end - %a narrow road, a boy behind each tree ANNIVERSARY OF SILENCE First Line: Every night for weeks, from the lilac's deep heart ANTIOCH CHURCH AND CEMETRY, 1840-1972 - 1. First Line: I have to tell you this. I saw a jay fly straight Last Line: Of the church before those men tore it down for scrap. %it was lovely, grown wild. It was where you ANTIOCH CHURCH AND CEMETRY, 1840-1972 - 2. First Line: Though I pulled right up to one wall, though I could just Last Line: Difference between this place and a barn. 'over there %was the altar, yes. There, in that corner, ou ANTIOCH CHURCH AND CEMETRY, 1840-1972 - 3. First Line: Then we were outside, the cemetary. Old stones Last Line: High and full against the sky, trees older than us %both. But we didn't speak of that then, or need ANTONYMS: MORNING AND AFTERNOON NEAR THE OSAGE RIVER: 1. ... First Line: The wind blows. Men are running softly through the grass Last Line: Day is warming. And the sun has passed through %willows to the waiting sky, like a seed, a true song ANTONYMS: MORNING AND AFTERNOON NEAR THE OSAGE RIVER: 2. ... First Line: In 1934 the bridge was built. That's what the sign says Last Line: But, even this far, I can see a line of dust %rising above the road and brush, pointing the way BAD BLOOD First Line: All evening our cigarettes have lent a single cloud Last Line: Like the neighborhood tough, who tenses each time %the red lights flare at the door, yet always pass BELL First Line: Each day was a day like every other one Last Line: In that region, was still delivered by hand BENTON'S CLOUDS First Line: The background is clouds and clouds above those Last Line: But is already part of the story BLUE JESUS: SANCTUARY OF STARS, SALT LAKE CITY First Line: So we went uo in the near-hush of whispers Last Line: Time, neither rising into it, %nor falling from anyplace above BREAKDOWN First Line: Ansted, west virginia, may be almost heaven BREATHING IN Poem Text First Line: A man under water Subject(s): Drowning BREATHING IN First Line: A man under water %will breathe water Last Line: Memory, breathing in CALL ACROSS THE YEARS First Line: Those summers, sundowns came late but never late enough Last Line: And find us all here singing in the spreading sun CALLED BACK First Line: How it is so Last Line: Into beautiful bolts of cloth CAR WASH AT THE MALL Poem Text First Line: Even mud makes a halo of a steaning, still body Last Line: With a thirst so profound it brings joy Subject(s): Automobiles – Service Stations CARDINALS IN SPRING: 1 First Line: Tens of thousands on the wing, perennial in april Last Line: Our rightful seats, st. Louis, busch stadium, 1968, the same%as '67, as '66, and the season's first CARDINALS IN SPRING: 2 First Line: I don't deny this whole thing Last Line: We're all here, never more perfect than now CARDINALS IN SPRING: 3 First Line: Brock of the basepath, never more perfect than now Last Line: It arched through an upstairs window...Never more perfect than %now CARDINALS IN SPRING: 4. First Line: What is it? I wonder, and buster brings his arm up to me Last Line: And I am jumping; and now I think it must be %the icy chiseled heart of winter melting in his outhel CARDINALS IN SPRING: 5 First Line: It is the incredible; and now I think Last Line: In particular, always already, is happening with sensational urgency %...And now he's giving it to m CARDINALS IN SPRING: 6 First Line: But how can I know that? How can I say all that? Last Line: Whoever they are, my own affections having blurred, %for a moment, all the individual images CARDINALS IN SPRING: 7 First Line: When we stand, as we must, when the silence Last Line: Over athletes and umps, the fireworks blossom %into smoke-puffs and thunder like the storms of creat CARDINALS IN SPRING: 8 First Line: The moment before its beak breaks through the tender shell Last Line: Between breath and breath, suspended in the nether-sphere %of original joy, aren't we, in each other CARDINALS IN SPRING: 9 First Line: O thousands of us, tens of thousands with our souvenirs Last Line: For this moment, this beginning, where we see it still, %allof us, o! Never more perfect than now CARDIOGNOSIS: 1. BY HEART First Line: In galen's anatomical study, %the heart is not perfectly spherical Last Line: It was more than one heart could stand, %all of us there CARDIOGNOSIS: 2. CARDIOGNOSIS First Line: No less than aristotle rendered first Last Line: On yours inside mine %joined halves of a larger love CARDIOGNOSIS: 3. CIRCULATION MAN First Line: When he fell at the rehab gym, they said Last Line: Speak, do we speak, %and what %for? CARDIOGNOSIS: 4. THE BOOK OF THE HEART First Line: It's hard to overstate the relevance Last Line: And knowing this-my love-makes me sing more CARRIAGE HOUSE First Line: At eighteen hands he's big as a bridge Last Line: He's earned this life. It's lighter than a plow CATFISH First Line: Its head whacked against a flat rock CAVES First Line: Deep in these ozark hills, dark-limbed Last Line: Blunt as hammers stumbling, %falling, no less, yet surely nomore, than I CHARMING Poem Text First Line: The remnant industry of a dying town's itself Subject(s): City & Town Life COLD WATER First Line: Look at yourself his soliloquy Last Line: He takes a drink and everyone swallows COME CLEAN First Line: Yellow as paint Last Line: Now we are trying %not to try not to try Subject(s): Cleanliness CONCURRENT MEMORIES: THE AFTERNOON THE LAST BARGE LEFT - 1. First Line: Somewhere on a broken dock step, dock no longer there Last Line: See through it, its few veins and dark organs. %it wants back in the water. It wants back where it b CONCURRENT MEMORIES: THE AFTERNOON THE LAST BARGE LEFT - 2. First Line: The last time I came here was my father to fish Last Line: Barge leaving and never come back. I want to watch him %standing inthe slow rain. I want to remember CONCURRENT MEMORIES: THE AFTERNOON THE LAST BARGE LEFT - 3. First Line: The old barge aches at its moorings. I ache to see it Last Line: Where I lean. My face darkening. Something here %touches the brown water, raindrop or minnow, and is CONTRACT First Line: It's the singular grace of gravity holding things up Last Line: Tighten deep into the dim, thrilling regions of art. %it's the singular gift of the present binding COUPLE First Line: Day after day their deep love softly decays Last Line: Weeping. Song. They are so much alike, after all CREEK IN TOWN First Line: Cottonwoods, willows, and scatters of wild Last Line: But so elegant we smile to see them at all DARK EARTH, 1963 First Line: We go down into that sour dark, the cellar DEATH OF GOD First Line: The brackish smoke %of pond surface Last Line: Edge - and who %will not witness, %even now, the new %thought sinking in? DEBUT DE SIECLE First Line: No one on, no one off, no one around Last Line: By your head, two dots of semen on the glass DEER First Line: How long did we watch? How long did those Last Line: Until our will to love was also our power to kill Subject(s): Nature DEJECTION Poem Text First Line: The sun is warm, the sky is clear Subject(s): Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822) DEJECTION First Line: The sun is warm, the sky is clear Last Line: That pave the unequal bottom of the water DEMOLITION NIGHT AT THE SPEEDWAY First Line: Reamed as our county may be Last Line: We know these self-same wrecks and shrieks %can't keep this up for long DETERMINISM: 1. First Line: I came there to be happy, for a while, and dumb Last Line: And liking it DETERMINISM: 2. First Line: Such a season is summer, when every leaf Last Line: And everything else blooms, hangs, wavers, or bobs %in the wind, and lives DETERMINISM: 3. First Line: Shagged bark peeling, a pile of rotted-off limbs Last Line: Rooting down, and also %shining in the sunlight we were happy to share DETERMINISM: 4. First Line: Some things you can't help keeping Last Line: And began to write %something else DETERMINISM: 5. First Line: Then this. %you've got to love that brittle, old elm Last Line: Not me DIXIE First Line: I had no idea Last Line: And wish the same old wish, that we were %anywhere but here Subject(s): Loss; Moving And Movers; Refugees; Southern States; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration DOGWOOD MIST First Line: Sometimes I just want to sing long and alone Last Line: Enough %to be here singing with the frogs, waiting for you to %sing back DOOR First Line: All I could do was lie down Last Line: She said she was leaving once and for all %and she did. That's when I ran to the door DUST TO DUST Poem Text First Line: Footfalls on the brickwork road many fathers laid Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers DUST TO DUST First Line: Footfalls on the brickwork road many fathers Last Line: Flowers line every sidewalk down the breathing road ECHO FOR AN ANNIVERSARY First Line: When you touched me Last Line: Like a star through the empty %cosmos--one bell %sounding across momentous dread, again ENVOI: WAKING AFTER SNOW First Line: When did we drift into each other's arms? Last Line: As soon as he's settled, the redbird puffs up %his whole heart to the cold. Don't move EPHEMERAE First Line: Down from the blue sage and the butte-sand Last Line: A man, gagging now, the only animal %so sickened by death, its stench, its solitude EVIDENCE First Line: In the first weeks, %they wanted Last Line: Being what %green leaves repel EXTINCTION OF THE DINOSAURS First Line: How much time? The old guys playing cribbage Last Line: Around a pot of dried-out glads. It's like that. %nobody's going anywhere. Nothing's coming back FACTS First Line: How far on one wing Last Line: And the animal %blood spread. Who knows why FADE-OUT : A LOVER'S DISCOURSE First Line: This photograph of fog %the small clearing gives up Last Line: For me to hold. She is fog %given up to the trees FAITH Poem Text First Line: It was midday before we noticed it was morning Subject(s): Faith; Belief; Creed FIELD First Line: Where the colts paw the morning FIRE WATCH: AFTER YOU HAVE GONE First Line: All afternoon we watched as smoke rose from beyond FIREWORKS First Line: The newlyweds next door Subject(s): Fireworks FIRST AUCTION First Line: People come for miles to spend FIRST PERSON First Line: What I wanted seemed little enough at the time Last Line: While the old ones went pink to white to gray FLOOD SERMON Poem Text First Line: In the night, we got up, surely half the town Last Line: That the world was leass good than it was bad Subject(s): Floods; City & Town Life FLOOD SERMON First Line: In the night, we got up, surely half the town Last Line: The first sign most of the children ever had %that the world was less good than is was bad FOR THE OTHERS First Line: It's almost nothing the way fireflies Last Line: Take to their wings for the flight FORCED BLOOM Poem Text First Line: Such pleasure one needs to make for oneself Last Line: You smellthe wild scent all day on your hand Subject(s): Flowers; Love – Erotic FORCED BLOOM Poem Text First Line: Such pleasure one needs to make for oneself. Subject(s): Flowers FORCED BLOOM First Line: Such pleasure one needs to make for yourself Last Line: You smell the wild scent all day on your hand FRONT PORCH First Line: Under these warped eaves, the planters floating Last Line: I do not need to see them in the trees. %I know exactly where they are FUTURE First Line: The casement stone gummed in bird-lime and moss Last Line: The neighbors are singing. Their love is wrong. %when they make up, it will be the same song GENERATION First Line: As if the wind warns shhh in the evening willows Last Line: Just to see whose shape even now might strike, %blazing out of this fatherless, poetic dark HACKING THE NEWLY-GROWN First Line: Shoots of hedge, that inch or two of lighter HAUNTS First Line: In the bleached-bone white HEAVENLY Poem Text First Line: They are potted at night, pink, and packed with Last Line: From michigan quarterly review Subject(s): Flowers; Religion; Spirituality; Theology HERMIT (1) First Line: Afternoon deepening now, a dark animal growing Last Line: Here they lead, each one, into the woods beyond, %his own vast community of shadows HERMIT (2) First Line: Now, I kneel to the ground, knowing that Last Line: That I have begun to dig here with my own hands, %as if they too knew exactly what they sought HIGH RIDERS First Line: One is asleep in the saddle and one is half-asleep Last Line: West to the ocean or east, so far, so slow, to the sea HISTORY AS PLACE - 1. THE APPROACH First Line: Even from a distance, past a blurred rise of redbuds Last Line: Weeds, heady and blue with seed, snap under my step. %a loonlifts, like a memory, from the trees HISTORY AS PLACE - 2. THE PASSAGE First Line: Up close, the house is smaller. Set back in hill Last Line: From my ownface as the house sways in a breeze. %I remember a child, crawling among these timbers HISTORY AS PLACE - 3. THE RELEASE First Line: Hours later, limb-shadow long on the rotting leaves Last Line: By the shape of its dead. I too have been walking %all day, and have yet to turn back for home HOLDING KATHERINE Poem Text First Line: Let us look up tonight where the white trees surround us Subject(s): Togetherness HOLDING KATHERINE First Line: Let us look up tonight where the white trees surround us Last Line: I will go quiet as this night when I go, as the light %of dead stars streams to your sky from a life HOLIDAY BUNTING Poem Text First Line: He has handled the new piece like a stone Last Line: And all gone by morning, banner, noise, bird Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Wood; Work; Workers HOLIDAY BUNTING First Line: He has handled the new piece like a stone Last Line: And all gone by morning, banner, noise, bird Subject(s): Labor And Laborers; Wood HOME Poem Text First Line: Again the time has come to take our morning walk Last Line: In time we'll let it lead us home again Subject(s): Home HOME First Line: Again the time has come to take our morning walk Last Line: In time we'll let it lead us home again HOMELAND First Line: The fields and low hills, bales scattered like stumps Last Line: When the wind rises, the tall grasses lean away %and the thecows' tails limp as rags HOW OLD I HAVE BECOME First Line: Rain has been falling heavy for two days now HUMBLE HOUSE Poem Text First Line: Even the lawn is cramped with hydrangeas Last Line: Worm and mole, creeper and clod, humus, loam Subject(s): Houses HUMBLE HOUSE First Line: Even the lawn is cramped with hydrangeas Last Line: Worm and mole, creeper and clod, humus, loam Subject(s): Houses HUNTERS: THE PLANTING First Line: It was only a short walk to the walnut grove. Even HUNTERS: THE RETURN First Line: I took her to the grove every day those weeks, in love HYPER- Poem Text First Line: Then a stillness descended the blue hills. Subject(s): Sickness; Teenagers; Illness HYPER- First Line: Then a stillness descended the blue hills Last Line: She says. She doesn't look up. That one's you ICE RIVER First Line: Only after a couple of months of hard Last Line: Wind pulling in the heavy trees, the faint %light of snow, the blood stopped cold in my feet INFERTILITY First Line: My love and I Last Line: Are the stringent eyes %of the children %driven by our hunger back into earth IVY ON THE FIELD LOCUST First Line: Some nights we lay on our bedsheets Last Line: One for a leaf, like a healer's hand, and the rain KEEPING THE WALK CLEAN First Line: The snow %shakes down from the ice sleeves Last Line: It's too much to clean %anyway, so wait KISS First Line: Now someone's coming through the high, hard brush Last Line: Through high, hard brush to kiss me once to sleep LABOR First Line: Have you heard the catbird working this morning? Last Line: Everything in her toil says we must rise once again %to spend our own day among hungers and want LAMB'S CANYON, FALL: WASATCH FOREST First Line: High up, sharp as a sawtooth, the upper snow Last Line: Those heights, into the hard wind that seems %to soothe just when the skin has turned so cold LATE PASTORAL First Line: At first only fog lifting off Last Line: -wouldn't you say it's still so?- %to float LATE-BLOOMING ROSES First Line: The sun cracks through %the bracken sky- %week of Last Line: That everybody %watched, though no %one won LATE: COUNTY ROAD BB First Line: Forty's fast. Fifty, even fifty-five, especially where the road LATE: LONG CLIMB First Line: White wisp the wind raised, transparent as milk Last Line: Its dark palms. Its thick applause, water and rock, %and know what's heard is touched. I'm close eno LEGACY First Line: Three quarters of another year gone, another day's light Last Line: Know what they really ought to do. Go ahead and fall %away from this entire earth %and just stay the LIGHTNING AT NIGHT First Line: The white flash blows you back against me Last Line: Echoes to %carry on, us split in two LOW CLOUDS AT DAWN First Line: They are ground cover over the ground cover Last Line: To touch the eyes closed, until you turn away MACON CREEK, RESERVOIR - 1. First Line: Even for the smallest boat the creek was shallow Last Line: Pointed deep into the night, there, our fire still lit, %theblue smoke rising through the lowest lim MACON CREEK, RESERVOIR - 2. First Line: I don't know which is hotter, the sun on my back Last Line: Line, in shallows, treetops sway in the gentle motion %of a lake that is as natural as our given liv MAGPIES First Line: Lift, every few seconds, from the downward glide MARRIAGE First Line: Cupped the floating sycamore bark - cupped or curled Last Line: Night after night where we sleep, cupped in each other's breath. %sweet its song. Long the nights. F MELANCHOLY MAN First Line: What makes robert burton's anatomy of melancholy Last Line: He says, against the receiver, to see-are you still here? MERCY Poem Text First Line: Small flames afloat in a blue duskfall, beneath trees Last Line: Death after death, around the far, awakening bend Subject(s): Religion; Spirituality; Theology MERCY First Line: Small flames afloat in a blue duskfall, beneath trees Last Line: Death after death, around the far, awakening bend Subject(s): Religion; Spirituality MIDWEST: GEORGES First Line: The wind is the weather. The worst will blow Last Line: The gods, who talk down to us on sheer air MIDWEST: ODE; IN MEMORIAM WILLIAM MATTHEWS Poem Text First Line: You could believe a life so plain it means Last Line: Business end of a dollar in their hands Subject(s): Ohio MIDWEST: ODE; IN MEMORIAM WILLIAM MATTHEWS First Line: You could believe a life so plain it means Last Line: Business end of a dollar in our hands Subject(s): Ohio MIMOSA First Line: Days and nights the dull metallic %hammer of welders' work Last Line: The night is starting to burn and to bloom Variant Title(s): The Mimosa Subject(s): Summer; Trees; Water MINING THE SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH, 1936: MY FATHER'S STORY First Line: Bellies down, our faces smeared with mud to match MISSIONARY POSITION First Line: For as long as we can hold our breath Last Line: In one step we see the whole world %from above--then we are gone MISSOURI First Line: This is the living we make. This is our love and pain Last Line: Saying this is the living we make. This is our love and pain MONGREL HEART Poem Text First Line: Up the dog bounds to the window, baying Subject(s): Family Life; Dogs; Relatives MORE RAIN First Line: This is all still something of a mystery Last Line: You'll do just about anything %to kill it MOSQUITOES First Line: At first the hum through sagging leaves Subject(s): Nuclear War MR. WHITMAN'S BOOK First Line: The trouble is drink, if like fate drink is Last Line: But the hero will not touch his all night MURDER Poem Text First Line: Language must suffice Subject(s): Love; Loss; Poetry & Poets MURDER First Line: Language must suffice Last Line: Which is to say %before we are %only language MURDER: CROWS First Line: I can't help it. The brute dawn brings MUSHROOMS Poem Text First Line: Once again, the sun cool in the half-light of trees Last Line: Even now as you step on one, a dozen more come into focus Subject(s): Mushrooms; Morels MUSHROOMS First Line: Once again, the sun cool in the half-light of trees Last Line: Hidden near that hollowed cave of wood, and how, %even now as you step on one, a dozen more come int Subject(s): Mushrooms NARCIUSS First Line: Our last night Last Line: Then only that: so like a waiting room clock %after the waiting has stopped NEAR DEEP WATERS: 1. BACK WATER First Line: Two buckets, old shoes, and a seine. That's all we needed Last Line: And water. Back at camp, we would wonder at them %raking those buckets' bottoms the rest of the afte NEAR DEEP WATERS: 2. THE CAR First Line: Rounding a bend in the river, what little sky we could see Last Line: The hook, then slipped it back alive into the shallow %river, under moonlight, that had no bottom, a NEIGHBORS IN OCTOBER Poem Text First Line: All afternoon his tractor pulls a wagon Last Line: Bagging gold for the cold days to come Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers NEIGHBORS IN OCTOBER First Line: All afternoon his tractor pulls a wagon Last Line: Bagging gold for the cold days to come Subject(s): Farm Life NEMESIS First Line: Below the bedpost in a dusty sphere of light Last Line: Each small wound would not pull them closer %to the center of privation and guilt NOVEMBER: THE END OF MYTH First Line: We parked beneath that poor, bending tree ODYSSEY: AN EPIC FOR MINIMALISTS First Line: 1. The telemacheia %telemachus, too long a boy Last Line: He rescued his city... %and penelope never looked cuter OHIO FIELDS AFTER RAIN First Line: The slow humped backs of ice ceased Last Line: The gray beasts growing tame on the shore OLD MAN THROWING A BALL Poem Text First Line: He is tight at first, stiff, stands there atilt Subject(s): Old Age; Dogs; Games; Recreation; Pastimes; Amusements PASSING WINDOWS First Line: It is the end of june, end Last Line: I simply hold it there, smooth and cold %and pulseless as a tear PATRIOTICS Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Yesterday a little girl got slapped to death by her daddy Subject(s): United States; Patriotism; Death; America; Dead, The PATRIOTICS First Line: Yesterday a little girl got slapped to death by her daddy Last Line: And here you are, and here we stand again, agape PEABODY #7 STRIP MINE First Line: And that's what they did, strip. Even now Last Line: In that first, good dream %that strated all of this PETIT MAL First Line: Pallid mist, a haze of pink-and-green Last Line: Not the spirea's handful %of pinkish spray and dew cupped in a needed balm. %now, holding so little, PHASES OF THE MOON First Line: I have walked into our midnight yard where the spruce Last Line: Orange and scarred through one maple's frame. I want to say %come home carefully, come home sure. No PIANO MUSIC First Line: From two storeys up in the visible traces of rain Last Line: Its way back around to our ears. Someone was gone. %that must have been why we kept playing it PLAIN STYLE First Line: Many of us carried what we could - not much Last Line: Eyes raised to the sky, as in a desperate prayer, %or the most serious, irreversible curse POISON First Line: The summer sally millsap fell from the graceful POLITICS OF LOVE POEMS First Line: This morning %after you got up Last Line: To sell us what we need %to stay alive Variant Title(s): The Politics Of Lyri POND First Line: Rust cattails, a few blanched twigs sticking through Last Line: It's deep there-no cracks. The face of a clock. %no hands PORTRAIT OF THE WEST First Line: In one room, a bowl of fruit Last Line: Each clean seed, soon %a fist of seeds POST MERIDIAN First Line: Half a life's wanting, the other regret Last Line: Propped by a birdbath brimming with boots, %husband missing 5/22/02 POSTCARDS FROM THE ISLANDS First Line: From a distance the dozen off-islands Last Line: But we just can't tear them, our eyes, away POSTMODERNISM Poem Text First Line: The scene you loathe, the sheer fervor, the speed Last Line: And now even your pity is worthless Subject(s): Loss; Moving & Movers; Refugees; United States - Immigration & Emigtration POSTMODERNISM First Line: The scene you loathe, the sheer fervor, the speed Last Line: And now even your pity is worthless Subject(s): Loss; Moving And Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration PREDATORY First Line: You know this as well Last Line: And eat, and survive PREPARATORY MEDITATION First Line: No preparation, no participation Last Line: There is so little time to get ready PRIMER OF WORDS First Line: Hard to picture him here in the lake grass Last Line: Or how they may seed. Yes. How continue PULL First Line: They held each other a many-hundredth time Last Line: At the edge, pulled deeper into the abyss PULP FICTION Poem Text First Line: You want more? You want some more of this shit? Last Line: The knife, you understand, is real. The knife is mine Subject(s): Flowers; Nature PULP FICTION First Line: You want more? You want some more of this shit? Last Line: The knife, you understand, is real. The knife is mine Subject(s): Flowers; Nature PURITAN WAY OF DEATH First Line: How hard this life is hallowed by the body Last Line: Which is redundant, awful, endless, and ours Subject(s): Religion; Spirituality RAIN BARREL First Line: What you imagine--moss, oak scent, green mirror Last Line: Is not what you thought yourself capable of, ever RAINBOW First Line: If things were worse, this cursed rain Last Line: It's over. It's what he means by RED SHIFT Poem Text First Line: Only here through the clear lens of language, and under RED SHIFT First Line: Only here, through the clear lens of language REMOVALS First Line: My own soft prints meet themsleves in pairs Last Line: Bittern, holding itself straight as a stake %in the swaying weeds RETURN TO THE POND First Line: Through ragweed and goldenrod, thistle raking at my ankles Last Line: Yet I know something is down there, something alive, %thoughholding very still ROMANTICISM Poem Text First Line: It is to emerson I have turned now Subject(s): Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882); Death - Wives; Loss; Corpses; Cadavers ROMANTICISM First Line: It is to emerson I have turned now Last Line: #name? RUNNING THE RIVER LINES First Line: Tonight, on a bank line strung SAINTS' POPPIES Poem Text First Line: Somewhere there are weeds beside the long road Subject(s): Poppies SALVATION First Line: Someone has tapped your clenched hadn and so Last Line: It isn't hard to be clean. It isn't the past %that has changed. It's that light, shutting off SECOND PERSON First Line: The beautiful athletes on the white beach Last Line: Night. And for you who have carried me back SENTENCES FOR A NEW YEAR First Line: You don't know where you are Last Line: Down the 1)danderoug, 2)imaginary road %where you've got %togo, too SEPARATION First Line: Twice you have driven nearly off the road Last Line: Are clearer the greater grows the darkness SEX First Line: Such joy %- abundant, indiscriminate! - %these sweet june evenings Last Line: It's got this sadness - green and down-leaning - %that only the human could love SIMONIDES' STONE First Line: I'm trippin' I'm trippin' could be his song if Last Line: Red around his form. They do not write on him. %man's dirge is praise SKATING POND Poem Text First Line: First, a fire. Father would bring the wood and stack it Last Line: And seen the story of a joy no cbild, n o man, could ever repeat Subject(s): Farm Life; Skating & Skaters SKATING POND First Line: First, a fire. Father would bring the wood and stack it Last Line: Have looked across the pond, those patterns like words, %andseen the story of a joy no child, no man SMALL CONFESSION BY THE RIVER: A LOVE POEM First Line: Beyond the fall of bluff and down through the familliar Last Line: It was everything, the only way to be alone, %the way out oftown. The way, somehow, to love SMOKE First Line: The young and the moneyed have blown Last Line: To be smoke floating up to the stars Subject(s): Farm Life; Smoke SNOW FIGURE First Line: A humble night. Hush after hush. Are you listening? Last Line: Why do we wish so hard to listen to what isn't here? %here, the snow says, as if in response. My lov SONNET FOR A SEPARATION First Line: Where have Last Line: When, %dear soul, %did we, %live so %purely, %no shame %no blame? SONNETS FROM ONE STATE WEST: 1. INSIDE COVERED BRIDGE First Line: Nothing about this is right. I have torn Last Line: To battle the green wall of brush from which %this path has come-- %or there, into which it goes Variant Title(s): Looking In Both Directions From Inside The Covered Bridg SONNETS FROM ONE STATE WEST: 2. SUNBATHING Poem Text First Line: My neighbor's new store-bought dog yaps again Last Line: Quickly enough on their own sweet time Subject(s): Animals; Dogs SONNETS FROM ONE STATE WEST: 2. SUNBATHING First Line: My neighbor's new store-bought dog yaps again Last Line: All burning down to ash and grime %quickly enough on their own sweet time Subject(s): Animals; Dogs SONNETS FROM ONE STATE WEST: 3. DRIVING PAST NUCLEAR PLANT First Line: How often have you heard it: tornado Last Line: Only the reactor's tower funneled %in the dark. I left. I drove so fast %I swear I rose, swirling in SPACE/TIME First Line: I hate the life of quiet regard. Two miles Last Line: The night freight measures nothing %but my cry SPIRIT FLOWER First Line: Lean down and listen. %lean in horror, lost breath Last Line: And sirens begin %to cry Variant Title(s): Peonie STARLIGHT Poem Text First Line: Tonight I skate on adult ankles across the blue pond Subject(s): Skating & Skaters STARLIGHT First Line: Tonight I skate on adult ankles across the blue pond Last Line: On she glides when I have stopped. On she sails when I have %laid me down and under starlight closed STILL LIFE WITH JACKET: 1. First Line: To find perspective in winter woods Last Line: Next to the idle railroad tracks we have %followed since the dawn broke. Nothing moves STILL LIFE WITH JACKET: 2. First Line: In nineteen thirty-four, the poor were Last Line: Silver trees as if gathered by fires- %tents, smoking pots, travelers' rubble STILL LIFE WITH JACKET: 3. First Line: A little stocking cap of caked blood Last Line: Alive in the failing world? The man %kept this to himself until he died STILL LIFE WITH JACKET: 4. First Line: No one forgives the living or the Last Line: The dead are everywhere, waiting - white- %robed, huddled in the trees, trackless, cold STILL-HILDRETH SANATORIUM, 1936 Poem Text First Line: When she wasn't on rounds she was counting Last Line: Lift like a good child my face to be kissed Subject(s): Psychiatric Hospitals; Mad Houses; Insane Asylums STILL-HILDRETH SANATORIUM, 1936 First Line: When she wasn't on rounds she was counting Last Line: Lift like a good child my face to be kissed Subject(s): Psychiatric Hospitals STORIES IN THE LAND First Line: Behind the highway at a slight bend in the road Last Line: Look here you said this is why this is why %and your words lay down among the rocks STORY First Line: It wasn't disquiet with the new house or neighbors Last Line: Floodlights to trip at the slightest of movements, %when what she needed was her story not ever to c Variant Title(s): The Troubl STROKE Poem Text First Line: In the lilac light, in the lengthening pulse of a sorrow Last Line: Singing through the stream on its way to the brain Subject(s): Stroke STROKE First Line: In the lilac light, in the lengthening pulse of a sorrow Last Line: There is a bubble in the blood, tiny and clear, %singing through the stream on its way to the brain Subject(s): Stroke SUMMER NIGHT, RIVERSIDE DRIVE First Line: How small the lovers are. In olmsted park Last Line: How little light we need to see the dark SUMMER SLEEP First Line: Under the long gasp of stars, when late summer heat SUNBATHING Poem Text First Line: My neighbor's new store-bought dog yaps again Subject(s): Dogs; Grief; Sorrow; Sadness SURVEY: LAST READING First Line: My father's teaching me Last Line: Beat their wings against my chest %to get away, to fly above this world %too imprecise for anything SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 1. INTRO First Line: Turn it and this fast Last Line: It's saturday night at the com-on-inn SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 2. FIRST VERSE First Line: Welcome, grins the stud Last Line: And also melodically. %baseball bat. Now move! He said. And they moved.) SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 3. SECOND VERSE First Line: No matter where you're sitting Last Line: Do you hear it? Are you ready %to let yourself go %a little farther? Oooo oooo oooo SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 4. CHORUS AND SOLO First Line: Baby, says a wind-swept blonde, atwirl near an amp Last Line: Only sweet home men at sweet home. %hoping you understand, shifting from foot to foot.) SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 5. THIRD VERSE First Line: In birmingham they love Last Line: In a slapstick newsreel, ghosts %against a wall, %notes on a burning page SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 6. CHORUS AND SOLO First Line: Are you with me? Sweet home, al-uh-bam-uh! Last Line: Moment forget his march toward death. %bellybutton, I hate this goddamn song. Four:) SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 7. FOURTH VERSE First Line: Oooo oooo oooo %they love this song Last Line: They pick me up when I'm feeling %blue! Now how 'bout you? SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 8. CHORUS (REPEAT, WITH GUITAR) First Line: We slam into the final chorus like a wreck Last Line: We love you! Screaming baby screaming sweet! Turn it SWEET HOME, SATURDAY NIGHT: 9. CODA First Line: So we do TAXI AFTER AN EVENING SHOWER Poem Text First Line: This man saying no no Subject(s): Grief; Sorrow; Sadness TAXI AFTER AN EVENING SHOWER First Line: This man saying no no. This man moaning jesus christ Last Line: Block after block, beneath stone walls and windows %and glitter. There is only one sadness, one spee THANKSGIVING IN TIME OF AIDS First Line: Who'd have hoped the wicker basket, filled to Last Line: Remember us, who live on earth alone THAT MOON First Line: They are halfway %between here %and dying, %our canada geese Last Line: Your father's %eyelash. And %soon the night entire THE AFFAIR Poem Text First Line: Then the long fencerow, that years ago had Subject(s): Love Affairs; Parting; Loss THE BLUE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Heron is gray, not blue, but great enough Subject(s): Herons THE CITY OF GOD Poem Text First Line: Now we knelt beside Subject(s): Deer THE COUPLE Poem Text First Line: Day after day their deep love sofens Last Line: Weeping. Song. They are so much alike, after all Subject(s): Love – Nature Of; Togetherness THE DEER Poem Text First Line: How long did we watch? How long did those Last Line: Until our will to love was also our power to kill Subject(s): Nature THE EXTINCTION OF THE DINOSAURS Poem Text First Line: How much time? The old guys playing cribbage Subject(s): Mortality THE FEAST Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The moon tonight is Subject(s): Breast Cancer THE FIRST PERSON Poem Text First Line: What I wanted seemed little enough at the time Subject(s): Loss THE MIMOSA Poem Text First Line: Days and nights the dull metallic / hammer of welders' work Last Line: The night is starting to burn and to bloom Variant Title(s): The Mimosa: Subject(s): Summer; Trees; Water THE PURITAN WAY OF DEATH Poem Text First Line: How hard this life is hallowed by the body Last Line: She reminds us always of this death, this life, which is redundant, awful, endless, and ours Subject(s): Religion; Spirituality; Theology THE RAINBOW Poem Text First Line: If things were worse, this cursed rain Subject(s): Sewall, Samuel (1652-1730); Religion; Weather; Theology THE SPRING EPHEMERALS Poem Text First Line: Here she comes with her face to be kissed Subject(s): Spring; Love THE SUPERNATURAL: A LOVE POEM Poem Text First Line: Heat and haze. The granular frayed-ends of late night Subject(s): Love THE TRUTH ABOUT SMALL TOWNS Poem Text Subject(s): Cities And Towns THE WOMEN Poem Text First Line: The women are gathered at the back porch sink Subject(s): Women THE YARD Poem Text First Line: Bunchgrass or the months-dry wheat Last Line: And the fragrance outside turns to fruit – to do again Subject(s): Nature THIRD PERSON First Line: Not smoke but the shades of smoke, and not cloud-work Last Line: In the smoke and gray-green distances of pain TO CROSS BARBED WIRE First Line: This way, from far off, seems so easy Last Line: Look to the day. It looks pretty good TO WINTER First Line: The poetry of earth %is never dead Last Line: Begin. The earth knows. Wind- %here follows prose TOP OF THE STOVE First Line: And then she would lift her griddle Last Line: I hold my head close to see what she means TRACT First Line: The political %trees are preparing Last Line: The meaningful trees %lie down, and they burn TREATISE ON TOUCH First Line: Whom to believe? This is our central task Last Line: And the eyes of the faithful gazing back TREES BESIDE WATER Poem Text First Line: Stag- / headed elders, the book Last Line: Pressed in the book Subject(s): Trees TREES BESIDE WATER First Line: Stag- %headed elders, the book Last Line: I am a few leaves, %pressed in the book Subject(s): Trees TROLLING ON THE MOREAU First Line: When the river fell dead-still TROUBLE First Line: It wasn't disquiet with her neighbors %or new house Last Line: She needed was the pest just %not to be caught? TRUTH ABOUT SMALL TOWNS: 1. THE TRUTH ABOUT SMALL TOWNS First Line: It never stops raining. The water tower's tarnished Last Line: Than money. (who says shoppe?) it never rains Variant Title(s): The Truth About Small Town TRUTH ABOUT SMALL TOWNS: 2. GRAVEYARD First Line: Heat in the short field and dust scuffed up, glare Last Line: Each one's cup, until the cup overflows Variant Title(s): Graveyar TRUTH ABOUT SMALL TOWNS: 3. COUNCIL MEETING First Line: The latest uproar: to allow wendy's Last Line: Then we'll all stand up for what we believe TRUTH ABOUT SMALL TOWNS: 4. CHARMING First Line: The remnant industry of a dying town's itself Last Line: Someone with a camera's drawing down on you Variant Title(s): Charmin TWO CLOUDS First Line: White mist burns %like the wings Last Line: I don't know %and it lifts me UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION First Line: We have decided now to kill the doves Last Line: It no longer matters who is right. Their cry %comes from both sides of the window at once UP EARLY First Line: But not before that slow shoulder's already sloughed me Last Line: It is the sun, the morning. %the pale stem by which, nevertheless, this day is held USES OF NOSTALGIA First Line: Nothing so clear as a cloud, nor clouded Last Line: But not the past. I mean the ones to come UTAH: THE LAVA CAVES First Line: The rain just over, what's left of the day now glowing Last Line: Each blinking in the last fierce moment of sun. %how far must I go to believe my own eyes? VICTORIAN FOLLY First Line: For a moment her face was calm Last Line: A likeness of their manor, %but smaller, and absent of doors VIOLENCE First Line: Eerie from hung drapes, blue velvet, dark aisles Last Line: Except in the dreams we carry home, too VIRGA First Line: Indian summer, one of those inescapable skies, hill Last Line: Old father, who had just seen his only child %touching herself in places he was never meant to know WAKE First Line: Clear stars afoam %on a black wave Last Line: Out of darkness, into %the dark WEB First Line: Hardly more than a salting Last Line: By the fierce, simple %nearness of the flame: yes, %taken, like love, before I knew, %without a touc WHERE WE LIVE: 1. SENTIMENTAL: AN EPITHALAMIUM First Line: Our willow lets its limbs down Last Line: Reaching its tender arms %down to us who are reaching up %out of the last %swirling light WHERE WE LIVE: 2. PASTORAL: A FRAGMENT First Line: Where we live, where each green day Last Line: And our work does become, again and again, a blessing, %a visible affection, %a matter of love WHERE WE LIVE: 3. CONFESSIONAL: DOMESTIC OF TERROR First Line: Who was I talking to? Even the barest dark breeze Last Line: And what if she does? WHERE WE LIVE: 4. SUPERNATURAL: A HISTORY First Line: Heat and haze. The granular frayed-ends of late night Last Line: Just like it's always been. %heat and haze. You . Waving. Beginning to run this way Variant Title(s): The Supernatural: A Love Poe WHERE WE LIVE: 5. FORMAL: A CATALOG First Line: Stippled with sweat and singing Last Line: So we go on %singing row after row after row Variant Title(s): Herbs: Our Catalo WHERE WE LIVE: 6. POLITICAL: FORMS OF JOY First Line: So sure of himself, in the simple, soothing way Last Line: He flips us off with his own peculiar bird. It makes him %glad WHERE WE LIVE: 7. NATURAL: OUR AUGUST MOON First Line: How these blue hours bless us and keep us Last Line: Swell blue in the lunatic night, I want you %to know I understand. I'll be there soon WHITE PIN IN BACK WOODS First Line: The winter wailed. It shrieked. Several old pines Last Line: To wave from the shades of her porch WINGED First Line: If there were the sea and not snow, morning Last Line: To fly where the others, it seems, have gone WINTER DAY, NOTHING I HAVE DONE First Line: Leafless, in the hheat of a season remembered for ice Last Line: Touched by ligh, still for a moment before wind, %something not far from breath in its hardening tru WITNESS First Line: What I remember is street light tipped blue on the sill Last Line: Was it a star or far streetlight that blinked out just then?%I was down on my knees when the first d WOMEN First Line: The women are gathered at the back porch sink Last Line: As when something's put away, but it won't stay down WORKS AND DAYS First Line: More in number, five %or six at a time Last Line: Here-, to see so many %more gathering now WRECKER DRIVER FORESEES YOUR DEATH First Line: If you walked past the lot on any good sunday YARD First Line: Bunchgrass or the months-dry wheat Last Line: And the fragrance outside turns to fruit--to do again Subject(s): Nature YELLOW LILIES AND CYPRESS SWAMP First Line: So green against the standing water they're Last Line: Like landscape cupped, held, kept. One gorgeous flame |
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