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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: BURNS, RALPH Matches Found: 109 Burns, Ralph Poet's Biography 109 poems available by this author A BOAT IS A LEVER Poem Text First Line: After my student went to the doctor to Subject(s): Cancer (disease) ADAM'S BIRTHDAY First Line: The boy whose father made him make Last Line: Like a thousand separations AERIAL IN THE PINES Poem Text First Line: To cut off the top branches Subject(s): Pine Trees AGAIN, FATHER First Line: You are like the man who drove off a dirt road AND LEAVE SHOW BUSINESS First Line: This elephant keeper shoved a hose up AND LEAVE SHOW BUSINESS? Poem Text First Line: This elephant keeper shoved a hose up ANNIVERSARY OF WOOD First Line: We have the corners to ourselves ANXIETY OF INFLUENCE First Line: I've been dying to repeat that corny maxim Last Line: You make my love muscle grow AUCTION First Line: An owl muttered himself to sleep AUNT First Line: You don't have to do that, and as Last Line: Assent effacing a moment's breeze BACK First Line: I can hear the even clicking %of a bluejean button as it tumbles Last Line: The dwellings are real. %I am who I think BARBED WIRE Poem Text First Line: Two or more strands twisted together BARBED WIRE First Line: Two or more strands twisted together Last Line: Keeping cattle in, or the enemies of sheep %out BARRENS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY First Line: See it on thick days they told me BIG MONEY First Line: I'm watching superman iii on my 19 sony trinitron BOAT IS A LEVER First Line: After my student went to the doctor to Last Line: There is nothing more beautiful %than a boat BOYISH First Line: I knocked three teeth down Last Line: My plunder, though I never %was there, or anywhere Subject(s): Boys CATATONIC First Line: Her foot has gone to sleep COLLECTION First Line: Her friends left them one by one COMFORT INN First Line: Last night through the motel room %wall I heard a woman's Last Line: Land in yellow grass, lend an efflorescence %to the surface tension of water COMFORT OF A WOMAN First Line: Last night I woke to the smell of furnace gas Last Line: As a sunfish, small-boned as a sparrow COMING OUT First Line: Yesterday at the t-mart I saw CREEPING DETERMINISM First Line: The way I marshall detail, no, fact Last Line: Like fingerprints of certitude and chance CROCODILES First Line: Have you heard DEAR SUE First Line: Do the rivers whistle when you go away DEBRIS Poem Text First Line: By 10:30 the trash truck has digested DEBRIS First Line: By 10:30 the trash truck has digested our Last Line: Drizzling outside and the phone rings %and we're sleeping DECEMBER TWENTIETH First Line: A cold morning in december, five days DEE DEE First Line: On sundays when late afternoon led me Last Line: And what do we do which is wrong? DISTANCE First Line: William has emptied his toy box; he stands amid his work Last Line: One thought with the other, %gravity with grace DONKEY First Line: Even though I hate to run EASTER WATER First Line: My two year old son runs the faucet Last Line: That now is fallen rise to life again FIRST FLIGHT First Line: I shucked my lucky clothes and jumped in Last Line: Just as I broke into the open, just %as I busted through the trees FISHING IN WINTER Poem Text First Line: A man staring at a small lake sees Last Line: Two songs, two breaths on the water Subject(s): Sports FISHING IN WINTER First Line: A man staring at a small lake sees Last Line: Two songs, two breaths on the water Subject(s): Sports FOOD FOR DEATH First Line: Come ham and cake, deviled eggs, %pickled beets like blood to the brain Last Line: The laughter of their parts, the touch, the old association, %shines FOR LUCK First Line: One of us threw an empty soup can out Last Line: Sycamore, ash, and magnolia FOR MY FATHER-IN-LAW, WITH A LAST LINE FROM DANTE First Line: You don't know what lovin is the old man said Last Line: But never got that close. For then, would the feet %be filled with good desire FOR MY WIFE, ON OUR SON'S THIRD BIRTHDAY Poem Text First Line: This time he claims he's hitting a lion drive Last Line: Beyond the bounds of the world Subject(s): Children FOR MY WIFE, ON OUR SON'S THIRD BIRTHDAY First Line: This time he claims he's hitting a lion drive Last Line: Beyond the bounds of the world FORCE First Line: He turns his shirt collar up and feels Last Line: Of shame and desire, driving and driving %into the second world GHOST NOTES: 1. CALL AND RESPONSE First Line: Plumbline of disaster, shadow storage %of the way thought travels, the opinion Last Line: Into the lens. Of light and song GHOST NOTES: 2. SHOUT TRUMPET First Line: When passing the trumpet in zion church Last Line: Waits for a future. Slap-tongue's gone. The mouth %meets and notches the music GHOST NOTES: 3. BODY AND SOUL First Line: In summer all desires are known. Events %lie everywhere. Time and measure Last Line: A ghost note leans into an echo, %for all we know GIFT First Line: When my father-in-law gave me the knife Subject(s): Fathers-in-law; Gifts And Giving HAPPY STORY First Line: My father's eyelids drooped as he Last Line: A sweet harmonic takes itself away HOPE OF MISSISSIPPI First Line: Lady luck. Just over the river and east Last Line: Of stars in the air HOUSE FOR SALE ACROSS THE STREET First Line: That house across the stret is perfectly abandoned I HAD NO IDEA First Line: The queen was wearing white chiffon IN THE BATHROOM MIRROR Poem Text Subject(s): Love - Erotic IN THE BATHROOM MIRROR First Line: He continues to ponder Last Line: Themselves awake again %at four o'clock mid shade and sun INFLUENCE First Line: I remember ken bottoms leaning Last Line: Which doesn't care if we listen JAY First Line: My wife says he simply flew before JOEY First Line: Because the plane is almost empty LACKING SYMPATHY First Line: My father fishes the red sun down LAMENTATIONS First Line: You dang near pulled my finger off says %my neighbor to her dog Last Line: Over the shoulder %like a scarf on an airman? LEAST CIRCUMFERENCE First Line: I will stop talking about my father Last Line: Is the most consecrated ecstasy of the will LIKE A VOICE BEHIND A VOICE First Line: I asked her what's wrong LUCK First Line: Scrub oak and tumbleweed Last Line: Because we seem to care, and caring, %brighten and disappear Subject(s): Luck LULLABY Poem Text First Line: The upland falls behind the house LULLABY First Line: The upland falls behind the house Last Line: So sleep and smile, %sleep deep MAN IN THE BOY'S STORM First Line: I'm opening the cellar door which doesn't Last Line: And the noise she sings is powerful, is song MAN WHO PATCHED THE FLOOR First Line: A lot of people say they're baptized Last Line: Who sicken in the hot urban shade MARCH 14-20, 1982, YEAR OF THE EAGLE First Line: The claws of an eagle are called talons MEMORY Poem Text First Line: Didn't I think of the clasp Last Line: Out of the wild time unseen, sweet flower of improvisation Subject(s): Golf; Aging MEMORY First Line: Didn't I think of the clasp Last Line: Out of the wild time unseen, sweet flower %of improvisation Subject(s): Sports MOZART'S STARLING First Line: We can't be sure. Did mozart Last Line: It says try and tell the truth, %if it's interesting OIL WELL, OKLAHOMA First Line: I remember watching my father taste rock Last Line: On clay and felt my feet %disappear ONE WHO STAYS HOME First Line: The plump girl in the dark green chair ONLY ONE-AFTER A PAINTING BY GEORGIAN O'KEEFFE First Line: A dried blowfish crumbling now, a pocket Subject(s): Art And Artists ORPHANS EATING SUGAR First Line: You'd think they'd rot from inside out Last Line: Who grind enamel down to know the bite, the ache, %to lie down in the hole they make PAUL'S SENTENCE First Line: There's the one about how you and your Last Line: Kindly refer to as office politics PERSISTENCE OF INFLUENCE First Line: As I pack our son for the ride across town Last Line: Like breakers in the salt immortal sea REAL TIME First Line: When the thought of a thought Last Line: And what we have not thought all these years RECIDIVIST First Line: The same pictures find her and leave her REMEMBERING MY FATHER First Line: How it was I guess RID OF HOGS Poem Text First Line: Your hogs have taken part in the great conversation Subject(s): Pigs; Boars; Hogs SCHOOL DREAM First Line: You have on new clothes. Today SHETLAND ISLANDS First Line: She was so impressed with the shetland islands SHIMMER OF INFLUENCE First Line: Last night my wife brought my son into bed Last Line: I feel the spooky silk of his palm SHOCK TREATMENT First Line: The other night I dreamed of the impulse SLUG CATERPILLAR First Line: Yellow stinging hair extending, mostly Last Line: We watch it darken and deepen and rain SON, WHEN I HOLD YOU TIGHTLY First Line: To me on the divan in the meditative Last Line: I remember light and dark in my mother's eyes STARS First Line: I sit and rock my son to sleep. It rains Last Line: That falls with any particle of light. STELLA Poem Text First Line: Flap, flap went the mind of the bird STELLA First Line: Flap, flap went the mind the the bird Last Line: Against the cool adobe wall STRINGS First Line: Too thin to see, so thread-like they Last Line: That is, a longing to see across the dark SUBNORMAL GIRL WITH A CAT First Line: Hangs on the fence, just up itself SUBURB OF LIGHT AND DAZZLE First Line: June comes on flirtingly like a high soprano Last Line: When flagstone burns the feet but night chills SURPRISE LILIES OF PLURAL, ARKANSAS First Line: This special alignment of sympathy Last Line: Trumpet of sky, lilium convallium, %massing the ravine SWAMP GAS First Line: Green as my hatred layered in fathoms, %lowered in shallow graves Last Line: To live from the heart %with the heart in mind SWIMMING POOL Poem Text First Line: We dropped rubber bricks to the bottom Last Line: To his scalp but finned at top Subject(s): Swimming & Swimmers; Fathers & Sons SWIMMING POOL First Line: We dropped rubber bricks to the bottom Last Line: To his scalp but finned on top TALL TALE First Line: In bradford woods TESTING THE CURRENT First Line: Don't say, things happen TEXAS AUBADE First Line: The bluebonnets, paintbrushes, evening primrose Last Line: How each leaf is less, each pull of the grass THE COMFORT OF A WOMAN Poem Text First Line: Last night I woke to the smell of furnace gas Subject(s): Women; Hunting THEN SOMEONE CALLED, OFFERING ME A JOB First Line: But I don't believe it TO MY FATHER IN HEAVEN First Line: There you are you son of a bitch Last Line: Is old, unsupernatural, impossible %to swallow TOTSIE First Line: The neighbor's niece is marching outside TRY First Line: Twelve gongs of the becker clock and I am back Last Line: The way the beloved %speaks my name in sleep, %name I can't conceive, there %and there TWO BIRDS First Line: He leaving flew Last Line: In cold fall air WE ARE SEVEN First Line: A woman in mexico thought she was having septuplets Last Line: In darkness on a wall, heads bowed, knives %and forks at ready, impatient for grace WILD WALKING: AFTER THE GULF WAR First Line: When they drove to the crappie lake on those Last Line: But that was morning and evening of the first day WILDFLOWERS OF THE WESTERN WORLD First Line: What pops up out of space from thin green %stalks soothes the eye Last Line: Wildflowers are too direct- %something in their disposition %smiles at the earnest truth WILL First Line: That's what we'll call you, william o'neil Last Line: The small heart of the neighborhood blinks out WINDY TUESDAY NIGHTS First Line: Wasn't there a dark-eyed moribund crow YES NO DAYS Poem Text First Line: Every day he thought before he went outside YO First Line: I'm not just in a brown recliner |
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