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Author: DICKEY, JAMES
Matches Found: 304


Dickey, James    Poet's Biography
304 poems available by this author


A DOG SLEEPING ON MY FEET    Poem Text    
First Line: Being in his resting place
Subject(s): Animals; Dogs


A FOLK SINGER OF THE THIRTIES    Poem Text    
First Line: On a bed of gravel moving
Last Line: When I opened my mouth to the rich
Subject(s): Poverty; Railroads; Wandering & Wanderers; Railways; Trains; Wanderlust; Vagabonds; Tramps; Hoboes


A LETTER    Poem Text    
First Line: Looking out of the dark of the town
Last Line: And gets its strange spark from the world
Subject(s): Letters; Memory


A VIEW OF FUJIYAMA AFTER THE WAR    Poem Text    
First Line: Wind, and all the midges in the air
Subject(s): Japan; Japanese


ADAM IN WINTER       
First Line: This road is a river, white
Last Line: The ice turn sick at my heel


ADULTERY    Poem Text    
First Line: We have all been in rooms
Subject(s): Hotels; Love - Marital; Marriage; Inns; Innskeepers; Motels; Boarding Houses; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


ADULTERY       
First Line: We have all been in rooms
Last Line: God bless you. Guilt is magical
Subject(s): Hotels; Love - Marital; Marriage


AFTER THE NIGHT HUNT    Poem Text    
First Line: Along the dark bank of the river
Subject(s): Hunting


ANGEL OF THE MAZE       
First Line: At mid-morning her wheel-chair seems to rock
Last Line: Ceremony, which is the dead


ANGINA       
First Line: That one who is the dreamer lies mostly in her left arm
Last Line: My peace, my poor place, my own


ANTIPOLIS    Poem Text    
First Line: Through the town-making stones I step lightly


ANTIPOLIS       
First Line: Through the town-making stones I step lightly
Last Line: Unbelieved, believing and dancing %most loving creature


APOLLO       
First Line: So long %so long as the void
Last Line: Of static. We bend, we pick up stones


APPROACHING PRAYER       
First Line: A moment tries to come in
Last Line: It may have been somehow said


ARMOR       
First Line: When this is the thing you put on
Last Line: When I begin living forever


AT DARIEN BRIDGE    Poem Text    
First Line: The sea here used to look
Subject(s): Bridges


AT DARIEN BRIDGE       
First Line: The sea here used to look
Last Line: Out of which all miracles leap
Subject(s): Bridges


AT THE HOME FOR UNWED MOTHERS       
First Line: Gradually it is %from all sides coming
Last Line: Smiles on whatever is there


ATTEMPTED DEPARTURE       
First Line: I come back %hoping to leave
Last Line: The only thing fleeing


AUTUMN       
First Line: I see the tree think it will turn
Last Line: To the mindless one color of life


AWAITING THE SWIMMER       
First Line: Light fails, in crossing a river
Last Line: The fear-killing moves of her body


AX-GOD: SEA PURSUIT       
First Line: On the horizon, through the steam of exhausted blast-furnaces - fog - yes
Last Line: Raise to heaven a breathing blue ax


BAGGAGE KING       
First Line: There in new guinea, by the grounded metal
Last Line: From the water, and nothing yet struck


BASICS       
First Line: Who has told you what discoveries
Last Line: And struck: at just this moment %found the word 'golden'


BEE       
First Line: One dot
Last Line: Dead hand on my shoulder, coach norton, I am your boy.


BEHOLDERS       
First Line: Far away under us, they are mowing on the green steps
Last Line: With deadly intent of love


BEING       
First Line: It is there, above him, beyond, behind
Last Line: Through the roof - wide - wider %wide awake


BELOW ELLIJAY    Poem Text    
First Line: Coming in to ellijay on the green


BELOW THE LIGHTHOUSE    Poem Text    
First Line: Now I can be sure of my sleep
Subject(s): Sleep


BETWEEN TWO PRISONERS       
First Line: I would not wish to sit
Last Line: In the end at the end of a war


BIOGRAPHY       
First Line: Don't tell me of that city
Last Line: At the end of a city street


BIRTH       
First Line: Inventing a story with grass
Last Line: Change, to include a new horse


BIRTHDAY DREAM       
First Line: At the worst place in the hills above the city
Last Line: To bring me forth. The room was full of mildness. I was forty


BLOOD    Poem Text    
First Line: In a cold night
Subject(s): Blood


BLOOD       
First Line: In a cold night
Last Line: She is safe with me


BLOWGUN AND RATTLESNAKE       
First Line: Some fires are heard most truly
Last Line: To explode, and listen again %for something else


BREAD       
First Line: Old boys, the cracked boards spread before
Last Line: I ate the food I ne'er had eat


BREATH       
First Line: Breath is on my face when the cloudy sun
Last Line: Then come to us slowly, out of nowhere and anywhere risen %breathlessly bright


BRONWEN, THE TRAW, AND THE SHAPE SHIFTER, SELS.       


BUCKDANCER'S CHOICE    Poem Text    
First Line: So I would hear out those lungs
Subject(s): Mothers; Singing & Singers; Songs


BUCKDANCER'S CHOICE       
First Line: So I would hear out those lungs
Last Line: On the wings of the buck and wing
Subject(s): Mothers; Singing And Singers


BUMS, ON WAKING    Poem Text    
Last Line: More like living cover than it is
Subject(s): Hoboes


BUMS, ON WAKING       
Last Line: With water moving over their legs %more like living cover than it is
Subject(s): Wanderers And Wandering


CANCER MATCH       
First Line: Lord, you've sent both
Last Line: To win, and not only win but win %big, win big


CELEBRATION       
First Line: All wheels; a man breathed fire
Last Line: Even in sleep, not to read %hoping for genesis


CELEBRATION       
First Line: All wheels; a man breathed fire
Last Line: In five strides a kind of loving, %a mortal, a dutiful son


CHANGE       
First Line: Blue, unstirrable, dreaming
Last Line: Impossible, brighter than sunlight


CHENILLE       
First Line: There are two facing peacocks
Last Line: And closed the door of the ark


CHERRYLOG ROAD    Poem Text    
First Line: Off highway 106
Subject(s): Adolescence; Junk & Junkyards; Love; Teen Agers


CHERRYLOG ROAD       
First Line: Off highway 106
Last Line: Wringing the handlebar for speed, %wild to be wreckage forever
Subject(s): Adolescence; Junk And Junkyards; Love


CIRCUIT       
First Line: Beaches; it is true: they go on - on
Last Line: This may just be it


COMING BACK TO AMERICA    Poem Text    
First Line: We descended the first night from europe - riding the ship's sling
Last Line: The thing that sustains us forever in other places!
Subject(s): Homecoming


COMING BACK TO AMERICA       
First Line: We descended the first night from europe - riding the ship's sling
Last Line: Symbol - the unforeseen on home ground - the thing that sustains us forever in other places!
Subject(s): Homecoming


COMMON GRAVE       
First Line: Some sit and stare
Last Line: At just the wrong time to be heard %others, others


CONCH       
First Line: Cry of something
Last Line: By limit, father-rooted in sand


CONFRONTATION OF THE HERO       
First Line: Claw-hammer, hay, and grease
Last Line: And nail it to the ground in secret weeping


COURTSHIP       
First Line: Though lumber was scarce, we found it
Last Line: All ends in gentleness


CRATERS       
First Line: Roots out of the ground and ongoing
Last Line: We're in one, dry-heaving and crouching


DARK ONES       
First Line: We in all lights are coming
Last Line: Beats, feeding from your hand


DAUGHTER       
First Line: Hospital, and the fathers' room, where light
Last Line: One finger. Real god, roll %roll


DAYBREAK       
First Line: You sit here on solid sand banks trying to figure
Last Line: Somewhere in all thought


DEBORAH AS SCION: 1. WITH ROSE, AT CEMETERY       
First Line: Kin: quiet grasses. Above
Last Line: With my dead full-time and work-singing


DEBORAH AS SCION: 2. IN LACE AND WHALEBONE       
First Line: Bull-headed, big-busted
Last Line: Without levels, deepening for us


DEER AMONG CATTLE    Poem Text    
First Line: Here and there in the searing beam
Last Line: As one of their own who shall rise
Subject(s): Cattle; Deer


DIABETES       
First Line: One night I thirsted like a prince
Last Line: Sweetness everywhere, and I am calling my birds


DOG SLEEPING ON MY FEET       
First Line: Being in his resting place
Last Line: Sleeping to grow back my legs
Subject(s): Animals; Dogs


DOORSTEP, LIGHTNING, WAIF-DREAMING       
First Line: Who can tell who was born of what?
Last Line: Dangerous, seeking ground


DOVER: BELIEVING IN KINGS    Poem Text    
First Line: As we drove down the ramp from the boat


DOVER: BELIEVING IN KINGS       
First Line: As we drove down the ramp from the boat
Last Line: Of england, the king smiles, climbing: running


DREAM FLOOD       
First Line: I ask and receive
Last Line: Lift. I am dreaming. Lift


DRINKING FROM A HELMET    Poem Text    
First Line: I climbed out, tired of waiting
Subject(s): World War Ii; Second World War


DRINKING FROM A HELMET       
First Line: I climbed out, tired of waiting
Last Line: And tell him I was the man
Subject(s): World War Ii


DRIVER       
First Line: At the end of the war I arose
Last Line: For thousands of miles on the water


DROWNING WITH OTHERS       
First Line: There are moments a man turns from us
Last Line: And me laid out and alive %for nothing at all, in his arms


DUSK OF HORSES       
First Line: Right under their noses, the green
Last Line: Quiet, fragrant, and relieved
Subject(s): Animals; Horses


DUST       
First Line: Lying at home
Last Line: Ready, always, for the next


EAGLE'S MILE       
First Line: Unwarned, catch into this
Last Line: Splinter uncontrollably whole


EAGLES       
First Line: If I told you I used to know the circular truth
Last Line: Claw-stone, everything under


ENCLOSURE       
First Line: Down the track of a philippine island
Last Line: On the enemy's women %with intact and incredible love
Subject(s): World War Ii


ENCOUNTER IN THE CAGE COUNTRY       
First Line: What I was would not work
Last Line: For a few things in this world: we know you %when you come, green eyes, green eyes


ENTERING SCOTT'S NIGHT       
First Line: Interweaving %of histories: %a torso enchanted into thread. Time spun inside
Last Line: On serpent-stone totally dancing


EXCHANGES       
First Line: Under the cliff, green powered in from the open
Last Line: Among the fish. %-- let us speak softly of living


EXPANSES       
First Line: Enjoyable clouds, and a man comes
Last Line: Joy like short grass


EYE-BEATERS       
First Line: Come something - come blood sunlight - come and they break
Last Line: Like eyes. Therapist, farewell at the living end. Give me my spear


FACES SEEN ONCE       
First Line: Faces seen once are seen
Last Line: Unbearable memoryless face


FACING AFRICA       
First Line: These are stone jetties
Last Line: Fear like a dancing of peoples


FALLING    Poem Text    
First Line: The states when they black out and lie there rolling when they turn
Variant Title(s): Fall
Subject(s): Accidents


FALLING       
First Line: The states when they black out and lie there rolling when they turn
Last Line: Feels herself go go toward go outward breathes at last fully %not and tries less once tries tries ah
Variant Title(s): Fal
Subject(s): Accidents


FALSE YOUTH: AUTUMN: CLOTHES OF THE AGE    Poem Text    
First Line: Three red foxes on my head, come down
Subject(s): Writing & Writers


FALSE YOUTH: AUTUMN: CLOTHES OF THE AGE       
First Line: Three red foxes on my head, come down
Last Line: Through my wings - or ripped apart %for rags: %poetry
Subject(s): Writing And Writers


FALSE YOUTH: TWO SEASONS       
First Line: I have had my time - dressed up as something else
Last Line: Print as a shape of fire - and of youth as a lifetime search%for the blind


FALSE YOUTH: TWO SEASONS (WINTER)       
First Line: Through an ice storm in nashville


FARMERS       
First Line: There are not many meteors over the flat country
Last Line: The moon has troubled the sown seed


FATHERS AND SONS       
First Line: Curled, too much curled, he was sleeping
Last Line: He would have grown out of. Something. Music


FENCE WIRE    Poem Text    
First Line: Too tight, it is running over
Last Line: Whether outside around, or in
Subject(s): Farm Life; Fences; Agriculture; Farmers


FENCE WIRE       
First Line: Too tight, it is running over
Last Line: Whether outside, around, or in
Subject(s): Farm Life


FIEND       
First Line: He has only to pass by a tree moodily walking head down
Last Line: Where his knocked-off panama hat was in his painfully vanishing hair


FIEW OF FUJIYAMA AFTER THE WAR       
First Line: Wind, and all the midges in the air
Last Line: Overcome by the enemy's peace?


FIREBOMBING       
First Line: All families lie together, though some are burned alive
Subject(s): War


FIREBOMBING       
First Line: Homeowners unite
Last Line: Absolution? Sentence? No matter %the thing itself is in that
Subject(s): World War Ii


FLASH       
First Line: Something far off - buried deep and free
Last Line: Blinding, blood-brotherly %beyond-speech answer


FOG ENVELOPS THE ANIMALS       
Last Line: Silence. Whiteness. Hunting


FOLK SINGER OF THE THIRTIES       
First Line: On a bed of gravel moving
Last Line: When I opened my mouth to the rich
Subject(s): Poverty; Railroads; Wanderers And Wandering


FOR A TIME AND PLACE       
First Line: May we be able to begin with ourselves
Last Line: Exactly, %or near enough


FOR RICHARD WILBUR       
First Line: In such a trememdous window
Last Line: Alive, where one can get a look


FOR ROBERT BHAIN CAMPBELL       
First Line: Unwandering, I can move
Last Line: In my office death-wish, must hear


FOR THE DEATH OF VINCE LOMBARDI    Poem Text    
First Line: I never played for you. You'd have thrown
Last Line: We're with you all the way you're going forever, vince. Dickey
Subject(s): Football; Lombardi, Vince (1913-1970); Sports


FOR THE DEATH OF VINCE LOMBARDI       
First Line: I never played for you. You'd have thrown
Last Line: You're going forever, vince
Subject(s): Football; Lombardi, Vince (1913-1970); Sports


FOR THE LAST WOLVERINE    Poem Text    
First Line: They will soon be down
Subject(s): Eagles


FOR THE LAST WOLVERINE       
First Line: They will soon be down
Last Line: Lord, let me die - but not die %out


FOR THE NIGHTLY SCENT OF THE HUNTER ORION OVER A FOREST CLEARING       
First Line: Now secretness dies of the open
Last Line: In his fabulous, rigid, eternal %unlooked-for role


FOR THE RUNNING OF THE NEW YORK CITY MARATHON       
First Line: If you would quicken the city with your pelting
Last Line: All winning, one after one


FORM       
First Line: Pull out the pissed-on clinkers
Last Line: Than our two hostile cadavers, together


FOX BLOOD       
First Line: Blood blister over my thumb-moon
Last Line: My thumb, a hammering day-and-night sign %of that country


FROM TIME       
First Line: My hands that were not born completely
Last Line: Half-approving %time releasing


GAMECOCK       
First Line: Fear, jealousy and murder are the same
Last Line: Battling to the death for what is his


GIFT       
First Line: Lack of sleep thins you
Last Line: Slides its circle forward, %and in it, her face


GILA BEND    Poem Text    
First Line: Where aerial gunnery was, you think at first a cadaver


GILA BEND       
First Line: Where aerial gunnery was, you think at first a cadaver
Last Line: Much harder than that


GOODBYE TO SERPENTS       
First Line: Through rain falling on us no faster
Last Line: The water in the air without support %sustained in the serpent's eye


HEAD-AIM       
First Line: Sick of your arms
Last Line: Straight into your oncoming face, the head %not fail, not tell


HEADS       
First Line: There is no longer any reason to confuse
Last Line: The sides of their heads against banks


HEAVEN OF ANIMALS       
First Line: Here they are. The soft eyes open
Last Line: They rise, they walk again
Subject(s): Animals


HEDGE LIFE       
First Line: At morning we all look out
Last Line: King-walking hill after hill


HORSES AND PRISONERS       
First Line: In the war where many men fell
Last Line: Take his nude child in his arms


HOSPITAL WINDOW       
First Line: I have just come down from my father
Last Line: I have just come down from my father
Subject(s): Death; Fathers; Hospitals


HUNTING CIVIL WAR RELICS AT NIMBLEWILL CREEK    Poem Text    
First Line: As he moves the mine detector


HUNTING CIVIL WAR RELICS AT NIMBLEWILL CREEK       
First Line: As he moves the mine detector
Last Line: But saying, 'fathers! Fathers!'


ICE SKIN       
First Line: All things that go deep enough
Last Line: Listening hard for a buried cannon, %stands also, calm as glass


IMMORTALS       
First Line: Always as it holds us in one place, the earth
Last Line: Up front for all of us


IN THE CHILD'S NIGHT       
First Line: On distant sides of the bed
Last Line: The secret of the game


IN THE LUPANAR AT POMPEII       
First Line: There are tracks which belong to wheels
Last Line: But truly know it


IN THE MARBLE QUARRY    Poem Text    
First Line: Beginning to dangle beneath
Subject(s): Marble; Quarries


IN THE MARBLE QUARRY       
First Line: Beginning to dangle beneath
Last Line: Felt here as joy
Subject(s): Marble; Quarries


IN THE MOUNTAIN TENT       
First Line: I am hearing the shape of the rain
Last Line: I shall rise from the dead, I am saying


IN THE POCKET    Poem Text    
First Line: Going backward
Last Line: Come up leaf stand kill die strike / now
Subject(s): Football


IN THE POCKET       
First Line: Going backward
Last Line: Come up - leap stand kill die strike %now
Subject(s): Sports


IN THE TREE HOUSE AT NIGHT    Poem Text    
First Line: And now the green household is dark


IN THE TREE HOUSE AT NIGHT       
First Line: And now the green household is dark
Last Line: And with them I move gently. %I move at the heart of the world


INSIDE THE RIVER    Poem Text    
First Line: Dark, deeply. A red


INSIDE THE RIVER       
First Line: Dark, deeply. A red
Last Line: Sing. See no one


INTO THE STONE    Poem Text    
First Line: On the way to a woman, I give


INTO THE STONE       
First Line: On the way to a woman, I give
Last Line: I am known; I know my love


ISLAND       
First Line: A light come from my head
Last Line: Like the sun taking place on the sea


JEWEL       
First Line: Forgetting I am alive, the tent comes over me
Last Line: To the matched, priceless glow of the engines, %alone, in late night
Subject(s): War


JOEL CAHILL DEAD       
First Line: The farmer, fighting busily for his home, %heard, in the pouring sound of fire
Last Line: Turned down, to bother no one while he slept %in its fluted veil of glass


JUDAS       
First Line: Mark. Hair, one strand of it, can curl
Last Line: From the golden hysteria of heaven


KNOCK       
First Line: Sharing - what sharing - quickly who
Last Line: Anything? Have they come for us?


KUDZU       
First Line: Japan invades. Far eastern vines
Last Line: And prospered, till rooted out


LAKES OF VARMLAND       
First Line: Under the terrible north-light north-sea
Last Line: Or bilberry; whatever


LAZARUS TO THE ASSEMBLED       
First Line: It is you who have made light crawl
Last Line: Bring out your dead, I cry


LEAP       
First Line: The only thing I have of jane macnaughton
Last Line: While I examine my hands
Subject(s): Dancing And Dancers; Memory; Suicide


LETTER       
First Line: Looking out of the dark of the town
Last Line: And gets its strange spark from the world
Subject(s): Letters; Memory


LIBERATOR EXPLODES       
First Line: There, in the order of traffic
Last Line: Your brothr of parallel fire


LIFEGUARD       
First Line: In a stable of boats I lie still
Last Line: And hold in my arms a child %of water, water, water
Subject(s): Lifeguards; Sports


LISTENING TO FOXHOUNDS       
First Line: When in that gold
Last Line: Who may be straining to hear


LITTLE MORE       
First Line: But the little more: the little more
Last Line: Surging bull-breasted %head-down, unblocked


LOOKING FOR THE BUCKHEAD BOYS       
First Line: Some of the time, going home, I go
Last Line: Fill 'er up. Fill 'er up, charlie.'


LORD IN THE AIR       
First Line: Shook down - shook up on these trees they have come
Last Line: Up death or desire, but only to give - give what was never


LOW VOICE, OUT LOUD       
First Line: A good many times I've come down among you
Last Line: Fire-bringing ignorance


MADNESS    Poem Text    
First Line: Lay in the house mostly living
Last Line: Help help madness help
Subject(s): Insanity; Madness; Mental Illness


MADNESS       
First Line: Lay in the house mostly living
Last Line: With freedom saying bringing %help help madness help
Subject(s): Insanity


MAGUS       
First Line: It is time for the others to come
Last Line: This child is not more than a child


MANGHAM       
First Line: Somewhere between bells the right angles staggered
Last Line: Devils, lightning, ice or indifference: %identities! Identities!


MARRIAGE SONGS       
First Line: The figure entering
Last Line: Stretching %into the future


MARY SHEFFIELD       
First Line: Forever at war news - I am
Last Line: New music - long - long %past


MATH       
First Line: Numbers who can't ever hear me
Last Line: Triangle gone luminous!


MAY DAY SERMON TO THE WOMEN OF GILMER COUNTY, GEORGIA, BY A WOMAN       
First Line: Each year at this time I shall be telling you of the lord
Last Line: At their own pace the cow shuts its mouth and the bible is still %still open at anything we are gone
Variant Title(s): May Day Sermon To The Women Of Gilmer County, Georgi


MEADOW BRIDGE       
First Line: There might be working some kind of throwaway
Last Line: No softening. %field, what hope?


MERCY       
First Line: Ah, this night - this night mortality wails out
Last Line: Alive, and with me at the end


MESSAGES       
First Line: Over and around - grass banked and packed short and holding back
Last Line: Son. That does not matter


MEXICAN VALLEY       
First Line: The day works on
Last Line: The long-lost mexican sun


MOON FLOCK       
First Line: No, don't ask me to give you
Last Line: Hair-tearing and coming


MORNING       
First Line: A dog surroundingly howls
Last Line: In its rays set closer than teeth


MOVEMENT OF FISH       
First Line: No water is still, on top
Last Line: The instinct of fear and trembling, %and, of its one movement, the depth
Subject(s): Fishing And Fishermen


NAMELESS       
First Line: Sure. All the time I come up on the evil
Last Line: Who planes, as high as he can get %for nothing


NEAR DARIEN       
First Line: It may be the sea-moving moon
Last Line: By her eyes catching fire in the morning


NIGHT BIRD       
First Line: Some beating in there
Last Line: And a half-you of air


NIGHT POOL       
First Line: There is this other element that shines
Last Line: I own, wrap her in many towels


OBSTRUCTIONS       
First Line: Things placed there
Last Line: Still tasting of ghosts, who all like it


OF HOLY WAR    Poem Text    
First Line: O sire, I dreamed


OLYMPIAN       
First Line: Los angeles back-yarding in its blue-eyed waters
Last Line: To glory, I lumbered for gold


ON THE COOSAWATTEE       
First Line: Into the slain tons of needles
Last Line: There, with the black dream of the dead canoe %over our faces


ON THE HILL BELOW THE LIGHTHOUSE       
First Line: Now I can be sure of my sleep
Last Line: Coming back, coming back, going over


ONE       
First Line: No barometer but yellow
Last Line: All other not. %one %one


OTHER       
First Line: Holding onto myself by the hand
Last Line: This tree cast down its foliage with the years


OWL KING       
First Line: Through the trees, with the moon underfoot
Last Line: I believe everything, I am here
Variant Title(s): The Cal


PAESTUM    Poem Text    
First Line: Around a lemon tree throwing
Last Line: Steps down, is whole there, and stands
Subject(s): Greece; Nature; Greeks


PATIENCE: IN THE MILL       
First Line: Through a place in the roof the sun came down
Last Line: Opening the bags, tasting the slanted sugar as he would


PERFORMANCE       
First Line: The last time I saw donald armstrong
Last Line: Beside his hacked, glittering grave, having done %all things in this life that he could
Subject(s): World War Ii


PINE       
First Line: Low-cloudly it whistles, changing heads
Last Line: Here like almighty %glory


PINE: TASTE, TOUCH AND SIGHT    Poem Text    
First Line: More and more, through slow breaks


PLACE       
First Line: We are nerve-blowing now. Unspeaking and whiteness around. Warm wind
Last Line: I can tell you here


PLACE OF THE SKULL       
First Line: I used to get up, in the tent
Last Line: Half-knows such seeming peace


POEM       
First Line: For having left the birds that left me
Last Line: You are: green-legged, but nailed there


POEM       
First Line: O death, so dear to me
Last Line: The soul half-opened as a wound %and let him fly


POISONED MAN       
First Line: When the rattlesnake bit, I lay
Last Line: With the promise of harvest for no one


POWER AND LIGHT       
First Line: I may even be
Last Line: Who turns on. I am a man


PURGATION       
First Line: Beyond the eye, grasses go over the long fields
Last Line: Both sighing like grass and fire


PURGATION (SECOND VERSION)       
First Line: Before and after the eye, grasses go over the long fields
Last Line: Both sighing like grass and fire


PURSUIT FROM UNDER       
First Line: Often, in these blue meadows
Last Line: Pitch a tent in the pasture, and starve


RAFTERS       
First Line: My father never finished
Last Line: But now they just haunt the place


RAIN GUITAR       
First Line: The water-grass under had never waved
Last Line: Cathedral water, and improved


READING GENESIS TO A BLIND CHILD       
First Line: I am hiding beside you to tell you
Last Line: Within its speaking, speaking


REINCARNATION       
First Line: Still, passed through the spokes of an old wheel, on and around
Last Line: In a sudden giving-withdrawing move, like a county judge striking a match


REINCARNATION (2)       
First Line: One can do one begins to one can only
Last Line: In midair where it shall be %where it is
Variant Title(s): Reincarnation (ii


REMNANT WATER       
First Line: Here in the thrust-green
Last Line: Suffering its consequences, dying, %living up to it


RIB       
First Line: Something has left itself scattered
Last Line: As I rise, going moonward toward better %and better sleep


ROOT-LIGHT, OR THE LAWYER'S DAUGHTER       
First Line: That any just to long for
Last Line: Head-down, and there she is


SALT MARSH       
First Line: Once you have let the first blade
Last Line: In their marvelous, spiritual walking %everywhere, anywhere


SAYING OF FAREWELL       
First Line: You've dressed yourself so white for it! And you poise
Last Line: Into the oncoming never


SCARRED GIRL       
First Line: All glass may het be whole
Last Line: In sight, and the only way


SCRATCH       
First Line: Once hid in a fiery twist
Last Line: Which will be, I do not know. %I shall dream of a crown till I do


SCREENED PORCH IN THE COUNTRY       
First Line: All of them are sitting
Last Line: Or how they do it


SEA       
First Line: Who told you that the sea said something


SEEKING THE CHOSEN       
First Line: It is good, when leaving a place
Last Line: Me, that I still could achieve it, still rise


SHARK'S PARLOR       
First Line: Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on cumberland
Last Line: Feeling more in two worlds than one in all worlds the growing %encounters


SHEEP CHILD       
First Line: Farm boys wild to couple
Last Line: Themselves, they marry, they raise their kind
Subject(s): Farm Life


SHOW US THE SEA       
First Line: Real god, roll %roll as a result
Last Line: The stone. Statue, yes: creature lured into being %by gestures it has chosen in tis sleep


SIX       
First Line: When you think strong enough, you get something
Last Line: Falling - now falling %more than now


SLAVE QUARTERS    Poem Text    
First Line: In the great place the great house is gone from - in the sun
Last Line: Acknowledge, but own?
Subject(s): Slavery; Serfs


SLAVE QUARTERS       
First Line: In the great place the great house is gone from - in the sun
Last Line: Amazing eyes, and not %acknowledge, but own?
Subject(s): Slavery


SLED BURIAL, DREAM CEREMONY    Poem Text    
First Line: While the south rains, the north
Subject(s): American Civil War; Funerals; United States - History; Burials


SLED BURIAL, DREAM CEREMONY       
First Line: While the south rains, the north
Last Line: On utter foreignness, before he fills and sails down
Subject(s): American Civil War; Funerals; U.s. - History


SLEEPERS       
First Line: There is a sound you can make, as if someone asked you
Last Line: The lifted spaces, unburied


SLEEPING OUT AT EASTER       
First Line: All dark is now no more
Last Line: For the king's grave turns you to light


SMALL SONG       
First Line: I'm laughing, but being very quiet about it
Last Line: Hang-period - meridian passage: %sing


SNAKEBITE       
First Line: I am the one
Last Line: Cut to save it. Me


SNOW ON A SOUTHERN STATE       
First Line: Alongside the train I labor
Last Line: Falling into the river


SNOW THICKETS       
First Line: Helplessly besieging: it is dim
Last Line: Down-dealt to the upthrust


SPRING-SHOCK       
First Line: All bubbles travelling
Last Line: At sixty. 'I want your car,' I said


SPRINGER MOUNTAIN       
First Line: Four sweaters are woven upon me
Last Line: Deer for the first and last time


SPRINGHOUSE, MENSES, HELD APPLE, HOUSE AND BEYOND       
First Line: Nothing but one life: all stands
Last Line: Far orchards blazing with slant


SPRINTER AT FORTY       
First Line: Knowing that nothing is in it
Last Line: In violent motion, sliding on cement


STRENGTH OF FIELDS       
First Line: Moth-force a small town always has
Last Line: Of us. %my life belongs to the world. I will do what I can


STRING       
First Line: Except when he enters my son
Last Line: Dead before I was born


SUMMONS       
First Line: For something out of sight
Last Line: Pulls wide the great, thoughtful arrow


SUN    Poem Text    
First Line: O lord, it was all night
Subject(s): Love


SUN       
First Line: O lord, it was all night
Last Line: As we lay, o lord %in hell, in love
Subject(s): Love


SUSTAINMENT       
First Line: Here at the level of leaves supposedly for good
Last Line: His head in his own image where it flowed


TAPESTRY AND SAIL       
First Line: A wrong look into heavy stone
Last Line: Tautening and resolving, dwelling slowly


THE ANGEL OF THE MAZE    Poem Text    
First Line: At mid-morning her wheelchair seems to rock


THE ANNIVERSARY    Poem Text    
First Line: She is who


THE BEING    Poem Text    
First Line: It is there, above him, beyond, behind


THE CANCER MATCH    Poem Text    
First Line: Lord, you've sent both
Subject(s): Cancer (disease)


THE CHILD IN ARMOR    Poem Text    
First Line: On such a day I see him in the window


THE DUSK OF HORSES    Poem Text    
First Line: Right under their noses, the green
Last Line: Quiet, fragrant, and relieved
Subject(s): Animals; Horses


THE ENCLOSURE    Poem Text    
First Line: Down the track of a philippine island
Last Line: With intact and incredible love
Subject(s): World War Ii; Second World War


THE FATHER'S BODY    Poem Text    
First Line: His father steps into the shower
Subject(s): Fathers


THE FIREBOMBING    Poem Text    
First Line: Homeowners unite
Last Line: The thing itself is in that
Subject(s): War


THE FIRST MORNING OF CANCER    Poem Text    
First Line: The first morning of cancer he awoke
Subject(s): Cancer (disease)


THE GAME    Poem Text    
First Line: In the world, or behind the world


THE GAMECOCKS    Poem Text    
First Line: As I think of pine needles
Subject(s): Childhood Memories


THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS    Poem Text    
First Line: Here they are. The soft eyes open
Subject(s): Animals


THE HOSPITAL WINDOW    Poem Text    
First Line: I have just come down from my father
Subject(s): Death; Fathers; Hospitals; Dead, The


THE JEWEL    Poem Text    
First Line: Forgetting I am alive, the tent comes over me
Last Line: Alone, in late night?
Subject(s): War


THE LANDFALL    Poem Text    
First Line: Blue water: upon it two possible movements


THE LEAP    Poem Text    
First Line: The only thing I have of jane macnaughton
Last Line: While I examine my hands
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Memory; Suicide


THE LIFEGUARD    Poem Text    
First Line: In a stable of boats I lie still
Subject(s): Lifeguards; Sports


THE MOVEMENT OF FISH    Poem Text    
First Line: No water is still, on top
Last Line: And, of its one moment, the depth
Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; Anglers


THE PERFORMANCE    Poem Text    
First Line: The last time I saw donald armstrong
Subject(s): World War Ii; Second World War


THE SHARK'S PARLOR    Poem Text    
First Line: Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on cumberland island
Subject(s): Sharks


THE SHEEP CHILD    Poem Text    
First Line: Farm boys wild to couple
Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers


THE SIGNS    Poem Text    
First Line: If he should lift his hand
Subject(s): Children; Hospitals; Childhood


THE SIX    Poem Text    
First Line: When you think strong enough you get something


THE STRENGTH OF FIELDS    Poem Text    
First Line: Moth-force a small town always has,
Subject(s): Religion; Theology


THE STRING    Poem Text    
First Line: Except when he enters my son
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


THEM, CRYING       
First Line: In the well-fed cage-sound of diesels
Last Line: The superhuman tenderness of strangers


THREE       
First Line: I alone, solemn land
Last Line: This may be it, too


TO BE DONE IN WINTER       
First Line: What you hold
Last Line: With the spark-pounding cold


TO HIS CHILDREN IN DARKNESS       
First Line: You hear my step
Last Line: Into your room %they are. I am


TO LANDRUM GUY, BEGINNING TO WRITE AT SIXTY       
First Line: One man in a house
Last Line: Here, or ever. Here, where he begins


TO THE BUTTERFLIES       
First Line: Open windows; we always have them, have
Last Line: And us in the dresses and shirts


TOMB STONE       
First Line: This place named you
Last Line: Echo, because of a foot. %pass, human step


TREES AND CATTLE    Poem Text    
First Line: Many trees can stand unshaded
Last Line: A ccow beneath it lies down
Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers


TREES AND CATTLE       
First Line: Many trees can stand unshaded
Last Line: A cow beneath it lies down
Subject(s): Farm Life


TURNING AWAY       
First Line: Something for a long time has gone wrong
Last Line: Later, much later on


TWIN FALLS       
First Line: They fall through my life and surround me
Last Line: On great, other wings than its own


TWO POEMS OF FLIGHT-SLEEP       
First Line: With this you trim it. Do it right and the thing'll fly
Last Line: I guess, in central park, I can tell you, too, after all %these years. So was I


TWO POEMS OF GOING HOME       
First Line: The keeper %is silent - is living in the air not
Last Line: Filler 'er up. Fill 'er up, charlie


TWO POEMS OF THE MILITARY       
First Line: Prepared for death and unprepared
Last Line: In peace peace peace %one two %in sleep


TWO WOMEN       
First Line: Alone here. Beach, drum out
Last Line: Like sand-grains, unintended %born infinite


UNDER BUZZARDS    Poem Text    
First Line: Heavy summer. Heavy. Companion, if we climb our mortal bodies


UNDERGROUND STREAM       
First Line: I lay at the edge of a well
Last Line: And then I smiled, and fell


VEER-VOICES: TWO SISTERS UNDER CROWS       
First Line: Sometimes are living those who have been seen
Last Line: Of tongue, their cry of unfathomable hordes


VEGETABLE KING       
First Line: Just after the sun
Last Line: Magnificent pardon, and dread, impending crime


VENOM    Poem Text    
First Line: Forever, it comes from the head. Where does it end


VENOM       
First Line: Forever, it comes from the head. Where does it end
Last Line: Turn it, turn it, %brother


VIA APPIA       
First Line: Going through me, the roman sun
Last Line: I still can make you. I am coming


VICTORY       
First Line: By september 3rd I had made my bundle
Last Line: His master, and the new prince of peace


VOYAGE OF THE NEEDLE       
First Line: The child comes sometimes with his mother's needle
Last Line: Of this household, weightless as love


WALKING ON WATER    Poem Text    
First Line: Feeling it with me
Subject(s): Bible; Religion; Theology


WALKING ON WATER       
First Line: Feeling it with me
Last Line: Shall pass, as if led by the nose into heaven
Subject(s): Bible; Religion


WALKING THE FIRE LINE       
First Line: Dead on one side
Last Line: Just here, but why, or nearly why


WALL AND CLOUD       
First Line: The white cloud bearing to me the carkness of my mind
Last Line: Into more and more reality, set deep in the light of the world


WALTER ARMISTEAD       
First Line: Remember: not making %memory climb the mind, as he
Last Line: The strings, the winter of the leaves


WAR WOUND       
First Line: It wounded well -- one time and
Last Line: Small, but with world-fury


WEDDING       
First Line: During that long time, in those places
Last Line: Now never worn by woman in its life


WEEDS    Poem Text    
First Line: Stars and grass
Last Line: Come forward. A man loves you
Subject(s): Weeds


WEEDS       
First Line: Stars and grass
Last Line: Come forward. A man loves you
Subject(s): Weeds


WHEN       
First Line: A prisoner in this space perpetually narrow
Last Line: The window opens to summer


WHY IN LONDON THE BLIND ARE SAVIORS    Poem Text    
First Line: Levelly into his face


WINTER TROUT       
First Line: In the concrete cells of the hatchery
Last Line: For once, that winter bought


ZODIAC       
First Line: The man I'm telling you about brought himself back alive
Last Line: The star-beasts of intellect and madness