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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: GILBERT, JACK Matches Found: 194 Gilbert, Jack Poet's Biography 194 poems available by this author 1953 First Line: All night in the iowa cafe. Friday night Last Line: Let it go. Tears falling on his eggs A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE Poem Text Recitation First Line: Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies Subject(s): Grief; Happiness; Conduct Of Life; Sorrow; Sadness; Joy; Delight ABNORMAL IS NOT COURAGE First Line: The poles rode out from warsaw against the german Last Line: That is of many days. Steady and clear. %it is the normal excellence, of long accomplishment ADULTERATED First Line: Bella figa! (beautiful fig, fine sex) the whore said Last Line: Saying he must live for their sake. %and sang for a little after the doors closed ALBA First Line: After a summer with happy people ALL THE WAY FROM THERE TO HERE First Line: From my hill I look down on the freeway and over Last Line: The gentleness of us in that bare greek eden, %the beauty as the marriage steadily failed ALMOST HAPPY First Line: The goldfish is dead this morning on the bottom Last Line: My home's on a gone-away train. That train ALONE First Line: I never thought michiko would come back Last Line: That makes her happy the way it always did ALONE ON CHRISTMAS EVE IN JAPAN First Line: Not wanting to lose it all for poetry ALTERNATIVES First Line: It was half a palace, half an ancient fort Last Line: Wordless, shining, staring at her out of their blank faces AND SHE WAITING First Line: Always I have been afraid ANGELUS First Line: Obsidian. Sturgeon. Infatuated angels ANOTHER GRANDFATHER First Line: Every generation tells BARTLEBY AT THE WALL Poem Text First Line: The wall/is the side of the building Subject(s): Walls; Grief; Sorrow; Sadness BARTLEBY AT THE WALL First Line: The wall BEFORE MORNING IN PERUGIA First Line: Three days I sat BETROTHED First Line: You hear yourself walking on the snow Last Line: Among these colorless pines BETWEEN AGING AND OLD First Line: I wake up like a stray dog Last Line: Kinds of happiness BETWEEN POEMS First Line: A lady asked me BEYOND BEGINNIGS First Line: How could he later on believe it was the best Last Line: And is blue now differently BIRD SINGS TO ESTABLISH FRONTIERS First Line: Perhaps if we could begin some definite way Last Line: The tears are nothing. The real sorrow is for that %old dream of nobility. All those gentlemen BREAKFAST First Line: It was a fine leghorn egg BURNING AND FATHERING: ACCOUNTS OF MY COUNTRY First Line: The classical engine of death moves my day. Hurrying me Last Line: Through the splendid corridors. Pressure of that terrible intolerance %gets brandy in the welter. Su BY SMALL AND SMALL: MIDNIGHT TO FOUR A.M Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: For eleven years I have regretted it Subject(s): Death; Regret; Dead, The BYZANTIUM BURNING First Line: When I looked at the stubborn dark buddha Last Line: So I begin to sing. Build and sing. %sing and build inside my thin lips CARRYING TORCHES AT NOON First Line: The boy came home from school and found a hundred lamps Last Line: Inside of him make it look maybe not good enough CHASTITY First Line: A boy sits on the porch of a wooden house Last Line: And starts again CONCEIVING HIMSELF First Line: Night after night after hot night in the clearing Last Line: Impossible. The man finally backstage in his life CONTAINER FOR THE THING CONTAINED First Line: What is the man searching for inside her blouse Last Line: In a back room. The music seems familiar, but is not COUNTY MUSICIAN First Line: It was not impatience CUCUMBERS OF PRAXILLA OF SICYON First Line: What is the best we leave behind DANTE DANCING First Line: When he dances of meeting beatrice that first time Last Line: That finally knows well how to dance. But does not DESCRIPTION OF HAPPINESS IN KOBENHAVN First Line: All this windless day snow fell DIVORCE First Line: Woke up and suddenly thinking I heard crying Subject(s): Loss DIVORCE First Line: Woke up and suddenly thinking I heard crying Last Line: Out at the bright moonlight on concrete Subject(s): Loss DON GIOVANNI IN TROUBLE First Line: The orchard changed. His appetite drifted DON GIOVANNI ON HIS WAY TO HELL First Line: The oxen have voices Last Line: Sing maidens and towns, oh maidens and towns %folly, flee, sing going down DON GIOVANNI ON HIS WAY TO HELL (2) First Line: How could they think women a recreation? Last Line: I wish I could tell you how it is in that dark, %standing in the huge singing and the alien world DUENDE Poem Text First Line: I can't remember her name Subject(s): Memory; Women EATING WITH THE EMPEROR First Line: Sixteen years old, surrounded by beasts in the pens Last Line: We end up asking what our lives really tasted like EDGE OF THE WORLD First Line: I light the lamp and look at my watch Last Line: Acutely here and everybody somewhere else ELEPHANT HUNT IN GUADALAJARA First Line: El serape's floor show finished at one. The lights EXCEEDING First Line: Flying up, crossing over, going forward Last Line: Gets water up at the well for the animals EXPLICATING THE TWILIGHT First Line: The rat makes her way up Last Line: Colors from white to silver FACTORING First Line: Barefoot farm girls in silk dresses,' he thinks Last Line: The other. While mist on the black river outside FAILING AND FLYING Poem Text First Line: Everyone forgets that icarus also flew Subject(s): Ambition FASHIONABLE HEART First Line: The chinese, to whom the eighteenth-century english Last Line: Writing red in the spaces where it said red, %yellow where it said yellow FIDELITY Poem Text First Line: He's absurd about the fountain Subject(s): Fountains; Desire FINDING EURYDICE First Line: Orpheus is too old for it now. His famous voice is gone Last Line: Gleaming beauty of her hidden in the bright water FINDING SOMETHING First Line: I say moon is horses in the tempered dark Last Line: Where my heart is as helpless as crushed birds FIRST TIMES First Line: I had not seen her for twenty years when she called Last Line: As young as I was and felt, I suspect, relief FOR EXAMPLE FORGOTTEN DIALECT OF THE HEART First Line: How astonishihng it is that language can almost mean Last Line: No name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds FROM THESE NETTLES, ALMS First Line: They dragged me down. Down the muddy hill Last Line: Down there under the bridge GAMES First Line: Imagine if suffering were real GETTING IT ALL First Line: The air this morning is pleasant and praises nothing Last Line: Of an old building on a street named gernesgade GETTING OLD First Line: The soft wind comes sweet in the night Last Line: Grins at the heart's stubborn pretending GETTING READY First Line: What if the heart does not pale as the body wanes GHOST SINGS, A DOOR OPENS First Line: Maybe when something stops, something lost in us Last Line: Maybe altering. Maybe altering more than that ' GHOSTS First Line: I heard a noise this morning and found two old men Last Line: Bark all the way down the long bright valley GIFT HORSES First Line: He lives in the barrens, in dying neighborhoods Last Line: Smell weeds on a hot july afternoon and are augumented GOING THERE Poem Text First Line: Of course it was a disaster. GOING THERE First Line: Of course it was a disaster Last Line: Our possible life GOING WRONG First Line: The fish are dreadful. They are brought up Last Line: On the food. Not stubborn, just greedy GREAT FIRES First Line: Love is apart from all things Last Line: In the sweet music of our particular heart GUILTY First Line: The man certainly looked guilty Last Line: To give her spirit enough time to get ready HALF THE TRUTH First Line: The birds do not sing in these mornings. The skies Last Line: Roots and comes back again year after year HARD WIRED First Line: He is shamelessly happy to feel the thing Last Line: They stand glaring in the faint starlight HARM AND BOON IN THE MEETINGS First Line: We think the fire eats the wood Last Line: Apparent as much as sudden happiness can HAUNTED IMPORTANTLY First Line: It was in the transept of the church, winter in Last Line: He wanted to know what he heard, not to get closer HEART SKIDDING First Line: The pigeon with a broken wing HIGHLIGHTS AND INTERSTICES First Line: We think of lifetimes as mostly the exceptional Last Line: Her is that commonplace I can no longer remember HISTORY OF MEN First Line: It thrashes in the oaks and soughs in the elms Last Line: The days stretching all the way to the horizon HORSES AT MIDNIGHT WITHOUT A MOON Poem Text First Line: Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. Subject(s): Horses HOT NIGHTS IN FLORIDA First Line: The woman is asleep in the bedroom, the fan is making Last Line: Outside, the moon is shining on nothing in particular HOW TO LOVE THE DEAD First Line: She lives, the bird says, and means nothing Last Line: Permanently unhoused. Not color, but the stain HUNGER First Line: Digging into the apple I IMAGINE THE GODS First Line: I imagine the gods saying. We will Last Line: Will be full enough and my heart fetal I'LL TRY TO EXPLAIN ABOUT THE FEAR IL MIO TESORO First Line: Most nights he would be upstairs with the wife IN DISPRAISE OF POETRY First Line: When the king of siam disliked a courtier IN UMBRIA First Line: Once upon a time I was sitting outside the cafe Last Line: About this one or that one of the great beauties INFIDELITY First Line: He stands freezing in the dark courtyard looking up Last Line: With perfect summer skies and the brilliant aegean ISLAND AND FIGS First Line: The sky IT IS CLEAR WHY THE ANGELS COME NO MORE Last Line: Singing: the angels are wrong IT IS DIFFICULT TO SPEAK OF THE NIGHT Poem Text Subject(s): Night; Bedtime IT MAY BE NO ONE SHOULD BE OPENED First Line: You know I am serious about the whales KIND OF WORLD First Line: Things that are themselves. Waves water, the rocks LEAVING MONOLITHOS First Line: They were cutting the spring barley by fistfuls LEPORELLO ON DON GIOVANNI First Line: Do you think it's easy for him, the poor bastard Last Line: Growing and fading, as though it comes from the moon LIVES OF FAMOUS MEN First Line: Trying to scrape the burned soup from my only pan Last Line: And go on pulling at the long rope LOOKING AWAY FROM LONGING First Line: On fish mountain, she has turned away Last Line: Looking at a small tree LORD SITS WITH ME OUT IN FRONT First Line: The lord sits with me out in front watching Last Line: And we sit on. Unable to find words LOSING First Line: I worked my way up the terraced gardens behind the house LOVE POEM First Line: The couple on the san francisco bus looked russian LOYALTY First Line: About once a month the beautiful girl MALVOLIO IN SAN FRANCISCO First Line: Two days ago they were playing the piano Last Line: I long for my old bigotry MAN AT A WINDOW First Line: He stands there baffled by pleasure and how little Last Line: Trying to break the code while there is still time MARRIED First Line: I came back from the funeral and crawled Last Line: A long black hair tangled in the dirt ME AND CAPABLANCA First Line: The sultry first night of july, he on the bed Last Line: That is made more of craft than it is of magic MEANING WELL First Line: Marrying is like somebody MEASURING THE TYGER First Line: Barrels of chains. Sides of beef stacked in vans Last Line: To the magnitude of pain, of being that much alive MEXICO First Line: I went to sleep by the highway MICHIKO DEAD First Line: He manages like somebody carrying a box Last Line: He can go on without ever putting the box down MICHIKO NOGAMI (1946-1982) First Line: Is she more apparent because she is not Last Line: With the sound of their petals falling MILK OF PARADISE First Line: On the beach below spelunga everyone else is Last Line: Into the garnishing mediterranean light MINISCUS First Line: The french woman says, stop, you're breaking my dress MISTRUST OF BRONZE First Line: The sun is perfect, but it makes no nightingales sing MOMENT OF GRACE First Line: Mogins disliked everything about anna's pregnancy Last Line: Nudging each other blindly in the brilliant dark MORE THAN FIFTY Poem Text First Line: Out of money, so I'm sitting in the shade Subject(s): Aging MORE THAN FIFTY First Line: Out of money, so I'm sitting in the shade Last Line: With my water colors as a child. %so what, I think happily. So what! Subject(s): Aging MORE THAN FRIENDS First Line: I was walking through the harvested fields MOVIES First Line: He realized that night how much he was in their power Last Line: He sat there in the kitchen thinking it had gone on %so long now these people were the only family h MUSIC IS THE MEMORY OF WHAT NEVER HAPPENED First Line: We stopped to eat cheese and tomatoes and bread Last Line: As they drank ordinary wine in that promised land MY GRAVEYARD IN TOKYO First Line: It was hard to see the moonlight MY MARRIAGE WITH MRS. JOHNSON First Line: When the storm hit, I was fording the river Last Line: The great hall at versailles; evryone gaping %and elaborate louis quatorze wondering at his envy NEW HAMPSHIRE MARBLE First Line: I called sue the week I moved back from rome NEW YORK, SUMMER First Line: I'd walk her home after work Last Line: Bite me. %hard NIGHT AFTER NIGHT First Line: He struggles to get the marble terrace clear NIGHT COMES EVERY DAY TO MY WINDOW NIGHT SONGS AND DAY SONGS First Line: Light is too bare, too simple for her. She has lived Last Line: Eating and grieving and solitary year after year NOT PART OF LITERATURE First Line: Monolithos was four fisherman huts along the water OLDER WOMEN First Line: Each farmer on the island conceals Last Line: Acutely the taste of that wilderness ON GROWING OLD IN SAN FRANCISCO First Line: Two girls barefoot walking in the rain Last Line: Walking in the black %two girls barefoot never coming back ON STONE First Line: The monks petition to live the harder way Last Line: Into the barreness, and nothing answering ORPHEUS IN GREENWICH VILLAGE First Line: What of orpheus ORPHEUS IN GREENWICH VILLAGE First Line: What if orpheus, %confident in the hard Last Line: Should notice, suddenly, %they had no ears? OSTINATO RIGORE First Line: As slowly as possible, I said PAVANE First Line: I thought it said on the girl's red purse PEACHES First Line: The ship goes down and everybody is lost, or is living Last Line: It or not. And never able to find any of them since PERSPECTIVE HE WOULD MUTTER GOING TO BED Last Line: Move to manage that great house. %the horse wades in the city of grammar PEWTER First Line: Thrushes flying under the lake. Nightingales singing underground Last Line: Like me singing thee prison songs to praise the grey, %to praise her, to tell of me, yes, and of you PLAYING HOUSE First Line: I found another baby scorpion today. Tiny Last Line: Beside her? Did they sleep unafraid merely alert? %not needing to touch the other's arm first? PLUNDERING OF CIRCE First Line: Circe had no pleasure in pigs POETRY IS A KIND OF LYING PROSPERO DREAMS OF ARNAUD DANIEL INVENTING LOVE 12TH CENTURY First Line: Let's get hold of one of those deer Last Line: That might make ahell of a perfume. %it's worth a try. You never know PROSPERO ON THE MOUNTAIN GATHERING WOOD (1) First Line: He gets mostly dead sage and thornbush Last Line: Of it again and again, his petite madeleine. %the augury he followed so far maybe worn out PROSPERO ON THE MOUNTAIN GATHERING WOOD (2) First Line: The wild up here is not creatures, wooded Last Line: Prospero is translated to a place where it is %possible to distinguish betwen age and sorrow PROSPERO WITHOUT HIS MAGIC First Line: He keeps the valley like this with his heart Last Line: By innocence or leaving things out RAIN First Line: Suddenly this defeat RAINY FORESTS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA First Line: The fellow came back to rape her again last night RECOVERING AMID THE FARMS First Line: Every morning the sad girl brings her three sheep Last Line: But there is a moment of white if she turns her face REFUSING HEAVEN Poem Text First Line: The old women in black at early mass in winter Subject(s): Religion; Theology REGISTRATION First Line: Where the worms had opened the owl's chest RELATIVE PITCH First Line: I was carrying supplies back up the mountain Last Line: In august on the bare, unaccustomed bodies REMEMBERING MY WIFE First Line: I seem them in black and white as they wait RESPECT First Line: This morning I found a baby scorpion Last Line: Killed it with a piece of marble REVOLUTION First Line: Robinson crusoe breaks a plate on his way out Last Line: Amid the primary colors of the island, he will %become a fine thing, prhaps, but a different one RUINS AND WABI First Line: To tell the truth, storyville was brutal. The parlors Last Line: Bareness reveals a merit born in the vegetable struggling SCHEMING IN THE SNOW First Line: There is a time after what comes after Last Line: Don't cry. I'll get you something better.' SEARCHING FOR PITTSBURGH Poem Text First Line: The fox pushes softly, blindly through me at night, Subject(s): Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania SEARCHING FOR PITTSBURGH First Line: The fox pushes softly, blindly through me at night Last Line: Of water. In this happy place my serious heart has made SECTS Poem Text First Line: We were talking about tent revivals Subject(s): Sects SECTS First Line: We were talking about tent revivals Last Line: When an invisible figur crosses the stiff snow, %making a sound like some other planet's machinery Subject(s): Sects SIEGE First Line: We think there is a sweetness concealed in the rain SINGING IN MY DIFFICULT MOUNTAINS First Line: Helot for what time there is SIRENS AGAIN First Line: What are we to do about loveliness. We get past SONATINA First Line: She told about when the american soldiers Last Line: Those sleeping men had around their hearts SONG First Line: Rotting herds everywhere on the outskirts SOUTH Poem Text First Line: In the small towns along the river Subject(s): Rivers SPIRIT AND THE SOUL First Line: It should have been the family that lasted Last Line: Letting the rain after all the dry mouths have me STEEL GUITARS First Line: The world is announced by the smell of oregano and sage Last Line: By rain and need, by the weight of what momentarily is STUBBORN ODE First Line: All of it. The sane woman under the bed with the rat Last Line: Tears running down the cheeks. And I say, nevertheless SUL PONTICELLO First Line: Year by year he works himself SUMMER AT BLUE CREEK, NORTH CAROLINA Poem Text First Line: There was no water at my grandfather's Subject(s): Summer; Childhood Memories SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS Poem Text First Line: It is foolish for rubens to show her Subject(s): Susanna (bible); Women In The Bible SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS First Line: It is foolish for rubens to show her Last Line: Far off, the small coin of color. %and, sometimes, leaves Subject(s): Susanna (bible); Women In The Bible TASTERS FOR THE LORD First Line: Not the river as fact, but the winter river Last Line: Farmhouse amid the kerosene light. The two of you TEAR IT DOWN Poem Text First Line: We find out the heart only by dismantling what Subject(s): Conduct Of Life TEAR IT DOWN First Line: We find out the heart only by dismantling what Last Line: In our bed to reach the body within that body TEMPLATE First Line: Our slow crop is used up within an hour. So I live TEXTURES First Line: We had walked three miles through the night THAT TENOR OF WHICH THE NIGHT BIRDS ARE A VEHICLE First Line: The great light within the blackness shines out THE FORGOTTEN DIALECT OF THE HEART Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, Subject(s): Language; Ancestors & Ancestry; Words; Vocabulary THE GREAT FIRES Poem Text First Line: Love is apart from all things. Subject(s): Love THE SIRENS AGAIN Poem Text First Line: What am I to do with loveliness? Subject(s): Beauty THEORETICAL LIVES First Line: All that remains from the work of skopas Last Line: Whether she was passionate or just wanted to please THEY CALL IT ATTEMPTED SUICIDE First Line: My brother's girlfriend was not prepared for how much blood THEY WILL PUT MY BODY INTO THE GROUND THINKING ABOUT ECSTASY First Line: Gradually he could hear her. Stop, she was saying Last Line: He wants to know delight as the native land he is THRESHING THE FIRE First Line: Fire begins seriously at the body TO SEE IF SOMETHING COMES NEXT First Line: There is nothing here at the top of the valley Last Line: Is a dance. If he stands still, he is dancing TRANSLATION INTO THE ORIGINAL First Line: Apollo walks the deep roads back in the hills Last Line: He comes back through the dark singing %so quietly that you can hear nothing TRYING TO BE MARRIED First Line: Watching my wife out in the full moon TRYING TO HAVE SOMETHING LEFT OVER First Line: There was a great tenderness to the sadness Last Line: Remembering something maybe important that got lost VOICES INSIDE AND OUT First Line: When I was a child, there was an old man with Last Line: We need, except what we don't have WALKING HOME ACROSS THE ISLAND First Line: Walking home across the plain in the dark Last Line: Knowing there is no place to turn. It is hard %to understand how we could be brought here by love WHAT IS THERE TO SAY Poem Text First Line: What do they say each new morning Subject(s): Happiness; Joy; Delight WHAT IS THERE TO SAY? First Line: What do they say each new morning Last Line: O, each time WHITE HEART OF GOD First Line: The snow falling around the man in the naked woods Last Line: Than ripe. Hoping for honey, for love's alembic WHITENESS, THE SOUND, AND ALCIBIADES First Line: So I come on this birthday at last WHO'S THERE First Line: I hear the trees with surprise after california WINNING ON THE BLACK Poem Text First Line: The silence is so complete he can hear Subject(s): Memory; Women YEAR LATER First Line: From this distance they are unimportant Last Line: Like beauty and was too difficult for people |
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