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Author: HICOK, BOB
Matches Found: 276


Hicok, Bob    Poet's Biography
254 poems available by this author


1935       
First Line: He rode in the back with apples and wind
Last Line: My grandfather lived. In the back with a pig


33       
First Line: There's a joke about the inmates who know
Last Line: Enough involves slightly different %though no less forsaken inflections


530 LAKEWOOD       
First Line: When last in this house
Last Line: The teetering event of this life


85       
First Line: I didn't expect this
Last Line: Given how it might have turned out, %given that I expect the alternative %to be nothing at all


A POLITICAL VISION    Poem Text    
First Line: A cellist in every lobby by love and law
Last Line: That would moan if bowed
Subject(s): Political Conventions; Politics & Government


ABSENCE    Poem Text    
First Line: There are men and women huddled in rooms tonight
Subject(s): Absence; Separation; Isolation


ABSENCE       
First Line: There are men and women huddled in rooms tonight
Last Line: By anything more comforting than space
Subject(s): Absence


AFTER HANGING OUT       
First Line: It was the conversation about why
Last Line: Conceivable guise of the noose


AFTER READING THAT A BIOLOGIST THINKS WE'RE THROUGH EVOLVING       
First Line: Maybe I'll lose my fear
Last Line: Will be the first person whose breath %never breaks


AFTER THE CONCERT       
First Line: Light can be coached to move faster
Last Line: By saying anything else


AFTER WORKING SIXTY HOURS AGAIN FOR WHAT REASON       
First Line: The best job I had was moving a stone
Last Line: To do with the appearance of food %on an empty table


AIDS       
First Line: I tried visiting home
Last Line: And die the best you can


ALICE WAKES AT TWO AND LOOKS OUT THE WINDOW       
First Line: A gate, she thinks
Last Line: And lick you with wishes


ALZHEIMER'S    Poem Text    
First Line: Chairs move by themselves, and books
Subject(s): Alzheimer's Disease; Memory


ALZHEIMER'S       
First Line: Chairs move by themselves, and books
Last Line: It's rumored no longer to exist
Subject(s): Alzheimer's Disease; Memory


ALZHEIMER'S BABY       
First Line: At 94 and with porcelain hips, raisined
Last Line: The child and the day each died


AMERICAN STUDIES       
First Line: Pamela anderson's breasts are examined by twenty-one
Last Line: I don't know, I liked them, they bounced'


AN INCIDENTAL REPORT ON MY GRANDMOTHER'S DIVINITY       
First Line: My grandmother had 14 children
Subject(s): Death; Funerals; Grandparents; Dead, The; Burials; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers


ANOTHER AWKWARD STAGE OF CONVALESCENCE       
First Line: Drunk, I kissed the moon
Last Line: Listened to the night's sole point of honesty


ANY WRONG DIGIT OF INDIGNATION       
First Line: Are you a cheeseburger? I am or have been one
Last Line: The value of breath to the next of kin


APPETITES       
First Line: Even the clouds are leaving this place, run
Last Line: Behind me in kitchen and living room
Subject(s): Food And Eating


APPLICANT       
First Line: The past's
Last Line: We stood, shook hands. %I promised to be quick with an answer
Subject(s): Labor And Laborers; Maturity


ARCH OF SANCTIFICATION       
First Line: I could use a dove in my heart
Last Line: It's to taunt, to beg them to speak
Subject(s): Arches; Catholics; Churches; God; Religion; Spirituality


AT THE TABLE FOR NO REASON       
First Line: The hummingbird is christmas, red throat
Last Line: I leave to get on with coming back
Subject(s): Family Life; Grief; Hummingbirds


AUTOPSY       
First Line: I'm dead because I don't have a piano
Last Line: And afraid this terrible joy %can happen only once


BACKWARD POEM       
First Line: This poem ends in death so I'll walk it home
Last Line: To the pilgrimage of bees, the sun %dead above hoarding the shadows for itself


BAPTISMAL       
First Line: The waters rise to the level of sin. This
Last Line: Fields open their mouths and swallow


BARS POETICA       
First Line: This is the story I've tried to tell. Guy
Last Line: Is all I've been trying to say


BEAR THIS IN MIND       
First Line: We are the same
Last Line: Of course this is a lie. %but so are love %and all other necessities


BECOMING BIRD       
First Line: It began with a tatoo gun to his back
Last Line: A real feather grows, useless but patient


BEHIND BETHLEHEM STEEL       
First Line: The sky pinches my eyes and the dog is dead
Last Line: Held low, a secret %in his hand


BETWEEN ANN ARBOR AND CHICAGO A DECAPITATION       
First Line: The train's rude massage both lulls
Last Line: The head, lean forward to engage his small necessities


BIRTH OF A SAINT       
First Line: If there's a gun in her theory of heaven it's unloaded
Last Line: And slip them neatly into the trash


BOND       
First Line: He gets
Last Line: And forth as if wounds are what we most %dearly love
Subject(s): Love Affairs; Revenge


BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN       
First Line: At least once you should live with someone
Last Line: He'd poured twelve sugars into a coffee he never touched


BUILDING A PAINTING A HOME    Poem Text    
First Line: If I built a barn I'd build it right into the sky
Subject(s): Buildings & Builders; Sky


BUILDING A PAINTING A HOME       
First Line: If I built a barn I'd build it right into the sky
Last Line: Until the steam is green and the sound is gold
Subject(s): Buildings And Builders; Sky


BY THE HOUR       
First Line: He's afraid of night
Last Line: How fiercely his body dwells %in the ritual of unbecoming


BYPASS       
First Line: You won't remember %disappearing, %the five hours your breath
Last Line: Cracked open %into wings


CALLING HIM BACK FROM LAYOFF       
First Line: I called a man today. After he said
Last Line: Other people staring at their phones %hear?


CAPITAL CRIME       
First Line: He'd intended a drive to moonlight bay. Bag
Last Line: Insane wish is just to be flush


CHOOSING MY CONCEPTION       
First Line: My mother at a party in a blue dress
Last Line: Of a blue dress falling, and soon, %and randomly I will exist
Subject(s): Babies; Birth; Conception; Creation


CHRISTMAS MYTH       
First Line: The turkey carcass is chartres at the center
Last Line: On the tree. They'll never die. Neither will we


CIRCLING THE FLOWER: 5       
First Line: Every mirror smashed, the windows
Last Line: His family fed his ashes to the black %tongue of the charles
Subject(s): Suicide


CIRCLING THE FLOWERS       
First Line: So this must be a mouth
Last Line: His family fed his ashes to the black %tongue of the charles


CIRCLING THE FLOWERS: 1       
First Line: So this must be a mouth
Last Line: Impossible words, look %at me
Subject(s): Healing; Hospitals; Physicians; Speech Disorders; Surgery


CIRCLING THE FLOWERS: 2       
First Line: He could spend an hour
Last Line: Made of water, woke convinced %he'd never been who he was
Subject(s): Language; Speech Disorders


CIRCLING THE FLOWERS: 3       
First Line: One day. For one day walls
Last Line: After it's passed, the void behind sound %not even fear can inhabit
Subject(s): Eye Patches; Military; Surgery


CIRCLING THE FLOWERS: 4       
First Line: They wouldn't let him touch the painting
Last Line: Of the club palpable, reassuring %like a whisper giving shape to an invisible room
Subject(s): Crime And Criminals; Prisoners Of War; Rape


CLAUSEWITZ'S MAIL       
First Line: An aide found her is a shop in berlin
Last Line: And touched %at night before darkness screamed
Subject(s): Letters; Postal Service


COMMISSION BY ATTRITION       
First Line: Who's to say gravity isn't love? The landing
Last Line: My toothbrush in my useless %chest


COMPLICATIONS AFTER BIRTH       
First Line: My mouth was a useless prayer
Last Line: And that if I made the tiny coffins %I'd run away from my hands


CONTRARY WOMAN       
First Line: She likes that
Last Line: I want you so little, %how could I ever leave?


CORONER'S REPRIEVE       
First Line: For the third time in a week he dreams
Last Line: Or pride, ingenious with his lust, determined %enough to die
Subject(s): Corpses; Death; Detective Stories


CREW CUT DAYS       
First Line: Kiss my ass that's a boss is how I learned
Last Line: By a trim the world wouldn't change


CROSS TOWN       
First Line: She turns to see his thumb on ice
Last Line: Cut through the wounded earth


CURE FOR THE COMMON COLD       
First Line: I was having an affair with fever as winter
Last Line: Of the sky like a monarch you made from scratch


CUTTING EDGE       
First Line: I can't be in the avant-garde
Last Line: Like everything else %I try hard not to say


DAYS LIKE CHOCOLATE       
First Line: Being asked why so many poems are sad
Last Line: Are love poems to the vanishing


DEAD       
First Line: They'll never kiss your forehead at midnight
Last Line: By the dream that's trying to kill you


DEFENESTRATION       
First Line: Every plate I threw into the alley
Last Line: Not to be a familiar whim


DID I EVER TELL YOU ABOUT MY LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH . . .       
First Line: Sometimes I leave my head in the other room
Last Line: Of a vacuum on my penis and turned it %on. Honesty makes me feel so clean


DIVORCE       
First Line: The complaints of the man on the phone
Last Line: Better comfort than words


DOCUMENTARY ART       
First Line: I watched richard nixon play piano for jack paar
Last Line: If the other kids wouldn't let you be president


DOGFISH MOTHER       
First Line: Dogfish mother has a hawk's nose and teeth
Last Line: Stares until a blade slides across my throat


DRINKING THE TALE       
First Line: A man on fire at one am's a knee slap
Last Line: It's burdened with a smile


DROPPING THE EUPHEMISM    Poem Text    
First Line: He has five children, I'm papa
Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers


DUH    Poem Text    
First Line: My father is silent and distant
Last Line: From rolling over my head one day
Subject(s): Family Life; Fathers; Memory; Relatives


DUH       
First Line: My father is silent and distant
Last Line: From rolling over my head one day
Subject(s): Family Life; Fathers; Memory


DUKE       
First Line: He was hit back of the head for a haul of $15
Last Line: That seemed eager to snow all day but didn't


EARLY HISTORY       
First Line: I grew up with president johnson
Last Line: Spoiled kid, I got my way


ECHO    Poem Text    
First Line: He or she let go of my wife and me
Last Line: Blood disappears into water without blame
Subject(s): Echoes; Miscarriage


ECHO       
First Line: He or she let go of my wife and me
Last Line: Blood dissolves in water without blame
Subject(s): Echoes


EDGE       
First Line: One day the kid showed up with a tattoo of a stapler
Last Line: With blue cumulus cuffs and a girl %embarrassed by anything but the slowest dance


EIGHT       
First Line: We expect the perp to be stubbled or shined
Last Line: Today we will learn


ELSEWHERE       
First Line: When we were pangaea, maps were smaller and vacations
Last Line: I'm sure I was born but I don't know where


END OF TYRANNY       
First Line: Being surrounded by extinctions, how do we notice
Last Line: After which I can't say enough about the weather


EXTREME MEASURES       
First Line: Blood was once thought a cure for epilepsy
Last Line: Lean as fear with bright %and savage eyes


FAIRY TALE WITH REPETITION       
First Line: Once upon a time a little boy %ate chocolate as he rode
Last Line: Placed his own %fat hands


FAITH IN SFAKIA       
First Line: Old women in furnaces of black muslin dresses
Last Line: Or one second, one thousand years that weigh no more %than a leaf to the sky
Subject(s): Faith; God; Prayer


FALLEN       
First Line: As sometimes fish appear
Last Line: How quickly my shadow %might pack its bags and leave


FIELDWORK    Poem Text    
First Line: There are two kinds of people and five hundred
Last Line: The jealous eyes of god have seen?
Subject(s): Amazons; Beetles; Insects; Jungles; Wilderness; Bugs


FIELDWORK       
First Line: There are two kinds of people and five hundred
Last Line: A fraction and flutter of life not even %the jealous eyes of god have seen?
Subject(s): Amazons; Beetles; Insects; Jungles; Wilderness


FIFTEEN FRAMES PER SECOND ON A SUN SPARC / 5       
First Line: I watched a movie of my mother's heart. The two
Last Line: Or that the movie of her heart %needs to end at all


FINALLY I BUY X-RAY GLASSES       
First Line: At thirteen I questioned when it would stop, this
Last Line: What making love should be like


FINALLY OPENING THE ANTHOLOGY TO KUNITZ       
First Line: I found him in the bathroom. Straight off
Last Line: That I stayed well beyond, having forgotten %my purpose


FLOATING       
First Line: A man once asked
Last Line: If different %is not so


FLOOD       
First Line: She was pretty, standing there
Last Line: Cause what's left then %but the fool things?


FORECAST       
First Line: I fell asleep in the rain
Last Line: Soon they'll be %what's left of me


FREE-FLOATING ANXIETY SOUNDS LIKE A PRETTY BALLOON       
First Line: I need a soft day, soft hour, a minute
Last Line: These bitter years swallowing us


FROM THE WOODS       
First Line: For her they're not death, artifacts
Last Line: Yet which is solely divisible by itself


FRONT PORCH, LISTENING       
First Line: No longer reading of liege
Last Line: The tone poem %of their last words


GARDENER       
First Line: She holds a flower today, I can't
Last Line: Wanting more than I'm prepared to understand and have nurtured %revenge into elegant survival
Subject(s): Flowers; Gardens And Gardening


GETTING BY       
First Line: Here it is just
Last Line: Be provided, %and hating you when you tell him the truth. So you lie
Subject(s): Revenge


GO GREYHOUND       
First Line: A few hours after des moines
Last Line: As everything I'd come so far %to give away


GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY       
First Line: The man who punches his son %tells a joke
Last Line: Until I sweat %and it bleeds green


GOODBYE IN THE SHAPE OF A KNOT       
First Line: I am stuck. Everything I want to say
Last Line: A quest for the pure %improvisation of things


GREED       
First Line: When I tell the truth about what I want
Last Line: I have dug and dug without once %striking oil
Subject(s): Soul; Spirituality


GROWING AT THE SPEED OF FASHION       
First Line: It gets harder to find untroubled ways
Last Line: She's nothing if not watched [or, which rises toward love if love is being watched]


GUESTS       
First Line: At first the exact clatter of lust, headboard
Last Line: For years but what comes back is silence, %articulate and unreconciled


HA'ISH HU HA'ISH       
First Line: The man is ash in his hands. Eight miles out
Last Line: The devil's ashes under the nails of his hands


HARMS WAY       
First Line: Look. Look away %picture
Last Line: On every page, and the shadows, the death shroud %of forgiveness


HEADLINE: CLEAN-SWEEP CLEARS PARKS & GRATES       
First Line: She was a stench like dead leaves and sparrows clotted
Last Line: The sky to take everything back


HERO POEM #2       
First Line: In in the heat %of the night %sidney poitier is cool
Last Line: In a lake %that still has %no water


HEROIN    Poem Text    
First Line: Imagine spring's thaw, your brother said
Last Line: To the strenuous work of vanishing
Subject(s): Drugs & Drug Abuse; Hallucinations & Illusions; Needles; Narcotics; Opium; Cocaine; Crack; Heroin


HEROIN       
First Line: Imagine spring's thaw, your brother said
Last Line: To the strenuous work of vanishing
Subject(s): Drugs And Drug Abuse; Hallucinations And Illusions; Needles


HOW ORIGAMI WAS INVENTED    Poem Text    
First Line: The last I went to confession was to whisper
Last Line: To write a clear path to you
Subject(s): Confessions


HOW ORIGAMI WAS INVENTED       
First Line: The last I went to confession was to whisper
Last Line: Everywhere on which I've tried %to write a clear path to you
Subject(s): Confessions


ICE STORM       
First Line: Ice cakes, shears by weight
Last Line: Even the luminous air fell


IDIOT-SAVANT       
First Line: A crude summary
Last Line: Of the stone shoulder you'd tapped


IN DEFENSE OF TOURISM       
First Line: The water's warm as sleep
Last Line: A pair of shoes, %a shotgun


IN HER HANDS       
First Line: Palming his on-again
Last Line: By how still he is sleeping


INCIDENTAL REPORT ON MY GRANDMOTHER'S DIVINITY       
First Line: My grandmother had 14 children
Last Line: Since the first child emerged to screams %of holy insistence
Subject(s): Death; Funerals; Grandparents


INERTIA       
First Line: There he was with galileo, measuring the speed
Last Line: He could let %such a wild, such a cruel thing happen
Subject(s): Change


INSIDE       
First Line: I've a matryoshka doll on my mantle
Last Line: Cut no deeper for truth


INSOMNIA DIARY       
First Line: At 5 a.M. Light %from their living room
Last Line: The nearest thing %to itself


INSOMNIAC VOYEUR       
First Line: There's another man on my block who can't sleep
Last Line: Just before the rude kiss of the sun, %someone's alive but not me


INSTINCT       
First Line: There was this one
Last Line: You could die %by the time they figure %he's empty inside


IT'S LONELY AT THE TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN       
First Line: There's no bird like my neighbor
Last Line: As saws trying to cut to the heart %of the matter


IT'S NOT SO MUCH THE HEAT AS THE STUPIDITY       
First Line: Excuse me but I'd like to say something that should
Last Line: Otherwise and I know it's rude to mention this %they'll die


KILLING       
First Line: As a boy I killed to kill, clubbed frogs
Last Line: Can I kill but will and want to


LAID OFF, SLEEPING IN       
First Line: I turn over each hour to be evenly cooked
Last Line: The one breath it's held %through winter


LEARNING OF IT       
First Line: It was disgusting. In the basement
Last Line: Where her body ended or words began


LETTER HOME       
First Line: The election has left us stunned
Last Line: We are just now forgetting, %just now settling %back to sleep


LETTING GO       
First Line: If it were a contained explosion, yes, an orderly
Last Line: That the voice is always there and strangely comforting
Subject(s): Farewell; Freedom


LETTUCE       
First Line: From 101 %was green boutonnieres
Last Line: Of boys decapitating %the field


LIFE       
First Line: The first time I watched he lifted his shirt
Last Line: I'd forgotten, the high of living %with the faith you know precisely how you'll die
Subject(s): Life


LITTLE BLASPHEMY       
First Line: No one in ibsen kisses when they talk about death
Last Line: Again, bewildered by mourning less carnally dressed


LITTLE SCIENCE       
First Line: If we skin the trustees the university will not
Last Line: Go home. Kiss spouse. Read paper. Pet dog


LOUISE    Poem Text    
First Line: She said I looked like jesus and it was true. I looked
Last Line: From a cross and think of anything but revenge
Subject(s): Household Employees; Old Age; Servants; Domestics; Maids


LOUISE       
First Line: She said I looked like jesus and it was true. I looked
Last Line: From a cross and think of anything but revenge
Subject(s): Household Employees; Old Age


LOVE WILL SEE YOU THROUGH       
First Line: An old problem: now that she doesn't drink
Last Line: She wakes to the alarm of crows


LUMBAR       
First Line: The pain in my back makes it impossible
Last Line: To believe this will be kindness enough


LYONS AVENUE       
First Line: Ramesh, ice-t dripping from headphones
Last Line: In space, a time too brief %to believe by any measure but faith
Subject(s): Neighbors; Streets


MAGIC       
First Line: Mirrors, it's all done
Last Line: Run out, and mirrors, they never love you %enough
Subject(s): Magic


MAN OF THE HOUSE       
First Line: It was a misunderstanding
Last Line: Turns out I live next door


MAPLE       
First Line: Is a system of posture for wood
Last Line: Trying to lick them %back into place


MEDITATION       
First Line: I've read of meditation %enough to be harmful at night
Last Line: To admit but it's trying very hard %to come out


MEETING BILL       
First Line: Bill liked revealing his nipple-ring %to new faces
Last Line: Revealing %the darker secret of his modesty


MEMENTO       
First Line: He'd been a thief he told me several hours after I killed
Last Line: When I can't sleep and need the comfort of blindness


MEMORIAL DAY       
First Line: Each year my parents flowered their dead: the dark-veined
Last Line: Of hands, the carnal gift of bloom, %the beauty entrusted to graves a sensual payment of debt
Subject(s): Holidays; Memorial Day; Sympathy; Veterans


MEMORY       
First Line: I hated the road runner
Last Line: That's easy, he said %everything


METEOR SHOWER       
First Line: It's the one shower I take each year
Last Line: Who can resist this hot music, %these ballroom lights?


MONOGRAPH ON THE WALKERS       
First Line: Because they never talk I infer telepathy
Last Line: By the indecency of words


MORMON ISSUE       
First Line: Sister gardner said I am sister gardner, this
Last Line: Questions: a considerate offer, an endless need


MORNING, THREE YEARS INTO THE JOB       
First Line: Trees are buttered with sun, dew's a skin
Last Line: To that breath & with something like the joy %of picking open a scab


MORTAL SHOWER       
First Line: I met my butt in a pittsburgh
Last Line: Dizzy, stunned %by reflection


MY AFFAIR WITH A HAT       
First Line: Twenty years ago my hat left me for a man
Last Line: A gentleman, and gentleman wear hats


MY FAVORITE MORAL       
First Line: A fable begins with a horse. The horse eats oats
Last Line: How the painting of the stars is hung


MY JOB AS IT RELATES TO BRUEGEL'S       
First Line: I am today
Last Line: By the militancy of this %shy boast


MY LAST FACTORY JOB       
First Line: The job was pushing a rod. Steel rod
Last Line: For me to realize I should have quit %after forty-three


MY LIFE WITH A GARDENER       
First Line: The screen door firecrackers closed
Last Line: That only open their mouths %to speak with the moon


MY SEVENTH RANT AGAINST HABIT       
First Line: I believe change is good
Last Line: And you were jumping through flames


NEIGHBOR       
First Line: A man lives under the beakes bridge. I drive over him
Last Line: Like music, which cuts its home through rock and is gone


NEIGHBORS       
First Line: The dead man had headphones on and the house
Last Line: The other a list of genuflections to appease %the tattle-tale trees


NEITHER HERE NOR THERE       
First Line: Again with the gunfire, vague pops taht suggest
Last Line: Chatter like the rivets are popping out


NIGGER       
First Line: It was a new word and as words went then
Last Line: After paying what was asked for what was wanted


NIGHT AT MODERN PROTOTYPE       
First Line: Waleid drew a map of lebanon, x'ed where his village
Last Line: Constant as a heart that does no more than it's asked to


NONSTOP       
First Line: Did you notice the herding instinct of grief?
Last Line: For solace, who wails for no one, whose flesh %is useless words
Subject(s): Grief


NOW AND THEN I AM DIRECT       
First Line: It's late and I've stayed up to miss you
Last Line: At least the cloth, at least the wind %on which the sail feeds


NURSE       
First Line: She thinks of him as a pancake
Last Line: Before the many voices %of the fleeting rain


OATH TO MY FORMER LIFE       
First Line: It used to be enough to be bigger
Last Line: Life. How to say yes like a river %jumping off a cliff


OHMY       
First Line: I do my part for ignorance
Last Line: This is impossible


OLD STORY       
First Line: It's hard being in love
Last Line: All over town, when good %my lips glow


ONE THING AND ANOTHER       
First Line: The crows are tagged to see how far they'll take
Last Line: Before waking her to a face she made long ago %out of something irreparable as love
Subject(s): Childhood Memories


ONE THING CERTAIN       
First Line: He's read %memory's broken, that we hold color
Last Line: By the testament of his shock
Subject(s): Memory; Old Age


OPTIMISTIC ONCOLOGY       
First Line: It's easy to have a positive attitude
Last Line: To actually start before %screaming fire


OTHER LIVES AND DIMENSIONS AND FINALLY A LOVE POEM    Poem Text    
First Line: My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers
Subject(s): Absence; Hearts; Love; Poetry & Poets; Separation; Isolation


OTHER LIVES AND DIMENSIONS AND FINALLY A LOVE POEM       
First Line: My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers
Last Line: In each place and forever
Subject(s): Absence; Hearts; Love; Poetry And Poets


OVER COFFEE    Poem Text    
First Line: What you mean to say about the film is that
Last Line: The first to address this exhilarating stranger
Subject(s): Coffee; Conversation; Guests; Strangers; Visiting


OVER COFFEE       
First Line: What you mean to say about the film is that
Last Line: Of conviction, finally the stammers, the rush to be %the first to address this exhilarating stranger
Subject(s): Coffee; Conversation; Guests; Strangers


PALSY       
First Line: Ignoring the obvious is most of manners
Last Line: Proof of a soul so happy %to still be around it shivers


PARTS       
First Line: Now they make hips
Last Line: Do no harm to dancing


PARTY       
First Line: Bugs are chewed by the blue light into something
Last Line: Taking an inventory of the bruised land


PERPETUAL RESURRECTION       
First Line: Enough snow for tracks and blood, enough moon to imply
Last Line: Even waitresses pretend they hold each moment dear


PLACE       
First Line: A speedball at the old college above olmsted's
Subject(s): College Sports


PLACE       
First Line: A speedball at the old college above olmsted's
Last Line: More sustaining than panic, bones %to cherish as if unearthing treasure
Subject(s): College Sports


PLUS SHIPPING    Poem Text    
First Line: Certainly it was a premonition of a navajo warrior that men
Subject(s): Loss; Moving & Movers; Refugees; United States - Immigration & Emigtration


POET/ STALKER       
First Line: Thanks for your fan letter-I've built a shrine
Last Line: I won't sleep until we meet. Yours. Truly


POLITICAL VISION       
First Line: A cellist in every lobby by love and law
Last Line: And that what we feel comes from a hollow %that would moan if bowed
Subject(s): Political Conventions; Politics


PROCESS OF ELIMINATION       
First Line: For 71 days I've tried to write about eichmann
Last Line: He'd only apologize for the shit, %for the need and nothing else
Subject(s): Books; Eichmann, Adolf (1906-1962)


PRODIGAL       
First Line: You could drive out of this country
Last Line: Aiming your eyes down the road


PURRING ON       
First Line: The toads sounded like a xylophone of broken noses
Last Line: Of how much she loved her daughter


RADICAL NECK       
First Line: A match beaten by frail wind lights the cave
Last Line: Burn him, make him ash: my revenge: his only wish


RANDOM EVENTS       
First Line: Tom emery, according to the paper
Last Line: When the cops kicked down the door %and came screaming inside


RAPTURE       
First Line: In a bathroom lit by a 25-watt bulb the blue
Last Line: You have no idea of what you are saying


READY SET GO       
First Line: I circle april and hang the calendar %in front of the forsythia, just in case
Last Line: Is at work, that any moment my soul %and forsythia will go off like a bomb


REARVIEW MIRROR       
First Line: I saw her bounce on the passenger seat
Last Line: Has placed in their path


RED LICORICE       
First Line: Turns out the universe is an accordion
Last Line: You feel nostalgic wait your turn


RESTLESS       
First Line: I ask frankenstein for a cigarette
Last Line: His blood to ask, what next?


REUNION       
First Line: The story's that my great-aunt was killed by her mother
Last Line: How hard we are to love, how desperate to stay together
Subject(s): Reunions; Togetherness


RIGHT STUFF       
First Line: If you break the sound barrier you fix it
Last Line: You were part of the sky all along?


RIVERA'S GOLDEN GATE MURAL       
First Line: She's too young to care
Last Line: Art will be but one more intimacy %she pushes aside


ROTHKO'S LAST MEDITATION    Poem Text    
First Line: In the days leading to the miracle he did not
Subject(s): Abandonment; Disappeared Persons; Meditation; Desertion; Missing Persons


ROTHKO'S LAST MEDITATION       
First Line: In the days leading to the miracle he did not
Last Line: Nothing, a miraculous calm he'd soon lose and chase %into his chosen death
Subject(s): Abandonment; Disappeared Persons; Meditation


ROUTINE       
First Line: I have this dream in which I sleep through the night
Last Line: Reaching from the bush to touch the light %that has come so far to build a better day


RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE       
First Line: My dog chased a chipmunk
Last Line: Ate the chipmunk %by eating the crow


SELLING MAGRITTE'S HOUSE    Poem Text    
First Line: The train in the fireplace
Last Line: The owner? A very regular man
Subject(s): Allen, Ethan (1738-1789); Houses; Investments; Landlords & Tenants; Soldiers; Stocks; Bonds


SELLING MAGRITTE'S HOUSE       
First Line: The train in the fireplace
Last Line: Granite wings %a joke played on the air
Subject(s): Allen, Ethan (1738-1789); Houses; Investments; Landlords And Tenants; Soldiers


SERVICE       
First Line: In the hospital he moans he was wrong, insists through delirium
Last Line: Who'll mix the strychnine from which they'll sip, sewing up %the practical details of their faith
Subject(s): Chandler, Raymond (1888-1959); Service; Suicide


SEVENTEEN FIRES       
First Line: On ganymede looking back at the sun you would see
Last Line: And report the keening of an impossible dream


SHOPPING AT THE OCEAN       
First Line: Trying to save the bug she killed the bug
Last Line: At emptiness because you know it's the animal %that will win


SHRINE       
First Line: Twice a week I baby-sat six
Last Line: Or a simple truth


SKIN       
First Line: Is a trick. Sure without it
Last Line: The hero she's just a word %in the parable of everything


SMALL PURCHASE       
First Line: I drove my father for lettuce on the day his wife
Last Line: Inside to make for one a simple green meal


SORTING OF THE ENTANGLEMENTS    Poem Text    
First Line: In my will the basement goes to the spiders
Last Line: To the hyacinth. I leave body to the unfashionable earth
Subject(s): Wills


SPAM LEAVES AN AFTERTASTE       
First Line: What does the internet know that it sends me
Last Line: Making the sounds once known %as conversation


SPIRIT DITTY OF NO FAX-LINE DIAL TONE       
First Line: The telephone company calls and asks what the fuss is
Last Line: Without fail everything clouds are trying to say to you


STOP FOURTEEN       
First Line: Don't get too excited about the albino
Last Line: Green thought the world has ever had
Subject(s): Cowell, Henry (1897-1965); Parks; Trees


SUBJHECTS' EXODUS       
First Line: We were children in the painting, ran
Last Line: You never did cherish us


SUDDEN MOVEMENTS       
First Line: My father's head has become a mystery to him
Last Line: He's pawned on his children as love


SUPERSTITION       
First Line: A broken yoke's three days' rain. Wisteria on the floor
Last Line: Nailed to the wall: %like jesus, sacrificed by the meek; like us, dead after all
Subject(s): Faith; Superstition


SUR COAST DIARY       
First Line: I stood where the earth turned itself inside out
Last Line: In the night and retune my breath to this black %lung


SURGERY       
First Line: Masked, they cut you, peel back
Last Line: A scar and the fact on any trivial day %you're still alive


TEN YEARS DRY       
First Line: She misses the heft of rock and shot glass
Last Line: Finally killed who she'd been after all along


TEXTBOOK CASE       
First Line: A certain man fell ill. The year of coughing passed
Last Line: Disposition if not a martyr's persistence, %if nothing else the good fortune to die
Subject(s): Health; Medicine; Physicians


THANKSGIVING       
First Line: Today I sided with the sleepwalkers. Today
Last Line: Of wheat loomed as a story the farmers %cannot wait to tell
Subject(s): Farm Life; Holidays; Pilgrims And Pilgrimages; Thanksgiving; Turkey


THE BALD TRUTH    Poem Text    
First Line: My hair went on a diet of its own accord
Last Line: That I'm seen by love.
Subject(s): Baldness


THE SEMANTICS OF FLOWERS ON MEMORIAL DAY    Poem Text    
First Line: Historians will tell you my uncle / wouldn't have called it world war ii
Subject(s): Flowers; Holidays; Memorial Day


THE WISH    Poem Text    
First Line: On a tuesday I learned I'd never sit
Last Line: This man was
Subject(s): Fathers & Sons


THOUGHT    Poem Text    
First Line: Of job when her friend died and another
Subject(s): Cancer (disease)


THOUGHT       
First Line: Of job when her friend died and another
Last Line: And with the other pushed me out
Subject(s): Cancer (disease)


THREE FLOORS       
First Line: At st. Michael's on tuesdays
Last Line: You perceive in my work isn't art %but a pulse


THREE FLOORS: ART       
First Line: Brushes alienate touch, the relation
Last Line: You perceive in my work isn't art %but a pulse
Subject(s): Art And Artists; Museums; Paintings And Painters; Portraits


THREE FLOORS: GOD       
First Line: At st. Michael's on tuesdays
Last Line: I wore knee pads, %eventually converted
Subject(s): God; Prayer; Religion


THREE FLOORS: SEX       
First Line: A back room in the basement, the floor
Last Line: Each square repeating the word %again
Subject(s): Love; Pleasure; Sex


TO ERR IS HUMID       
First Line: Long ago we sat on a lake
Last Line: Between the gun and his brain


TO ROANOKE WITH JOHNNY CASH       
First Line: Mist became rain became fog was mist
Last Line: That was the soul of the man


TRAFFIC JAM       
First Line: I try to make eye contact with a pig
Last Line: Filling mine with confidence at the end


TRANSLATING SMALL TALK       
First Line: In calling my mother the first time after she's home
Last Line: I mean to say she's not allowed to die


TRANSLATOR'S NOTE       
First Line: There is a tradition in laparona that the first
Last Line: The judas teeth of rocks


TRUTH ABOUT LOVE       
First Line: I apologize for not being gandhi or tom
Last Line: Into piles and whispering good night


TUESDAY'S WALK       
First Line: This was before stars. A thin broth of clouds
Last Line: With its alarm going off, we refused %from embrace to give ground


TWINS       
First Line: Night and sea confuse me
Last Line: Or both of these devotions


VAGINA CANTICLE       
First Line: Healed by water %her hand unfolds, fingers uncurl to ancient
Last Line: This spot %around which her broken fingers %turn green


VISITING THE WALL       
First Line: The sweet gum %hover in the granite
Last Line: A child so hopefully, %so violently born
Subject(s): Landmarks; Memory; War; Washington, D.c.


VOLADORES       
First Line: They fly, bodies suddenly light
Last Line: Amid ours as predators among prey


WAITING       
First Line: While waiting for the bus
Last Line: That my response was to think %someone should do %something about that


WAITING FOR UPS    Poem Text    
First Line: Now I live inside the window. Now I think the sky
Last Line: "she let me kiss each box
Subject(s): Farewell; Letters; Love; Parents; Parting; Parenthood


WAITING FOR UPS       
First Line: Now I live inside the window. Now I think the sky
Last Line: Nearly as strange as my insistence %she let me kiss each box good-bye
Subject(s): Farewell; Letters; Love; Parents


WATCHING WELLES       
First Line: What he knows: hustling wine to the middle class
Last Line: Of having nothing but famous last words to say


WATCHING WELLES       
First Line: What he knows: hustling wine to the middle class
Last Line: Decades gone and replaced by the bitterness %of having nothing but last words to say
Subject(s): Actors And Actresses; Motion Pictures; Theater And Theaters


WEATHER       
First Line: My grandmother's on the phone
Last Line: And make love %wilder than any weather


WEDDING       
First Line: I've no choice but to be taller than myself
Last Line: I'd marry that sound %because it's exactly what I mean


WHAT FINE KINDLING THE HOMELESS MAKE       
First Line: I know the importance of replication but intend no action
Last Line: Of saying in the manner of a child, do it again
Subject(s): Homeless


WHAT WE SAY       
First Line: Another poem about a bunch of press. Another
Last Line: That glow and disappear, and the words %we repeat, owning at least what we say
Subject(s): Capitalism; Economics; Labor And Laborers


WHEN MERCHANTS COME       
First Line: The witnesses wanted to know if I was happy
Last Line: Wishing them well, not erasing them %from the horizon
Subject(s): Merchants; Pain; Trucks And Trucking


WHEN SWEARING AT THE CARPETING'S NOT ENOUGH       
First Line: All this whistling and target practice is me
Last Line: After an hour of rest in the brutal migration


WHITHER THOU GOEST       
First Line: Fish can have mad cow disease and I have a problem
Last Line: And my promise to be there, conspicuously mad in my devotio n


WISH LIST       
First Line: Love will do, or fortune
Last Line: Either everything I ask for %or the beating I deserve


YIELDING TO THE PROPOSITIONS ALL LOVE IS CANNIBALISTIC       
First Line: I'm placed atop an oak table cross-
Last Line: Of my envy know I wonder %how many tasted better than this
Subject(s): Dinners And Dining; Envy; Family Life


YOUR DAUGHTER       
First Line: When she phones at two
Last Line: You'll make room to avoid the slightest touch


YOUR FATHER DEAD       
First Line: Your father dead and a field to mow
Last Line: Is what he taught %but secretly hoped you'd outgrow
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Death; Fathers; Graves


ZOMBY LIFE       
First Line: Because I have insomnia and cable %my continuing education is a wondrous thing
Last Line: On his face suggesting nothing human %is strange



Hicok. Bob    Poet's Biography
22 poems available by this author


AFTER LOOKING UP INTO ONE TOO MANY CAMERAS    Poem Text    
First Line: When the bones of my arm were emptied I began
Last Line: Dangerous words are the ones we never hear
Subject(s): Self; Bones; Secrets


AFTER WORKING SIXTY HOURS AGAIN FOR WHAT REASON    Poem Text    
First Line: The best job I had was moving a stone
Last Line: On an empty table
Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers


BARS POETICA    Poem Text    
Last Line: Is all I’ve been trying to say
Subject(s): Love - Erotic


CALLING HIM BACK FROM LAYOFF    Poem Text     Recitation by Author
First Line: I called a man today. After he said
Last Line: Other people staring at their phones / hear?
Subject(s): Unemployment


EPITHALAMIUM    Poem Text    
First Line: A bee in the field. The house on the mountain
Last Line: Of light: particle to wave. Do you take? I do
Subject(s): Mountains; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


FULL FLIGHT    Poem Text    
First Line: I’m in a plane that will not be flown into a building
Last Line: We’ve begun our descent, and then I sense the falling
Subject(s): Aviation & Aviators; World Trade Center Tragedy (9/11/2001); Airplanes; Air Pilots; New York City - Terrorist Attack, 9/11


GO GREYHOUND    Poem Text    
First Line: A few hours after des moines
Last Line: Of the human condition, that the baby
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HAVING INTENDED TO MERELY PICK ON AN OIL COMPANY, THE POEM GOES AWRY    Poem Text     Recitation by Author
First Line: Never before have I so resembled british petroleum
Last Line: Or notional, now that oceans are wheezing to a stop?
Subject(s): Oil & Gas Companies; Environment; Poetry & Poets; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation


HER MY BODY    Poem Text    
First Line: The dog licks my hand as I worry
Last Line: By this thought you are welcome / to keep it
Subject(s): Love - Erotic; Cancer (disease)


HOW THE MIRROR LOOKS THIS MORNING    Poem Text    
First Line: Probably the size of the six volt
Last Line: As a happy person
Subject(s): Cats; Death; Happiness


IN MICHAEL ROBINS?ÇÖS CLASS MINUS ONE    Poem Text    
First Line: At the desk where the boy sat, he sees the chicago river.
Last Line: And the river promises to never surrender the boy’s shape to the ocean
Subject(s): Schools; Nature; Students


INTO THE BREACH    Poem Text    
First Line: I want to tell them we can hear
Last Line: Anywhere but inside their faces
Subject(s): Relationships


LEARNING TO SWIM    Poem Text    
First Line: At forty-eight, to be given water,
Last Line: Most of all, their dissolve
Subject(s): Middle Age; Swimming & Swimmers


LOVE SONG    Poem Text    
First Line: I am misunderstanding a song
Last Line: Of too many / nights alone
Subject(s): Singing & Singers; Love; Songs


MY WALK    Poem Text    
First Line: I am misunderstanding a song
Last Line: Draws a breath to speak
Subject(s): Winter


ODYSSEY    Poem Text    
First Line: I sat in different places with different winds:
Last Line: If it's ever considered being thrown
Subject(s): Wit & Humor


SELF RELIANCE    Poem Text    
First Line: I have a picture of earth on my wall.
Last Line: On our own
Subject(s): Earth; World


SHED AND DREAM    Poem Text    
First Line: Rest with me under the linden tree.
Last Line: O pie in the sky
Subject(s): Trees; Time


SO I KNOW    Poem Text    
First Line: He put moisturizer the morning he shot
Last Line: Of this word, / suddenly
Subject(s): Language; Social Commentary; Words; Vocabulary


STOP-LOSS    Poem Text    
First Line: Absolutely, I agree. It’s what we all
Last Line: Without ropes, in a pink dress, laughing
Subject(s): War


THE INVISIBLE MAN    Poem Text    
First Line: He is my manta ray. The degas
Last Line: Blue unless red until green
Subject(s): Imagination


THE ONGOING    Poem Text    
First Line: Do you know bertolt brecht's the hammer throwers?
Last Line: Or dreaming, yes you are
Subject(s): Brecht, Bertolt (1898-1956)