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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: KELLY, ROBERT Matches Found: 563 Kelly, Robert Poet's Biography 563 poems available by this author A LITHUANIAN ELEGY Poem Text First Line: Mist mist my beauty lost Last Line: Red ribbons like strips of meat in the rain Subject(s): Religion; Theology A WOMAN FROM CONNAUGHT Poem Text First Line: My great-great-great-great-grandmother Subject(s): Ancestors & Ancestry; Connaught, Ireland; Family Life - Ireland; Grandparents; Heritage; Heredity; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers A WOMAN WITH FLAXEN HAIR IN NORFOLK HEARD Poem Text First Line: Wherever you are Last Line: In the middle of things Subject(s): Togetherness A: 1 First Line: A forehead or a brow %face, %a face %here, near to the speaker Last Line: I think I'm speaking A: 10 First Line: Am here %where you told me to be %to be who you are Last Line: I believe that we can bring this from the mind A: 2 First Line: For love is a high school of persuasion Last Line: Wiping her forehead from the sweat of the day A: 3 First Line: Her brow a storm cloud %new-bent in heav'n Last Line: Something is near to the speaker %as a bird is near to the sky A: 4 First Line: I am part of what I say Last Line: Only by what one is, I suppose is what it means, %are you?) A: 5 First Line: Across the tops of some new leaves Last Line: A father swallowed up inside his son A: 6 First Line: A as in prayer. A as in rock Last Line: A word that probably turns out to be my name A: 7 First Line: The sky was bright and empty over lockerbie Last Line: Silence once broken can never be mended.' -s. Beckett A: 8 First Line: Of course a is longest, how could it not be Last Line: Father+mother+crucified son (aleph, mem, tav) spell emeth, 'truth' A: 9 First Line: But as I was saying before sense obtruded Last Line: Were the same as a valley full of gravel, %vast finity of sand ABJECT First Line: One by one the leaves in sunlight fall Last Line: Then we dive back under the shabby old wall ABRAK First Line: It is caught as far as death in a mountain Last Line: Everything that happens takes its sense from you who happensit. %you go down together ACQUISITION First Line: I saw the web resplendent strung Last Line: Waiting at the end of herself for her to become ACTAEON First Line: Diana in the far trees Last Line: Forever from her feelings ADAM'S OFF-OX First Line: What is the nature of the accumulation Last Line: Already your little son is whimpering in his bed ADVERTISEMENT First Line: There is a biblical quality in poetry, and impassioned rush to Last Line: Your nearest hand. And blood too is veiled in light AFTERDEATH First Line: Coming back to my place Last Line: Only by losing that place found AGAINST DEATH THIS DENSITY Last Line: To sleep taste of on our tongues AGAINST MUSIC First Line: Utter silence Last Line: It would save us. %but could we hear it? %imagine you could hear it. %imagine you're hearing it now AGAINST THE CODE First Line: Language is the only genetics Last Line: Beyond the grid of speech AIR: FOR ENGLISH HORN First Line: So why so %sad the thin Last Line: After the giant falls ALBA First Line: The sun %didn't know a %thing Last Line: Lust this %new mown sun ALCHEMIST First Line: The origin, far side of a lake Last Line: Whose name is love & which only of all light love can eat ALIEN WITNESS First Line: I have never understood some things are private. What is Last Line: How many times can you lose the same war? ALL HALLOWS EVE First Line: The sun bangs its drum Last Line: Map us till we're here ALL THIS ROMANCE AMONG THE SAGES First Line: Sometimes towards the end of a year the calendar AMSTERDAM WINDOW First Line: When things are dark enough you see them Last Line: That ancient city where all our information lives ANALYTIC HYMN First Line: It rains even in california Last Line: Spinnaker cheeked out, white-flanked, the whole %of her quivering AND IF THE MOON IS AS YOU SAY AND THEN THE GULL, THAT OLD COMPANION AND WHEN ALL THAT IS ROBERT IS GONE Last Line: Will the simple knower stand ANGEL OF THE DIALECTIC First Line: I told a friend: poetry, like love, is the triumph of imagination over Last Line: My wine is language, which touches %every mouth and stays pure, itself renewed by the act of being u ANSWER MAN First Line: Who is my father Last Line: Who is this man ANYTHING NATURALLY IT'S OPPOSITE First Line: Tell me a rose for a change APPLES OF SODOM First Line: If in all thy nonce deceiving ARCHER First Line: This small arrow Last Line: My bow stretched to breaking, %my arrow suddenly lets go? ARGOT OF STEEL First Line: Bridge be gothic. The argot of steel Last Line: Of our eternal enemy, the world ARIADNE'S THREAD First Line: You can choose a language Last Line: Letters the alphabet could gladly do without AT POETS WALK PARK First Line: Auden, even before the end of his life, was ashamed Last Line: But then there is no question, is there? AUGURIES First Line: Whipped only against the day Last Line: What do I want of you %space by intricate monad freed AUSTERITY First Line: Hot traffic down route 9 AUTUMN First Line: When the large eyes of the small Last Line: Where it would be ready for him when he slept AVARICE First Line: There are children who know you Last Line: Contradict your yellow appetite BALLAD OF GOOD FRIDAY First Line: On tis day close to two Last Line: And a weird moon nailed up in the clouds BALLAD OF THE EXTERNAL HEART First Line: I am the giant who keeps his heart Last Line: But is the life of me at last BALTIC TRAGEDY First Line: Oelbewoelbe, a place or beach Last Line: A mute number of escaping slaves BANDITS First Line: Everything you have is really mine Last Line: Line of footsteps, deer or daughters, lost in woods BEFORE THE REVOLUTION First Line: The notebook moves but the hand BEING NEAR SOMEONE YOU LOVE DYING Last Line: All around the helpless cack-handed silence that is you BEING SURE ABOUT WHERE THINGS ARE BEL CANTO First Line: Urgent %beauty of what by voice alone Last Line: Into a silence that is always waiting BERLIN SONNETS First Line: As if it were hard to begin. But one has already begun Last Line: For music means nothing but manipulation BETWEEN TWO BIRCHES Last Line: Secure in the land %where the two birch trees go BINDING BY STRIKING First Line: Say I come to you by circles. Say the line Last Line: The oil of others is the light-giving flame. %say we are same. Say we come to it simply again BIRDS TOLD ME Last Line: By going some by staying BITTERSWEET GROWING UP THE RED WALL Last Line: Among the skeletons of wild carrot and tansy BLACKBERRIES First Line: These are the friends who wait for me Last Line: Feel exactly the same way about you BLESS ME FATHER Last Line: And twice with wind BLUEBELLS First Line: Why is the bluebell called Last Line: Paps of his loveliest lout BODY First Line: Of course I want to take off my body like everybody else Last Line: You fragrant excuse BONES First Line: What makes the face interesting of course Last Line: And what they learn turns into the bones of their face BOOK OF PERSEPHONE: 10 First Line: Earth is a woman who imgaines us. She sings Last Line: For I was an old man, in love with difference BOOK OF PERSEPHONE: 11 First Line: Persephone is the woman buried %in ordinary life Last Line: She carries with her wherever she goes BOOK OF PERSEPHONE: 12 First Line: Under the ground? Last Line: Is the girl lost in the ground BOOK OF PERSEPHONE: 14 First Line: To plant three roses for each one only a dollar Last Line: Flowers & wheatfields to eat from the indigo distance you are BOOK OF PERSEPHONE: 16 First Line: The kind of rose she wants called john f. Kennedy Last Line: But a muscle of color? Lips of fragrant light? BOOK OF PERSEPHONE: 17 First Line: Breast %below ground Last Line: Milk spurts up BOOK OF PERSEPHONE: 18 First Line: Buried in noontime traffic Last Line: Comfort in the steady sun, time beating down BOOK OF PERSEPHONE: 9 First Line: I had awakened early Last Line: Into the silent mind BOY AMONG ROSES First Line: How big is a boy, is black, wears red Last Line: And everyone he meets could be his wife BRAHMS First Line: Sexual differences unfold by dream Last Line: A strict notation for how each lover moves BRIGHT MORNING NEAR THE BRANDENGURG GATE First Line: How to heal a hand Last Line: In case anybody asks BRUCKNER AT SAINT FLORIAN Poem Text First Line: Something, / in the back of the mind Last Line: Your magdalen mouth Subject(s): Bruckner, Anton (1824-1896); Memory BURIAL OF ROBERT SCHUMANN First Line: Is he dead then for all the rain Last Line: Will never blow again BURNT OFFERINGS First Line: I have stood at the right hand of the sacrificer BY THE AMERICAN SHORE First Line: I want to find a house BY THE MILL RIVER First Line: I sat with my mother here Last Line: This wind is your wife BY THE RIVER First Line: At just such hour Last Line: Dark soon %&no order CALLING First Line: I see your face where I have seen no one Last Line: Till meaning hurts your eyes CANZONE First Line: What is evident becomes a flower CARETAKERS First Line: Our county madhouse is surrounded by lawns, well-tended Last Line: Through whatever may be growing, even there, in the dark CARMEN SAECULARE First Line: Pushing the treasure maps aside, bring out Last Line: To seem to dwell in bodies but to die alone CARTOGRAPHY First Line: There is an area in hungary that is mostly mountain Last Line: Sleep then, in this garden made of one immense black %rose CATHEDRAL OF THE INCARNATION First Line: Standing below the huge wooden crucifix Last Line: Takes with closed eyes %before he simply dies CAUSES First Line: Trace the arrow all the way Last Line: Now. The deer falls CELESTIAL LINGUISTICS First Line: Well, simply, we should start out Last Line: Because he was listening so hard CENTERFIELDER First Line: At the brink %a lovely rain Last Line: I can do nothing unless it comes down CHAIRS COME TOWARD US CHANGEMAKER First Line: This time is the waiting one Last Line: With skill (not luck) you get your penny back CHASTITY Poem Text First Line: Is a love of not being misunderstood Subject(s): Chastity CHASTITY First Line: Is a love of not being misunderstood Last Line: The starvros crowned with seven roses, %the crucifixion in the rose Subject(s): Chastity CHILD'S SONG First Line: This little chance was all my beginnings Last Line: He claimed will carry me beyond the world CHIVALRY First Line: I am sending you a letter Last Line: Do I have to explain every loaf of bread? CHOOSER AND THE CHOSEN First Line: There was a humid woman Last Line: You get somewhere or to quiet nowhere, %I sit forever watching your beauty torn CITY, TO FICINO First Line: I only know what some thing means when someone CLIFFS AT WEST POINT First Line: Narrow now, I count the leaves Last Line: Irish cliffs to squeeze your river in CLOUDHERD'S SONG First Line: Never having done anything ever but watch Last Line: I call you cloud and call myself yours COL. FAWCETT'S EXPEDITION First Line: Was it colonel fawcett's expedition COLORADO First Line: Fastidious dislocations of a fugue a saturday Last Line: Density is closest to the heart of the sun of inside stories%imago flying metal spell the last name COMET First Line: Infants in the crib at Last Line: And what we see with is our father COMING First Line: The blue mouth of the shark Last Line: With bells & shaky musics & we run COMMANDMENTS First Line: We have been here before. On this shelf Last Line: Wind-swept busy grail-thronged offices CONSTANT TELLING OF THE FATHER AND HIS WIDDERSHINS First Line: Who arose %from his sweaty footprint Last Line: Wait for him here CONTINUITY First Line: The persistent manifestation of change CONVALESCENT First Line: It wasn't till it was healed Last Line: The judges are asleep in their seats CROW IS CRYING OUT IN THE EMPTINESS OF THE SKY Last Line: In the emptiness of the mouth CRY OF I First Line: Blas escovar, who killed an ox by shouting at it CURVATURE OF SOUND First Line: A sleepless week will not impede Last Line: Her side-wound clotted with flowers %spring again and things suddenly exist CUSTOMS INSPECTOR First Line: Everything starts in the same way Last Line: Sometimes I reach in & touch the stone CYPRESS HILLS First Line: Exhaustion is our liberty Last Line: Till finally just because it was, it is DARK MIRROR SCRATCHED DESPITE LOVE'S CARE: 1. AMONG THE VESSELS First Line: What I did and what I thought Last Line: The chorus out there disguised as dawn DARK MIRROR SCRATCHED DESPITE LOVE'S CARE: 2. THE FISH First Line: God this is boring, all this remembering Last Line: Telling rosary beads and fathomless histories DARK MIRROR SCRATCHED DESPITE LOVE'S CARE: 3. THE COAST OF OPAL First Line: The trouble with dogs Last Line: Already his body full of absence DARK MIRROR SCRATCHED DESPITE LOVE'S CARE: 4. LA QUESTION First Line: Of course dream is mostly interrogation Last Line: A cry heard, swift passage of a frightened bird DAWN First Line: From a sea sleep I come DEATH OF RASPUTIN First Line: He couldnt open the wine, drank Last Line: No one hears it. He does not %understand it himself DEATH OF TRAGEDY First Line: Choked with song the dictionary dies Last Line: To their senses before the end, and wake DEATHBEDS First Line: To write at all the deathbeds of the world Last Line: Our life is made of listening to the final breath DEFILEMENTS: 5 First Line: Come ride with me to my leprosy bed Last Line: A centurion checking his spare change DEFILEMENTS: 6 First Line: Rove back, or rome ('crossback') %a warrior towards Last Line: The frozen midnight void you stumble %over the slopjar half-hidden by the bed DEFILEMENTS: 7 First Line: I touch and you %give me the disease called Last Line: The dance, it has been called, the dirt DEFILEMENTS: 8 First Line: The dance is our waste paper Last Line: Waiting for the world to come along DEMONSTRATION First Line: What did they call it when the elephant Last Line: And there you are in the world and no one sleeps DETECTIVE STORY First Line: In the house. Under the porte-cochere. In the vestibule. On the parquet. Last Line: In bed with the room. In the hall. On foot. In the hall. In the house. %in the room in the house Subject(s): Detective Stories DIE FERNE GELIEBTE First Line: Ea -- enki -- enlil Last Line: The smell of cut grass sweet on the evening air DIFFERENCE First Line: The life is ominous. There is a cable that beneath the streeted hill connects DIRECTIONS FOR A LIFE FULL OF BLISS First Line: When it moves DIRGE FOR EMILE NELLIGAN First Line: Why do the leaves give so much? Last Line: For we beget nothing but journeys DISMEMBERED First Line: The sex they do against me in the streets leaves me poor as a Last Line: Sometimes the cry's a word. And sometimes not DOGWOOD THE ANSWER First Line: The dogwood is no answer DOOR First Line: Then there was the waiting Last Line: The door sways open and open its powerful wing DOORKNOB First Line: Seeing your hand on the doorknob when you said 'I see my Last Line: Us to remember to be them DOORS First Line: Suppose you didn't know what a door is. That it opens, for instance Last Line: Suppose all round us there are things like doors in things like walls %and we never knew DR. SUNYATA'S POEM First Line: Asking that purple flower Last Line: It is known here %by some other name DREAM DEBRIS Poem Text First Line: And when there's nothing left there's you Last Line: All flesh wants you because your mind Subject(s): Desire DUMPIER'S VOYAGES First Line: In buying horses pay no need to the haunch Last Line: Up to the hock in years and years of fallen cloves EARLY SPRING DAY ALONG THE HOUSATONIC First Line: Water the quick anemone. We flower Last Line: Are pawky. But the boats are awake EDGEWISE TO LULU First Line: As if in revealing something Last Line: As if bliss. All the tiny orgasms aligned EGGS First Line: The connoisseur of eggs is surly at breakfast Last Line: Some other day he will see this battle through EGON SCHIELE'S BRIDGE First Line: Any image is a boast of mind EL DESDICHADO First Line: It was the annual all-nite / all morning Last Line: Poinsettia blood-leaves %are poisonous to children ELEGY First Line: Alone alone is not a touch or need Last Line: Happening. Someone is calling you ELEGY First Line: Robert when you entered the bardo Last Line: The life you gave me also pour ELEMENTS OF MORAL SEMIOTICS First Line: Can I mark the paper in the red of heart's love Last Line: Isomorphic urgencies you understand ELEMENTS OF POETRY First Line: It should be formal as water Last Line: Your breath the oxygen it needs ELGAR'S SECOND SYMPHONY First Line: A patchwork quilt %in old countries Last Line: I love you, my son, my last born END OF MEMORY First Line: Let the idle caliph tie his own shoelaces Last Line: Incurable disease pretending to be my mind ENEMIES First Line: It is amazing. Life is as full of enemies as a tree with birds in Last Line: Then a friend comes and leans on doorbell a long time and we%know that once again we have been saved EPISODE IN LITERARY HISTORY First Line: The avant-garde has moved at last so far forward that we Last Line: But at least we finally have them in our sights EPITAPH First Line: What to say of it Last Line: I have eaten flowers %& I will die EPITHALAMION First Line: Instantly, quietly, with no remembering Subject(s): Wedding Song; Epithalamium EPITHALAMION First Line: Instantly, quietly, with no remembering Subject(s): Wedding Song ESTABLISHING THE ACTUAL LOCATION OF SOMETHING First Line: The idea is to tie the rock down and beat it till it sleeps Last Line: The touch of your skin is like the sun going down behind %trees EUCALYPTUS First Line: Dont you remember? It was eucalyptus, but it wasnt stockton. It was Last Line: In complete sentences and spoke them into you, along with some %words of my own. Look in your lap an EVE OF ST. MARK'S First Line: Tonight the dust's footprint shows the about to die, wraiths at churchdoor Last Line: Is to be no one %but it cleanses & heals EVENING First Line: A ladder going up into the tree Last Line: God is alone with the pears EVENING SPENT BACKWARDS First Line: They said: nihil in intellectu quin prius in sensu, but I say on the Last Line: Whoever it was, was busy reading EVERY LANGUAGE IS A SECOND LANGUAGE First Line: A gull crashed into my language and I fell Last Line: Trying to still itself with their words EVERY POEM SHOULD HAVE TWELVE THINGS IN IT EVIDENCE First Line: Lifting a life out of all these lives Last Line: Who are these people? Who wrote these plays? EXCALIBUR First Line: I said this prayer to draw your love' Last Line: Looked just like her shapely simple arm %lifting wet to him from the dark water FABLE First Line: Once was a woman %showed her %self Last Line: &love %hid themselves %in this city FACE AT A WINDOW Last Line: My love, %my anyone FACE IN THE ROCK WALL Last Line: In whose only waters I could breathe FACE IN THE ROCK WALL First Line: Sun about to set FALL DAY Poem Text First Line: They are blowing the leaves away Last Line: Or would be if there were still leaves Subject(s): Leaves; Children; Childhood FAREWELL LETTER First Line: There are not many ways FEELINGS First Line: If he just could change the color of the music he was %listening to Last Line: That's all that human feelings ever are FENNEL First Line: Looking for something to stand some long trailing soft leaves of fennel FIFTH NOETIC HYMN Poem Text Last Line: I swear to god we think the way we see Subject(s): North, The FIN DE SIECLE First Line: Being close to it again as if again Last Line: Ceremony before I sleep in you %immeasurable yes FIRE EXIT: 76 Poem Text First Line: The nomad always has another planet up his sleeve Last Line: Pine cones on fire Subject(s): Poetry & Poets FIRE EXIT: 77 Poem Text First Line: There is a letter of the alphabet like a muddy road in sweden Last Line: All form and no information Subject(s): Letters FIRE EXIT: 78 Poem Text First Line: The woods green moveless sea Last Line: Rebuking every image. Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary FIRST NOETIC HYMN Poem Text First Line: Let them love me Last Line: You make me feel Subject(s): Love FIRST RELIGION First Line: The ones who got us started Last Line: To be somebody's house FIVE PRECIOUS STONES First Line: From the blue air an emerald condenses. In it I see, facet by facet Last Line: The source light of emptiness illumines %somethingness here.All I am is what it sees FLAGS First Line: He is his own worst enemy' Last Line: And it is his light, our light, %the only place that's dark %is inside his grasping fingers FLAVOR OF BEING WRONG CAME TO ME USUALLY FLOWER FOR THE NEW YEAR First Line: At first I couldn't remember the name %of the vine-borne flower that climbs Last Line: So dark the flower, so dark the heavy traffic of names FLOWERS OF UNCEASING COINCIDENCE First Line: Analyzing difference FOLK MUSIC OF TIBET First Line: The upper octave of the long cross-flute Last Line: I trust the radical %explanation %birds in the trees FOR COLUMBUS DAY First Line: In between america and america is america Last Line: Let there be nothing between america and america FOR MY FATHER, ON HIS EIGHTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY First Line: Father, I suspect that I've done all the things FOR MY UNCLE BARNEY, THE ROSICRUCIAN First Line: Dear uncle you are mostly home Last Line: There is where nothing is left to remember FOR THE ASKING First Line: Things that are always answering FOR WALLACE STEVENS First Line: A serenade, man with the abominable guitar Last Line: Hark! Your broken china analyzes us FORMAL First Line: Always another %shape to locate Last Line: And your rigorous bones FOURTH NOETIC HYMN Poem Text First Line: The cry of faeces from the dark of the gut Last Line: To her who wraps us in her long sweet unknowing Subject(s): Hecate (goddess) FRENCH LINE First Line: The old man was called le jeune. Priest Last Line: On the third day out I understood the sea FROM First Line: From the central divisions Last Line: From the loss that is eden and the tears %that turn into morning FROM A HILL IN THE BLACK FOREST First Line: The autobahn in baden-baden glistered in the summer Last Line: We lean on the warm car hood and think we think, and %think we see FROM PURGATORY MARY FLANNERY SPEAKS... First Line: I recount the snake's head dipping Last Line: The excesses of our spent lives, %and our eyes sting FROM THE RESTING PLACE OF THE GRAIL First Line: The clue to unbounded transmissions from the architects Last Line: Kiss me. My mouth is the lips of your mother before you %were born GAP IN THE TEXTURE First Line: This dance between the lines Last Line: Light is silence GATHERING OF LUMES FROM THE FIRST YEAR First Line: They are given to %hold close, not Last Line: This night conceals no %animal %body but my own GETHSEMANI First Line: Kneeling there on the ground in the garden all through the Last Line: He asked if anyone would help, or take his place. We all said %no GETTING THERE First Line: Look for me when the birds see me coming Last Line: Their soft wet mouths %full of the silence called language GIANT FIGHTS BACK First Line: A means to imbed you in my life Last Line: Pray for my lost terrors, for my sand GODS First Line: They live with each other Last Line: Until the holding is yourself %and your last love is letting go GOODBYE First Line: You ask me to say goodbye to the 20th Last Line: Now I'm tired of saying hello GOSHAWKS First Line: The pleasures %of every beginning %the lovely %fact of body Last Line: Which nothing ends, all satisfactions are the same %the lie that tumbles forward towards the lie of GRACELA First Line: Are there at evening shuddering palaces Last Line: Our hands caressing switches that speak the light GRAMMAR OF THINGLISH First Line: Things are trying to tell us Last Line: Could say it better than her silence GRAVEYARD IN NOVEMBER First Line: Afterlichen %where we suppose HALLOWEEN: THAYER STREET First Line: Those things that come from the other world Last Line: I am tired %of worrying these spaces. I am tired %of being frightened of just us HARDNESS OF THE STONE First Line: The wooden clapper Last Line: Empty as a bell in the air HARUSPEX First Line: Examine the skypath of sightless birds Last Line: Spell out the answer to HEAD OF ORPHEUS First Line: When orpheus walked beneath the trees Last Line: And orpheus saw them throw it in the sea HERALDRY First Line: Slant dark top of a chain-sawed tree stump Last Line: And her hand was pale with leaving HERCULES MUSARUM First Line: Be strong this way HISTORY IS SOMETHING TO TAKE SHELTER IN Last Line: Has lived all her life in the city. %it is there. It is simply there HOLY SONNETS First Line: The thing I am that is not me...%thankmeal our grace is given Last Line: Slamming the door on an empty room HORSE First Line: Waiting at the stable for the horse to be born Last Line: The horse that was the thing I saw when I died HOW IT FELT Last Line: A fly stuck to the sun HOW TO WRITE A POEM First Line: Bring in everything you're thinking about Last Line: Comes, the feast is served, the poem's done HUI-NENG CHOPS BAMBOO First Line: To know it is to know everything Last Line: Fits and is severed from bamboo HUNTER First Line: I must have thought I was a kind of hunter Last Line: Since they do it so easy and so quiet HYDROGEN OXIDE First Line: When she first sent me the news of the disorder Last Line: You saw the thing the way it really is HYMN First Line: Gods of different ages deign Last Line: Of unnamed sources I AM IN A RING OF BEGGARS I SNARLED AT THE ROSE SELLER I WANT TO TELL YOU Last Line: The earth is tired %of comparisons I WANT TO TELL YOU WHY HUSBANDS STOP LOVING WIVES Last Line: Everything else is again. %die to each other and live I WISH IT WAS ME AND NOT THE NORTH WIND IDENTITIES First Line: It is the identities I carry Last Line: Rests light on the diver's plan IF DAWN WOULD ONLY QUIET ME THE HOST Last Line: What species of releasement or dark falling %down through the spaces inside words IF I WERE A CRESCENT MOON IF MEN WEREN'T SO PHYSICAL WOMEN IF SHE WENT DOWN TO THE TOWN Last Line: & food & bodies. Tell me %with your hands in my hair IN ISLAND MIST First Line: The apparition is not simply what appears Last Line: House with roses just planted at the door. The sun, you %oldest hammerr IN MAHLER'S SLEEP First Line: An archaic austerity %comes out of the ground Last Line: The austere thing is warm in his hand IN MARY FRANK'S GARDEN First Line: A leaf to be brave Last Line: That there is so much lust here, %so many parted lips IN MEMORY OF JAMES MERRILL First Line: Held at the mercy of the drummer Last Line: For a minute and the man in the raincoat is gone IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER First Line: God is anywhere that frightens me Last Line: A king's head is lifted up to show the silent crowd IN MEMORY OF THE NORMANDIE First Line: When things are fallen on their sides. Ocean liner all my war Last Line: Carry memories in the skin alone IN PUBLIC SPACE First Line: Here the alphabet changes Last Line: Mortality. Leaves on the ash IN THE HOUSE OF THE RAVEN First Line: Are the gods stronger where you are Last Line: A prayer is just a name nobody knows IN THE LIGHT First Line: Where did I see you? In the mistaken light Last Line: Light of someone at the door IN THE SMALL IN TITIAN SEEN First Line: About to put her lips Last Line: Faithful to receive him at the last INJUNE First Line: In june was a jar had %honey in its head Last Line: I speak of an actual tree %rare than remorse INTO THE HUMAN LIMIT First Line: Two old gentlemen play at their dining room table Last Line: A housewife at breakfast tearing open a loaf of bread IS IT THE HUM OF YOU UPSTAIRS ON THE TELEPHONE Last Line: I breathe slowly, like the entire earth IT ALL STAYS OPEN Poem Text First Line: Merchandise mind / middleman personality Last Line: That isn’t (entirely) me Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN THAT HE WAS NEAR DEATH. Last Line: It must be death it is so empty & so kind IT WAS THE LITTLE THING YOU CARED ABOUT Last Line: This one out of all the whole dream ITINERARIUM MENTIS AD DEUM First Line: To know the truth of things is to be on a ladder Last Line: A tune the hens and calves and sheep hear as they die JANUARY First Line: He hated the feel of the watch on his wrist KABBALAH NUDE BY NATURE First Line: The great air accepts even music into its hands L'INSU DE LA MAIN First Line: This is where we were going and nobody knew Last Line: A word among women to speak with your mouth LADY OF First Line: She woke & found her city was beseiged by her Last Line: Where he stood now watching her solution LANGUAGE First Line: If you know your mother's brother LAOCOON First Line: Theory: when you have seen every single thing Last Line: You get to go with the gleam where the gleam goes LAST DAYS LIKE THIS LAST LIGHT First Line: There is a meadow Last Line: Laying him wantonly down to rest LAST RELIGION First Line: And the pier %widened Last Line: Could board %that single boat LAST SONNET FOR TED BERRIGAN 1934-1983 First Line: It is about time to say goodbye LATTICE First Line: Is this love? Is this the train Last Line: Man, forgive game. %woman, forgive man LATTICES INSPIRED Poem Text First Line: We do not know Last Line: Is not what thinks the mind Subject(s): Relationships LAW First Line: Your body stands silent Last Line: & when you are in movement the rain falls LE POETE DE 14 ANS First Line: I was trying to be beautiful with lousy tools LES JOUEURS DE FOOT-BALL, 1908 First Line: Athletes come running up a field Last Line: My father eight years old peers out from where he hides LESSER ART First Line: Call %& wait for an answer Last Line: I would have gone outside to smell the first roses %but doors are compromises LETTER TO MARCUS AURELIUS FROM AN EMPTY WORLD First Line: Just look at this thing like wire, a tree Last Line: That's what the rabi's smile implied LIBER UMBRARUM First Line: The sea was close today but I did not touch her Last Line: Young eels come home LIFE OF INTIMATE FLEEING First Line: Under the cypresses the air is still Last Line: A nest of brackets %enclosing sky %fork of the great tree LIFE SIGNS First Line: He jumped back from the mirror LIKENESS First Line: There is no home LIMITS First Line: And you there far away on the mnemonic lawn, what linguistic operation Last Line: Some once-elegant carving on an italian column I came across in a %savage garden LINE First Line: Because a line is the measure of silence Last Line: Nothing else to offer. We are the interruptions LINGUISTICS First Line: That stirs the way of seeing it Last Line: Rimes with the end of the world LITTLE OFFICE FOR THE FEAST OF SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX First Line: Antiphon: nigra sum %I am obscure but full of sense Last Line: Response: it is the bridegroom, come to wake the bride LITTLE OFFICE FOR THE FEAST OF ST. JOHN First Line: This is the day to think about the two of them LONDON SONNETS First Line: Everything bothers me is what I mean LONG MARCH First Line: My father made me begin thinking in the body of my mother Last Line: Trudged the eleven conscious miles between luching and %hsin-ssu LOOKING Poem Text First Line: Once when I read the funnies Last Line: But this blankness is your mother Subject(s): Mothers LOOKING First Line: Once when I read the funnies Last Line: But this blankness is your mother LOOM (EXCERPT) First Line: [passe defini] the preterite is to reduce reality to a point Last Line: The other thing. The process %the god LOVE First Line: For love is the suchness of what is loved Last Line: A grimy dictionary passed from friend to friend LOVE SONG I First Line: The grunion %are coming Last Line: Not interested. Everything I care for %happens all the time LOVER First Line: The noonday %arrow means Last Line: Magic pain, %amazing sin MAITREYA First Line: Snow lies blue under the trees' shadows and strong where the sun strikes ... Last Line: Without going from there he is not staying he is always coming towards MAN First Line: He puts his pants on his head Last Line: And they all tell him what to do MAN AFRAID OF HEIGHTS IS FALLING FROM A JET AT 35,000 FEET WHILE TRY First Line: Why is the earth so eager to meet me? Last Line: Whoever I was, I almost flew MAN SLEEPING First Line: He had been sleeping for an hour and the ocean changed Last Line: Man waking in an island, seaplane landing MAN WHO LOVED WHITE CHOCOLATE First Line: There is an egg in the middle of things Last Line: It's morning and he's full of sperm again MAPPING First Line: A book for us to write, like this Last Line: You know something you almost remember MARK ON PAPER Last Line: These birds are erasing the sky MARRIAGE CONSIDERED AS AN ARRANGEMENT OF OBJECTS IN SPACE First Line: Going where for a wedding MARROW BONE First Line: Can the remarkable submarines Last Line: We carry on our frolicking no longer. And this is dying MARY FLANNERY SPEAKS ABOUT HER FATHER First Line: On all fours, his lips tucked Last Line: And I died in his blood MARY FLANNERY SPEAKS ABOUT MADAME CHIANG KAI-SHEK First Line: Brilliant in a flowered dress Last Line: My unbound feet flung against the sky MASK LET SLIP First Line: I have learned nothing and remember nothing Last Line: I am tired of having to tell yu who I am MEANS First Line: In all the emergency rooms Last Line: Somebody always has a match on him MEANS First Line: Everything is a duet. Every duet collapses into fervent love Last Line: That is the only important question. Do we cast a shadow? MEASURE First Line: From what pontic wit, what salt in banks Last Line: An animal %is forgiveness MEASURE First Line: If the ink is too light for the pen MEASURE THOSE DISTANCES: OF THIS NIGHT First Line: Here and now she becomes alive Last Line: Her madwoman's hair and the air it floats on MEASURE THOSE DISTANCES: THE BOAT First Line: Floated in the cove Last Line: A white enormous %silent owl nesting on MEASURE THOSE DISTANCES: THE CHURCH First Line: Stood deep in woods Last Line: Chugged along under the hill MEASURES First Line: What could they be Last Line: Though usually you see them two by two MEASURES THOSE DISTANCES: GOING First Line: If you ever get there Last Line: That much further away MEDITATOR First Line: He settles down on the lake and becomes a swan MELENCOLIA; AFTER ALBRECHT DURER First Line: Be near me then, it is only a design Last Line: A simple current underneath the mind %that is the mind MEN First Line: In dreams men menstruate, get pregnant, give birth Last Line: Little tree that stands up quiet every morning MESSENGER First Line: If you don't have much time MESSENGERS First Line: I am my neighbor's dog Last Line: And my stupid head is up here with the stars MIDNIGHT IN LARAMIE First Line: In this distant island I inhabit all alone Last Line: You are finished with the earth and are too tired to be sky MOMENT OF APHASIA First Line: Find the word. If the found word doesn't come quickly, the sentence it MONGOLIA First Line: Once they touched Last Line: Nightfall, the world MONSOON First Line: Rain. From the verandah or what Last Line: My father's footstep shuffling up the walk MONT BLANC Poem Text First Line: The hand on my desk is my hand the everlasting Last Line: Of vacancy turn out to be a lover? Subject(s): Blanc, Mont; Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822) MONUMENT First Line: Though he had made a scant MOON First Line: By early morning %is down the western Last Line: Them alone, there is %nowhere else MOON CLOSES MORNING PRAYER First Line: (in the name of the flower) (and of the sun) (a red Last Line: Understands it either, bobby, just try to sing along MOUNTED POLICEMEN First Line: There are strange white people to be sure Last Line: Horses %fill the streets of my city with white traffic MOUTH OF THE BLUE DOG IS BOUND BEFOREHAND First Line: We can walk through the blue night and no blue mouth will bite us Last Line: Love? %a kind committment to how things are MUDRA First Line: The old book talks about the form Last Line: Over the deserts of the hand, to breathe MY BOYHOOD WAS A RAFT OF POEMS Last Line: Spinmaker cheeked out, white-flanked, the whole %of her quivering MY CITY First Line: The cathedral has never been finished MY NAME First Line: When we were children, the girls sang a counting game and Last Line: From tribe to tribe, over the mountains and under the sun, %bringing the only news MYTH MAY NOT BE OVERLASTING NATURE OF METAPHOR First Line: A man rises from the toilet in a public bathroom. He flushes Last Line: Then sinks down sobbing under a bush, among the green %myrtle in the north corner of the little park NEEDING QUIET, THE MEN OF OLD Last Line: Find it between %what I say & what I mean NEW BORN First Line: I have been thinking of him Last Line: I suppose he has told you all this already NEWARK Poem Text First Line: John coltrane died this morning Last Line: Say itself inside our heads. Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Newark International Airport NORMAL First Line: Times I think there are no regular folks left in the world Last Line: Closed on weird kitchens NOTICES DARKER FORM MOVE Last Line: Asks it. Stands. Geometry $is unreliable. Lover NOVEMBER MEDITATION First Line: Glaze over a morning. Accept Last Line: Not more golden than the said? NUEVA YORK First Line: This city NURSING RESENTMENTS First Line: Everything hurts you Last Line: Leaning on the gate that leads to his son O LOVE / MICE EAT THE BLIND CAT'S FOOD Last Line: All day long my mother sleeps OBJECTIONS TO THE UNSATISFACTORINESS OF CYCLIC EXISTENCE First Line: Then it if rain we again become another instancing the same Last Line: Hook of an apple cloud edge of an edge ODE 15 First Line: Direct to transpire: the devil is Last Line: Round her. He takes the mail away ODE 16 First Line: That I came to know it all Last Line: This time does not come again ODE TO LANGUAGE First Line: To put on shoes and be sophisticated Last Line: In san francisco. Only you %are ever different Subject(s): Davis, Miles (1926-1991); Jazz; Music And Musicians; Women OF TECHNE First Line: Now will the ironwork Last Line: My man weight, my human longing OF THE SENTENCE THAT SPEAKS ITSELF MORNING First Line: And from what silence waiting steadily OF WILLIAM MOUNT,THE LUMINIST First Line: There are dyes & there are textures Last Line: With which also the boy %-- the generations! -- %is silently fulfilled OH THE GRAIL WAS A GLAD HOTEL OIL OF EXCESS First Line: Our adoration must not be humble - lowness ON A PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH PRIESTLEY First Line: Who is this man who signs a face ON BEING ASKED TO TAKE PART ON A PUBLIC READING First Line: But I am not a different voice ON GOATHLAND MOOR First Line: I think of you on the moors Last Line: Waiting for the hare to turn away ON HOMER First Line: It is a jewish name, this semite Last Line: The beautiful poison of things seen ORIGIN OF IT First Line: From an oak took bright Last Line: Rushed to the place of her proper dance %and later %remembered %was music ORIGINAL WOMEN First Line: How it was in the beginning was once revealed to me Last Line: To love and serve her and entertain her and throw %small stones at palm trees for her to dislodge sw ORION: OPENING THE SEALS First Line: Opening the throat %what %sound can tell Last Line: The lost language in live lips %found ORPHEE First Line: I have a right to lust for anybody I like. I have a right to lust for you Last Line: You read it, you have a right to read it. Later you remember you wrote %it yourself ORPHEUS Poem Text First Line: Orpheus can never look back at the real woman trailing behind him out of hell Last Line: Seeing his wife as an ordinary woman, she is lost. And he is lost Subject(s): Love - Marital; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love ORPHEUS. AS IN ORPHAN. ALONE PARTITA First Line: Yes doctor is something to follow the lines Last Line: The scandalous rhyme that links earth with heaven PATMOS First Line: A bible dissolves in upon itself a man renews Last Line: Deep-shouldered in the black bay PENTECOST First Line: The emergency is coming, it's taking its time Last Line: The word is round, and long ago it spoke the sky PEOPLE THE FLOWERS First Line: You walk to that corner on avenue b Last Line: The people the oceans PERFECT STRANGER First Line: That thing we walk around with inside, turns out to be death Last Line: It turns into is what it is, here, the perfect stranger who rules %all our lives PERSONAL HISTORY First Line: I am a dethroned descendant of kings, too poor to repair my forefathers' PHANTOM OF THE OPERA First Line: It is like a carriage. It runs away over the crest Last Line: How could you fail to love me, you taught so well PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 1 First Line: There is something pouring from the left fundibulum Last Line: The ice comes back. Parallel patterns, like a crow in flight PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 10 First Line: It is after all the apparencies. It is after all Last Line: That really is what they said PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 11 First Line: The first cathedral previous to any mud caked anklebone Last Line: Are strictly momentary and passionate and vague PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 12 First Line: Wanting to know about it the blood of old Last Line: They caught like meek diseases from the sound of rain PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 13 First Line: It could not cut the vanity the haughtiest Last Line: Intense flame inside the stone the wise call water PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 2 First Line: Gruesome if forgotten, the sulc is now. This cleft Last Line: O lord jesus look my knees, round and juicy golden oozes PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 3 First Line: And so with america, hymeneal, hiems Last Line: Turning our bodies glad from light to light PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 4 First Line: Suppose they are causes Last Line: Hide in my touch. I am not to find PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 5 First Line: There are the nearer stretches of the folded blanket Last Line: Dear friend, trying to keep in touch with all the transformation PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 6 First Line: That the phone rings all day long Last Line: Here is the answer. The seed gets in your hair PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 7 First Line: Are these the norms by which we know Last Line: Are these the norms by which we know our only earth? PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 8 First Line: The hallway crowded with alchemicals Last Line: If there were any other color it would be me.' PHYSIOLOGY OF WILLIAM BLAKE: 9 First Line: Then it is a fish that swims inside and doesn't veer Last Line: As quick flags of triumph or surrender PIETER SAENREDAM'S GREAT CHURCH IN HAARLEM First Line: To sense the sum Last Line: For what we are raindrop we are glass PIGEONS First Line: Pigeons are jewish. They say little Last Line: Small pale messiah pecking by my side POEM FOR EASTER Poem Text First Line: All women are beautiful as they rise Last Line: To find that he is not alone Subject(s): Eucharist; Communion POEM FOR EASTER First Line: All women are beautiful as they rise Last Line: To find that he is not alone POEM FOR MY FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY First Line: How many birthdays POEM FOR THE JEWS First Line: The candles of the jews are ignited Last Line: And their hands have given everything away POEM IS A HAND First Line: A poem is a hand laid on the small of your back Last Line: The cliff of things, the place in you that feels the hand POET First Line: I never believed I had something to say POETIC RAPTURE READS FACT TOO First Line: It isn't all about sex and squirrels POPEYE'S LAMENT First Line: What good did it ever do me, all this strength Last Line: Strong as a girl POSTCARD First Line: In mexico a tourist shitting in the bushes Last Line: But by then the corporal has forgotten the moon POSTCARDS FROM THE UNDERWORLD First Line: In that country there is a heap of millet Last Line: But the distance is still there. He carries it %the way a blind man carries his hands POUSSIN First Line: As an exacting inference of a small century crawling around on its PRAY FOR ALL TRAVELLERS. FOURTH SNOW TODAY Last Line: And the flame come home to the fire PREFIX: FINDING THE MEASURE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Finding the measure is finding the mantram Last Line: Consequence of the motion of the whole world Subject(s): Poetry & Poets PREFIX: FINDING THE MEASURE First Line: Finding the measure is finding the mantram Last Line: Consequence of the motion of the whole world PRESSED FLOWERS OF LIBREVILLE First Line: I heard PRIEST First Line: Once was a priest wanted to be crushed Last Line: Alone with his endless body PRINCE ADREI LOOKS AT THE SKY First Line: It is huge and full of difference Last Line: Torn by a stone knife wielded, bled us PROCESS First Line: How much more Last Line: The old men %watching one %spring go out PROFESSOR MORIARTY'S TREATISE ON THE DYNAMICS OF AN ASTEROID First Line: It reaches me from everywhere. Information Last Line: My feelings from my web. My body is the world PROMPTER'S BOX First Line: We need a prompter Last Line: You'd think after all these years they'd get it right QASIDA OF THE MISTY DAY First Line: Is it the kettle boiling or Last Line: Dripping sweat narcissus brings his body home QUICK ANSWER WEBBED TO ALL HER LIKENESSES First Line: Once a womb was. And QUIET AND THE SHELL Poem Text Last Line: All this island music Subject(s): Silence QUIET AND THE SHELL QUIET DEMENTIA OF A WINTER NIGHT RAINMAKERS First Line: The groups of god Last Line: An old woman visiting her bees RALEGH First Line: Caught in the window Last Line: Where all the images stand still RAM BLISSOMS HIS MATE Last Line: A country where no one has to be wise REACHING THE LIMITS First Line: Out of the city, non-human reek elaborate Last Line: Outside the easy music of the head. Or let it touch me READING First Line: Other peoples' eyes, their movements pass Last Line: Noonday sinners in the hands of a jealous god READING LI SHANG-YIN: FALLING FLOWERS First Line: Even you shaking myself out of the dust Last Line: I have torn %the images %of the life she tore %and still can't bear %to sweep them away RECESSIONAL First Line: Into the underneath REMEMBERING First Line: Birds ping off the window Last Line: Trying to escape from the world RESISTING THE SWEET SENSE AMONG HIS LEGS Last Line: And it was silent in the language of leaves RETURNING TO THE CLASS OF DISCUSSABLE REFERENTS Last Line: Into seeing black slow winds, a rainy sky REVERE BEACH First Line: There is never RHINEBECK First Line: Even his son is a very old man now Last Line: Whether it's a healthy thing to do RIDDLE FOR ROBERT GRAVES AT NINETY First Line: The rock they are carved in RITUAL DANCES Poem Text First Line: Turn it so on is on top Last Line: Place is what is left when the dance is done Subject(s): Dancing & Dancing; Social Commentary RIVERBOAT First Line: I am a new face that joins the ship Last Line: And only the gaudy courtcards of the gamblers %float back to tease the next ecstatic pilgrims ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE PLAYING SOLITAIRE First Line: Just tell me your name, that's poetry enough for me Last Line: Just making one or two interesting mistakes? RUBE GOLDBERG SUITE First Line: Intersection of artist and philistine SAGITTARIUS First Line: To shoot is not always to kill SAMSARA First Line: How do you like me as I am today Last Line: And goes, the bee never wearies of the rose SAMSON IN THE TEMPLE OF DAGON First Line: Sometimes he is shown plucking the columns inward Last Line: The reasonable pillar of the right SATYR MOURNING A NYMPH First Line: I suppose the most beautiful painting in london is piero di Last Line: But all around him as he thinks his grief through the light is %busy answering SAYING Last Line: Let it be bliss. %let it be this SAYING I GREW UP HEARING First Line: You could eat off the floor' they used to say SCIENCE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Science explains nothing Last Line: Only it uses the wrong words Subject(s): Science; Scientists SCION First Line: The son says: Last Line: But nobody seems to know how this town got its name.' %theywere no wiser SEA TEACHES ME FRENCH First Line: I move my tongue Last Line: Salt-haired, you from the surf SEATING ARRANGEMENTS First Line: Dew on grass + something remembers Last Line: Chair = each one is one each SECOND NOETIC HYMN Poem Text First Line: Maybe. Room for doubt Last Line: Fast red car soon out of human sight Subject(s): Doubt; Skepticism SECRET AGENT First Line: To be what I am is to be guided Last Line: They are the veins of my true body, %this planet of distrust, this war SECTION 10: EARTH IS A WOMAN WHO IMAGINES US. Last Line: For I was an old man, in love with difference SEEK OUT THE FAR CAPILLARIES Last Line: How can you grieve? She is somewhere SENSATION First Line: Back on the old days SERMON ON LANGUAGE Poem Text First Line: But in my heart Last Line: Quench my thirst! Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary SET ON WAR First Line: Night when the fates are decided Last Line: A flag is the only enemy of the sky SHAKESPEARE First Line: Fear no more the and how SHELTER First Line: Deliberately, like a tarpaulin Last Line: At the door. The door waiting for me SHIPWRECK First Line: By dawn the timbers in the lowest Last Line: Alone an answer argues he can never hear SHORTSTOP First Line: Pick up the ball and hold it Last Line: Then throw the batter out SIGNE DU MIROIR First Line: How I have stared at that one Last Line: I have stared at my face till there is no one there SINAI First Line: From the quartz heater a column Last Line: It is doors that make our houses old SINGING UNDER THE GROUND First Line: I was a lad under ground, black swan among capons Last Line: For I was a me, and a wonder, a word without father or mother SIZE First Line: Jeanne, however big it is Last Line: It poured %into me & made me new. %I bring it to you SKIES First Line: All my life I have loved rain Last Line: Clean sharp iron brown light home SOME DEFICIENCIES OF SUSANNAH'S BATH First Line: The elders linger by their wishing-well Last Line: O terrible grammar where the world was made! SOME PRINCE OF THE TROJANS HERE First Line: Among the trees witth names Last Line: Among low dusty branches, blue %dusty berries of the juniper SONG XXI First Line: Not ready lord not ready . I can't get started . Blew sweet . Out Last Line: Down seaside where it is said great ocean is that rings us round SONG: 26 First Line: Circle & wheel of ... Who cares what I'll %have to say of time? SONG: FOR THOSE WHO COME AFTER Poem Text First Line: Learn the new way Last Line: And there is no different from here Subject(s): Social Commentary SONG: FOR THOSE WHO COME AFTER First Line: Learn the new way SONGBOOK First Line: Palabras of amber %I speak of amber Last Line: For logic is the poetry of frightened men SONGS FROM THE CHILDWOOD First Line: And if the sparrow Last Line: Your house is everywhere SONNET 18 First Line: When they look they'll find it beautiful Last Line: He'd found beneath him, a skin he always knew SONNET FOR TED BERRIGAN'S SONNETS REPRINTED First Line: It must be the whole world don't you think SOUND First Line: First she heard a sound Last Line: But the thunder %was all over her mind SOUND OF THE CENTER First Line: Masaniyeh %the tree of %death the fatal Last Line: He filled with snakes and roots and vineleaves to remind SPELL First Line: Someone immensely naked Last Line: Travelling hand to mouth forever with our beautiul eyes SPRING SONNET First Line: Love, do not be more clever than the heart Last Line: More than love be clear not ever. Be heart ST SEBASTIAN SECTOR, CALVARY First Line: On a stopped train hearing the intercom Last Line: Two roses down on the coffin %we have to see STAINS First Line: How we have to suffer to be anybody. Slices of lemon once I Last Line: Busied myself with those false hopes we call thinking STANDING AT MIDNIGHT Last Line: Tossed back in your face from a lost mirror STANZAS First Line: Upon whose accents do I marshall a small domestic beast Last Line: Then the clean light of elderts lane the library close now %these names mean nothing to you STANZAS FROM DANTE First Line: Verge in me, matter, I feel you tell me, feel Last Line: Truth is an answer: all will would our senses deny STANZAS: STANZA THREE First Line: It is not bad to be boring and to be dead Last Line: Darlings our business is always this other %reaching STANZAS: STANZA TWO First Line: So it is formal and faithful as a xerox something is lost Last Line: Whose shadows are satin and nightfall and radish and now I %remember STARTLED BY A SENTENCE I FIND WRITTEN Last Line: Peasants drinking stolen champagne just over the crest of a hill STATE OF THE NATION First Line: Summer is walking out & master horse Last Line: Looks back at the people, their feet %are perfectly still STATUE OF ELVIS FOUND ON THE MOON First Line: I saw labrador not the orkneys this labrador was green Last Line: Beaming us down from and into the curious situation of %emptiness STONE WALL IN PROVIDENCE First Line: At dawn the sun investigates the blue copper dome Last Line: In the method which comes: %to cherish every difference and know there is no difference STORY First Line: It was a cactus coming out of the ground, or more precisely a cactus Last Line: He thinks each time it's a moth or a sluggish winter fly. Story of %fly in winter. Story of a house' STUDIES FROM MISHNAH: III First Line: (dbr) %behind %this book Last Line: I want to get behind this book I find her breathing STUDY AFTER TITIAN First Line: Once I was marsyas the musician Last Line: Sunlight snickering in the crannies thereof STUDYING HORSES First Line: When you wake up from sleeping with women Last Line: The gorgeous infidelities that make you free SUIT OF CARDS First Line: Ace %to want is my only wand Last Line: Cast off! He cried but no one listened and the shore was %far SUN OF THE CENTER First Line: A man divided into animal Last Line: The corn is eaten, the animal howls, the sun flowers SWANS First Line: So many swans here in connecticut TAMING THE WOMAN TEARS OF EDMUND BURKE First Line: Let the ink %run out & return Last Line: Before the glisten had dried off the ink TELEPHONE First Line: The fray of meaning Last Line: Into that vast mistake called understanding TEMPLUM First Line: I have seen the terrifying gates Last Line: A white wind sleeping on the world TEXTS 23 First Line: The bird that hovers Last Line: To hover over the text. %to read THALAMION First Line: Come up the dry staircase Last Line: With an oil you press from him THAT A MAN PULLS ON THE WORLD Last Line: And by so drawing gives claws to the tiger and redness to the rose THAT FURIOUS WATER First Line: Her hands were cold, she hid them Last Line: The shape they lend the wind is what you speak THAT YOU DIED IN THE WINTER Last Line: Spring, among the enormous memory of you THE CLOUDHERD'S SONG Poem Text First Line: Never having done anything ever but watch Last Line: I call you cloud and call myself yours Subject(s): Clouds THE DOGWOOD THE ANSWER Poem Text First Line: The dogwood is no answer Last Line: All this island music Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Neighbors THE INVADERS Poem Text First Line: Given: / when he saw the shape of the cloud Last Line: All I could do was say them so I did Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary THEN First Line: If a flower could walkd Last Line: They hear about with dread, yet dare to enter %and go and go and never come to the end THEORY OF PLACE First Line: It is always enough to live, isn't it THING FORGIVES LANGUAGE First Line: You are aluminum Last Line: The rest is me THIRD NOETIC HYMN Poem Text First Line: The unicursal pentagram Last Line: Is empty, remembering the back of my mind Subject(s): Memory THIS ANIMAL HAS BEEN SET FREE First Line: It says on a cage in the zoo THIS BE CALLING AGAIN AND THIS BE WOOD Last Line: This calling e a river and be done THIS BEAUTIFUL YOUNG GIRL IS OLD Last Line: And don't go to sleep THIS IS THE END First Line: At any moment the sun may come out Last Line: Dream, buster, dream THOR'S THRUSH: 4, SELS. THOR'S THRUSH: 5, SELS. THOR'S THRUSH: 6, SELS. THOR'S THRUSH: 7, SELS. THOSE WHO ARE BEAUTIFUL Last Line: If it is music it hears THREE ORGAN RITUALS FOR ERIK SATIE First Line: Knowing too little TIME GONE TIMING First Line: Where was it buried? Last Line: And given her a strange little smile TO DO IT AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN DONE Last Line: This ordinary mind TO HER BODY, AGAINST TIME Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Long over, what's on the tree Last Line: The form plain Subject(s): Old Age TO HER BODY, AGAINST TIME First Line: Long over, what's on the tree Last Line: Rain against a hidden sun, %the form plain TO MY FRIENDS WHEN I AM EIGHTY-FIVE Last Line: Robert, we will walk in these nice woods. %then leave me there with weasels and the moon TOO MUCH ABOUT THE DANCE First Line: The old serenader TORMENTS OF SINCERITY First Line: A boat sideways in rapids, a telegram Last Line: But two old dead men are arguing about god TOUCH First Line: I have been trying to touch you all my life Last Line: Held loosely, towards you. My hand TOURNAMENT FROM WHICH I WOKE First Line: The wild chirp of the alarm came in the thick of the battadure TOWARDS THE DAY OF LIBERATION Poem Text First Line: It doesnt matter what we see there Last Line: The shadow's own Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary TOWARDS THE DAY OF LIBERATION First Line: It doesnt matter what we see there Last Line: Whose body is that? %the shadow's own TOWER OF BABEL First Line: Certain men decided to build a tower that would reach heaven Last Line: Still stands unfinished, and no one can say where it actually %could go TRIADS First Line: Things disappear. A suite Last Line: Shouting pollen pollen in the night TUNE First Line: A sheep was. And a purse dangled from his arms. A sporran jogged Last Line: Might? I revise the animal. How %do you listen? I hear with my hands TURQUOISE First Line: There is always another language to learn. Massive silver encrusted with TWENTY First Line: How could I have known and what is there to know Last Line: The bed should be chill and austere it isn't it's just a bed%to carry savage apartness across an ave UBIQUIST First Line: He'd be as weeds Last Line: A pregnant poem conceived upon a word %that means 'someone who wants to be everywhere' UMBELLIFERAE First Line: Old flower UNE SEMAINE DE SILENCE First Line: A travers la riviere une chose Last Line: Fesses hanches dos durent %je suis une lame un minuit je passe UNQUELL THE DAWN NOW First Line: Then we went, high hooked from the Last Line: Then one found her gown gone, though all's a gate so VALUATION First Line: If this were a painting and not a poem VAMPIRE First Line: What time do I have who have no time VARIATIONS ON A POEM OF STEFAN GEORGE First Line: Windows where I once with you Last Line: Alle freude nahmst du mit VARIATIONS ON SOME STIRRINGS OF MALLARME First Line: The chest is open and I elude all the leaves Last Line: A friend obsessed with you is calling your name %godlike even to create a world in which you answer VENUS OF MOUNT RUTSEN First Line: The snow-woman we've seen all week VIRGIN AND THE FIG First Line: She stood before a limestone wall VOCATION First Line: Months worth of notations VOYAGE TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH First Line: Knowledge is not a matter of it Last Line: All science comes through this ill-fitting door WANDERER First Line: He broke the mind-lock and lived Last Line: In me and be my will. For I am long in tarrying and want %nothing WEEDS First Line: Are flowers we do not claim as ours. Her dress was sable Last Line: Seme old books would say, sown with tiny flowers WEEK AS WORK First Line: When I am a coin it is tomorrow WHAT First Line: What does not show through Last Line: What the dying high school geometry teacher remembers %of first love WHAT DO YOU DO IF WHAT IF THE WORLD WERE ONLY WHAT IT IS AND WE STILL COULDN'T First Line: Disperse me. I am the nitre on your cave wall Last Line: In the exhausted theater and send them home WHAT IS ATTAINED HAS NO IDEA WHAT SHE FOUND IN THE RIVER First Line: Was a piece but not of music Last Line: From rapids, dreams of a drowning man, %spit from your poor blind god WHAT THE WAITRESS AT DUNKIN DONUTS SAID TO ME First Line: Trouble me, trouble me the plain white bread ...' WHEN I FINALLY CAUGHT WHEN I WAS TWENTY I WAS SURE WHEN IT COMES First Line: If someone told you music's Last Line: Communicative, too much love WHEN THE BROKERS WERE RAINING ON WALL STREET Last Line: Nothing was speaking but the bones of her face WHEN THE CEDAR Last Line: Branch the whole world shakes WHERE WOULD THE DUST GO IF YOU SHOOK IT OUT First Line: Except on the very items you seek to guard Last Line: Was moving and you couldn't read french WHITE WALL First Line: Stare at the wall WHO DO I COME HOME TO BE? A PARABLE Last Line: Than teddy wilson last thruway midnight albany WHY THE ACROBAT WAS SMILIING First Line: The closeness ('subrisio saltat.' Last Line: (no wonder %winter is all thinking WIND SWAY First Line: Now my diana was a naked hip, cool bedsheet Last Line: Into the silent practice of our lives WINDOWS First Line: Beware the simplicity of windows Last Line: The hills endure your absence forever WINTER MUSIC First Line: The radiator is tired of the heat is tired of the house is tired Last Line: Is tired of even one more time coming again WOMAN FROM CONNAUGHT First Line: My great-great-great-great-grandmother Last Line: Quiet women and their heavy gods Subject(s): Ancestors And Ancestry; Connaught, Ireland; Family Life - Ireland; Grandparents WOMAN WITH FLAXEN HAIR IN NORFOLK HEARD First Line: Wherever you are Last Line: And checking the sun and looking away WOOL First Line: How could I forget the wool of my coat Last Line: And what we do now we have done before WORK OF THE KILN First Line: It is the ordinary mistake Last Line: Almost in your hands WOUNDS OF CHRIST First Line: From the grand borders of the least concerned of all Last Line: My brother, and of this mother mind we both are fleshed YESTERBITE First Line: That doomed reprisal YOU BREAK A MIRROR YUCATAN First Line: The pyramid at kabah which you can see only if you are attentive |
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