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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: MATTHEWS, WILLIAM Matches Found: 374 Matthews, William Poet's Biography Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter 374 poems available by this author 100 SENTENCES: AN ESSAY First Line: Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long whi Last Line: Silence is become his mother tongue 107TH & AMSTERDAM First Line: A phalanx of cabs surges uptown in tune 39,000 FEET First Line: The cap'n never drawls, we're seven miles ? First Line: What was it? Whatever it was it stood Last Line: Through us its alternating current, fear %and hope. We sat. What else was there to do? A HAPPY CHILDHOOD Poem Text First Line: My mother stands at the screen door, laughing Subject(s): Children; Family Life; Childhood; Relatives A LIFE OF CRIME Poem Text First Line: Frail friends, I love you all! Subject(s): Conduct Of Life A NIGHT AT THE OPERA Poem Text First Line: The tenor's too fat, the beautiful young Subject(s): Opera A ROADSIDE NEAR ITHACA Poem Text First Line: Here we picked wild strawberries Subject(s): Memory A SERENE HEART AT THE MOVIES Poem Text First Line: She strode to her car and turned the key and Subject(s): Motion Pictures; Car Bombs; Movies; Cinema A SMALL ROOM IN ASPEN Poem Text First Line: Stains on the casements Subject(s): Conduct Of Life A STORY OFTEN TOLD IN BARS: THE READER'S DIGEST VERSION Poem Text First Line: First I was born and it was tough on mom Last Line: The life that matters not the one I've led Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Popular Culture - United States; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons A TELEGRAM FROM THE MUSE Poem Text First Line: Caro those last few poems are dynamite Subject(s): Poetry & Poets A WALK Poem Text First Line: February on the narrow beach, 3:oo Subject(s): Walking ACCOMPANIST First Line: Don't play too much, don't play Subject(s): Music And Musicians AESTHETIC DISTANCE First Line: In writing, skill is the major share of courage AIRLINE BREAKFAST First Line: An egg won't roll well Last Line: A shadow-plane, an anchor %that will not grab ALCIDE SLOW DRAG PAVAGEAU Poem Text First Line: Walking with jesus the slow Subject(s): Pavageau, Alcide Slow Drag (1888-1969) ALICE ZENO TALKING, AND HER SON GEORGE LEWIS THE JAZZ CLARINETIST First Line: Now if all of you were gone Subject(s): Jazz; Lewis, George (1900-1968); Music & Musicians ALICE ZENO TALKING, AND HER SON GEORGE LEWIS THE JAZZ CLARINETIST First Line: Now if all of you were gone Last Line: I used to sing sing sing those boys %to sleep when they were only babies Subject(s): Jazz; Lewis, George (1900-1968); Music And Musicians AN ELEGY FOR BOB MARLEY Poem Text First Line: In an elegy for a musician Subject(s): Marley, Robert Nesta (bob) (1945-1981) ANOTHER BEER Poem Text First Line: The first one was for the clock Last Line: Traveling on its tongue of / all the way home Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons ANOTHER BEER First Line: The first one was for the clock Last Line: All the way home Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders APATHY Poem Text First Line: Waking, you sag. Fatigue is different: the body, like steps Subject(s): Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature APRIL IN THE BERKSHIRES First Line: Dogs skulk, clouds moil and froth, humans ARROGANT First Line: Watson is tired and doggedly polite Last Line: When what you love is yours and yours alone ATTENTION, EVERYONE First Line: Gloom is the enemy, even to the end. The parodies of self-knowledge Last Line: The new regime will start when you lift your eyes from this page. %here it comes ATTENTION, SHOPPERS First Line: There's a blue light special in aisle six BAD First Line: Dew, sweat, grass-prickle, tantrums Last Line: With our very hearts if we must, and we must BAR AT THE ANDOVER INN First Line: The bride, groom (my son), and their friends gathered Last Line: My own. Well, what instead? Well, something else BEAR AT THE DUMP First Line: Amidst the too much that we buy and throw Last Line: Fed on the slow-simmering dump, and gone %into the bug-thickwoods and anecdote Subject(s): Nature BEDTIME Poem Text First Line: Usually I stay up late, my time Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Sleep BIG TONGUE First Line: The spit-sheathed shut-in, sometimes Last Line: And stare at the mirror, %met by ordinary fear BLACK BOX First Line: Because the cockpit, like the snowy village in a paperweight BLIND TASTING First Line: Where are the wines of yesteryear? Last Line: Fat %tongue whose other job is to tell the truth BLUE NOTES First Line: How often the blues begin early morning BLUES First Line: What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet Subject(s): Blues (music) BLUES FOR JOHN COLTRANE, DEAD AT 41 Poem Text First Line: Although my house floats on a lawn Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians BLUES FOR JOHN COLTRANE, DEAD AT 41 First Line: Although my house floats on a lawn Last Line: Planing by, full throttle Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music And Musicians BMP BMP Poem Text First Line: Lugubriously enough they're playing Subject(s): Bechet, Sidney Joseph (1897-1959); Jazz; Music & Musicians BMP BMP First Line: Lugubriously enough they're playing Last Line: Just on time for the band to leave together, %headed for the tin roof blues Subject(s): Bechet, Sidney Joseph (1897-1959); Jazz; Music And Musicians BUCKET'S GOT A HOLE IN IT First Line: Keep it under your hat, the saying went Last Line: A river might imagine a canyon BUD POWELL, PARIS, 1959 Poem Text First Line: I'd never seen pain for bland Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Paris, France; Powell, Bud (earl) (1924-1966) BUD POWELL, PARIS, 1959 First Line: I'd never seen pain for bland Last Line: And calls it company, and it is Subject(s): Jazz; Music And Musicians; Paris, France; Powell, Bud (earl) (1924-1966) BUDDY BOLDEN CYLINDER First Line: It doesn't exist, I know, but I love Last Line: But you can see the leaves shiver in place %as if they'd like to turn their insides out Subject(s): Bolden, Buddy (1877-1931); Jazz; Music And Musicians BY HEART First Line: Halfway through his 1937 version of 'high society' BYSTANDERS First Line: When it snowed hard, cars failed CABBAGE First Line: Diogenes admonished a young courtier CADDIE'S DAY, THE COUNTRY CLUB, A SMALL TOWN IN OHIO First Line: On mondays even the rich work CARE First Line: The lump of coal my parents teased Last Line: Best not to consume us CHANGE OF ADDRESS First Line: It doesn't get much light,' the real Last Line: And the rat? The rat looks radiant Subject(s): Divorce CHARMING First Line: Because language dreams in metaphors Last Line: Because charm repeats, because charm %will save itself before it remembers us CHEAP SEATS, THE CINCINNATI GARDENS, PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL, 1959 Poem Text First Line: The less we paid, the more we climbed. Tendrils Subject(s): Sports CHEAP SEATS, THE CINCINNATI GARDENS, PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL, 1959 First Line: The less we paid, the more we climbed. Tendrils Last Line: With noise, unlike the kind I had at home %with no clock running down, and mirrors Subject(s): Sports CITIZEN First Line: That summer solstice in alaska Last Line: Then I stayed there until my restlessness %led me out to stretch and yawn like a cat CITY PLANNING First Line: To be above the slough and sewage and mud CIVICS First Line: I have a few thoughts about the news CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS Poem Text First Line: How much of the great poetry Subject(s): Civilization; Poetry & Poets CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS First Line: How much of the great poetry Last Line: From the road, that's what he thought then, too Subject(s): Civilization; Poetry And Poets CLEARWATER BEACH, FLORIDA First Line: Each dockpost comes with a pelican CLOISTER First Line: The last light of a july evening drained Last Line: And the nothing it cares for me Subject(s): Farewell; Love COLEMAN HAWKINS (D. 1969). RIP Poem Text First Line: As if that sax Subject(s): Hawkins, Coleman (1904-1969); Jazz; Music & Musicians COLEMAN HAWKINS (D. 1969). RIP First Line: As if that sax Last Line: I hate it that he's dead Subject(s): Hawkins, Coleman (1904-1969); Jazz; Music And Musicians COMPLETION First Line: Seen from afterward the time appears to have been Last Line: Entire and itself the way it all looks from afterward CONSTRUCTION First Line: Livid and tiny, all burble and breast milk CONVIVIAL First Line: Four of us sit by a river we can't name Last Line: Life is sweet. We prove it by letting it go COOKING FOR C First Line: For her candor, salt Last Line: For her company, pleased thanks Subject(s): Love COUPLE, 70, HASN'T AGED IN 35 YEARS First Line: Of course the years go by in any case CURRICULUM VITAE First Line: Post partum Last Line: Post mortem DAYS BEYOND RECALL First Line: Learned santayana described himself DAZZLE First Line: I need some kind of talisman or charm Last Line: But only manners. Or even worse, charm DEAD LANGUAGES First Line: There must be some so dead we don't Last Line: Or they led us, and how would we know which? DEFENESTRATIONS IN PRAGUE First Line: 1419. Angry protestants stormed Last Line: Flickering in you like a pilot light DEPRESSIVE First Line: No wonder it feels like a chore Last Line: Credit what's wrong with this picture? - %to its passing, and our own DINER First Line: Saturday mornings I'd take my young sons Last Line: Would hope to be absolved, or maybe three DIRE CURE First Line: First, do no harm,' the hippocratic Last Line: Say it, as if it were the name of god DOG DAYS First Line: The cat spends most of them under the bed Last Line: From torturing a bug and then eats it DOG LIFE First Line: Scuffed snout, infected ear, ticks like interest DOGS OF MONTONE First Line: Jockeyed by fleas and led, as we say Last Line: Like raddled islands, bark: the lake %of the black night is everywhere Subject(s): Nature DRIVING ALONGSIDE THE HOUSANTONIC RIVER ALONE ON A RAINY APRIL NIGHT Poem Text First Line: I remember asking Subject(s): Shadows; Automobiles; Cars DRIVING ALONGSIDE THE HOUSATONIC RIVER . . . First Line: I remember asking %where does my shadow go at night? Last Line: I know it's there, water %hurrying over the shadow of water DRIVING THROUGH THE POCONOS, ROUTE 80, 1:30 AM, SNOW First Line: I pass the big rigs on the upgrades Last Line: Here (stroudsburg: 11 miles) nor there DRIZZLE Poem Text First Line: Baudelaire: 'the dead, the poor dead, have their bad hours' Subject(s): Smoking; Time; Tobacco; Pipes; Cigars; Cigarettes DUST ABOVE THE ROADS First Line: Remember those boxes of billowing cotton EGG AND DAUGHTER NIGHT, APRIL 1951 First Line: So much of the soil out here has been sown by wind Last Line: The wind unwinds in the truck-thick streets Subject(s): Farm Life ELEGY FOR BOB MARLEY ELEGY FOR BOB MARLEY First Line: In an elegy for a musician Last Line: Could be used of our lives and bodies %and all that we hope survives them Subject(s): Marley, Robert Nesta (bob) (1945-1981); Music, Rock EPIGRAM: 10, 47 First Line: The things that make life happier Last Line: And neither dread the end nor lean to it EUPHEMISMS First Line: Let's skip those undertakers love, like pass Last Line: Not I. English itself murmured this prayer EVERY CLOUD HAS ITS DAY First Line: The earth sprawls beneath us, both slack EVERY DOG HAS A SILVER LINING First Line: There's no marled froth grizzling its snout EVERY TUB First Line: The way some of us played cards and some drank EXAMPLE Poem Text First Line: Imagine the hotel lucide, the set for the third act Subject(s): Solitude; Loneliness EYES Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The only parts of the body the same Subject(s): Eyes FAIRBANKS, THE SUMMER SOLSTICE, 1983. First Line: A curtain of mosquitos wavered FAMILIAL First Line: When the kitchen is lit by lilacs Last Line: Understand is why one would balk to die %if death were entry to such heaven FAT First Line: At first it seemed temporary Last Line: Was the self, that paltry wafer, %on which, god bless us, we've waxed fat FEAR OF RECONSTRUCTION First Line: All this noisy profundity Last Line: Still my body %is a bag of broken secrets FELLOW ODDBALLS First Line: The sodden sleep from which we open like umbrellas FINN SHEEP First Line: I had a month at a writers' retreat Last Line: To moil at my desk FLOOD First Line: Strange to think what solvents FOUL SHOTS: A CLINIC Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Be perpendicular to the basket, / toes avid for the line Subject(s): Sports FOUL SHOTS: A CLINIC First Line: Be perpendicular to the basket, %toes avid for the line Last Line: From the arcs those foul shots %leave behind when they go in Subject(s): Sports FOUR POEMS ABOUT JAMAICA: 1. MONTEGO BAY, 10:00 P.M. Poem Text First Line: A chandelier, a tiara Subject(s): Cruise Ships FOUR POEMS ABOUT JAMAICA: 2. JAMAICANS POSING TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED Poem Text First Line: Illiterate esther watched me Subject(s): Photography & Photographers; Jamaica, West Indies FOUR POEMS ABOUT JAMAICA: 3. A HAIRPIN TURN ABOVE READING, JAMAICA Poem Text First Line: Here's where the fire truck fell Subject(s): Jamaica, West Indies; Wealth; Politics & Government; Riches; Fortunes FOUR POEMS ABOUT JAMAICA: 4. KINGSTON Poem Text First Line: No photograph does justice, etc. Subject(s): Kingston, Jamaica FOX RIDGE STATE PARK, ILLINOIS, OCTOBER First Line: Past the round barn at the quarterhouse FRAZZLE First Line: All for one and one for all' was our motto after all Last Line: But not the kind for which the bill comes after all FREE ADVICE First Line: All day the rain drums its fingers on the roof GENERATIONS First Line: I've been poor, but since I'm an american Last Line: Yet to learn, and they had me as teacher GOOD First Line: I'd seen wallpaper - I had buckaroos all over my Last Line: To peculiar moments like this one, when %the heart's good manners are their guide GRANDMOTHER, DEAD OF 99 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS First Line: Everyone cheered her on Last Line: To her truant kidney %and to oblivion GUZZLE First Line: I need a loan. I need a drink. I need Last Line: Let them supplant this prattle about need HAPPY CHILDHOOD First Line: My mother stands at the screen door, laughing Last Line: A child is all the tools a child has, %growing up, who makes what he can HARVEST Poem Text First Line: A few rats are gnawing Subject(s): Rats; Food & Eating HERD OF BUFFALO CROSSING THE MISSOURI RIVER ON ICE First Line: If dragonflies can mate on the surface tension HOMER'S SEEING-EYE DOG Poem Text First Line: Most of the time he wrote, a sort of sleep Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Homer (10th Century B.c.); Poetry & Poets; Iliad; Odyssey HOMER'S SEEING-EYE DOG First Line: Most of the time he wrote, a sort of sleep Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Homer (10th Century B.c.); Poetry And Poets HOPE First Line: Beautiful floors and a lively HOTEL RAPHAEL, ROME, 1987 First Line: The roof garden? Closed. Bettino craxi Last Line: Tending the simmer until the sun rose HOTEL ST. PIERRE, PARIS, 1995 First Line: I rose six floors in one of those birdcage Last Line: Both of us restive, mute and not at home HOUSECOOLING First Line: Those ashes shimmering dully in the fireplace HUMMER First Line: First he drew a strike zone Last Line: As if he'd tried to hold it %back, but it escaped. Thwap Subject(s): Baseball; Sports ICE FOLLIES First Line: The pavements got glazed with ice, and the brick Last Line: What? What? The meek shall inherit the what? IN MEMORY OF THE UTAH STARS Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Each of them must have terrified Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Sports IN MEMORY OF THE UTAH STARS First Line: Each of them must have terrified Last Line: How brutally well the universe %works to be beautiful %how we metabolize loss %as fast as we have to Subject(s): Poetry And Poets; Sports IN MEMORY OF W.H. AUDEN Poem Text First Line: His heart made a last fist Subject(s): Auden, Wystan Hugh (1907-1973) INSPIRATION First Line: Rumpled, torpid, bored, too tasteful to rhyme Last Line: It takes, I tell you, desperate measures INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS First Line: What animals dream of I do not know Last Line: In the mouth like sunspots, %both dense and evanescent INTRODUCTION First Line: I have a few remarks. He smiled IOWA CITY TO BOULDER Poem Text First Line: I take most of the drive by night. Subject(s): Automobile Drivers ISLA MUJERES Poem Text First Line: The shoal we saw from the boat was fish; Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; Dreams; Isla Mujeres, Mexico; Anglers; Nightmares IT DON'T MEAN A THING IF IT AIN'T GOT THAT SWING First Line: On the wine label - monks, towers, wimples JOB INTERVIEW First Line: Where do you see yourself five years from now?' Last Line: Lasted me almost but not quite five years JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH THEE First Line: Smoke rose and ashes fell KEEP A-KNOCKIN First Line: I'm gonna ring your bell till I break your door Last Line: Again: 'you sure do. I'se a child of god.' KINGSTON First Line: No photograph does justice, etc. Last Line: We turn and turn, but everywhere is here %a blurred circle of wingscuffs LAST WORDS Poem Text First Line: It wasn't oscar wilde who said, die my dear Subject(s): Language; Writing & Writers; Words; Vocabulary LAST WORDS First Line: It wasn't oscar wilde who said, die, my dear Last Line: You'll think of something. Let nature take its course LATE MOVIE First Line: On haiti two years ago he stalled Last Line: Or fire might ask anything of you %and say that its name is love LE QUATRE SAISONS, MONTREAL, 1979 First Line: East from vancouver I'd rattled across Last Line: Spirited, restless and subdued to dust LEFT HAND CANYON Poem Text First Line: The rev. Royal filkin preaches Subject(s): West (u.s.); Southwest; Pacific States LEIPZIG, 1894 First Line: We have only one portrait of bach - that genius Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music & Musicians LEIPZIG, 1894 First Line: We have only one portrait of bach - that genius Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music And Musicians LISTENING TO LESTER YOUNG Poem Text First Line: It's 1958. Lester young minces Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Young, Lester ('prez') (1909-1959) LISTENING TO LESTER YOUNG First Line: It's 1958. Lester young minces Last Line: Can easily read the future Subject(s): Jazz; Music And Musicians; Young, Lester ("prez") (1909-1959) LITERARY BIOGRAPHY First Line: He paled, he wrote more poems: white heat Last Line: Often leaves an exhaust of verse LITTLE BLUE NUDE First Line: Outside, the crackhead who pandhandles an eight hour LIVER CANCER First Line: And then, he said, I knew it was my job LIVING AMONG THE DEAD Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: First there were those who died Subject(s): Death; Conduct Of Life; Dead, The LONG Poem Text First Line: It's about to be too late. Subject(s): Time LOSS? First Line: Let's say a television signal disappears Last Line: Twenty-nine years defunct, clear as remembered %genitals. What steady company you have LOST TIME FOR SALE First Line: Right here: the shortstop adjusting his nuts Last Line: Rose, who held in his boyish arms a bride %and spouted promises, long, long ago LOYAL Poem Text First Line: They gave him an overdose Subject(s): Animals; Dogs LOYAL First Line: They gave him an overdose Last Line: That there is work to be done, %and almost inconsolably Subject(s): Animals; Dogs LUCKY AND UNLUCKY First Line: Mean the same thing, like flammable and inflammable LUNCH IN HELL First Line: I haven't eaten flesh,' he said, and I Last Line: I miss the question mark), 'the usual.' Subject(s): Restaurants MAIL ORDER CATALOGS Poem Text First Line: Pewter loons, ceramic bunnies, and faux bamboo Subject(s): Popular Culture - United States MAIL ORDER CATALOGS First Line: Pewter loons, ceramic bunnies, and faux bamboo Subject(s): Popular Culture - United States MANIC First Line: Out I would go, as if out were a city Last Line: While I stood there and ignorance %ran up and down my body like a squirrel MANNERS First Line: Sweetypants,' martha mitchell (wife of john Last Line: But of course you have to know what that is MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 1, 118 First Line: If a hundred epigrams won't fill you up MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 1, 57 First Line: What sort of woman, flaccus, do I like? Last Line: You know, the golden mean. Yuk, yuk. Yeah, right MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 1, 63 First Line: Read you my epigrams? No, you burn MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 1, 64 First Line: You're beautiful, we know, and young Last Line: It, babycakes, you're but a bitch MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 2, 38 First Line: What good is my farm, and what are its yields? MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 3, 26 First Line: The land you bought up, candidus Last Line: Candidus, there's always your wife MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 3, 53 First Line: Could I give up your neck, chloe, your face Last Line: Don't ask. No need to list the parts. It's all %of you I could dispense with, chloe. Thanks MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 3, 8 First Line: Quintus loves thais, so rumor goes Last Line: She lacks one eye and he lacks both MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 3, 9 First Line: Cinna, I'm told, has scribbled a few MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 4, 21 First Line: There are no gods in the vacant Last Line: How else could such a lout grow rich? MARTIAL TRANSLATIONS: 5, 32 First Line: In his last will crispus failed Last Line: Who got it then?' you ask. He did: %he spent it all in time MASTERFUL First Line: They say you can't think and hit at the same time Last Line: And uncoiling from the sweet ferocity of excellence ME AT MY FATHER'S FUNERAL First Line: The wones his age who shook my hand Last Line: New country. And thus this babble, %like a dial tone, from our bodies MEMORY First Line: We're not born knowing how to love the world Last Line: Is dearth. We all drink from a leaking cup MEN AT NY FATHER'S FUNERAL Poem Text First Line: The ones his age who shook my hand Subject(s): Fathers; Funerals; Burials MEN IN DARK SUITS First Line: Like talk overheard across water, they seem to have come METICULOUS First Line: The blare of blank paper: the solace Last Line: What became of him, I wonder, %rapt and lost, who was almostme? MINGUS AT DIASPORA Poem Text First Line: You could say, I suppose, that he ate his way out Subject(s): Mingus, Charles (1922-1979); Food & Eating MINGUS AT THE HALF NOTE Poem Text First Line: Two dozen bars or so into better get it Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Mingus, Charles (1922-1979); Pubs; Taverns; Saloons MINGUS AT THE HALF NOTE First Line: Two dozen bars or so into better get it Last Line: For now, he kick-starts the band: %'one, two, one tow three four.' Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders; Mingus, Charles (1922-1979) MINGUS AT THE SHOWPLACE Poem Text First Line: I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Jazz; Mingus, Charles (1922-1979); Music & Musicians; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons MINGUS AT THE SHOWPLACE First Line: I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen Last Line: He explained, and the band played on Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders; Jazz; Mingus, Charles (1922-1979); Music And Musicians MINGUS IN SHADOW First Line: What you see in his face in the last Last Line: Negative, he's all the light there is MINISCULE THINGS Poem Text First Line: There’s a crack in this glass so fine we can’t see it Last Line: A thirsty and beautiful woman. What a small world! Subject(s): Imperfection MINUSCULE THINGS First Line: There's a crack in this glass so fine we can't see it MISGIVINGS Poem Text First Line: Perhaps you'll tire of me, muses Subject(s): Togetherness; Love - Complaints MISGIVINGS First Line: Perhaps you'll tire of me,' muses Last Line: All up very very slowly MONDAY MORNING, MONDAY NIGHT First Line: In the dream I woke from I was about Last Line: And I unplug my love from it, and leave it %to thrill and terror, without a name MONEY First Line: Honey, I don't want to shock youbut white Last Line: That's why we love it; because it's gone and the %rest comes back MOOD INDIGO Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: From the porch; from the hayrick where her prickled Subject(s): Farm Life; Longing; Agriculture; Farmers MOOD INDIGO First Line: From the porch; from the hayrick where her prickled Subject(s): Farm Life; Longing MOONLIGHT IN VERMONT First Line: It's the very end of summer MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, JULY Poem Text First Line: Haze. Three student violists boarding Subject(s): Love - Loss Of MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, JULY First Line: Haze. Three student violists boarding Last Line: In the leaves. A car alarm. Hail MOSHE DOR, COUNTRY First Line: No, that is no country for old men Last Line: On your nape moving to my breath MOVING AGAIN Poem Text First Line: At night the mountains look like huge Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Divorce MUZZLE First Line: Some people like the idea of silence Last Line: Do its siblings mourn for it in silence? MY FATHER'S BODY Poem Text First Line: First they take it away, Subject(s): Fathers; Corpses; Funerals; Cremation; Cadavers; Burials MY FATHER'S BODY First Line: First they take it away Last Line: Will sift in a heap with the residue of others, %for now they all belong to time NABOKOV'S BLUES Poem Text First Line: The wallful of quoted passages from his work Subject(s): Nabokov, Vladimir (1899-1977) NABOKOV'S BLUES First Line: The wallful of quoted passages from his work Subject(s): Nabokov, Vladimir (1899-1977) NAMES Poem Text First Line: Ten kinds of wolf are gone and twelve of rat Subject(s): Nature NAMES First Line: Ten kinds of wolf are gone and twelve of rat Last Line: In fact adam and eve are not their names Subject(s): Nature NO First Line: There may be in the air I breathe Last Line: Of the cliche, thin air, the very air %empedocles may or may not have breathed NO RETURN First Line: I like divorce. I love to compose Last Line: And the boat explodes again and again NOTE LEFT FOR GERALD STERN IN AN OFFICE I BORROWED, AND... First Line: Welcome, good heart. I hope you like - I did Last Line: Not with the past but with how fast the past %eludes us, though surely, friend, we were there NOZZLE First Line: A thousand and three in italy alone Last Line: But what name did they have for me alone? NURSE SHARKS Poem Text First Line: Since most sharks have no flotation bladders and must swim Subject(s): Sharks OLD FOLSOM PRISON Poem Text First Line: This could be scotland: a crag and far below Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social; Estrangement; Outcasts OLD FOLSOM PRISON First Line: This could be scotland: a crag and far below Last Line: There was room for air, if you were there Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social OLD RECORDS Poem Text First Line: Les shows me his new braun Subject(s): Music & Musicians ON A DIET Poem Text First Line: The ruth of soups and balm of sauces Subject(s): Food & Eating; Poetry & Poets ON A DIET First Line: The ruth of soups and balm of sauces Last Line: Pale shadows, begins to pare and replace %the poet's body, and isn't it time? ON THE PORCH AT THE FROST PLACE, FRANCONIA, N.H. Poem Text First Line: So here the great man stood Subject(s): Frost, Robert (1874-1963); Poetry & Poets ON THE PORCH AT THE FROST PLACE, FRANCONIA, N.H. First Line: So here the great man stood Subject(s): Frost, Robert (1874-1963); Poetry And Poets ONIONS Poem Text First Line: How easily happiness begins by Subject(s): Onions; Food & Eating ONIONS First Line: How easily happiness begins by OPENING HER JEWEL BOX Poem Text First Line: She discovers a finish Subject(s): School; Cats; Jewels; Memory; Hair ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY WARD First Line: And what else? The rain-beaded cars in rows OTEGO TO ROSCOE TO MANHATTAN First Line: Here's a word I don't get to use OUR TOWN First Line: You the one who hates a parade?' Last Line: A parade but I hate bad music. Well, %he said, 'I'm off to work. So long.' OUTER SPACE Poem Text First Line: If you could turn the moon Subject(s): Moon OXYMORONS Poem Text First Line: Summer school, and jumbo shrimp, of course Subject(s): Oxymorons OXYMORONS First Line: Summer school, and jumbo shrimp, of course Last Line: Will be our real estate, all that we've got PAVAROTTI IN TRANSPORT, 1990 First Line: The knee had got so bad that when he fell Last Line: And dock him in the rear of a limousine PENALTY FOR BIGAMY IS TWO WIVES First Line: I don't understand how janis joplin did it, how she made her voice Last Line: My arms are easily as my body will hold forever the silence for which the mouth opens slowly Subject(s): Joplin, Janis (1943-1970); Music, Rock PEOPLE LIKE US First Line: When the ox was the gray enemy Last Line: While we bite our poor tongues PHOTO OF THE AUTHOR WITH A FAVORITE PIG Poem Text First Line: Behind its snout like a huge button Subject(s): Pigs; Photography & Photographers; Boars; Hogs PHOTO OF THE AUTHOR WITH A FAVORITE PIG First Line: Behind its snout like a huge button PIANO LESSONS Poem Text First Line: Sometimes the music is locked Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Pianos; Music Teachers PLACE ON THE CORNER First Line: No mirror behind this bar: tiers of garish Last Line: The only one, and we are many POEM ENDING WITH A LINE FROM DANTE Poem Text First Line: Snow coming in parallel to the street Subject(s): Anger; Grief; Sorrow; Sadness POEM ENDING WITH A LINE FROM DANTE First Line: Snow coming in parallel to the street Last Line: And I have told you this to make you grieve Subject(s): Anger; Grief POEM ENDING WITH A LINE FROM JOHN BERRYMAN First Line: One to a corner, the orderly whores Last Line: Nobody coming, so I went instead POEMS FROM LEFT Poem Text First Line: There's something wrong that can't be salved Subject(s): Language; Human Behavior; Words; Vocabulary; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature POEMS FROM RIGHT Poem Text First Line: Right as rain yoju are, rain that shrivels Subject(s): Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature POETRY READING AT WEST POINT First Line: I read to the entire plebe class Last Line: Head ached. 'sir,' he yelled. 'thank you. Sir' PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG CLARINETTIST Poem Text First Line: I was a dull musician as a boy Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Clarinets PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG CLARINETTIST First Line: I was a dull musician as a boy Last Line: And destitute before my strangled joy PRESCIENCE First Line: Bloated and mesmerized by raspberries, Last Line: Rueful, guarded and sullen for dear life PRIVATE EYE First Line: A yellow dress turns out to be the clue, an ax Last Line: For the romantic loner: good doesn't matter %until there areothers, and then it's impossible PROLIFIC First Line: The boy mozart could compose PROMISCUOUS Poem Text First Line: Mixes easily, dictionaries Subject(s): Language; Human Behavior; Words; Vocabulary; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature PROMISCUOUS First Line: Mixes easily,' dictionaries Last Line: Love notes and libel, fire and ice. In short: %promiscuous PRURIENT First Line: Suppose the past could be surprised Last Line: Is haunted. We ask, by whom? The voice %replies, by you. And in we go PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE First Line: Just as we were amazed to learn Last Line: Can it bear the weight of such %self-reference and such self-ignorance? PUBERTY First Line: Remember the way we bore our bodies to the pond Last Line: Not on your life. Like you, I gulped and learned to swim PUZZLE First Line: What's her allure? Her wan smile? Her figure? Last Line: Divide, the lawyers will set a figure REAL ESTATE First Line: Death or divorce. Mangled by farm machines Last Line: You know you're one of us, a citizen RECOVERY ROOM First Line: How bright it would be, I'd been warned RED SILK BLOUSE First Line: So much for taupe and beige and eggshell RENTED HOUSE IN MAINE First Line: At dawn, the liquid clatter of rain Last Line: The fire is down, the coffee cold, the sun is up Subject(s): Nature RESCUE First Line: To absolve me of my loneliness, and rather Last Line: Out from the other side, 'sweet cat, are you ok?' RESTLESS First Line: Reflected light wrinkles the bay Last Line: None dreams blank water or pure light RETICENCE Poem Text First Line: Once moths dusted these windows Subject(s): Opera RETICENCE First Line: Once moths dusted these windows Last Line: Is like so much drifted desire, a love %that can, but will not, speak its name REUNION IN THE RECOVERY ROOM First Line: First there were two of me, no doubt because Last Line: Our dread and blather, and our endurance RIGHT First Line: We always talked about getting it right Last Line: You just push off into heartbreak and go on your nerve ROCAS DEL CARIBE, ISLA MUJERES, 1967 First Line: Broke, we went when no one else would, july Last Line: But filled with dread like a pair of sieves ROOM FUL OF USED BABY FURNITURE FOR SALE First Line: The colic scabs have been pried off Last Line: Now, restive, brimmed with obscure tears ROOM FULL OF USED BABY FURNITURE FOR SALE Poem Text First Line: The scolic scabs have been pried off Subject(s): Furniture; Family Life; Relatives SALE OF THE GOOD LIFE First Line: There are hand models, and calf-to-ankle Last Line: Top floor? A credit office, run by a man SANDLOT BASEBALL Poem Text First Line: My eye is fine: halfway through they're double-teaming me Subject(s): Baseball SCALPEL First Line: They'd stunned me groggy with demerol and bland Subject(s): Surgery SCENIC VIEW First Line: From the scorch and poverty, from the cumin and opulence SCHOOL DAYS Poem Text First Line: Once those fences kept me in mr. Mote Subject(s): Education; Schools; Students SCHOOL DAYS First Line: Once those fences kept me in mr. Mote Last Line: And name them one by one and row by row Subject(s): Education; Schools SCHOOLBOYS WITH DOG, WINTER Poem Text First Line: It's dark when they scuff off to school Subject(s): Education; Schools; Students SCHOOLBOYS WITH DOG, WINTER First Line: It's dark when they scuff off to school Last Line: The frosted windows of the schoolhouse gleam Subject(s): Education; Schools SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT PASTA First Line: Little hats, little bow ties, little bridegrooms SEATTLE, FEBRUARY First Line: Cold weather and a hard, gray light Last Line: And this time getting the details right, %the pace, the tone, the hard, grey light SELF-HELP First Line: It would be good to feel good about yourself for good Last Line: It's for the helpless that god weeps, and without a %sound SELF-KNOWLEDGE First Line: High above the slant snow and sludged traffic SENTENCE Poem Text First Line: Bloated and mesmerized by raspberries Subject(s): Nature SENTENCE First Line: Bloated and mesmerized by raspberries Last Line: Death, one fiesta, sweet stench like a flag, %one posum at a time and the vast fields Subject(s): Nature SENTIMENTAL First Line: For breakfast, loss, and day has just begun Last Line: Nor for lunch, nor for dinner, nor even %in memory, where you call us always home SERENE HEART AT THE MOVIES First Line: She strode to her car and turned the key and Last Line: So hush now, little baby, don't you cry SHADES First Line: A round of golf in a soft rain,' said one Last Line: And sift, and now and then they find something, %and so they reach for it, and so it's gone SHOOTING First Line: It be the usual at first Last Line: Like walls. That mean we be the room SHORT FAREWELLS Poem Text First Line: A toast is the right length, I think Subject(s): Toasts; Farewell; Grief; Aging; Parting; Sorrow; Sadness SHORT FAREWELLS First Line: A toast is the right length, I think SKIN DIVING Poem Text First Line: The snorkel is the easiest woodwind. Subject(s): Skin Diving SMALL GREASEFIRE IN THE KITCHEN First Line: Here fire and water daily are made mild Last Line: And a chemistry set, just grown up some SMART MONEY First Line: We talk about - what else? - the old days? Last Line: And then our ship came in, and we were it SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES First Line: I love the smoky libidinal murmur SNOW FALLING THROUGH FOG Poem Text First Line: This is how we used to imagine Subject(s): Snow; Sea; Ocean SNOW LEOPARDS AT THE DENVER ZOO Poem Text First Line: There are only a hundred or so Subject(s): Zoos; Snow Leopards SOCRATIC METHOD First Line: If you could change things, he asked SOOEY GENEROUS Poem Text First Line: Saint anthony, patron of sausage makers Subject(s): Pigs; Boars; Hogs SOOEY GENEROUS First Line: Saint anthony, patron of sausage makers Last Line: The graces of affection and a name SORROW First Line: No way that butter-colored slur could be Last Line: There's nothing there except a smear of leaves SPENT BREATH First Line: What colors are the fire? Brick, ruby SPENT LIGHT First Line: Summer solstice in alaska: light shone Last Line: And the dark released a few hostages SPOKESMAN First Line: My father, dead for two months when I had Last Line: He crumpled slowly in his seat and had %his heart attack again, and I was right SPRING SNOW Poem Text First Line: Here comes the powdered milk I drank Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Transience; Death; Impermanence; Dead, The STORY OFTEN TOLD IN BARS: THE READER'S DIGEST VERSION First Line: First I was born and it was tough on mom Last Line: The life that matter's not the one I've led Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders; Popular Culture - United States STRAIGHT LIFE First Line: There's grit in the road, and pumice STRANGE KNEES Poem Text First Line: It's one of the ways you see Subject(s): Knees; Self STUBBLE First Line: Any art has its turpitudes: some days SUDDENLY First Line: The truth is out, and nothing Last Line: Through snowy fields %on melting legs SUNDAY ALONE IN A FIFTH FLOOR APARTMENT, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Poem Text First Line: The globe at the door, a jaunt Subject(s): Solitude; Loneliness SYMPATHETIC First Line: In throne of blood, when they come to kill Last Line: By the fog and the pines, and didn't %recognize ourselves, until too late, as killers TAKING THE TRAIN HOME Poem Text First Line: Dusk grew on the window. Subject(s): Railways; Homecoming; Family Life; Fathers; Death; Relatives; Dead, The TALK Poem Text First Line: The body is never silent. Aristotle said that we can't hear the music Subject(s): Talk TALK First Line: The body is never silent. Aristotle said that we can't hear the music Last Line: Same way blood sounds at your ear. It is saying ssshhh, now that we, %at last, are silent Subject(s): Talk TALKING TO THE MOON Poem Text First Line: A defeated politician is in circulation Subject(s): Language; Moon; Words; Vocabulary TARDY First Line: There's so little of swift time, and what time Last Line: I did. That's why I'm late. That's why I'm late TELEGRAM FROM THE MUSE First Line: Caro those last few poems are dynamite Last Line: Of herring in fluorescent light stop do %nothing till you hear from me stop TEMPO ROOM First Line: The jukebox blared a whiter shade of pale Last Line: Night be done, and soon, and out of sight THE ACCOMPANIST Poem Text First Line: Don't play too much, don't play Subject(s): Music & Musicians THE BEAR AT THE DUMP Poem Text First Line: Amidst the too much that we buy and throw Subject(s): Nature THE BLUE NAP Poem Text First Line: I slept like a stone, or like that vast Subject(s): Sleep THE BLUES Poem Text First Line: What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet Subject(s): Blues (music) THE BUDDY BOLDEN CYLINDER Poem Text First Line: It doesn't exist, I know, but I love Subject(s): Bolden, Buddy (1877-1931); Jazz; Music & Musicians THE CLOISTER Poem Text First Line: The last light of a july evening drained Subject(s): Farewell; Love; Parting THE EXPLORER Poem Text First Line: Across such distance the bellowing of the elks sag like a dowser's Subject(s): Conduct Of Life THE HUMMER Poem Text First Line: First he drew a strike zone Subject(s): Baseball; Sports THE ICEHOUSE, POINTE AU BARIL, ONTARIO Poem Text First Line: Each vast block in its batter Subject(s): Ice Houses THE MAIL Poem Text First Line: The star route man downshifts Subject(s): Postal Service; Postmen; Post Office; Mail; Mailmen THE NEWS Poem Text First Line: From each house on the street Subject(s): News; Neigbors THE PARTY Poem Text First Line: I don't care if nobody Subject(s): Children; Childhood THE PENALTY FOR BIGAMY IS TWO WIVES Poem Text First Line: I don't understand how janis joplin did it, how she made her voice Subject(s): Joplin, Janis (1943-1970); Music, Rock; Rock & Roll THE RENTED HOUSE IN MAINE Poem Text First Line: At dawn, the liquid clatter of rain Subject(s): Nature THE ROOKERY AT HAWTHORNDEN Poem Text First Line: Along this path ben johnson rode to visit Subject(s): Drummond, William (1585-1649); Poetry & Poets; Drummond Of Hawthornden, William THE SCALPEL Poem Text First Line: They'd stunned me groggy with demerol and bland Subject(s): Surgery THE SEARCH PARTY Poem Text First Line: I wondered if the others felt Subject(s): Children - Lost THE SNAKE Poem Text First Line: A snake is the love of a thumb Subject(s): Snakes; Serpents; Vipers THE TIME OF OUR LIVES Poem Text First Line: Not sated first, then sad (the two words branch Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary THE TIMES Poem Text First Line: The news? I crumpled all of it that fit Variant Title(s): Smoke Subject(s): New York Times (newspaper) THE VISIONARY PICNIC Poem Text First Line: These memories of what Subject(s): Conduct Of Life THE WASTE CARPET Poem Text First Line: No day is right for the apocalypse, Subject(s): Social Commentaries THEME OF THE THREE CASKETS First Line: One gold, one silver, one lead: who thinks Last Line: Sexual, vivid, tender and harsh, a riot %of mixed feelings, and able to choose THINKING ABOUT THINKING First Line: The purpose of art is to save us from truth Last Line: And this time, for once, she agrees THIS SPUD'S FOR YOU First Line: Of solanum tuberosum, that vagrant vegetable Subject(s): Food Habits; Potatoes THIS SPUD'S FOR YOU First Line: Of solanum tuberosum, that vagrant vegetable Last Line: We can lift our voices. All together now Subject(s): Food Habits; Potatoes THREE VACATIONS First Line: We sat in the courtyard TIME Poem Text First Line: There are places things go to be forgot Subject(s): Memory TIME First Line: There are places things go to be forgot Last Line: We need somebody to remember us TIME OF OUR LIVES First Line: Not sated first, then sad (the two words branch Last Line: Moonlight, thinking how we need to use time %twice, need all leisure and all industry TIMES First Line: The news? I crumpled all of it that fit Variant Title(s): Smok Subject(s): New York Times (newspaper) TOASTS TO THE RENTED HOUSE IN POLGETO First Line: Here's to the leafy gossip of the poplars TORCH SONG First Line: From its shifting skin the bay had erased in turn TORCH SONG First Line: From its blue, corrugated skin the bay TOUR OF THE GARDENS First Line: The villa itself is private, the guidebook Last Line: Heart of all the very arrogance %you've come so far, and paid so much, to see TREES IN HAROLD BAUMBACH'S PAINTINGS First Line: I'm blue,' you might say, and I'd know what you mean Last Line: Might have said, 'my love is a tall, pale fire' TRUFFLE PIGS Poem Text First Line: None of these men, who all run truffle pigs Subject(s): Pigs; Truffles; Boars; Hogs TRUFFLE PIGS First Line: None of these men, who all run truffle pigs Last Line: Have learned to know them and to root them out TWINS First Line: When I was eleven and they UMBRIAN NIGHTFALL First Line: The stench-rich stones dogs parse all day will reek Last Line: (three?), like raddled islands, bark UNRELENTING FLOOD Poem Text First Line: Black key. White key. No Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Tatum, Art (1910-1956) UNRELENTING FLOOD First Line: Black key. White key. No Last Line: Tethering us all to our star Subject(s): Jazz; Music And Musicians; Tatum, Art (1910-1956) VA, PENSIERO First Line: When verdi lay dying, the milanese Last Line: Thought goes, and like a falcon thought comes home VASECTOMY First Line: After the vas deferens is cut, the constantly VERMIN First Line: What do you want to be when you grow up?' Last Line: Blander than snow and slow to be cruel VISITING HOURS Poem Text First Line: A cat came round the shed Subject(s): Love; Reality VISITING HOURS First Line: A cat came round the shed Last Line: When I went back because we'd not been there, %and then my time was up WAKING AT DUSK FROM A NAP Poem Text First Line: In the years that pass through Subject(s): Dreams; Nightmares WATCH THIS SPACE First Line: Their entrees had arrived, his date had lolled Last Line: To say, you realize. And now you don't WE SHALL ALL BE BORN AGAIN BUT WE SHALL NOT ALL BE SAVED First Line: We're going,' the paramedics said Last Line: My heart will push me along like a good %rhythm section. I plan to notice everything WELL, YOU NEEDN'T Poem Text First Line: Rather than hold his hands properly Subject(s): Monk, Thelonious (1917-1982); Mujsic Teachers; Pianos WELL, YOU NEEDN'T First Line: Rather than hold his hand properly Last Line: Not yet ready to replace us, %or escape us, if that be the work WHAT A LITTLE MOONLIGHT CAN DO Poem Text First Line: It's spring. Lilacs and gin tinge the humid air Subject(s): Spring WHAT A LITTLE MOONLIGHT CAN DO First Line: It's spring. Lilacs and gin tinge the humid air WHIPLASH First Line: That month he was broke Last Line: Strictly speaking, but a force %that water welcomes and displays WHY SUPERBOY LEFT First Line: Nowhere in all of smallville could antihistamines be bought Last Line: What's ailing him and why he's not been back: he's ashamed WHY WE ARE TRULY A NATION Poem Text First Line: Because we rage inside Subject(s): Kent State University - Riot, 1970 WHY WE ARE TRULY A NATION First Line: Because we rage inside Last Line: Like the locked antlers of moose %who die on their knees in pairs Subject(s): Kent State University - Riot, 1970 WHY WE ARE TRULY A NATION First Line: Because we rage inside Last Line: Who die on their knees in pairs Subject(s): Americans; United States WILLOW, WEEP FOR ME First Line: Same idea as 'cry me a river,' Last Line: Broken heart of nature to music WOLF OF GUBBIO First Line: Not the walls of the furled city Last Line: And to lay a piazza atop the town %and to raise above it a tower WORM SONNET First Line: Men are worms, she said and squiggled with her middle WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE First Line: Blowsy geraniums, clay pots stained here WRONG First Line: There's some wrong that can't be salved Last Line: And who is by himself except in error? |
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