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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: PRUNTY, WYATT Matches Found: 193 Prunty, Wyatt Poet's Biography 193 poems available by this author 1957 First Line: That place where word breaks off into a call A BASEBALL TEAM OF UNKNOWN NAVY PILOTS, PACIFIC THEATER, 1944 Poem Text First Line: Assigned a week's good bunt, run, throw Subject(s): Baseball; World War Ii; Aviation & Aviators; Second World War; Airplanes; Air Pilots A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN GEORGIA. 1953 Poem Text First Line: Marching through georgia to bed, he stopped, listened, Subject(s): Georgia (state); Christmas; Family Life; Childhood Memories; Nativity, The; Relatives A NOTE OF THANKS Poem Text First Line: Wallet stolen, so we must end our stay Subject(s): Literary Form A WRITER'S TALE Poem Text First Line: Silent and small in your wet sleep Variant Title(s): A Winter's Tale Subject(s): Literary Form ACTUARIAL WIFE First Line: About their chances for divorce Last Line: I'm going to live in paris.' ALBUMEN SILVER PRINT FROM GLASS NEGATIVE OUTSIDE CHICAGO STATION, 1887 First Line: Ghosts of the late victorians stare like belief Last Line: And every portrait well taken %take light again ANGEL AND THE BEAST First Line: Past side streets, cars, and dogs that hesitate Last Line: He follows, between the one who tells him slow %and the other who says now ANNALS OF JACK First Line: Because jack was small the world had to be large Last Line: And all the dim gold of a lifetime ASH: 9/11 First Line: The light shifts earlier these days Last Line: Symbol, this alloyed light, this unfamiliar view BAND DAY First Line: Zinnias lean; mums fade, buckle Last Line: To where the faint notes echo, fade, go on BASEBALL Poem Text First Line: About the time I got my first baseman's mitt Subject(s): Baseball; Wit & Humor; Dean, Dizzy (1910-1974); Kisses BASEBALL First Line: About the time I got my first baseman's mitt Last Line: I sometimes think, therefore I sometimes am.' BASEBALL TEAM OF UNKNOWN NAVY PILOTS, PACIFIC THEATER, 1944 First Line: Assigned a week's good bunt, run, throw Last Line: Went up when told, came home or not BED First Line: The first one lasted thirteen years BIG DOG, LITTLE DOG Poem Text First Line: The one two times the other's size Subject(s): Dogs; Size & Shape; Food & Eating; Height BLACK WATER First Line: A fly on black water stands Last Line: Light as the maple's paired wings and seeds BLOOD Poem Text First Line: Known for its repertory lineages Subject(s): Blood; Religion; Theology BLOOD First Line: Known for its repertory lineages Last Line: Blood surfaces our dust, and something more, %the potent changing earth of us Subject(s): Blood; Religion BLUE UMBRELLA First Line: This is ot about the barrenness of winter BOOKS First Line: Behind what they said, he always thought that they Last Line: So when you walk here, you have traveled there.' BOX OF LEAVES First Line: Collected from childhood's high october Last Line: Not as themselves but as their others CALIGULA IN BLUE First Line: What I have to tell you is the rain Last Line: Why does the parrot shirt laugh blue when I weep fire? CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN GEORGIA, 1953 First Line: Marching through georgia to bed, he stopped, listened Last Line: You read out of the names of those missing CIRCLE ROUTE First Line: Return is what a thaw smells like CITY LIBRARY First Line: By day you will replace nothing, neither Last Line: And, scratching the slates, you replace nothing COACH First Line: All trucks were from hell and deserved my bite Last Line: Which the last one got, till I never let go COLD First Line: Another front, sleet, snow, and the feeder Last Line: Something had gone that I wished beyond reason COLD WATERCOLOR Poem Text First Line: We saw the birds jockeying for the feeder Subject(s): Snow; Landscape COUSINS, BROTHERS, SISTERS First Line: When I was five and said I'd seen an angel Last Line: As the others too took their darkened beds %and the house unfolded upward from us all COVINED BIRD First Line: The story told was how, before Last Line: Like a fear born long before its name Variant Title(s): The Convined Bir CROSSWORDS First Line: Devoted to the compost pile Last Line: Saying, 'the only thing you loved was change.' CROWS First Line: There were the cautionary crows Last Line: That only meant the sun, now that the crows were done DANTINI First Line: Inflated clown pajamas and a nose Last Line: Walking out, eyes forward for the other side DEPRESSION, THE WAR, AND GYPSY ROSE LEE First Line: In a photograph now left to me Last Line: Dropping away %through what you see DISTANCE INTO PLACE First Line: Dolls in gallery along her walls Last Line: That thought in turn a distance we contrive DISTANCES First Line: Six horses painted red and blue are anchored Last Line: They would not answer. When the light sinks, %nothing will change. And the horses will lunge DOG, DOG, OBJECT, OBJECT First Line: Head lowered to his snuffling Last Line: Just one believing so DOING THE NUMBERS First Line: She if five, but they will not add DOMESTIC OF THE OUTER BANKS First Line: For days the house is dark and slightly cold Last Line: That will not unfold or give release DOWNTOWN BUS First Line: Out through the neighborhood with nothing more Last Line: Drove all the late fall light from sight that way DR. WILLIAMS' GARDEN First Line: A city, a mountain, a river Last Line: Beside which good balance is belief DRIVING OUT First Line: Some roads never pass beneath you EFFERVESCENT MRS. G First Line: Retainer of the bridge club win and loss Last Line: Scratched, filling one lung, then another ELBOW TREE First Line: A sapling bent and tied to point the way Last Line: In blinding freedom from the tree that was %in one thing deprived and in another made Subject(s): Nature ELDERLY LADY CROSSING ON GREEN Poem Text First Line: And give her no scouts doing their one good deed Subject(s): Literary Form ELDERLY LADY CROSSING ON GREEN First Line: And give her no scouts doing their one good deed Last Line: Of her own sustaining notion that she's doing well Subject(s): Literary Form EXTRAVAGANT LOVE Poem Text First Line: Irritated and sometimes utterly through Subject(s): Love EXTRAVAGANT LOVE First Line: Irritated and sometimes utterly through Last Line: Over the dead foliage of who we are Subject(s): Love EYEING THE WORLD First Line: Furtive the hedgerow cat Last Line: At death's fanning ocean %of light and hunger FALL First Line: As if any army rose out of one grave Last Line: Goes bluely as before, itself and nothing more Subject(s): Autumn; Seasons FALLING THROUGH THE ICE First Line: This, one of our oldest tales Last Line: A riddle, a story, a children's game FAMILY ACT First Line: The big top billowing Last Line: Who move them most to stay FAMILY PORTRAIT FOR OUR DAUGHTER First Line: All night the nurses let me listen Last Line: You cry full of a shower's present tense FEAR First Line: It is a rain that never stops FERRIS WHEEL First Line: The rounding steeps and jostles were one thing Last Line: That proved them free Subject(s): Literary Form FIELD TRIP First Line: Believing what the mind contained FIREFLIES First Line: Too many for a child who stumbles FLORENCE First Line: The weather hot, you held ice FLYING AT NIGHT First Line: Each city is a solitary reef Last Line: There is that joke...Which only gets %its laughter in daylight and on the ground FLYING AT NIGHT First Line: Each city is a solitary reef Last Line: Under which we go, plying our lost and found FOLIAGE TOUR First Line: We climb, the changes changing rapidly Last Line: We rode to see, all colors one, leaves and a leaf, %shadow and belief FOR DON, WHO SLEPT THROUGH THE WAR First Line: When I was young, waking my uncle FOREST FIRE First Line: Set loose on the hills to tramp all night Last Line: Are bright with foliage eating from its branch FORMAL POETRY First Line: Poetry is like a loom that weaves many things together in a subtle Last Line: Creates many more possibilities and complexities and textures FOUR WINTER FLIES First Line: Lost and stumbling across the window Last Line: Once proved the brief ellipsis of four late flies FROM INSIDE First Line: I am an ophthalmologist FUNERALS First Line: You'd think we'd have them down by now Last Line: We mind the light and skip the epitaph GEOGRAPHY First Line: Earth writing, like a hieroglyph GETTING MY SON TO SLEEP First Line: Crying because kept up too late GNOSTIC AT THE ZOO First Line: Fat and bored, pedestrian Last Line: The green shade only moves one way GOD DOLL First Line: Up in the corner where you've put her Last Line: Of a world lighter than the things it holds GOLDEN First Line: Over their piggy banks and good-luck charms Last Line: Now that the future's finally paying out GOOD BUSES First Line: No longer son but father now GOOD-BYE First Line: Whatever we are, we're torn like strips Last Line: Which kills and loves us like a starving mother GREAT THOUGHTS AND NOBLE FEELINGS First Line: A storm, and our window frames the ocean Last Line: Periphery teaches our narrow passage GROWN MEN AT TOUCH First Line: Of the barn's shadow we declared our field Last Line: By which you don't see and you never quit HAND-ME-DOWN First Line: His father's clothes embarrass him Last Line: Broken by what reaches his hand HAYING Poem Text First Line: They are gathering hay. The truck rolls slowly Subject(s): Nature HAYING First Line: They are gathering hay. The truck rolls slowly Last Line: Like a breath inhaled and held %so long that light turns colors Subject(s): Nature HOME First Line: It is a place you've never been HOMESICKNESS First Line: What is it lost by one who leaves HUSBAND First Line: Grief is this quiet room we shared Last Line: But your taking what I gave INSOMNIA Poem Text First Line: Count the number of times boards crack Subject(s): Literary Form INSOMNIA First Line: Count the number of times boards crack Last Line: Without forcing it, works patiently Subject(s): Literary Form INVENTOR First Line: You had to have power, he knew that Last Line: Like so many other things these days, %to be built en masse,and with no reverse KITE First Line: Away from playground games and fights Last Line: Of letting go and holding on at once LAKE HOUSE First Line: They water-ski over whitecaps Last Line: Reflecting upward in a thousand pieces LAST CENTURY Poem Text First Line: Last century we took a lot of shots Subject(s): United States - History LAST DAYS First Line: Late light across a side porch where Last Line: That drops where now they touch and hesitate Variant Title(s): Late Day LATE FALL, LATE LIGHT Poem Text First Line: As if any army rose out of one grave LATE FALL, LATE LIGHT First Line: As if an army rose out of one grave Last Line: Its thousand changes burning into one LEAN AND THE FAT First Line: Inflated like a clown's balloon LEARNING THE BICYCLE Poem Text First Line: The older children pedal past Subject(s): Bicycles; Children; Cycling; Childhood LEARNING THE BICYCLE First Line: The older children pedal past Last Line: And when she learned I had to let her go LETTER First Line: Today the water whitens over rocks Last Line: As though one force, and always green, retained their seed LETTER FOR THE END First Line: Who would want to become his admirers? Last Line: Knowing this, for years he wrote his letter LIVING ALONE First Line: More avenues than she can follow LOCALS AND OTHERS First Line: Jack benny tells another joke MARCH First Line: Seeing the march rain flood a field Last Line: Who we were, what we ever said or did MEMORIAL DAY First Line: From shade to shade our neighbor mows Last Line: Who sews brief shadows, and in shadow rests MINIMAL NUMBERS First Line: Till after thirty years Last Line: Till more meant less, %and aught spilled naught MISS AMERICA First Line: It's katzenjammer, and she knows it MISS LUCY First Line: First day each fall she lectured Last Line: Scotoma.' did they know what that word meant? MOLE Poem Text Subject(s): Moles MOLE First Line: For weeks he's tunneled his intricate need Last Line: Rich air with the imperative poise of now MOLE First Line: Yesterday he tunneled his way MONUMENT First Line: Standing apart yet oddly sequential Last Line: Not seeing the symbol but the view MOTHER AND SPRING First Line: Like our children after halloween NAME First Line: With an easiness we almost learn Last Line: And that what it brought and took away were the same NAMESAKE First Line: A sister on the way, I was farmed Last Line: Resumes arterial calm, reflecting NEW TERRITORY First Line: Taking a walk on her first retirement day Last Line: As she turned a different way for home NIGHT WIND First Line: The wind has huge plans; it has absorbed the land Last Line: It says, 'once I was everywhere and leaving' NINETEENTH HOLE First Line: Now all the balls your daddy hit Last Line: Of our lives we understand? NOTE OF THANKS First Line: Wallet stolen, so we must end our stay Last Line: I thought I ought to jot a note of thanks.' Subject(s): Literary Form OFFSET First Line: Some miles beyond the last reef's barricade Last Line: To get things right, though seeming to know, %really off course a bit, but more promising so Subject(s): Nature OH GENERAL, OH SPY, OH BUREAUCRAT! Poem Text First Line: Trained in tactics, war games, cold war, cold feet, Subject(s): Eisenhower, Dwight David (1890-1969) OH GENERAL, OH SPY, OH BUREAUCRAT! First Line: Trained in tactics, war games, cold war, cold feet Last Line: That ended derailed, deserted, and sometimes missed OLD CADETS First Line: Years later what they talked about was Last Line: An old man's fear of height and hope for altitude OLD DECLARATIVES First Line: No calculation holds the miles endured Last Line: And step together, step darkly red together ONLY CHILD First Line: I know nothing is ever the same ORPHEUS First Line: He gnaws an emptiness OUR NEIGHBOR First Line: In the kitchen the toaster pops OUR TREE OF OPPOSITES First Line: I watch you where the wren will wake Last Line: The wren will wake and each of us will sing PARKS First Line: And rode four days to find a place called his Last Line: Yet leaving, and constantly pressing, like desire PARTY First Line: I follow everything I hear PLAYER PIANO First Line: Learning from a player piano Last Line: Thought made mechanical, not grand but upright Subject(s): Musical Instruments; Pianos PLAYING BY EAR First Line: Plunking the keys until sent out Last Line: Is reason enough to make things hide POEM First Line: Gnarled avenues the years have mapped Last Line: Restores the clear pool's cold suspended will PYROMANIAC First Line: A one-story disheartening Last Line: As air shafts roar and windows amplify %how high my hungry bright will bite the sky RAZED HOUSE First Line: Take the steep stairs up to where the rafters meet Last Line: And you're a quiet sentence, a harbored thought READING BEFORE WE READ, HOROSCOPE AND WEATHER Poem Text First Line: My father laughing over the morning paper Subject(s): Literary Form READING BEFORE WE READ, HOROSCOPE AND WEATHER First Line: My father laughing over the morning paper Last Line: But as the weather comes, fresh and ignorant of change Subject(s): Literary Form RECALLING SUMMERS First Line: Towhead, stubbed toe, the stubble ground RECOVERY First Line: That elbow with its pinpoint bruise Last Line: As though called back we hollow how we go RETIREMENT CATALOGUE First Line: Brass telescopes with halley on Last Line: The last page turns, the birds cry thief RIO First Line: This down by which we go runs like Last Line: But one by one so many lifting up ROOMS WITHOUT WALLS First Line: Late sunlight breaking into the room Last Line: Echoing the stillness that we are SAYING IT BACK First Line: One afternoon you step outside Last Line: Till you had said your way back through the woods SEASONS First Line: At tennis, a missed shot meant he had ms Last Line: Climbing the whole house rigidly from sight SEQUENCE First Line: Sang off-key so mouthed the words Last Line: Laughing on the wrong side all the way home SHORTWAVE RADIO First Line: Unboxed on my seventh birthday SINCE THE NOON MAIL STOPPED First Line: Once upon a time, when the clocks were slow Last Line: Unchanging where the noon mail stops SISTERS First Line: They are walking home in tight bunches Last Line: Mother west wind, mother earth SLEEP First Line: Another nomenclature SNEEZE First Line: The first day sleet, the second ice Last Line: Somewhere a small foot scuffs leaves. Goes on SORROWS OF LESTER BUSTER First Line: First there were the trips, the cars, then girls Last Line: I think a little sooner's always better.' STARLINGS First Line: Not what they were but how they moved STICK BUILDER First Line: Hammer, nail, and board I go, pounding Last Line: Who built by touch so like touch he was near STILLNESS First Line: Returning to the spent house it emptiness Last Line: All we ever loved and drove into place TAKING DOWN Last Line: Or finding in the air's subtractive touch %that each was thirsty and completely recognized Subject(s): Christmas Trees; Religion TAXI DANCE, MONTANA 1937 First Line: Cheek-to-cheek, look away, look away Last Line: Two-step, into the gap between the end %of one dance and the ticket for another TENT First Line: Too serious above his opened book Last Line: Walked back in decided he would stay TERRARIUM FOR A GODSON Poem Text First Line: Finished and set in a window for light Subject(s): Terrariums TERRARIUM FOR A GODSON First Line: Finished and set in a window for light Last Line: New yet complete in the seal of our knowing THAUMATROPE Poem Text First Line: And sometimes there's this parlor trick Subject(s): Toys THAUMATROPE First Line: And sometimes there's this parlor trick Last Line: Was neither signature nor side THE ELBOW TREE Poem Text First Line: A sapling bent and tied to point the way Subject(s): Nature THE FERRIS WHEEL Poem Text First Line: The rounding steeps and jostles were one thing Subject(s): Literary Form THE MONUMENT Poem Text First Line: Standing apart yet oddly sequential Subject(s): Elevators; Crowds THE OFFSET Poem Text First Line: Some miles beyond the last reef's barricade Subject(s): Nature THE PLAYER PIANO Poem Text First Line: Learning from a player piano Subject(s): Musical Instruments; Pianos THE TAKING DOWN Poem Text First Line: Ever since the seriously ill were sent away, Subject(s): Christmas Trees; Religion; Theology THIS First Line: Gust blustering, and the march rain Last Line: Its hammering hiss, saying, this, this, this TIME'S TRAIN Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: So in this tale he gets to come back Subject(s): Future Life; Retribution; Eternity; After Life TIMES BETWEEN First Line: The severe dancer poised before her mirror Last Line: Waving you towards the amplifying shore TO BE SUNG ON THE FOURTH OF JULY Poem Text First Line: We come to this country Subject(s): Fourth Of July; United States; Songs; Independence Day; America TO BE SUNG ON THE FOURTH OF JULY First Line: We come to this country %by every roundabout Last Line: Because well-being needs a grief %to make the feeling last Subject(s): Literary Form; Loss; Moving And Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration TO ED, WITH ALZHEIMER'S First Line: The little comedies came first TO MY FATHER First Line: No cartography could get you here TOWARDS A RELATIVE ENDING First Line: Uninterrupted days occasion us Last Line: Clouds passing miles overhead TWO KINDS OF CAUSE First Line: Heaviest snow in years Last Line: The spectrum drawn back into white TWO VIEWS Poem Text First Line: Into the laterals and faults of strata Subject(s): Survival; Progress; Past; Birds VEGETABLE GARDEN First Line: Needled by death for change, for simple change Last Line: Into the gathering grasp of something lost VIREO First Line: Finding the egg along our drive WAITING FOR OUR SECOND CHILD First Line: Out back, leaves spiral WAKE First Line: In newbern tennessee he lies awake Last Line: Filled like a family's hard-breathing sleep %that, cooling, moves from room to room WALLACE STEVENS REMEMBERS HALLOWEEN Poem Text First Line: The thing I loved was halloween Subject(s): Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955) WALLACE STEVENS REMEMBERS HALLOWEEN First Line: The thing I loved was halloween Last Line: And kinglets, come to the comic feeder Subject(s): Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955) WATER First Line: How can we own a thing that travels Last Line: A story told, %this time about water WATER SLIDE ALONG THE BEACH First Line: It is someone's mimicry, the clockworks Last Line: Magnified, topping their horizons WEDDING STOP First Line: The walls were thin, and when he left Last Line: Through its blue exhaust. And still she was glad WHAT DOESN'T GO AWAY First Line: His heart was like a butterfly WHEN SORRY'S NOT ENOUGH WIDOW'S HALLOWEEN First Line: The pumpkin's hollow head returns her gaze Last Line: And will not pass near him WILD HORSES First Line: The horses imagined by a boy Last Line: Alone and looking out, flexed but agile WILD OTHERS First Line: Once capable of swimming the mile WINDOW WASHER First Line: The daily way for looking is inside Last Line: Till he has washed and dried the air %of nowhere Variant Title(s): The Window-washe WRITER'S TALE First Line: Silent and small in your wet sleep Last Line: My father dead and you returned Variant Title(s): A Winter's Tal Subject(s): Literary Form YES Poem Text First Line: Always to see the world made whole Subject(s): Change YES First Line: Always to see the world made whole Last Line: Say yes to the candle stain's watery light Subject(s): Change ZAMBONI'S LAW Poem Text First Line: Shave, water, scrub, and sweep the rink Subject(s): Hockey ZAMBONI'S LAW First Line: Shave, water, scrub, and sweep the rink Last Line: To save zamboni's law from how zamboni sweeps |
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