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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: RIVARD, DAVID Matches Found: 133 Rivard, David Poet's Biography 133 poems available by this author 1966 First Line: Innocence? Soon as you try putting your finger on it Last Line: Soon it does, soon %the fragrant and careless light streams in 30-JAN-94 First Line: What is man that thou art mindful of him? Last Line: He could talk a dog off a meat wagon, you bet AFTER First Line: After the motorcycle lunged, past the intersection AGAINST GRAVITY First Line: Blue sky, ungated, clouds, & on a sand-pitted Last Line: Of gravity, & now we were to take his place AGAINST RECOVERY First Line: It's true, my expectations did Last Line: At the corner of your mouth. Your mouth %was always naked AMERICA First Line: If it is late sunday in the brain & sunlight Last Line: If you want to breathe, %my beautiful broom AMERICA SPEAKING Poem Text Subject(s): Speech; Immigrants; United States; Oratory; Orators; Emigrant; Emigration; Immigration; America AND CONTINUING First Line: In his eyes & hands, brash assurance Last Line: Even if eventually doomed ANGER First Line: For a long time it would happen whenever Last Line: I thought I hated ANY WHERE OUT OF THE WORLD First Line: And then there are places Last Line: While someone sharpens a blade ARIADNE First Line: You, of the voice always teasing & throaty in asking ARRIVAL SONG First Line: Here I am - on the eve of overtaking my thirty-third year BABY VALLEJO First Line: Take the night myron stout shut his sure blind eyes Last Line: Rivard against rivard Subject(s): Jazz; Music And Musicians BENEFIT First Line: Outside, snow on all %the bronzework & georgian museum cornices, inside Last Line: With a frozen old oak leaf %impaled at its tip BEWITCHED PLAYGROUND Poem Text First Line: Each could picture probably Subject(s): Daughters; Youth BEWITCHED PLAYGROUND First Line: Each could picture probably Last Line: Blond & blonder dear river BIG MOOD SWING First Line: For the last few weeks I haven't refused any Last Line: Waved their hands BIRTHMARK First Line: Under orders not exactly Last Line: From our daughter's neck - %(amulet! C'E UN'ALTRA POSSIBILITA First Line: I refuse to accept Last Line: Finally, how useless wisdom %is, &save itself %by being reborn CHANGE MY EVIL WAYS First Line: Some days it is my one wish to live Last Line: And -- a little %cautious at first -- I began to listen CLARITY? First Line: So long as the self accuses itself Last Line: Something or someone to serve CONSOLATION First Line: There is none. And this means today Last Line: I have to listen - like a heartbeat after an accident, %racing, racing Subject(s): Music, Rock CURES Poem Text First Line: The part of the soul that doubts, again and again Subject(s): Music, Rock; Rock & Roll CURES First Line: The part of the soul that doubts, again and again Last Line: Like stardom %in america, or now this silence between songs Subject(s): Music, Rock CURIOUS FORCES First Line: The party spills outside, & for a short time, overhead Last Line: Sometimes I have wished to be %ink, black on white, & flung DAYDREAM First Line: Wishes need %people Last Line: Of all those his father sent him %while alive DEBT First Line: Dignity exists I'm sure Last Line: Abandons it to the waves DOCUDRAMA First Line: Finally, the night did Last Line: Can I be loved enough? That's my story DOCUMENT PROCESSING First Line: Not the chilean debt restructuring Last Line: You know the ones DOUBLE INDEMNITY First Line: All day the rain DREAM First Line: The thing is, it %so happened (trust me it's true)- Last Line: With any %of the beautiful few %the gods call shoppers EARTH TO TELL OF THE BEASTS First Line: Because it's summer a trellis of gulf air curves over the day Last Line: To tell of the beasts & their escape EMERGENCY EXIT First Line: We are only being human on a monday afternoon Last Line: Who are you? Where do you live? ENEMIES OF ENORMITY Poem Text First Line: And thanks to a polymer the chemists jimmied-up in bern Subject(s): Prostheses; Legs; Cosmetics; Conduct Of Life FADO First Line: At some point in our lives, let's say someplace Last Line: Do the same %for you FALL RIVER Poem Text Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Basketball; Family Life; Anger; Relatives FALL RIVER First Line: When I wake now it's below ocherous, saw-ridged Last Line: While the wall above me claims now %nothing has changed & all is different FAST LONG TIME First Line: He'd always be glancing around FAVORED First Line: In the dream that repeats as certain Last Line: Someone dares to tell our story FIRESTONE First Line: Who would want to die defending firestone tire FOR MICHAELA First Line: After this graveyard shift, the escape I want FOREHEAD Poem Text First Line: I love you Subject(s): Foreheads; Love FRIEND First Line: I can continue breathing, while you cannot Last Line: With your permission, of course GOD THE BROKEN LOCK Poem Text First Line: I've died enough by now I trust Subject(s): God; Jesus Christ; Sin; Singing & Singers; Songs GOD THE BROKEN LOCK First Line: I've died enough by now I trust Last Line: Though I couldn't know it then GOING Poem Text First Line: Sunlight fades / the storefront full of magazines. Subject(s): Magazines GOING First Line: Sunlight fades Last Line: Is to be a visitor to this life GOLDEN YEAR First Line: We believe in so much too Last Line: And it begins. A new year. Don't rest, river GUESTS OF THE WEDDING First Line: Does it ever end? Sure, hard to say where tho, & naturally Last Line: The many things men & women wish to be? HECATOMBIC BLUES First Line: Sounds, like, really loud down there, doesn't it' HELLO, TRAVELER First Line: Bitter sadness splits each person Last Line: Forgives those arrows %so easily HOME First Line: Forced to say what living feels like Last Line: Lo & behold, lo & behold HOPE First Line: Hey hey, if I Last Line: Gods, hard & jealous gods? HOW IT WILL ALWAYS SEEM First Line: Last night in fall river in lafayette park Last Line: While the day, swallow-delighting, already %humid, shimmers like a smudged, heavy coin HUSH & TAUNT First Line: There %the story starts & ends, he & the woman Last Line: It will always outlast the past & wanting %only I AM A PILGRIM & A STRANGER First Line: In the one small clearing Last Line: I have not let go of & only loved INROAD Poem Text First Line: The radiance that is always around us is incited Subject(s): Baseball IT Poem Text IT COULD BE First Line: The same stale wind Last Line: A band-aid wrapper JIHAD First Line: I love the drops of rain that stammer down the fire escape Last Line: Help me. I know you, & some silence has been broken JUDGES IN US ALL First Line: Whenever we stop talking on the phone tonight JUNG First Line: Sitting down at age eighty-one to record his life Last Line: Blows from, the names of which are only names KIDNAPPING, SOME MOOK MIGHT SAY First Line: Of that day in the museum Last Line: The names mondale & ferraro LATE First Line: Sometimes everything feels like a trick LATE? Poem Text First Line: Sometimes everything feels like a trick Subject(s): Loss LATER HISTORY First Line: No, it isn't so bad being Last Line: But sorrow, sorrow will be unchanged. %so that we may recognize each other LEAVING THE GATEWAY CINEMA First Line: While my wife & I watched the movie it rained outside LIES First Line: I'm not surprised LIKE AN ENORMOUS YES First Line: Even if there's no good day to die LITTLE WING First Line: Of all the questions Last Line: Protected %by everyone else's LUCKY SLAVES First Line: In the city, meanwhile Last Line: Be turned %to ash MASKS First Line: If tonight tells me to make my first & last choice MERCY, MERCY First Line: No denying all the tenements & precincts Last Line: Will always feed them MICHAEL MAZUR Poem Text First Line: Did you really Subject(s): Mazur, Michael (1935-2009); Paintings & Painters MISSION First Line: Look, I'm like everyone else MY CLIFF First Line: My cliff, my cliffside, my oceanside cliff Last Line: I cannot get over alone MY EDUCATION ON EARTH First Line: It's not snowing but it snows Last Line: Steam, I say, smarten up - %get over it NAIVE INVOCATION First Line: We weave up a switchback gully & out to sloping pasture Last Line: Belly & nipples breaking into warm sand NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT First Line: Spending her days oh yeah waking in my head Last Line: I could change her life forever NIGHTLY First Line: Nightly in sleep those usually Last Line: I would be as cruel as they are NOT GUILTY Poem Text First Line: The days are dog-eared, the edges torn, Subject(s): Johnson, Robert (1913-1938); Music & Musicians; Vallejo, Cesar (1892-1917); Poetry & Poets NOT GUILTY First Line: The days are dog-eared, the edges torn Last Line: Split open by a meat cleaver NOTE TO MYSELF Poem Text First Line: Having survived self- / esteem (both low & high), like Subject(s): Self ONE DARKENING MOOD MADE OUT OF THREE MONTHS INTERMITTENTLY OVERHEARD First Line: A smell came over the street, lion-bright, %but sissified, somehow Last Line: No one catches fire by a treacherous boiler ONE REASON First Line: If early one winter morning ONE TOO MANY MORNINGS First Line: After working the midtown ambulance night slot Last Line: Ways to soften failure. And no one wrong or close %enough, no one as far as he is OTHERWISE ELSEWHERE Poem Text First Line: Somewhere over there the lawyer with a yellowish leaf in his hair; Subject(s): Human Behavior; Relationships; Social Commentaries; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature PARADISIAC First Line: Stammering across the ceiling that spider Last Line: I forgive him. As you forgive me PASTORAL ZONE First Line: As if all day a child had penciled & erased Last Line: And the other like a stalk, bending, bending PILGRIM LAKE / JOHN LOGAN First Line: Now you are just a wavering figure projected at no one's wall Last Line: A bit shy perhaps %but clearly amazed PLURAL HAPPINESS Poem Text First Line: A curtain bellying like a pregnant cloud, warm white Subject(s): Happiness; Joy; Delight QUESTION FOR THE BRIDE Poem Text First Line: Now that everything seems so persuasive Subject(s): Brides QUESTION FOR THE BRIDE First Line: Now that everything seems so persuasive Last Line: What answer can you give? QUESTION FOR THE MAGIC HOUR First Line: Out of pocket & just before dark Last Line: I plan to hug it & hide it from my neighbors QUESTION FOR THE STUDENT First Line: No rose deludes itself by thinking Last Line: Aren't those flowers lucky? Subject(s): Flowers; Roses QUESTIONS FOR A MARCH WHOSE FLAME IS ASCENSION First Line: It took no longer Last Line: To the tarmac, a day's heat QUESTIONS FOR THE OFFICE OF RECYCLING First Line: Do not, it said. Do not recycle any Last Line: Careful don't they, don't they, how far?' QUESTIONS FOR THE TEACHER First Line: A big jaw, george oppen, you had a big jaw Last Line: It cannot be understood, and I believe that fact is lethal.' ROAD OUT First Line: There's an infinity of choices Last Line: Let me, let me become, let me become the name of the road ou Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders SECURED TOWN First Line: I don't have to tell this SELF-PORTRAIT First Line: I live my life Last Line: Not to give the feeling a name SHY First Line: We even breathed shyly, envying everybody Last Line: Just a while longer SIMON SAYS First Line: At the end of a long dank trail cut by spring rains SOMETIMES First Line: If it is neither a day when our love SPEECH TO BE MADE BY X IN THE NEXT LIFE, WHENEVER HE GETS THE CHANCE First Line: That slapstick you saw me as Last Line: Dream us. Why?' STOWAWAYS Poem Text Subject(s): Ancestors & Ancestry; Immigrants; Conduct Of Life; Heritage; Heredity; Emigrant; Emigration; Immigration STRANGERS First Line: Women at rows of seamstress tables Last Line: And for a moment it was swallowed by fog, the tenacious %diffuse sky Subject(s): Industry; Labor And Laborers SUMMONS First Line: Suppose I can convince myself this Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social; Estrangement; Outcasts SUMMONS First Line: Suppose I can convince myself this Last Line: And skittering over one another's backs Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social TEMPTATION First Line: Tho we sit there smiling with wet hair Last Line: The only - trying to wait it out TEMPTATIONS First Line: Beyond, in a dusty lot THE MOON IN TIME LAPSE Poem Text First Line: The moon in time lapse sliding over skyline Subject(s): Moon; Time THERE First Line: Instead of the winter swallows, brown-gray THIN BONE & STRIPED FEATHERS First Line: Even if it were rock Last Line: Thin bone & striped feathers TO MY WIFE First Line: The bumper sticker says it out straight - 'vegetarians taste good.' Last Line: I am only a starving sacred cow, love, but I beg to undress for you TO THE GOD First Line: Eminence, blessed one - who always pretends TORQUE Poem Text First Line: After his ham & cheese in the drape factory cafeteria Subject(s): Industry; Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers TORQUE First Line: After his ham & cheese in the drape factory cafeteria Last Line: Through lace. As it always has, as it does. %that bright. That stunned Subject(s): Industry; Labor And Laborers VAPOR LOCK First Line: She leaves through the smoked-glass doors, the automatic VENICE OF THE NORTH First Line: For a while then I lived near the old VENICE OF THE NORTH First Line: I used to walk for two or three hours Last Line: Being memory, the punishment for all questions VERSACE First Line: Perfume off the pages of a magazine inexplicable Last Line: Whatever new fashion has taken him up - %fine, fine! VERSION TUCSON First Line: Above a cloud of stick-spears a stabbed ibis darts Last Line: And thinking myself lucky VOICE-OVER First Line: So I never got clearheaded Last Line: That was progress! WALKING BY First Line: They are all sleepy, & live around the block WELCOME, FEAR First Line: For one thing I'm glad Last Line: To alarm, unable to find the right one. Even if it's like that WHAT I KNOW First Line: I don't know the happiness felt Last Line: I know %happiness %squealing WHAT KIND OF TIMES? First Line: What kind of times? When we still seem to want %what we've already gotten Last Line: Now. In the praxis of attainables. American WHAT WE CALL CHILDHOOD Poem Text Subject(s): Children; Childhood WHEEL OF THE HUNGRY IS TURNING First Line: But no one in this bar hears Last Line: Angry that it can't break us Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders WORKING BLACK Poem Text First Line: The part of stockholm I saw at 22, I saw as an employee & thief Subject(s): Restaurants; Jobs; Immigrants; Cafes; Diners; Emigrant; Emigration; Immigration ZEUS AND APOLLO Poem Text First Line: Written on clapboard or asbestos siding, the cartoony Subject(s): Goddesses & Gods ZEUS AND APOLLO First Line: Written on clapboard or asbestos siding, the cartoony |
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