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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: RONK, MARTHA Matches Found: 132 Lifson, Martha Ronk 8 poems available by this author DARK TONIGHT First Line: Waiting for it three hours so I can throw the switch DUCHAMPS IN THE GARDEN First Line: Astilbe between pink and white IT ISN'T OVER YET First Line: In the meantime it isn't over yet LOOKING AT A REPRODUCTION OF LADIES OF THE VILLAGE First Line: Behind the stiff women in their stuff of satin OBJECT OF DESIRE First Line: The elaborate celibate twilight ONE NEEDS First Line: One needs perhaps someone who doesn't have to OTHERWISE First Line: If memory and wehre they had crossed into it QUIET BY HILLSIDES IN THE AFTERNOON Last Line: Finding shadows to lie down in %and the quiet that finally touches my palms Ronk, Martha Poet's Biography 122 poems available by this author A BLURRY PHOTOGRAPH Poem Text First Line: The tree azalea overwhelms the evening with its scent Subject(s): Photography & Photographers; Time; Smells; Memory; Odors; Aromas; Fragrances A MEMORY OF HER LODGED IN WET AIR AND SKIN Poem Text First Line: If the slightly wet air in the skin is the hillside Subject(s): Swimming & Swimmers; Time ABELMOSCHUS MANIHOT First Line: I'll never get closer to the simple life Last Line: And stick fires pass the time ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN First Line: The question crosses into a lane of Last Line: A sign of the raw stubbornness of the world ACCOUNT First Line: The plants keep coming Last Line: History lost in the far off AFTER THE DARK CAME Poem Text First Line: After the accident on the bricks we notice the underside Subject(s): Accidents ALIBI First Line: Cinzano comes in two shades Last Line: To body to speak of, I think we had %what was called seasonable weather ARROYO SECO Poem Text First Line: The gap in logic cuts a dry riverbed across the land Subject(s): Canyons ARROYO SECO First Line: The gap in logic cuts a dry riverbed across the land Last Line: After a while I couldn't tell if nostalgia was %for a place or a time or before learning to think Subject(s): Canyons ARS POETICA First Line: It's enough perhaps not to go anywhere Last Line: The poet keeps reading from right to left AT SILVERLAKE PARK First Line: At the edge of the chain-link fence Last Line: He comes again to his own country BEECH TREE, A LOVE POEM First Line: The beech translucent as slides of a face Last Line: Not only the wall pink, the sky pink, the air BITTERNESS OF ROUSSEAU First Line: Bitterness is setting in like morning Last Line: Could be out there in the turn of seasons %in the unaccountable fury of reason BREAK UP First Line: How awkwardly matched they were Last Line: Copies in indecipherable script on vellum, %gold-leafed, worn BRUSH OF APOTHECARY First Line: The gray ink and the brush of an apothecary Last Line: Twisting his torso into the shapres of a watery cloud BUS First Line: Long lines of limbs exposing themselves all afternoon Last Line: Follow her line of reasoning quit it she said just quit it CALIBAN IN CHINA First Line: The breath in the fog rises bearded Last Line: The old one invites him for tea CALLIGRAPHY First Line: Calligraphy's lifted out in strands Last Line: The same flapdragony birds scissor the air CHINESE SCROLL First Line: Disappearance in the quietest Last Line: In the end he removed the strings COLD WATERFALL First Line: The photograph blew up her elbow and chin Last Line: The sound of water at a distance of some one hundred yards COLLAGE First Line: What's missing's been cut out and for a number of years Last Line: It prowls about and comes as always steadily into view CONJUNCTIONS OF MORNING GLORIES First Line: Lists of conjunctions, a leg Last Line: A bird scolds even before, even without. %and. And. And Subject(s): Flowers; Language DEFORMED CHAIR First Line: When the musical note Last Line: I was forbidden to enter DISPLACED First Line: It was a sudden day Last Line: Yet the bloom was so sudden DOCK First Line: Dock he tells me isn't what we're walking on Last Line: He sees a forest he wants to row into the darkest part of DOOR TO DOOR Poem Text First Line: He came to the door selling knowledge Last Line: Eager to have what he had to sell Subject(s): Salespersons; Books; Knowledge DREAM First Line: It couldn't have been more ordinary, but other than that your Last Line: Paper slipped in as a marker in a book ELEGY OF NARRATION First Line: Something sighs %and the wind abstracts the ground Last Line: He says this as if it explained ELEGY OF NARRATION First Line: Wheather he bit the watermelon Last Line: I've always wanted to know what it's like; %watch me and let me know ENAMEL BRACELET OF CHEEVER'S WIFE First Line: If the enamel of irony covers regret Last Line: And looking vaguely familiar EYE CLOSED First Line: Holding illusion like a small hand Last Line: Shutting the eyes-- %life's work EYETROUBLE First Line: Momentary lapses like abeyance Last Line: Tea in the hot sun FOLDING SCREEN First Line: Then the screen was folded up and taken to the top of a hill Last Line: Clouded over it was then early summer and the rains came GETTING A HOLD Poem Text First Line: The foreign objects are related to the accent Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary GETTING A HOLD First Line: The foreign objects are related to the accent Last Line: Or a way of phrasing a song too fast to catch the words GONE INTO THE NIGHT, COMPLICIT First Line: The birch tree out the window, split and looming Last Line: A statue of a hero and his horse, a sabre drawn in the air GREAT BLUE First Line: Unless you are a god, he says, the mind Last Line: And necessary, a mental equivalent of wing HAVING ELECTED First Line: The onslaught of events off the pavement Last Line: More or less recognizably one's own HE REAPPEARS IN OTHER SHAPES First Line: Abstract behind fog is Last Line: Matter-of-fact, intact HOLLYWOOD HILLS First Line: The camels of the horizon darken the park Last Line: The laying down of sky on land IN SILENCE First Line: The laurel turns around draped in blue gel and her fingers Last Line: Knotted to mark the length of time LETTER FROM THE PAST First Line: With a phrase here and a phrase there of german, chinese Last Line: The second line of the singsong, buddy come here LETTER Q VISITS THE DEAD First Line: Time was when Last Line: You could just cup your hand LETTER Q WANTS AN ANSWER First Line: Where is the how are you now Last Line: In the face of heights and/or depths LETTERS FROM S First Line: In these letters nothing happens out the window of mody road Last Line: Across the heavy white plates LILAC First Line: And why this form Last Line: One stand of them LOGIC OF ALPHABETS First Line: If you think it will why won't it then Last Line: Silk. Severity. Something something night LOST First Line: You turned the other way Last Line: Under the lights and shimmering MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, LOUIS First Line: When the phone rings off the hook comes by at random Last Line: Where ribbons meet up with the fair MEMORY OF HER LODGED IN WET AIR AND SKIN First Line: If the slightly wet air in the skin is the hillside Last Line: In the wet air through the length of a 40 years' day MEMORY OF TOMORROW First Line: There may be mental defectives who cannot Last Line: While endlessly someone is sipping his tea %even if you could name the wind MEMORY OF WHEN IT WAS First Line: The memory of when it was when the color of a room Last Line: You just opened was last week sometime MIND OF ANOTHER WANTS NOTHING YOU CAN SEE Last Line: Have you done with it it's missing. %'absence' MOON OVER L.A. First Line: The moon moreover spills onto Last Line: We've seen it all and don't mind Subject(s): Los Angeles; Moon MOON, A MEMORY, A PAPER BOAT First Line: Away and afloat is where I'd spill to Last Line: Tear pages off and fold a paper boat MUSEUM BOWL First Line: Celadon breaks into triangles and dust Last Line: Looking for something like love NEAR THE TERRACE First Line: Allegory is the only way is conclusion Last Line: When you became what I couldn't stop thinking Subject(s): Nature NEUTRA'S WINDOW Poem Text First Line: Behind the glass barrier by moving her lips Subject(s): Children; Obedience; Language; Childhood; Words; Vocabulary NEUTRA'S WINDOW First Line: Behind the glass barrier by moving her lips Last Line: Silently and with the stealth of figures pilfered %from story, one escapes dominion NIGHT AND DAY First Line: The mindless one hovers harvest moons Last Line: Of lines of traffic exposed too long to the light NO SKY Poem Text First Line: No sky.......A gray backdrop merely and absence Subject(s): Vision; Landscape NO TOMORROW First Line: He says his keeps slipping into hers Last Line: Keep away from thinking like there's no tomorrow NOT KNOWING THE LANGUAGE Poem Text First Line: A tendency towards mannerism and widening the streets Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary OBSESSIONS First Line: Obsessions make what Last Line: The itching that shapes things Subject(s): Obsessions ODI ET AMO Poem Text First Line: Why is the cure for irony in loss I don't mind Subject(s): Love; Relationships ODI ET AMO First Line: Why is the cure for irony in loss I don't mind Last Line: It's a relief I tell you. Sets up effigy Subject(s): Love; Relationships ON THE PAGE First Line: Elephants are the dictionary Last Line: When the ink brush pulled away ON THE PLAYING FIELD First Line: In the vicinity of a scar I never saw before Last Line: But the ball coming full force Subject(s): Fields; Play ONE EVENING IN LATE OCTOBER First Line: Because of the danger they met at a busy intersection in beijing Last Line: He presses after her saying her name in badly accented chinese ONE NOON MY MOTHER First Line: One noon my mother went out back to the incinerator Last Line: And he becomes simply the man who keeps coming to mind ORDINARY DAY First Line: It seems the stack of white dishes is enough Last Line: One might call it fog out there stacking itself against the trees OTHERWISE First Line: If memory and where they had crossed into it Last Line: A refugee far from where no one can swim PAINTER OF CLOUDS First Line: To attend to. Not extenuating circumstances that provide Last Line: By waiting for a localized pain above the ribs in his chest PAINTING First Line: What's missing is not the narrow face of the parmigianino Last Line: Over the light of five a.M., pale rhododendron, june PALE BLUE BARN First Line: Why,if I've been on this country road before Last Line: Into the palest of pale blue skies PARAPHRASE First Line: They never spoke of it. Unless one counts the daily Last Line: Money was out of the question. How close %to the original they could get was more to the point PERHAPS IT WAS UTAH First Line: Having set forth on the road long about sunset Last Line: Having no escape from cuyahoga rain PERIPHERAL First Line: People say %what's bad for you Last Line: Cat in the lap. %another centipede PHOTOGRAPH First Line: Like the lover one can't help thinking of the photograph Last Line: And circles under eyes lit from below PORCELAIN BOWL First Line: The pleasure of scratching Last Line: His skin takes on a porcelain glow PURPLE First Line: And if the purp-le is highfalutin Last Line: Is a voice the size of brazil QUESTION OF WHY ANOTHER LIFTS YOUR SPIRITS SO Last Line: The silence as the flight of two such heavy birds. %'mythic birds' QUOTIDIAN, SELS First Line: You look familiar to me he says Last Line: The curl of a book cover on the chair RANCOR NEAR PALMDALE First Line: It hardly matters this rancor Last Line: Its horns of plenty melt in the mouth REFLECTION First Line: A mirror isn't what, but the frame of white paint Last Line: With its perfect lapse reflected back RHYTHM First Line: Getting down is what the man said Last Line: Is it rhythm all in a row ROOM IN QUESTION First Line: The first time I questioned it the room was Last Line: And anno domini and the novel is dead and the room in question SAN GABRIELS First Line: She didn't allow herself to speak over the years Last Line: And never mentions what's pocketed and creeping %in his brain in the shape of mist against mountains SANIBEL ISLAND Poem Text First Line: Lizards crawl the screen again, it's sanibel august Last Line: Upside down, welcomes all gods crfeatures in Subject(s): Sanibel Island, Florida; Drinks & Drinking; Family Life; Summer; Lizards SCROLL WITH SLIGHT MOUNTAIN BREEZE First Line: Tantamount to hyperbole is the opposite Last Line: And each is a lung filling up with air SEED'S RUN OUT First Line: The seed's run out in jim's cousin Last Line: Before the picture breaks into snow SEEING IS First Line: If I don't believe believing Last Line: And a hedge gone to yellow SELF WE KEEP TRYING FOR First Line: You can't do it by saying she, by keeping her torso Last Line: The finger she pointed or the faint whiff of bleach SHAPE OF MOURNING First Line: The cypress drift of a piece of rusty metal Last Line: Spilling its berryred glaze over the green SIERRAS First Line: Is this the middle of nowhere or a translation into thin air Last Line: It brings dream of the mute and secretive sewing %of women lifting up their hands and signing SIGNPOST First Line: On a single lane into the woods where would the other go Last Line: And going blind in the blues and rusts of a storm STATE OF MIND First Line: Memory's tenacious, so where is he Last Line: Named after a dinnerware set etched with a little blue bridge SUICIDE First Line: The way paper layered on gauze is Last Line: As unsteady as paper imitating wood SUNDAY First Line: Of course one might say any sunday is the longest Last Line: A window of landscape you can't get out of SWIMMING LESSON First Line: I dreamed of mudflats like platens Last Line: And crooked their elbows and bent their knees THAT SUBJECT AGAIN First Line: It turns out that subject again: death %and the three-headed dog Last Line: All's left is the nape, one room sun-squared, %and how frightening in a dress THE Poem Text First Line: When having finished .....The Subject(s): Writing & Writers; Language; Words; Vocabulary THE MOON OVER L.A. Poem Text First Line: The moon moreover spills onto Subject(s): Los Angeles; Moon THE SEITZ THEATER Poem Text First Line: Back of the silver screen in sandusky Last Line: In my first bikinis, into redemption and sin Subject(s): Theater & Theaters; Motion Pictures; Clergy THEY SAY IT MIGHT RAIN Poem Text First Line: Commentary is underdone Subject(s): Loneliness THEY SAY IT MIGHT RAIN First Line: Commentary is underdone Last Line: And one chair to hang it on TOURIST OF MEMORY First Line: The mind of a tourist preens Last Line: To someplace far away, even farther TOURISTS AT THE CROSSROADS First Line: Bitter lemon lacks a better life Last Line: Of course he's wounded as a bull in return UNBELIEF First Line: God help my unbelief, the ungainly sense of Last Line: If you can't eat it it is beautiful VERMONT Poem Text First Line: The man next door came after three bitter days Last Line: No one could bring one's self to thank anyone for Subject(s): Poverty; Farm Life; Lilacs VIOLINIST WITH BRUISES First Line: One man dreamed there was a lump Last Line: Wake up, he said, please wake up VOICES First Line: The monarchs are dead on the road Last Line: It was his voice, she says, I'd know it anywhere WHEN TIME STOPPED FIFTEEN MILES OUTSIDE OF MODENA First Line: The dry ruts in the field rubbed his feet Last Line: And grabbed one by the neck WHERE ARE YOU First Line: It's too intimate with none of the signs Last Line: Slowly with blue water WHERE YOU ARE (1) First Line: The green glass on the road is a road Last Line: At a flea market on the road by the sea WHERE YOU ARE (2) First Line: The increment of lilacs increases daily and daily relocates Last Line: And replacing with inertia all the branches in all the yards WHY DOES ONE DREAM OF THEM? Poem Text First Line: The foreign objects are related to the accent Subject(s): Dreams; Nightmares WHY DOES ONE DREAM OF THEM? First Line: Those who show up aren't necessarily the most friendly Last Line: And why were monologues invented at all WHY KNOWING IS First Line: Why knowing is a quality out of fashion and no one can %decide to Last Line: Oddly resuscitated from a decade prior to this WHY KNOWING IS (& MATISSE'S WOMAN WITH A HAT Poem Text First Line: Why knowing is a quality out of fashion and no one can decide to Subject(s): Knowledge; Paintings & Painters YELLOW AS First Line: Yellow as what's gone on the stone wall Last Line: Out of everyone wearing white YOUNG MAN ON THE PLANE WEARING YELLOW SOCKS First Line: Is one free to change direction or Last Line: Tried to decide what city this time Ronk-lifson, Martha 2 poems available by this author HABITUAL First Line: Not so much invention as reinvention Last Line: Around the hill one more time, %your habits are the hymns of my mouth PAINTING FOR MY MOTHER First Line: I make you buy the painting of the swans |
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