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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: RYAN, MICHAEL Matches Found: 124 Ryan, Michael Poet's Biography 123 poems available by this author A POSTHUMORIST POETICS Poem Text First Line: From embarrassment, I made statements. Subject(s): Man-woman Relationships; Male-female Relations A SHAPE FOR IT Poem Text First Line: Sometimes when time goes by Subject(s): Time A THANK-YOU NOTE Poem Text First Line: My daughter made drawings with the pens you sent, Subject(s): Children; Love; Childhood AFTER Poem Text First Line: The space we feel inside us Subject(s): Self; Fortitude AFTER First Line: The space we feel inside us AGAINST SELF-TORMENT First Line: Grant nothing to the one Last Line: Is taking out on you AGAINST WHICH Poem Text First Line: Habit smacks / its dull skull Subject(s): Thought; Thinking AN OLD STORY Poem Text First Line: Like an old story's need for detail Subject(s): Love - Nature Of ASH PIT First Line: It thumped my sister's skull Last Line: At what the furnace thought BALLAD OF THE FOUR LAST THINGS First Line: I flew from dorm to dorm to dorm Last Line: What was he going to do? BIRTHDAY First Line: The years I've lost to selfishness Last Line: And my face underneath BLIND SWIMMER First Line: We know he's out there Last Line: Light is terrible and fish see through their skin BLUE CORRIDOR First Line: When I hung up, it was like Last Line: No cars the length of it, no lights, %only tinged air, and you not here BOY 'CARRYING-IN' BOTTLES IN GLASS WORKS First Line: What makes his face heartbreaking Last Line: Such light they seem its only source, %and rods and chutes that criss-cross %like some malign, unnam BUNNY First Line: In the scarred desk behind me Last Line: One flashlight blink %at the bottom of a pit BURGLARY First Line: It was only of my studio at yaddo Last Line: Well, michael,' she said cheerily, 'tell me about the burglary.' %I couldn't tell her much, but I wa CHRONIC SEVERE INCURABLE First Line: There's nothing more you can't learn from pain Last Line: The being pain is being is you COMPLETE SEMEN STUDY First Line: Laborious, stumpy, droopy, askew Last Line: Deadpan female lab attendant CONSIDER A MOVE First Line: The steady time of being unknown CONTENTMENT Poem Text First Line: Fragile, provisional, it comes unbidden Subject(s): Contentment COUNTRY FAIR Poem Text First Line: Amost anyone, I guess, can rent booth space Subject(s): Country Fairs; Hawks; Man-women Relationships; Dancing & Dancers; Girls COUNTRY FAIR First Line: Almost anyone, I guess, can rent booth-space Last Line: You forgot you free makeover,' %I said driving home, %and, smiling, you reached over and pinned my h CROSSROADS INN First Line: Sitting on a rock Last Line: Two hundred years from now %and the surging hills answered %nothing that you know CROWN OF FROGS First Line: In bertolucci's 1900, half-brothers Last Line: One crazy, and four adults: soft, pale people %in black elastic knee socks and plaid bermuda shorts DICKHEAD Poem Text Subject(s): Alienation (social); Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature DISTANT FRIEND First Line: To have a friendship with a guy Last Line: He will always be alone DITCH First Line: In the ditch, half-ton sections of cast-iron molds Subject(s): Industry; Labor And Laborers ESCHATOLOGY First Line: The dead are too quick for us Last Line: Always laughing uproariously, having a great time EVERY SUNDAY First Line: Psychotic homeless boy %blocking our exit from the church Last Line: And lead him to coffee and crullers. %but to be him EXTENDED CARE First Line: I'm not ready to write my last poems Last Line: Grateful this gorgeous world will be here for others when I am gone FIRE First Line: I think of myself as dust of bones Last Line: So cool and delicious on the tongue, %and all of it nothing by morning FIRST EXERCISE First Line: I was swimming Last Line: In that mountain lake for his daughter %and what came to hi m %when his hands %sank into the cold mu FLIMSY First Line: Last night I got shot in the head Last Line: The police, the ambulance, %these strangers in the house GARBAGE TRUCK Poem Text First Line: Once I had two strong young men hanging off my butt Subject(s): Refuse & Refuse Removal; Garbage; Sanitation Collection; Trash; Sewers And Sewage; Street Cleaners GIRLS' MIDDLE SCHOOL ORCHESTRA Poem Text Subject(s): Girls; Schools; Music & Musicians; Students GLADIATOR First Line: His cock is bigger than he is Last Line: Or the defeat at the bottom of the self %exactly imagined, banished %by the sexual ritual of the bel GOD HUNGER First Line: When the immutable accidents of birth-- Last Line: And I'll put on the wind like a gown of light linen %and go be a king in a field of weeds GOOD FATHER First Line: The cancer's eaten half his liver Last Line: Across the river of fire HALF MILE DOWN Poem Text First Line: My sick heart and my sick soul Subject(s): Sea; Ocean HARD TIMES Poem Text First Line: The lousy job my father lands Subject(s): Family Life; Food & Eating; Relatives HARD TIMES First Line: The hellish job my father lands Last Line: I don't know how to feel, or who to hate HER REPORT First Line: When the little three-note computer tune HERE I AM Poem Text First Line: On a subway station bench Subject(s): Subways; Relationships HOPELESS Poem Text First Line: All this endless unconnected desire Subject(s): Despair HOUSEFLIES First Line: It's not them that make me crazy Last Line: They are always there pressing on it, %the same eight thick black knots I Poem Text Subject(s): Self I HAD A TAPEWORM Poem Text First Line: I had a tapeworm, and imagined it Subject(s): Unfaithfulness; Illness; Infidelity; Adultery; Inconstancy IN THE SINK First Line: Tiny red spider, in your weird world Last Line: I'd flick this faucet and be gone IN WINTER Poem Text Subject(s): Winter; Love - Loss Of IN WINTER First Line: At four o'clock it's dark LARKINESQUE Poem Text First Line: Reading in the paper a summary Subject(s): Beauty LARKINESQUE First Line: Reading in the paper a summary Last Line: Will all I've missed knock me senseless? %no. Of course not.It won't LATE SUPPER First Line: Maybe there's despair Last Line: Like a long, silk glove LETTER FROM AN INSTITUTION Poem Text First Line: The ward beds float like ghost ships Subject(s): Psychiatric Hospitals; Dreams; Mad Houses; Insane Asylums; Nightmares MEETING CHEEVER First Line: Above a half pizza and double gin Last Line: Brilliant john cheever is a handful of ash. %I would be finished with what I was MILK THE MOUSE First Line: He'll pinch my pinky until the mouse starts squeaking Last Line: Be strong be tough? It is my father speaking MOONLIGHT First Line: It silvers the lawn Last Line: As I walk straight for it %praying for no more words between us %that are killing everything MUSIC HOUSE First Line: Nobody's home in the music house Last Line: But the house is so closed and silent it seems dead MY DREAM BY HENRY JAMES First Line: In my dream by henry james there is a sentence Last Line: Toward the cloud captured in the water %and everything I felt in the world was love for her MY YOUNG MOTHER Poem Text First Line: What she couldn't give me Subject(s): Mothers MYTH First Line: For a long time, nothing happened Last Line: All we couldn't be for one another NOT THE END OF THE WORLD First Line: What flew down the chimney Last Line: And the circle they had made %now made a space so desolate %that for one moment I saw %the dead plan ODD MOMENT Poem Text First Line: Live your values said a voice Subject(s): Mothers; Death; Dead, The ONE First Line: A ten-year-old Last Line: Stands somewhere amid %barbed wire and mud %her head being shaved OTHERS First Line: They slept and ate, like us Last Line: Slaughtered, it was so inviolate OUTSIDE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The dead thing mashed into the street Subject(s): Death; Love - Loss Of; Dead, The OUTSIDE First Line: The dead thing mashed into the street Last Line: Is just a neatly dressed polite old man PALINODE First Line: There's a way it was because PASSION First Line: Chilly early saturday, my study PAST First Line: It shows up one summer in a greatcoat Last Line: Kiss you loved ones. Night is coming. %there was no life without it anyway PEDESTRIAN PASTORAL First Line: It's nothing to a squirrel POEM AT THIRTY Poem Text Subject(s): Aging PORTRAIT OF A LADY First Line: Was it only the new old chemical stirrings Last Line: She lived calmly with a husband and children %and her body locked around he like a cage POSTCARD FROM ITALY First Line: I can't tell you how beautiful Last Line: Just threw back her head to stretch %her palms toward the sun, %and I wish somehow you could see her PROTHALAMION Poem Text Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives REMINDER Poem Text First Line: Torment by appetite Subject(s): Love REMINDER First Line: Torment by appetite Last Line: Pulls so surely. Let it ROOTING First Line: The crowd's a bully %with a bully's need Last Line: Teach them the meaning of pain SEA WORMS First Line: In sulfurous plumes of water SEX Poem Text First Line: After the earth finally touches the sun Subject(s): Love - Erotic; Loneliness SLEF-HELP Poem Text First Line: What kind of delusion are you under? Subject(s): Marriage; Disappointment; Weddings; Husbands; Wives SMOKE First Line: There was a woman whose husband had died SPIDER PLANT First Line: When I opened my eyes this morning SPLINTER First Line: A twinge forgotten by the body STONE PAPERWEIGHT First Line: I was napping as usual STONES Poem Text First Line: They don't change, or change so slowlhy Subject(s): Stones; Death; Granite; Rocks; Dead, The STRICKEN First Line: How does it happen Last Line: That darkens the eye Subject(s): Masculinity (psychology) SWITCHBLADE Poem Text First Line: Most of the past is lost Subject(s): Nostalgia SWITCHBLADE First Line: Most of the past is lost Last Line: That sounds now like just a tsk of disappointment, %it has become so sweet and quiet Subject(s): Nostalgia TALKING ABOUT THINGS First Line: For a moment, the idiot inside me who shouts death constantly Last Line: Yes I'll still call him man with a past which is not his TANGLEWOOD Poem Text First Line: We were trying to talk about love Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Man-woman Relationships; Male-female Relations TANGLEWOOD First Line: We were trying to talk about love Last Line: To float if only a minute with the music %over touches useless, and tender, and electric THE BLACK HOLE Poem Text First Line: The black hole from which nothing comes Subject(s): Nothingness; Relationships; Nihilism; Voids THE DITCH Poem Text First Line: In the ditch, half-ton sections of cast-iron molds Subject(s): Industry; Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers THE DOG Poem Text Subject(s): Dogs THE GREAT DARK Poem Text First Line: Before anything else THE OTHERS Poem Text First Line: They slept and ate like us. Subject(s): War; Social Commentaries THE PAST Poem Text First Line: It shows up one summer in a greatcoat, Subject(s): Past THE PURE LONELINESS Poem Text Subject(s): Loneliness; Jesus Christ THE USE OF POETRY Poem Text First Line: On the day a fourteen year old disappaered in ojai, california Subject(s): Poetry & Poets THIS IS A POEM FOR THE DEAD First Line: Fathers: naked, you stand for their big faces Last Line: Calling to you honey I'm home THIS IS WHY First Line: He will never be given to wonder much Last Line: And this is why the guests have left %and she screams as he comes near her THROUGH A CRACK First Line: That bird's odd chirp behind the fence TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH Poem Text First Line: Like a thin rock spinning across the lake Subject(s): Truth TOURISTS ON PAROS First Line: If I die or something happens to us Last Line: Was like an explosion from a dark doorway %of a wild, high-pitched laugh TRIBUTE First Line: I can't give the king %nothing but eggs, I thought Last Line: If only he'd spare your life TUTELARY Poem Text First Line: What a fuckup you are Subject(s): Conscience; Death; Skulls; Dead, The TUTELARY First Line: What a fuckup you are Last Line: Praise for your skill Subject(s): Conscience; Death; Skulls TV ROOM AT THE CHILDREN'S HOSPICE First Line: Red-and-green leathered-helmeted Last Line: With micowaved popcorn %blooming like a huge %cauliflower from its tin Subject(s): Cancer (disease) TWO RIDES ON A BIKE First Line: A seventy-degree day in february! Last Line: It was just the wild raspberries %snug in their lusciousness Subject(s): Bicycles TWO-YEAR OLD GIRL IN A RESTAURANT First Line: Your delight, which is contagious Last Line: And smile or do not smile USE OF POETRY First Line: On the day a fourteen year old disappaered in ojai, california Last Line: And what happens to other people doesn't matter Subject(s): Poetry And Poets VERY HOT DAY Poem Text First Line: I know what's going to happen Subject(s): Ice; Heat WAKING AT NIGHT Poem Text First Line: I won't die in my sleep Subject(s): Night; Loss; Bedtime WHEN I WAS CONCEIVED Poem Text First Line: It was 1945, and it was may Subject(s): Birth; Conception; Child Birth; Midwifery WHEN I WAS CONCEIVED First Line: It was 1945, and it was may Subject(s): Birth; Conception WHERE I'LL BE GOOD Poem Text First Line: Wanting leads to worse than oddity. Subject(s): Conduct Of Life; Middle Age WHERE I'LL BE GOOD First Line: Wanting leads to worse than oddity WHY First Line: I wish I could walk deep into a field WINGS OF THE MORNING First Line: She says her heart is ripped Last Line: Shaping the breeze they caught WINTER DROUGHT Poem Text First Line: First you cut your wrists and throat Subject(s): Suicide; Friendship WINTER DROUGHT First Line: First you cut your wrists and throut Last Line: Dust and splintered stalks %about to become dust? %tell me what you want YOUR OWN IMAGE First Line: When by mistake you miss Last Line: You are dark and handsome Williams, Ryan Michael 1 poems available by this author SOUL SONG First Line: Slowly the flowers unfurls |
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