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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: SADOFF, IRA Matches Found: 214 Sadoff, Ira Poet's Biography 214 poems available by this author A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CENTURY Poem Text First Line: Personally I can't figure out the scale of things Subject(s): Millenium ABOVE THE CINEMA VERITE: AUGUST, 1968 First Line: Troops stirred nightly under my window Last Line: From far away, from someplace dark, %a place we used to call the world AFTER A DISAPPOINTING VISIT WITH OLD FRIENDS First Line: Exhausted by excess, obsessions of our age AFTER DREAMING First Line: My kitchen's steamier than eden AFTER MY FATHER'S DEATH First Line: I intend to sleep many hours Last Line: I will see the sculpted beauty. Myths, mistakes, %the diminished light of dusk will enter me AGAINST WHITMAN First Line: Too many speak of whip-poor-wills Last Line: I also wish the wall of skin %were just a bridge to cross AN IMPROBABLE DELIRIUM Poem Text First Line: An improbable delirium brings me Subject(s): Death; Dead, The ANNUNCIATION First Line: Is everything we want shielded Last Line: And burning: I was a furnace and every scrap went into it AT THE CREEK CLUB First Line: The caramel hills, the chockablock houses Last Line: Go ahead and make something of it, light a match to it: 1968 AT THE FRICK First Line: I'll never understand how shimmer Last Line: And sullen too, that's what I most remember AT THE GRAND CANYON First Line: We were fleeing from the tourists, german and japanese Last Line: The other spoiled and civilized. As if it were the end of it AT THE HALF NOTE CAFE (VERSION A) Poem Text First Line: Once I heard him play Subject(s): Ammons, Gene (1925-1974); Jazz; Music & Musicians AT THE HALF NOTE CAFE (VERSION A) First Line: Once I heard him play Last Line: I gasped for air, couldn't get enough of it Subject(s): Ammons, Gene (1925-1974); Jazz; Music And Musicians AT THE HALF NOTE CAFE (VERSION B) Poem Text First Line: Once I heard him play Subject(s): Ammons, Gene (1925-1974); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Restaurants; Cafes; Diners AT THE HALF NOTE CAFE (VERSION B) First Line: Once I heard him play Last Line: Put her stiffened nipple in my mouth Subject(s): Ammons, Gene (1925-1974); Jazz; Music And Musicians; Restaurants AT THE JAZZ CONCERT First Line: The sax shattered into eighth notes AT THE MOVIES First Line: An october drive through the leaf parade Last Line: And once gave me a place to grieve and rest my feet AUGUST First Line: Under the yellow porch-light BACK THEN First Line: I couldn't understand the sonic boom Last Line: A fascist, we [or, and we] expect the moral of the story BALLAD OF THE FAVORITE SON First Line: Like those who compose in spanish BANGBUS First Line: The bangbus was battered and blazing Last Line: How bad could it be, breaking down on the side of the road? BANTER First Line: When someone says banter Last Line: The silken net %from the carapace BATH First Line: Mother might have drowned me Last Line: A moon shines in every window, wanting. %each night I hold a different woman in my arms Subject(s): Baths And Bathing; Skin BEFORE AND AFTER Poem Text First Line: I was too sick to leave the factory Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Sickness; Work; Workers; Illness BEFORE AND AFTER First Line: I was too sick to leave the factory Last Line: The bullet, arc and trajectory, the victim Subject(s): Labor And Laborers; Sickness BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH First Line: To say she was seductive, paranoid, agoraphobic, repressed Last Line: Is to try to forget: she was guileless, frenzied, gone to waste BIRCHES, REVISITED: OCTOBER First Line: At last the silver birches look like frost Last Line: That praises 'nature' like a long lost friend, %we who drive for groceries, shoes, and pens Subject(s): Nature BLEAK HOUSE Poem Text First Line: Drunks in the courtyard, dung and driftwood Subject(s): Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature BLEAK HOUSE First Line: Drunks in the courtyard, dung and driftwood BLUE GUM First Line: The blue gum stood for nothing Last Line: Which must have been green long before I got there BLUE LIGHTS First Line: I was seven. I took the train to ossining BRIEF AFTERNOONS Poem Text First Line: In the brief afternoons of february, Subject(s): Gods; Jehovah's Witnesses BRIEF AFTERNOONS First Line: In the brief afternoons of february BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CENTURY First Line: Personally I can't figure out the scale of things Last Line: In the sunlight before the century turns on them Subject(s): Millenium BRIGHTNESS First Line: I'm no longer drawn Last Line: Then we prayed to the same maker BUD POWELL AT THE CLUB MONTMARTE, 1961 First Line: All of paris was a hospital. / doctors stocked revolvers, smoked cigars\ Subject(s): Paris, France; Powell, Bud (earl) (1924-1966) BUD POWELL AT THE CLUB MONTMARTE, 1961 First Line: All of paris was a hospital. %doctors stocked revolvers, smoked cigars\ Last Line: Show me your hands,' %he said. 'your ordinary hands' Subject(s): Paris, France; Powell, Bud (earl) (1924-1966) BUS BOY First Line: It was a smarmy restaurant, serving the tied Last Line: A dead-pan matre d', our napolean, our saint peter Subject(s): Restaurants CENTRAL AVENUE BREAKDOWN First Line: Stars are out but the sky glows yellow and red with CHARISMATIC First Line: Unshaven, his head shorn Last Line: Carving the naked boy nowhere, never CHECKS AND BALANCES: OAKLAND, MAINE First Line: Though this town's falling down CHILDISH First Line: A child might cure me of my misery Last Line: The ceiling I myself had painted black CIVIL RIGHTS First Line: Mississippi steamed in july COLD WAR First Line: The russians lied because they couldn't be trusted Last Line: So when no one's looking she stuffs it in her pockets DELIRIOUS First Line: It's all savagery and appropriation Last Line: To see how we behave, and yet, and yet, and yet DEPRESSION First Line: A critical mass came over me Last Line: Unprepared for the stillness that accompanies happiness Subject(s): Depressions, Economic DID YOU EVER GET A PHONE CALL Poem Text Last Line: Dear gods, they say, you wouldn't pilfer a shadow, would you? Subject(s): Telephones; Love; Past; Memory DID YOU EVER GET A PHONE CALL First Line: Did you ever get a phone call from the past, pleading with you Last Line: Dear gods, they say, you wouldn't pilfer a shadow, would you? DON'T CRY FOR ME, ARGENTINA First Line: Where I've never been, my head is full Last Line: Brings, in writing, the earring back: his neck %will break for it DURSU UZALA First Line: Morning. The plane rises EMOTIONAL TRAFFIC First Line: A pretty woman in a cape passes by my window ETERNITY Poem Text First Line: You can almost taste it Subject(s): Future Life; Retribution; Eternity; After Life ETERNITY First Line: You can almost taste it Last Line: In the shape of a butte, air surrounding it, whistling in the sockets Subject(s): Future Life EX-HUSBAND First Line: I'm pure shrapnel, stored-up venom, a shred of a man Last Line: Is sparking, alternating current: all self, no self, all self EXCEPTIONAL JOY First Line: Many chickadees circle and cheep Last Line: I think they're silently waving goodbye. %mother, I can't tell you how they please me FAMILY POEM First Line: Two brothers wrestle by the railroad tracks Last Line: You hit reverse and back back over the body FEBRUARY Poem Text First Line: A mist appalls the windshield. Subject(s): Faces; Winter FEBRUARY First Line: A mist appalls the windshield Last Line: Blood on nail, too much arrow, too much quiver FOR ONCE First Line: I welcome the calm of early march Last Line: By cruelty and circumstance. They bring back spring %before it starts to chill, before it enters us FOUR VARIATIONS ON THE HISTORY OF SPEECH Poem Text First Line: I have seen the sabotage of the body Subject(s): Speech; Language; Oratory; Orators; Words; Vocabulary FOX CROSSING A FIELD First Line: I'm no st. Francis, I can't decide who the devil is Last Line: The window: how calm the eye is. It's a monastery FROM A MYTH First Line: The asters are tenacious GOLD II First Line: Perhaps you'd prefer a stroll through the rolling hills Last Line: Who wants to be one of many, truths or otherwise GRAZING First Line: Sometimes the rapid-fire channel switching is like eye music Last Line: Canting and retracting, as the blood rushes in Subject(s): Music And Musicians HALF-MOON BAY First Line: We came to watch the gray whales spawn HASSIDS ON THE SUBWAY First Line: Shameful and humble, the bearded hassids Last Line: And flesh-defending dresses. No, for now the diamonds will suffice HONDURAS First Line: The landing strip swarms with light HONEYMOON IN FLORENCE First Line: As they putty up their frescos Last Line: Oh, I've been saved by love, but privately HOPPER'S 'NIGHTHAWKS' (1942) First Line: Imagine a town where no one walks the streets. Where the sidewalks Subject(s): Art & Artists; Hopper, Edward (1882-1967) HOPPER'S 'NIGHTHAWKS' (1942) First Line: Imagine a town where no one walks the streets. Where the sidewalks Last Line: Would be no change in the weather Subject(s): Art And Artists; Hopper, Edward (1882-1967) HORSE WANTED SUGAR First Line: Sascha shivered where the mare'd licked her hand Last Line: The horse wanted sugar,' sascha said. 'but we fed him a leaf.' I FORGET WHO COMPARED THE SOUL First Line: To steam misting off a bowl of soup Last Line: Could we turn but to the dense interior? I JOIN THE SPARROWS Poem Text First Line: Let me join the sparrows Subject(s): Nature I JOIN THE SPARROWS First Line: Let me join the sparrows Last Line: I'd sing awhile, a high, faint trill Subject(s): Nature I LIKE IKE Poem Text First Line: Ike was whispering to his shadow cabinet Subject(s): Eisenhower, Dwight David (1890-1969) I LIKE IKE First Line: Ike was whispering to his shadow cabinet Last Line: And we were disappointed when the danger passed Subject(s): Eisenhower, Dwight David (1890-1969) I LIKE WAKING UP First Line: I like waking up by the lake %frozen over, the frosty meadow Last Line: We make of things I'VE ALWAYS DESPISED THE WETLANDS Last Line: How wings are always attached to the singing IMPROBABLE DELIRIUM First Line: An improbable delirium brings me Last Line: Until the end, when we're indecipherable, %composed, seraphic, speechless Subject(s): Death IN SIENA First Line: There's a replica of him writhing on the cross Last Line: Wheels around the heart chamber, mingling, flooding to a stop IN SWITZERLAND; FATHR AND DAUGHTER First Line: Together they climb, to be taken Last Line: Speech is boundless and sexless. Useless and breathless. %each mountain, mirror to the mountain befo IN THE BOG BEHIND MY HOUSE First Line: The crows have come back for april Last Line: For being crows, to care for those %the crows won't spare, without becoming them Subject(s): Nature IN THE DREAM First Line: We launch from a city wharf an old canoe Last Line: The year before, from centuries before my birth IN THE EMERALD ISLE First Line: Skydivers curl and wisp: they forget Last Line: In bed providing the sense of an ending, %even a false ending IN THE HOUSE OF THE CHILD First Line: If you hear the chatter of water IN THE JEWISH MYSTICAL TRADITION Poem Text First Line: In the jewish mystical religion, the bodies flying Subject(s): Mysticism – Judaism; Jews IN THE JEWISH MYSTICAL TRADITION First Line: In the jewish mystical tradition, the body flying Last Line: Stack the wood, powder the face, the face of all that stillness IN THE MOUNTAINS First Line: I see the woods as threads IN THE OLD DAYS Poem Text First Line: Sometimes I lose track of my happiness Subject(s): Change; Past IN THE OLD DAYS First Line: Sometimes I lose track of my happiness Last Line: Of happiness later, far from that dump we call governance Subject(s): Change; Past IN THE VILLAGE: THE ETERNAL TRIANGLE First Line: These were the days Last Line: Waiting to be seen, admired or appraised INCEST Poem Text First Line: Indeed. Inscribed. Interred. In my house Subject(s): Incest; Hate INCEST First Line: Inbred. Inscribed. Interred. In my house INNER LIFE First Line: I'm jittery, sleepless, I hover over a chair Last Line: Silk crinolines, just when our eyes adjust to the darkness Subject(s): Insomnia; Life INTERIM REPORT Poem Text First Line: The schoolhouse closet was my favorite house of prayer Subject(s): Memory; Schools; Students INTERIM REPORT First Line: The schoolhouse closet was my favorite house of prayer Last Line: Yes it could have been her face I turned away from Subject(s): Memory; Schools INTIMACY AT FIRST LIGHT: BATH, MAINE, SHIPYARD First Line: Not to speak when we're so close IRAN/IRAQ First Line: Sensuous traffic paraded over the cobblestones Last Line: We draw from in the ashram? IZZY First Line: The prettiest shadows were impalpable, so I stored them Last Line: The curtain was closing, no sign of how I'd carry on JANUARY: FIRST LIGHT First Line: I retrace the path JAZZ First Line: The slippery elms were statuesque Last Line: To have once towered over everyone in green KINDERTOTENLIEDER First Line: In my head it's always the spontaneous trash Last Line: You'd swear on your life they're perfectly still LAMENT Poem Text First Line: While I was gone, I lost my finches. Subject(s): Birds; Lament LAMENT AT POINT REYES First Line: I take the boy to see the tule elk Last Line: By tidepools, rich in algae, near the sea LANGUAGE First Line: It's all talk isn't it, emblem Last Line: Probative and salacious: lustrous too, if I say so LETHAL TRAUMAS First Line: Now the lethal traumas Last Line: The bedpan, the prescription, years of bad advice... Subject(s): Change; Children LETHAL TRAUMAS First Line: Back there, yes back there, the bicycles Last Line: The glass that shakes as he's drinking it LIKE ANGELS First Line: Like angels, we live many lives at once Last Line: Not what we whisper when we want her LONG ISLAND Poem Text First Line: I've spent the last few years with an eraser Subject(s): Long Island (n.y.) LONG ISLAND First Line: I've spent the last few years with an eraser Last Line: That looked like jewels were really roaches Subject(s): Long Island (n.y.) MAHLER Poem Text First Line: Mahler endlessly repeats himself Last Line: We'll sing again. My theory is no one Subject(s): Jews; Mahler, Gustav (1860-1911); Judaism MAHLER First Line: I forgive the jew who wants to serve Subject(s): Jews; Mahler, Gustav (1860-1911) MAHLER First Line: Mahler endlessly repeats himself Last Line: We'll sing again. My theory is no one Subject(s): Mahler, Gustav (1860-1911); Relationships MARTYRS First Line: They were so sick and tired %they hardly knew they were fucking Last Line: Just so, they hovered above their combustible bodies MATERIAL First Line: Sometimes the whistling parts of the story Last Line: It's an angel, a human angel, sitting next to you %wiping your chin with a napkin MATHEMATICIAN'S DISCLAIMER First Line: What I would give for a clear field Last Line: Between moment, the measure left unmeasured. MEDITATION Poem Text First Line: One event stands out from childhood Subject(s): Farewell; Parting MEMORIAL DAYS First Line: Whirlwind with a vacuum at four a.M. MIGRATION Poem Text First Line: This is our last day together Subject(s): Farewell; Parting MINGUS: LAST SPEECH First Line: When eric left, we played MISSED OPPORTUNITY First Line: If christ slept with the sparrows Last Line: Till a clerk swept them off the sidewalk with a broom MOOD INDIGO Poem Text First Line: I've tried to trace the reverie Subject(s): Blues (mood); Music & Musicians MOOD INDIGO First Line: I've tried to trace the reverie Subject(s): Blues (mood); Music And Musicians MY COUNTRY First Line: I can't tell if it's a syndrome or a trajectory Last Line: It's buried in, the person we love inside it MY FATHER'S LEAVING Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: When I came back, he was gone. Subject(s): Fathers; Mothers; Abandonment; Family Life; Desertion; Relatives MY FIRST ROSES Poem Text First Line: My first roses brought me to my senses. Subject(s): Roses MY MOTHER'S FUNERAL Poem Text First Line: The rabbi doesn't say she was sly and peevish, Subject(s): Mothers; Death; Dead, The MY MOTHER'S FUNERAL First Line: The rabbi doesn't say she was sly and peevish Last Line: Polished to a glaze, one the wind blew off a shelf MY WIFE'S UPSTAIRS Poem Text Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives MY WIFE'S UPSTAIRS MYELOGRAM First Line: The purple dye in the needle makes the spine shiver Last Line: I came back to put a stop to it, to delete a little history NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Poem Text First Line: The woods are thick today Subject(s): Forests; Woods NATURE Poem Text First Line: In the old days there were characters Last Line: They are soon after you clip them Subject(s): Nature NATURE First Line: In the old days there were characters Last Line: They are soon after you clip them NAZIS Poem Text First Line: Thank god they're all gone Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social; Estrangement; Outcasts NAZIS First Line: Thank god they're all gone Last Line: I can see he's not one of us Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social NEAR VAN CORTLAND PARK First Line: Even the stop lights have their tribulations Last Line: The incomparaable architecture, the knockout with the pan flute NEFARIOUS First Line: The literal poppies seem so paper-thin Last Line: The prosaic foot-tapping that pays for everything NEW RUSSIA First Line: Now in moscow they have opinions Last Line: Coming to me, dreaming of my night at the copacabana NORTH PLATTE: AUGUST, 1968 First Line: We were numb to nebraska NORTHERN CALENDAR First Line: I pick up the fallen branches NOTRE DAME (1909) First Line: The padre's in a quandary, in sight of notre dame, god's NOW First Line: Now that I'm past my prime ODE TO EXPERIENCE First Line: You make nothng possible OKLAHOMA CITY: THE AFTERMATH Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Sometimes I'm so lachrymose I forget I was there Subject(s): Oklahoma City Tragedy (1995); Conduct Of Life; Oklahoma City Bombings (1995) ON THE DAY OF NIXON'S FUNERAL Poem Text First Line: It's time to put the aside the old resentments; lies Subject(s): Nixon, Richard (1913-1996); Death; Dead, The ON THE DAY OF NIXON'S FUNERAL First Line: It's time to put aside the old resentments; lies Last Line: Whose life I have no reverence for, which is why I'm singing now ON THE JOB First Line: I support the animals' urge to survive Last Line: Of antlers, all are real enough. I keep the hunters out Subject(s): Nature ONCE I COULD SAY Poem Text Recitation by Author Subject(s): Wrens ONE WE KNEW First Line: No one wants to hear the same old story Last Line: From the screen--is still attached to me OVERHEARD First Line: The shadowy cormorants came from someone else's voice Last Line: Of a horse's hoof on macadam, who tapped my shoe with his billy club PALM ENDING IN WINTER Poem Text First Line: Something simple, something clear Subject(s): Winter; Family Life; Relatives PANORAMA First Line: I want the blossoms on the plum restored PEMAQUID POINT First Line: The lighthouse as an image PINK GARDENIA First Line: Almost forty, and just today POEM AGAINST THE INVASION OF SMALL COUNTRIES First Line: I can't pretend to come to verdue honestly PORTRAIT OF MY RUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER AS WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS First Line: Once I saw her reach into a stranger's pocket Last Line: Privately, they made startling animal music PROCESS Poem Text First Line: We were floating downstream for hours Subject(s): Boats; Rivers QUAKE First Line: The quake struck down my father's condo Last Line: In a cavern, the low growl and rumble of the earth RAPTURE First Line: The tongue wagging, mumbling and moaning Last Line: A sensation dimly lit, scored like film and fluttering Subject(s): Animals RED TAIL SONNET First Line: No more soaring,' said the hawk with a gunshot wound Last Line: We project misery best. The hawk, with flies %all around it,the pearl of his beak pursed to speak Subject(s): Nature REFLECTION OF A YOUNG WOMAN BY A LAKE Poem Text First Line: Disease was spreading on the lawn Subject(s): Loss REMEMBRANCE OF A FALL WALK Poem Text First Line: Once we were tangled in the branches Subject(s): Walking; Childhood Memories; Home REVISION Poem Text First Line: Someting stutters, falls out of a tree Subject(s): Trees ROMANCE OF THE RACER First Line: The race car driver was different. He made love with all his clothes on Last Line: No matter how many cars were filled with whistling men Subject(s): Love; Romance SAME OLD STORY First Line: Moher still calls from our front door Last Line: To the local bully drilled into his mind. %the father he desires waiting for the child SCENARIO Poem Text First Line: The restricted clubs were sticky with ardor. Subject(s): Birth; Child Birth; Midwifery SCENARIO First Line: The restricted clubs were sticky witha rdor Last Line: Outside: the traffic and trafficking, clamping a hand over your mouth SELF-PORTRAIT Poem Text First Line: I sniff after the sparrow and the spaniel, flitting around Subject(s): Self SELF-PORTRAIT WITH CRITIC First Line: One idiot took me for a vietnam vet Last Line: The artful, the second-hand, once-removed SELMA First Line: In the sanitary woolworth's luncheonette Last Line: I bask in it. The bloodbath, a steamy pot above the meal Subject(s): Civil Rights Movement; Selma, Alabama SEURAT Poem Text First Line: It is sunday afternoon on the grand canal Subject(s): Art & Artists SEURAT First Line: It is sunday afternoon on the grand canal Last Line: Carefully placed together without touching Subject(s): Art And Artists SHADOW First Line: The shadow figures, slippery eels, sutured to the dream Last Line: Watching fog roll over the historic seaside resort, %waitingfor his mum to take him home SOLITUDE ETUDE First Line: I spent years on my knees while she Last Line: Mounatin range: jagged, treacherous, too slick to climb SONG First Line: How sleepy the melody Last Line: That sends out its thrush-like message SOUL First Line: The shaft of narrative peers down Last Line: So I could watch what was inside his face hover and scatter STANDARD TIME First Line: Winter was a vestibule, storing brooms Last Line: A few snapped twigs and canvas sling of logs, was useless now SUMMER SOLSTICE IN PRAISE OF THE BOURGEOIS First Line: A few humbling things SUNRISE: TWO ARTICHOKES AND AN ONION First Line: This is for those who flower THE BATH Poem Text First Line: Mother might have drowned me Subject(s): Baths & Bathing; Skin; Showers & Showering THE DEPRESSION Poem Text First Line: A critical mass came over me Subject(s): Depressions, Economic; Recessions THE HORSE WANTED SUGAR Poem Text First Line: Sascha shivered where the mare'd licked her hand Subject(s): Horses THE INNER LIFE Poem Text First Line: I'm jittery, sleepless, I hover over a chair Subject(s): Insomnia; Life; Sleeplessness THE LETHAL TRAUMAS Poem Text First Line: Now the lethal traumas Subject(s): Change; Children; Childhood THE MCCARTHY HEARINGS Poem Text First Line: Everything's under suspicion Subject(s): Army-mccarthy Hearings (1954); Family Life; Relatives THE RAPTURE Poem Text First Line: The tongue wagging, mumbling and moaning Subject(s): Animals THE ROMANCE OF THE RACER Poem Text First Line: The race car driver was different. He made love with all his clothes on Subject(s): Love; Romance THE ROMANCE OF THE RORSCHACH Poem Text First Line: The psychiatrist was the dullest, the man with the least imagination Subject(s): Psychiatry; Psychiatrists THE SOUL Poem Text First Line: The shaft of narrative peers down Subject(s): Soul THE SUBJECT MATTER Poem Text First Line: How elusive - what we want Subject(s): Family Life; Childhood Memories; Relatives THE TRANSCENDENTALIST Poem Text First Line: I remember that day in brewster, mass. Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Nature THERE'S NO RIGOR LIKE THE OLD RIGOR Poem Text First Line: Was it something uncleaved, clean-cut you wanted? Subject(s): Life THERE'S NO RIGOR LIKE THE OLD RIGOR First Line: Was it something uncleaved, clean-cut you wanted? Last Line: The time before the the. %the first time. The first wife Subject(s): Life THREE DREAMS OF AN AMBITIOUS MAN First Line: At first you feel safe in the middle of a crowd. Then the magician calls Last Line: You that it is useless to go on Subject(s): Dreams; Sleep TIME AND SPACE First Line: I made her cry in public. They were singing, uproariously Last Line: Spared me the news. Years later, a thoughtless stranger told me Subject(s): Divorce UPLIFTING STORY First Line: Some wrong turns argue for necessity Last Line: I'd never thought to ask for VACATION IN MIAMI: JULY, 1954 First Line: In his yellow swimsuit, in the heat of july VENEER First Line: When I think of veneer, a surface or facade Last Line: Hauling on her back a hardback chair, a vanity of oak veneer VESUVIUS First Line: Frenzied, scatterbrained, worried Last Line: An autodidact, an old snail coated with char VIVALDI Poem Text First Line: This terrified, castrated parasite Subject(s): Vivaldi, Antonio (1678-1741) VIVALDI First Line: This terrified, castrated parasite Last Line: Envious and penniless in topeka, or better yet, vienna? Subject(s): Insects WALKING DOWN CASTRO STREET AFTER FRANK O'HARA First Line: The streets of san francisco WAY OF ALL FLESH First Line: All those sultry kisses WHAT KIND OF MAN Poem Text First Line: What kind of man hides in the duck blinds? WHATEVER IT IS First Line: Whatever it is you call the freshness of dawn Last Line: A little missile crisis, then sambas resumed in the ballroom WHEN I COME HOME First Line: In cincinnati the river is the color of nausea Last Line: Attention span, when a helicopter wheels him off to heaven WHERE WE LIE DOWN IN HEAVEN First Line: Because it's a dry season, starlings Last Line: So it won't settle on the shiny and available WHILE WATCHING 'YOUNG AND INNOCENT' I THINK OF MY MOTHER Poem Text First Line: Pull down the shades. Those waifs Subject(s): Mothers; Fathers; Absence; Abandonment; Separation; Isolation; Desertion WHY IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO CROSS THE SAME OCEAN TWICE First Line: I lived, as a child, near the ocean WHY WE ALWAYS TAKE VACATIONS BY THE WATER First Line: For too long I've watched the ski boat scan WRITING POETRY Poem Text First Line: I bear no grudge against the andes Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Writing & Writers WRITING POETRY First Line: I bear no grudge against the andes Last Line: We pirate the settings to keep them private Subject(s): Poetry And Poets; Writing And Writers ZINFANDEL First Line: Intense, peppery, spicy |
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