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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: SHEPHERD, REGINALD Matches Found: 306 Shepherd, Reginald Poet's Biography 306 poems available by this author A BRIEF MANUAL FOR SWIMMERS Poem Text First Line: History has written its ritual runes and we Subject(s): History; Writing & Writers; Swimming & Swimmers; Historians; Swimmers A MAN NAMED TROY Poem Text First Line: Here are the homeless black men begging small coins Subject(s): Troy A MUSE Poem Text First Line: He winds through the party like wind, one of the just Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians A PLAGUE FOR KIT MARLOWE; IN MEMORY OF DEREK JARMAN First Line: I don't trust beauty anymore, when will I stop Subject(s): Aids (disease); Dramatists; Gays & Lesbians; Marlowe, Christopher (1564-1593); Plays & Playwrights; Sickness; Illness ABBREVIATED HISTORY OF SIGNS First Line: And not to be removed Last Line: Down to sight, the origins %of space in ruined shine Subject(s): Language; Signs And Signboards ABOUT A BOY Poem Text First Line: Everything derives from wreckage, returns Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical ABOUT A BOY First Line: Everything derives from wreckage, returns Last Line: To time. Eros is bitter, and bitterly proud Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical ABOUT THE BODY, BEAUTY First Line: Tattooed on the flesh, as deep as skin Last Line: One said, and one said 'I can't even find my skin.' ACMEIST NIGHT First Line: Morning unfurls its open vowel. This is the sky Last Line: In its mouth, the willows burning Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical; Night; Sky; Stars AFTER CATULLUS: VARMEN CI Poem Text First Line: Tramping shattered landscapes and astray ALMANAC First Line: It comes to you when he's driving you home, the boy who doesn't touch you Last Line: Hands, hold on tight. It's raining now, run after it. I did ALMOST First Line: There was a poem that my sleep wrote Last Line: A smoke of lilies and I am gone ALONG WITH WHATEVER HAS NOT YET BEEN NAMED Poem Text First Line: Take if you will this improbable boy Subject(s): Boys ALSO LOVE YOU Poem Text First Line: I think of you when I am dead, the way rocks Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology – Classical; Sun ALSO LOVE YOU First Line: I think of you when I am dead, the way rocks Last Line: All a summer's afternoon, and that's not all Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical AMANT MARINE First Line: Remembered limbs as a because Last Line: Sided, phoenix-stride, white %throat rusted away AN ABBREVIATED HISTORY OF SIGNS Poem Text First Line: And not to be removed Subject(s): Language; Signs & Signboards; Words; Vocabulary ANGEL OF INTERRUPTIONS First Line: Here is the ruin of representation at rush hour Last Line: Inside lightning whatever's not to be touched ANOTHER CONVERSATION WITH THE MOON First Line: And you adrift with your satellite heart's Last Line: Your blood-red stone, plucked out %my eye and placed you there Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical ANOTHER LETTER OF THE ALPHABET Poem Text First Line: Here is your name, a stone on the tongue, here is Subject(s): Love - Loss Of ANOTHER MOVABLE FEAST First Line: Tawny skin the teeth want to leave marks on, down Last Line: He doesn't get to keep it Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical ANOTHER UNCLASSICAL ECLOGUE Poem Text First Line: Where were you when I was for sail Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical ANOTHER UNCLASSICAL ECLOGUE First Line: Where were you when I was for sail Last Line: Sing me past music this time. I never %asked for anything Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical ANOTHER VERSION OF AN OCEAN First Line: You dreamed of drowning there, but couldn't read Last Line: Swimming into evening light laid on the sea to dry ANOTHER WINTER'S EFFIGY First Line: Astray amid the wilderness of bodies' Last Line: Into the waste of winter epitaphs ANTIBODY Poem Text First Line: I've heard that blood will always tell Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical ANTIBODY First Line: I've heard that blood will always tell Last Line: Which loves me anyway, I'm sure Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical APOLLO ON WHAT THE BOY GAVE First Line: Eyes the color of winter water Last Line: (a bell-shaped nodding flower, %usually solitary) APOLLO STEPS IN DAPHNE'S FOOTPRINTS First Line: Everywhere one turns %a god, someone turning into one Last Line: (a crown of wintergreen) %and I am the sun APPARENTLY First Line: I've required the world to describe itself. In bed by one Last Line: To guide his blind hand, his fingertips fill me with braille ARIADNE'S DANCING FLOOR First Line: How similar they become, divine or mortal Last Line: I am alone among the cool bright stars %whose flames abide, for you ART AND ILLUSION First Line: You in the afternoon cafe Last Line: The calcimined days are yours AT THE END OF OUTSIDE Poem Text First Line: Summer opens its caesura Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical AT THE END OF OUTSIDE First Line: Summer opens its caesura Last Line: Toward december, the trees also Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical AT THE GRAVE OF HART CRANE Poem Text First Line: Mobile light paints me an undertow, trailing Subject(s): Crane, Hart (1899-1932); Gays & Lesbians AT THE GRAVE OF HART CRANE First Line: Mobile light paints me an undertow, trailing Last Line: In his unsheltered sea, made my way %to cold fresh water, then lost heart Subject(s): Crane, Hart (1899-1932); Homosexuality AT WEEP Poem Text First Line: Can't move can't speak can't think to wonder Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical; Night; Sky; Stars; Bedtime AT WEEP First Line: Can't move can't speak can't think to wonder Last Line: Too late for life in ancient rome AVAIL First Line: The light through a monday window insists Last Line: Take this world, it whispers, do you take %this world BACCHUS First Line: I submit this scene for your approval, a bouquet of aporias Last Line: For cigarettes. I'd love to kiss the ground BEFORE First Line: Young men wait in their carnival bodies Last Line: All the air, no notes, only rests Subject(s): Homosexuality; Music And Musicians; Mythology - Classical BELIEF IN ANTINOUS' First Line: Every ideal an ordeal, features forgotten Last Line: When I am dead, will you kiss me, call me by name? BLACK ICE ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET First Line: Why worship whiteness always, what virtue Last Line: Even historical weathers leave a trace BLACK IS THE COLOR OF MY TRUE LOVE'S HAIR Poem Text First Line: In the painting by guido reni of saint sebastian Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Sebastian, Saint (d. 288); Supermarkets BLACK IS THE COLOR OF MY TRUE LOVE'S HAIR First Line: In the painting by guido reni of saint sebastian Last Line: On where he stands. His face? Unverifiable Subject(s): Homosexuality BLACK MONEY First Line: A tarnished subway token and a few small coins Last Line: For anything, till you said, give that up BLAZON First Line: Owning only myself and air, the he Last Line: A listening's wage, a weight BLIND FAITH First Line: I spent the morning lolling yellowjackets Last Line: Which eave they'd chosen for their nest BLOOD OF ABRAHAM First Line: Who built grief's penetralium? Solomon Last Line: The king hath brought me into his chamber BLUE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: See my colors fall apart? Green Subject(s): Colors; Landscape; Absence; Separation; Isolation BLUE First Line: See my colors come apart? Green Last Line: From childish fingers. Color me or leave me vacant BOY CALLED RISK First Line: Winter wind that wears the ghost of light Last Line: Out too far again, just for a glimpse BRIEF MANUAL FOR SWIMMERS First Line: History has written its ritual runes and we Last Line: Come soon, or not at all BRIGHTENS First Line: All afternoon dust motes Last Line: For you all of these things Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical BROTHERHOOD First Line: Deep in the nightmare of narrative, narrating Last Line: The closed and listless faces pulling out BURNT FROM THE NOTEBOOKS First Line: His boyhood loves him, clings %to his skin: pungent smell of lemons Last Line: Of their resentments: rain %strips october bare BY GREENWICH TIME First Line: You said, will you still talk to me Last Line: Will break, and your watch reminds you of coffee BY THE ENTRANCE TO CORDOVA HALL, I SAT DOWN AND WEPT Poem Text First Line: Inside my overheated car, where no one Subject(s): Songs; Memory; Grief; Driving; Sorrow; Sadness CIGNUS Poem Text First Line: Persons reminded me of birds, a boy Subject(s): Birds CITIES FOR CARTER First Line: My friend's city is filled with ghosts Last Line: If I remember you. The pigeons are at war with air Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical CLAIR DE LUNE First Line: You play the scribbled-over paradise demanded of you Last Line: For happiness: a carnival trick, a minor accomplishment CLOSER First Line: Today I want to stay in just one room, forget Last Line: Only, the trick that mirrors never learn CREPUSCULAR First Line: To open those locked doors of language Last Line: Underwater I almost understand Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical CROSSING COCYTUS First Line: Cross out the creased and crumpled days. Cross out Last Line: Cross out the temples to the unmet needs. %choke on these dreams of mine CRUSH First Line: On every corner there's a black man begging quarters Last Line: What I missed most about the city CYGNUS Poem Text First Line: Persons reminded me of birds, a boy Last Line: All that unripe, within reach Subject(s): Constellations; Legends CYGNUS First Line: Persons reminded me of birds, a boy Last Line: You fly through me DEAR BLACKBIRD First Line: Little light, unsong, this turnstile stopped Last Line: Rumble of expectation: it's going on %everywhere, not at all Subject(s): Blackbirds; Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical DECEMBER First Line: White light seen through %the season's double window Last Line: Of fixed clarity, wintrish eidolon %half patience, half in prayer DEEP WATER First Line: I dreamed our drowning there, but couldn't spell Last Line: Make myself glass, or tell the moon instead DEEPEST OF THE GREAT LAKES, LARGEST TOO First Line: How is this explained? First there is nothing Last Line: Clearly. Blue midnight, blue of noon Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical DEPTH OF FIELD First Line: Desire is not this road of light on water Last Line: Desire, caught against the items of this world DESIRE AND THE SLAVE TRADE First Line: Contempt, my old inquisitor, across Last Line: Confessions. I could never be that man DIFFICULT MUSIC First Line: T started to write a song about love, then I decided, no. Last Line: The finely sifted light falls down. DRAWING FROM LIFE Poem Text First Line: Look: I am building absence Subject(s): Loneliness DRAWING FROM LIFE First Line: Look: I am building absence Last Line: My submerged terrarium, and I am luck ECLOGUE FOR THE FINAL SEASON First Line: This fear of common gods thaws like snow's Last Line: Goodbye to the sting of steam and moke, %that blossoming of burning snow Subject(s): Spring EROS IN HIS STRIPED BLUE SHIRT Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: And green plaid shorts goes strolling Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians EROS IN HIS STRIPED BLUE SHIRT First Line: And green plaid shorts goes strolling Last Line: On either side, but miles from any dock Subject(s): Homosexuality EVEN THIS First Line: At that time I didn't understand Last Line: Makes the shape of things. %and also in arcadia EXPERIMENT V Poem Text First Line: Somewhere a door to day is opening, and she Subject(s): Death; Dead, The FAITHLESS First Line: Lily, marshwater, saint elmo's fire Last Line: Always your smashed lamps, but never you FALSE NOCTURNE First Line: Which wonder I believed in, wandering Last Line: Marine, a sea at boil. Perhaps Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical FIRST FAREWELL TO ANTINOUS First Line: This blue to color it blue could only diminish, the sound Last Line: In public, in the dark. This is the last poem about you FIVE FEELINGS FOR ORPHEUS Poem Text First Line: Orpheus sits on the strumming esplanade Subject(s): Mythology – Classical; Orpheus FIVE FEELINGS FOR ORPHEUS: 1 First Line: Orpheus sits on the strumming esplanade Last Line: Mineral, all emerald, tourmaline FIVE FEELINGS FOR ORPHEUS: 2 First Line: The song: I don't remember Last Line: Delivers him unmothered, otherless FIVE FEELINGS FOR ORPHEUS: 3 First Line: There is a hell for every color Last Line: Therefore I am: married to a map %of world, and he is not song FIVE FEELINGS FOR ORPHEUS: 4 First Line: Music has hollowed out a heart Last Line: The door to the poem and steps aside FIVE FEELINGS FOR ORPHEUS: 5 First Line: Orpheus falls apart in hell, finds him Last Line: As if to use up the distance between them FOLLOW ME First Line: The day will come, some mountain, promised land Last Line: The air's too thin to breathe, and nothing %has been proven FOR MY MOTHER IN LIEU OF MOURNING Poem Text First Line: It takes a thing so long to be true. I don't want Last Line: All a summer’s afternoon, and that’s not all Subject(s): Death – Mothers FRAME First Line: Someone's smeared a dirty rag Last Line: Wedded: a word to wood FRIEND First Line: This recurring dream after the lethargies Last Line: Who is it, I ask, but he won't tell me his name FROM THE WORLD OF MATTER First Line: The given made here, the made, given Last Line: The aperture of afternoon Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical GEOLOGY OF WATER Poem Text First Line: Striated tides draw their lines Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical GEOLOGY OF WATER First Line: Striated tides draw their lines Last Line: Ocean to ocean till there's no water left Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical GODS AT THREE A.M. First Line: The foolish gods are doing poppers while they sing along, Last Line: Live for toning, and then the lights come on. HE AND SLEEP WERE BROTHERS First Line: Night pays out her promenade in pallid goldenrod Last Line: White shadow on a slowly darkening page HERMES, THE TRICKSTER First Line: Wing born of bone, tear in my sky Last Line: Ripped from my side, I hear your friends %call you little wing Subject(s): Hermes (mythology); Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical HESITATION THEORY Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: I drift into the sound of wind, Subject(s): Nature; Se;f HOMERIC INTERIM First Line: Distance is money just out of reach Last Line: Run aground on shallow skin %the color of no event HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON First Line: The guidebook says you're beautiful, but I Last Line: I was light burned black on a late storm's waves HOW PEOPLE DISAPPEAR Poem Text Recitation First Line: If this world were mine, the stereo Subject(s): Death - Mothers; Dead, The HOW PEOPLE DISAPPEAR First Line: If this world were mine, the stereo Last Line: A crumpled poem in place of love HYGIENE Poem Text First Line: Some men wash their hands five times a day Subject(s): Popular Culture - United States HYGIENE First Line: Some men wash their hands five times a day Last Line: In how to become someone else %who isn't moving anymore Subject(s): Popular Culture - United States I WAS AN HERDSMAN, AND A GATHERER OF SYCAMORE FRUIT First Line: Of a hand of a die in a quern Last Line: The case: or if so, partly torn apart ICARUS ON FIRE ISLAND Poem Text First Line: Two loves I have, each one Subject(s): Fire Island; Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical ICARUS ON FIRE ISLAND First Line: Two loves I have, each one Last Line: Where light drains away Subject(s): Fire Island; Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical ICONOGRAPHY SAYS: First Line: In that year I was perfect Last Line: Selfish, I keep all these for me IN THE READING ROOM First Line: To float within the spirit like a mote Last Line: And paring my life to nothing at all INTERGLACIAL First Line: White of extinct god's etch and simmer Last Line: Salt flats of lake bonneville %where water was slept away INVENTION OF LONGITUDE First Line: Unsolved: frost clotting a broken Last Line: Who has approached too close to motion Subject(s): Inventions And Inventors; Maps; Travel JOHNNY MINOTAUR First Line: This morning we can be kind to one another Last Line: With your amazing voice, but don't wake up Subject(s): Homosexuality JOUISSANCE First Line: And then the sky separated into frayed parts, torn Last Line: Of styroform crumbling between cold fingertips KINDERTOTENLIEDER Poem Text First Line: After midnight everything becomes musical Last Line: To cold fresh water, then lost heart Subject(s): Aids (disease); Sickness; Illness KINDERTOTENLIEDER First Line: After midnight everything becomes musical Last Line: Of your outstretched hand, its petals %white and black and falling fingers Subject(s): Aids (disease); Sickness KNEELING SELF-PORTRAIT Poem Text First Line: Fluencies of light dally Last Line: You fly through me Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical KNEELING SELF-PORTRAIT First Line: Fluencies of light dally Last Line: Has no rights, no luck with bees Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical L'APRES-MIDI First Line: Would have perpetuated him. Should have Last Line: Of slighted hands up to the wrists Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical L'ENLEVEMENT D'AMYMONE First Line: Where are you hiding? Come now, rain on the moss Last Line: I call you, thief of sleep, but you won't come for me LENS Poem Text First Line: Where the blue meets blue, where sky Last Line: On where he stands. His face? Unverifiable Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical LENS First Line: Where the blue meets blue, where sky Last Line: Wander me, scattering glass Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical LES SEMBLABLES First Line: Stringent syntax of brick dust, cracked Last Line: Qualifying, when isn't a god unlucky %for his lovers Subject(s): Homosexuality LIGHT SIEVES WHAT ESCAPES FROM ME First Line: The less I know of hands' resourcefulness Last Line: He haunts the blinded atmosphere all year LIMINAL First Line: The long year marches from march to march, and then Last Line: The clock to some new season. The sky is clear LITTLE HANDS First Line: Here actors estrange themselves Last Line: Meet me under the whale Subject(s): Homosexuality LITTLE KNOWLEDGE First Line: Take me into night, but I'm already there: something dark Last Line: As it strikes your hair, nothing to do with you LITTLE MERMAID'S FORTUNE TELLER First Line: Refracted through your tide-washed hours, this prince Last Line: In my feet and my mute tongue. Call me that foam Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical LITTLER SONNET First Line: Knot of the not forever becoming Last Line: Corridor. Whither your wherewithal with words? Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical LOCALE First Line: Observe the snow: it changes Last Line: To what it chooses to surrender to: %sleeping, pretending snow Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical LOVED First Line: Kept awake by your lucid skin, moon poured Last Line: And hardly believing I could be LUCKY ONE First Line: The middle-aged white man in a beat-up blue pinto Last Line: The time of day, speaking french to myself, singing MAN NAMED TROY First Line: Here are the homeless black men begging small coins Last Line: Of this place soon to be called the new world Subject(s): Troy MAN OF REASON First Line: The weather fails once and for all. I care Last Line: Comes striding up the sidewalk. Holding %a pearl, bearing a perfect shimmer, reason MANIFEST Poem Text First Line: Sir star, herr lenz, white season body Subject(s): Nature; Body, Human MARCH SNOW AS MEMORY Poem Text First Line: We left our footprints on a night like this Subject(s): Snow; Absence; Separation; Isolation MARITIME; FOR JOCELYN EMERSON First Line: There's always been this dream that reason has, shearing off Last Line: Anchor, answerer, or worse. Also, you figure MICHAEL WHO WALKS BY NIGHT Poem Text First Line: For his sake drifting away from the true Last Line: She survived to die for good Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical MICHAEL WHO WALKS BY NIGHT First Line: For his sake drifting away from the true Last Line: Mandolin. He knows I'd love Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical MILKY WAY First Line: Some stars, brightest early, falter Last Line: You in a tissue-paper boat. Here I come Subject(s): Astrology And Astrologers; Stars MINE First Line: Never to touch, only to see. Having nothing Last Line: Missing, who has no secrets anymore, and hopes %for less dev MISCEGENATION First Line: Some dreams are better left Last Line: Were yours, the fogged-up mirror %a mere alibi Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical MODERNISM First Line: And 'I' is a conjecture, %simile that's become science Last Line: The same papyrus gives 'ear dripping blood' MOON WITH ITS CARGO OF BULLION First Line: The moon outlasts endymion, outlasts Last Line: All the unlit walk home MOONLIGHT ON ENDYMION'S SLEEP First Line: My one wish was to see him Last Line: One broken-off unending night Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical MOTIVE Poem Text First Line: I'm a penny fallen from heaven's Last Line: Flower face in no one's voice Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical MOTIVE First Line: I'm a penny fallen from heaven's Last Line: In the always almost here, the whitedark justice of us. Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical MUSE First Line: He winds through the party like wind, one of the just Last Line: And drowning is somewhere to be after a month of drought Subject(s): Homosexuality MY BROTHER THE RAIN First Line: Some sleep away the years until the headlands Last Line: Wake to regret the morning, drifts like waves MY FOOLISH FRIEND First Line: These are the things laid out on the table Last Line: With naked leaves, and when you call his name %I turn MY MOTHER DATED OTIS REDDING First Line: My mother is laughing in the hallway with her friends Last Line: With a paper cup of tanqueray, or lying %in the hallway in a pool of her own shit MY MOTHER WAS NO WHITE DOVE Poem Text First Line: No dove at all, coo-rooing through the dusk Subject(s): Mothers NARCISSUS AND THE NAMESAKE RIVER First Line: It was a lie they told about narcissus, a libel Last Line: It only wants to be picked, cut and placed in cool still wat NARCISSUS AS GNOSTIC First Line: I knelt for generations by an algae-clotted lake Last Line: Light, and all the bodies left behind NARCISSUS AT THE ADONIS THEATER First Line: Since you don't understand, let me explain Last Line: Give your white skin to me NARCISSUS EXPLAINS First Line: What I loved was the way noon drowned itself there Last Line: Most, blue cups filled with overflowing light NARCISSUS IN PLATO'S CAVE First Line: The eye of the lake is on fire. Pluck it out Last Line: And drenched red petals, a cloud in bloom NARCISSUS LEARNING THE WORDS TO THIS SONG First Line: I enter this moment in retrospect, already Last Line: My allegory. Send me forget-me-nots NARCISSUS LOVED RIVERS BEST First Line: Those foaming horses never change, their manes Last Line: And morning fog the same as anyone NARCISSUS ON ECHO BEACH First Line: I find myself alone again Last Line: For reply: a sheet of cloud's been hung out on a line NARCISSUS POETICA First Line: Wishing well, inordinate display Last Line: Idea of you, sepal, petal, stamen, pistil Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical NARCISSUS TO ECHO First Line: That summer was remarkable Last Line: I heard every word you said NARCISSUS WAS A SAD BOY, BUT A HEAVENLY First Line: Oxalis, goldenrod, jonquil and flag Last Line: And drowning in a lake of light NATURALISM First Line: The error was the inspiration Last Line: First come flowers, first come leaves %not the same tree at all NEW WORLD First Line: This is the paradise of emptiness, I said Last Line: There is no new world NIGHTS AND DAYS OF NINETEEN-SOMETHING First Line: Midsummer with other men's lovers, fumbles Last Line: Come again for me. Take me to the boy Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical; Relationships; Sex; Summer NORTH PEARL First Line: What is called thinking (not my words), what is called Last Line: The soul left to your keeping stripped of wings NOTES FROM ARIADNE AT SEA First Line: For love I would walk into high tide Last Line: I dream of you, the water hidden under rock NOTHING First Line: Dreams the shape of music heard asleep Last Line: Like clouds without the rain, wax paper rolled over waxed sky Subject(s): Dreams NOVEMBER First Line: Williwaw, brawl in air, %shunt or sinew of wind shear Last Line: Snow stammers against sidewalks NUAGES First Line: And would it be wrong to define this day Last Line: Before it darkens into sleep. The metaphors are planets, similes %like stars OCCURRENCES ACROSS THE CHROMATIC SCALE Poem Text First Line: The way air is at the same time Subject(s): Nature OCTOBER First Line: Doorway, flutter, moth %or leaf in flight, in fall Last Line: Crumpled, crushed, %falter, fall, a tread ODYSSEUS BECALMED First Line: To turn toward morning when morning comes Last Line: Night's tarp sown with imaginary stars ONE OF THEIR GODS Poem Text First Line: Was he lightning poured from a smashed flute, Subject(s): Love ORDER OF THE DAY First Line: How wise we thought our bodies were Last Line: Those were ghosts, famished, clamoring for more ORION First Line: Well, he was a hero, wasn't he? And now Last Line: Maybe. They sing well there, I hear Subject(s): Orion (mythology) ORPHEUS AND EROS BY GEORGE PLATT LYNES First Line: The god is shrouded because his marble blinds. Fortune's Last Line: On paper, where nothing can be touched just once ORPHEUS PLAYS THE BRONX Poem Text First Line: When I was ten (no longer Subject(s): Mothers; Substance Abuse; Childhood Memories ORPHEUS PLAYS THE BRONX First Line: When I was ten (no, younger %than that), my mother tried Last Line: She survived to die for good OTHER AUGUST First Line: It wasn't kindness, no. More a contempt Last Line: Will you breathe in me now PAGES FROM MY WINTER, 1982 First Line: It's not the salt that surprised me, but the bitter Last Line: Of nothing in my mouth PARADISE First Line: I don't know the names of flowers, or the various Last Line: The blackened ruins of my song PARK APOCRYPHA Poem Text First Line: Listened but couldn't hear Last Line: As if to use up the distance between them Subject(s): Rain PEAR TREE, BARTLETT, QUOTATIONS Poem Text First Line: Unswim the sky, clouds row across Subject(s): Mothers; Despair PERFECT First Line: There's too much light this morning, proof Last Line: Softly in the corner: a glimpse is worse PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE: A COMMENTARY First Line: What makes a man? Ruby, carbuncle, beryl Last Line: The woman he weeps to lose and find alike PERSEPHONE'S CELESTIAL SPHERE Poem Text First Line: Moonlight pools in her hollow bones Last Line: Too late for life in ancient rome Subject(s): Persephone; Mythology - Classical PHENOMENOLOGY Poem Text First Line: These weeks wide as a wave and white Subject(s): Sea; Sirens (mythology); Drowning; Ocean PHENOMENOLOGY First Line: These weeks wide as a wave and white Last Line: Are open; the waters close over my head PHOTO OF THE BERBERINI FAUN First Line: Lucidity, you hold light Last Line: But I've forgotten what Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical PHOTOGRAM: SUBMERED ROCKS First Line: The sea is a collector of bodies Last Line: Scrotum to perineum, he bares %white buttocks to the page PHOTOKINESIS First Line: Like this: I've been asleep too long, been sorry Last Line: Again. A touch, another kiss, I will wake up, my love PHOTOTROPE First Line: Nights ago, when I was younger, I went down Last Line: With my fist and calling your name over and over PICTURE THEORY First Line: Must pools in cluttered rain %gutters, mutters in rust Last Line: Being seen, finished with seeing too PINDARIC ODE TO YET ANOTHER WHITE MAN AS APOLLO First Line: There's no freedom in particulars. I've never owned Last Line: Into a moment's paradise, free from particulars PLACET FUTILE Poem Text First Line: Rise up, my love. This is the unasked-for morning Last Line: Or perhaps it's just a plastic grocery bag Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical PLACET FUTILE First Line: Rise up, my love. This is the unasked-for morning Last Line: When you wake among mirrors you'll ask more than harm Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical PLAGUE FOR KIT MARLOWE; IN MEMORY OF DEREK JARMAN First Line: I don't trust beauty anymore, when will I stop Last Line: I'd call a song. This happens every time I try to say good-bye Subject(s): Aids (disease); Dramatists; Homosexuality; Marlowe, Christopher (1564-1593); Plays And Playwrights; Sickness POPULAR BEAUTY First Line: Paris is burning in his bed for helen Last Line: Next door. If you see them, kiss them for me POPULAR MUSIC OF THE FORTIES First Line: I heard cold air kiss someone's Last Line: Any excuse for a song Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical POWERS First Line: This was the kind of day you had hoped you'd wake to Last Line: You still have the power to call your own PRIMER OF SMALL STARS First Line: Go to the depths of willing blind Last Line: Where no man was his own PRINCES First Line: That was the flaw, forgetful attachments Last Line: Our treasure is the breath's flame held in trust Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical PROPRIOCEPTION First Line: Surveying the moral landscape Last Line: Misplaced, then lost his place Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical PROVISIONAL First Line: The prospect seen as false: the listening Last Line: Days given away willingly, the bruised %and fallen apples only fruit. PSYCHE'S LANTERN First Line: A task, a task, and then another task Last Line: What she thought of what she saw REASONS FOR LIVING First Line: I was walking with the backward Last Line: Epidermis, leaf blade and sheath Subject(s): Life; Nature RECKLESS First Line: Watch the train round the hill's steep curve Last Line: The reticent moon retiring REDEMPTION First Line: In his eye the gate closed, barred Last Line: Here is the angel with coals in his palms RESPITE Poem Text First Line: A quick wind weeding the sky Subject(s): Nature; Relationships RESPITE First Line: A quick wind weeding the sky Last Line: You would still be waiting RHIZOME First Line: Here is what I have for you: a handful Last Line: Folded over yours. It wants nothing from you ROMAN YEAR Poem Text First Line: The corrugated iron gates are Subject(s): Roman Empire ROMAN YEAR: APRILIS First Line: Light scrolls across an unmade bed Last Line: You thought of bees as summer ROMAN YEAR: JUNIIUS First Line: Beside the shale pigeons a dove Last Line: And wick, silver water shattering %like backed glass ROMAN YEAR: MAIUS First Line: Heliotrope gaze has fixed me Last Line: Survives light's inquisitions ROMAN YEAR: MARTIUS First Line: The corrugated iron gates %are rolling down storefronts Last Line: For me. Months sometimes it takes ROMAN YEAR: QUINTILIS First Line: When I was in egypt, light fell Last Line: Triangular, aslant, touched the colossus %to song S'IL MEURT First Line: If it die intestate, airless Last Line: If not the first person then the last Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SALT POINT Poem Text First Line: While grieving I went down, I was only Last Line: The brother in the broken-bottle eden Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical SALT POINT First Line: While grieving I went down, I was only Last Line: Afternoon deep or cold enough Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SAM COOKE WOULD BE SIXTY-ONE THIS YEAR First Line: It's always too late for the october revolutions Last Line: I saw it twice, but couldn't tell you when SAPPHO'S FRAGMENT THIRTY-ONE REVISED First Line: What does the white page learn? And the words Last Line: Him, walk into this unlit page he'll never read SEBASTIAN'S SUMMER POEM First Line: It seems it's always winter Last Line: I wouldn't ask you what you meant SELF-PORTRAIT AS FIRST SNOW First Line: Every perspective fails, blotted in blank mist Last Line: Perfect sphere beside the half-inflated moon SELF-PORTRAIT AS SHARDS OF MIRROR First Line: You're the handful of reasons I know Last Line: Half a city, where your hands mean more %than promises, a simple household task SELF-PORTRAIT SURVIVING SPRING First Line: He went down to the dock to watch the boats Last Line: Particularly concerned where they might land SEMANTICS AT FOUR P.M. First Line: He smiles, says what's happening? Last Line: Dinner, someone says sure looks like rain Subject(s): Homosexuality SEPTEMBER First Line: Sudden storm, then sudden sun. Give me Last Line: Will wash it out. I wear it for weeks SEVEN LITTLE SONGS ABOUT THE MOON: 1 First Line: The new moon makes an art of disappearance Last Line: Nothing I'd choose for my medium, nothing %chooses the moon Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SEVEN LITTLE SONGS ABOUT THE MOON: 2 First Line: Black spider scuttling across the blackout Last Line: Till day breaks over you Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SEVEN LITTLE SONGS ABOUT THE MOON: 3 First Line: The bone-white light, the desiccated moon, dead Last Line: Night dies all light long, long night Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SEVEN LITTLE SONGS ABOUT THE MOON: 4 First Line: Night changes nothing, nothing is never Last Line: Color and depth all cut-out chiaroscuro Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SEVEN LITTLE SONGS ABOUT THE MOON: 5 First Line: A moon unfolds across its painted Last Line: But your night, no moon but yours Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SEVEN LITTLE SONGS ABOUT THE MOON: 6 First Line: The moon as much a myth as anything Last Line: Crises, and tranquility, nectar and fertility Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SEVEN LITTLE SONGS ABOUT THE MOON: 7 First Line: There is no moon unless you say there is Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SEXTILIS First Line: Wanting to understand, not wanting Last Line: And turning back to look at traffic SHALLOWS First Line: Aral-denghiz, 'sea of islands' %strewn across saltwater surfaces Last Line: Come up for air, half your %volume shrugged shut SHIPBUILDING First Line: There was a boy, you began, who didn't look Last Line: I'll take myself back, the boat for burning only SHIPWRECK AND DRIFT First Line: White utopia, windless nowhere, sail; you Last Line: Part for white ophelia too Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SHORTER HISTORY OF DECEMBER: I: NOSTALGIA First Line: How small the world becomes when seen through glass Last Line: The panes of glass, become as cold, as deep SHORTER HISTORY OF DECEMBER: II: ONE OR TWO ABSENCES First Line: I'm taken by the sorrow proper to Last Line: As teach the waking how to do without SKIN TRADE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: And then I said, that's what it means Subject(s): Rivers; Longing; African Americans; Negroes; American Blacks SKIN TRADE First Line: And then I said, that's what it means Last Line: Black man. I'm still awake SLAVES First Line: These are the years of the empty hands. And what Last Line: Can see it now, and every third or fourth wave is clear SNOWDROPS AND SUMMER SNOWFLAKES, DROOPING First Line: The river is silted with sentiments, ophelia Last Line: Walk out of sullen water open-eyed SOLSTICE AS DEMON LOVER Poem Text First Line: You disappear again, december sun Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Love; Mythology - Classical; Sun SOLSTICE AS DEMON LOVER First Line: You disappear again, december sun Last Line: By renown. I need some music now Subject(s): Homosexuality; Love; Mythology - Classical; Sun SOME MAPS Poem Text First Line: Which it watches, where it waits Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical SOME MAPS First Line: Which it watches, where it waits Last Line: The weather of its being when Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SOMEWHERE OFF THE COAST OF CYPRESS Poem Text Subject(s): Shipwrecks SONG TO THE SIREN First Line: The hulks lie on their sides amid the breakers Last Line: I count myself a suitor SOUL MUSIC First Line: It is never the thing but the version Last Line: Walks into a crowded room again %to wait his turn SPERM KIT First Line: Stars hold haptic night %in place, half-moon has me Last Line: Lips, how far away %from words we were SUNDAY First Line: I made myself a myth to keep the century Last Line: To a cricket in a wicker cage SURFACE EFFECTS IN SUMMER WIND Poem Text First Line: I'm learning to remember the sound Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical SURFACE EFFECTS IN SUMMER WIND First Line: I'm learning to remember the sound Last Line: In an idle man's hands, and summer ends Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical SUTURE Poem Text Subject(s): Blackbirds; Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical SYNTAX Poem Text First Line: Occasionally a god speaks to you, Subject(s): Driving SYNTAX First Line: Occasionally a god speaks to you %rutted tollway a flint knife breaching Last Line: By now, dimming, diminishing. The road %says to perspective, wait TANTALUS IN MAY First Line: When I look down, I see the season's blinding flowers Last Line: Stolid air. I hate every lovely thing about them TELEMACHUS ON THE WATERFRONT Poem Text First Line: I listened to the utterance of an owl, I took Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical TELEMACHUS ON THE WATERFRONT First Line: I listened to the utterance of an owl, I took Last Line: Or white flag. I didn't want him to come home Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical TENDENCY OF DROPPED OBJECTS TO FALL First Line: The air is thick with gods, croweded streets Last Line: Still thinking and THAT MAN First Line: In the green fleece shorts is taking off Last Line: The poem doesn't think of him Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical THE BEAUTIFUL Poem Text First Line: Incertitudes are buying shirts Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical; Homoeroticism; Lesbians; Gay Women; Gay Men THE FRIEND Poem Text First Line: This recurring dream after the lethargies Subject(s): Doppelgangers THE LITTLE MERMAID'S FORTUNE TELLER Poem Text First Line: Refracted through your tide-washed hours, this prince Subject(s): Mythology - Classical THINGS WAITING TO BE DANGEROUS Poem Text First Line: Something gets tired fo beingn said Subject(s): Love – Loss Of THINGS WAITING TO BE DANGEROUS First Line: Something gets tired of being said Last Line: Smell lingers all week, I'd love to %go down again THIS HISTORY OF HIS BODY First Line: The soul absents itself into a stranger's Last Line: So long, the youth of trees concealed Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical THREE A.M. ETERNAL First Line: You go to my head, the song says; I wouldn't take Last Line: A door, someone, or just to breathe TO THE SOUTHERN CROSS AS IT DISAPPEARS First Line: Lantern, antipode strung from a foreign Last Line: Whose first star is the last star that I see Subject(s): Death; Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical; Night; Southern Cross; Stars TORNADO WATCH First Line: Who was it I was saving my white kisses for Last Line: On the pane, nothing like real weather Subject(s): Tornadoes TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS: 1 First Line: Five senses lead to sense, %black fruit tethered to fact Last Line: Some day I could be danger TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS: 2 First Line: A man should have something %of tree, of horse, of ship billowing Last Line: I made that afternoon museum mine TRICK OF THE LIGHT First Line: I'm left with stumbling pavements and the contempt Last Line: Where lungfish wait out the ice, warming %as the feeling drains away TWO BOYS GLIMPSED IN LATE NIGHT First Line: I'm finally tired of innocence, the old world Last Line: And wish for him, I write these lines %for him. (and the broken glass, another skin?) TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HIM First Line: He is in the car, he is asleep, he doesn't want Last Line: I've murdered him. I know he's not asleep TWO VERSIONS OF MIDSUMMER First Line: The grass is a description but a description Last Line: Privacy. The day's all description and what is he now? UNDER GEMINI: 1: AND ONE DOESN'T STIR WITHOUT THE OTHER First Line: That is no star to wish upon its light Last Line: Which was untouchable, and which was touch Subject(s): Night; Stars UNDER GEMINI: 2: A BOY'S ATLAS OF THE HEAVENS First Line: I call these constellations by their fames Last Line: Or to be fooling anyone but you Subject(s): Constellations; Maps; Names; Stars UNDER THE MILKY WAY Poem Text First Line: Some stars, brightest early, falter UNTIL SHE RETURNS First Line: This is how I say it ends, bronx county, 1978 Last Line: Here I go, singing low VAMPIRES First Line: Nevertheless, I've been asked to write about vampires Last Line: And for snow: a song, like every song, for the dead Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical WEST WILLOW First Line: Morning traffic murmurs like an ocean Last Line: Half cracked open), my hands are strained with it WHAT CANNOT BE KEPT First Line: He was dreaming of the factories across the water's fog Last Line: The waste of fruitfulness sanded down %to almost-morning mis WHAT IS SEIZED First Line: Reader, this happened a long time ago Last Line: Out of clouds. Now I know how to touch them only once WHATEVER WANTS TO BE SEEN MUST BE TOUCHED First Line: Let me compose the scene, shelter Last Line: To walk into the no, I-will-not-bless-thee, %with my slight WHERE IT PASSES, UNTOUCHABLE First Line: Shadow of my unfinished days, left undone Last Line: Was fog peeled from an august ocean Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical WHERE WHEN WAS First Line: Abolished, and its weeks spent walking aimlessly Last Line: Behind sheet glass, a remainder of the love %abolished, white as spring rain, what was WHERE WINTER BODIES WEATHER First Line: The skaters get nowhere eventually Last Line: Sun underwater, glow from below WHITE DAYS First Line: I do my best to smile at spring, small flowers Last Line: Into their harsh green maturity WHO OWNS THE NIGHT AND LEASES STARS First Line: I wanted to be touched, so I went walking Last Line: I went out walking, waiting to be touched Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical WIDE SARGASSO SEA First Line: The bodies of the black men smolder Last Line: And now as have survived my memory? %or let them lie where they have fallen? WITH THE WIND BLOWING THROUGH IT Poem Text First Line: Special instructions / to the spinner of webs, the knotter WORLD Poem Text First Line: The man in my dream said, let me live, but that Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mythology - Classical WORLD First Line: The man in my dream said, let me live, but that Last Line: Man? I was then. I won't forgive you, world %I won't survive Subject(s): Homosexuality; Mythology - Classical WROTE FOR LUCK First Line: When I stepped onto the platform Last Line: Leads me astray, my best friend said that %in the city there'd be work YOU ALSO, NIGHTINGALE Poem Text First Line: Petrarch dreams of pebbles Subject(s): Petrarch (1304-1374); Homecoming; Nature; Francesco Petrarca YOU ALSO, NIGHTINGALE First Line: Petrarch dreams of pebbles %on the tongue, he loves me Last Line: (attempt), he wants to own his music YOU, THEREFORE First Line: You are like me, you will die too, but not today Last Line: And free of any eden we can name YOU. THEREFORE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: You are like me, you will die too, but not today: Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Mortality; Love; Homoeroticism; Lesbians; Gay Women; Gay Men |
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