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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: SMITH, CHARLIE Matches Found: 253 Smith, Charlie Poet's Biography 253 poems available by this author ABUSES IN THE BIG HOTELS First Line: Small birds, damaged by shellfire, slant against the light Last Line: The seductive and unappeasable...' and stops talking ADDRESS TO THE EX Poem Text First Line: Have you quieted yet? Subject(s): Divorce AFTER HAYDN Poem Text First Line: Speeding around in a little car Subject(s): Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature AFTER HAYDN First Line: Speeding around in a little car Last Line: I wonder how often real life comes up with it, %maybe just a dream AFTER THE GAME First Line: Our drunk buddy shuffles past the grandstand Last Line: Jolly as the heroes of troy %with the clanging blue mediterranean %still years from devouring us AGELING First Line: Involuntary religion Last Line: As I will not. Already the flesh slackens, %a sullen sensuality %has settled in my face; my hands da AGITATION First Line: She was a roughhouse girl, she didn't care Last Line: So what; such things never reach the land AMERICAN DRIFT First Line: Uncharacteristically %I have given up love again. Call it love AMERICAN DRIFT: 1 First Line: I remember father stooping Last Line: There are not enough pleasures %to simplify the spirit AMERICAN DRIFT: 2 First Line: I got down on my knees Last Line: I'd dusted flour on to keep deer away, %cursing the coons whose withered, old-men's feet %and bitter AMERICAN DRIFT: 3 First Line: Stubbornly, %love persists. I can't understand Last Line: Sick of hope. %I can't blame anyone for giving up. %I can't blame anyone for setting off alone ANSWER First Line: The house my father built Last Line: We might not mean to, but we take too long to answer ANTICIPATION First Line: I think he ought to practice Last Line: And the clouds are just puffs and white china dogs APPETITE First Line: My father calls to say his arm hurts because he slept Last Line: And then you can't wait another minute for the convulsion to begin AQUARIUM First Line: After the sporty dolphin show Subject(s): Aquariums ARCHEOLOGIES Poem Text First Line: I wonder about all the thoughts Subject(s): Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature ARCHEOLOGIES First Line: I wonder about all the thoughts Last Line: Will not lie down in the dead man's bed ARRANGEMENTS Poem Text First Line: I like a manuever that doesn't start in silence Subject(s): Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature ARRANGEMENTS First Line: I'd like a maneuver that doesn't 'start in silence Last Line: I never know who they mean. And despite everything, %silence comes AS FAR AS LIVING THINGS GO First Line: We come upriver to the high ground, to a headland of pines AS IN JAPAN THIS MORNING First Line: Somehow I have come close Last Line: Glittering or a red scarf %forgotten on a wash line, %and rests there a moment %before plunging help AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON First Line: I can't say anything about her Last Line: That tempts you to stay out a little longer AT THE BRIGHT MOUTH First Line: Rich, flat, irrepressible odor Last Line: A dog barks unhappily as he does %each morning, unable to believe %in recurrence, or love sustained AT THE FORESTRY SUB-STATION First Line: At the foresty sub-station they have pines AT THE HOUR OF OUR BIRTH First Line: This slaughterhouse, this versailles--how easy Last Line: What face is this that will know everything, see clearly? AT THIS HOUR First Line: The city deharmonizes in some areas, arms us with breastworks Last Line: Playing softly on a junkie's turned-down radio, someone almost peaceful %at this hour ATTACHMENT Poem Text First Line: Little prongs, hooks, eyelets Subject(s): Love ATTACHMENT First Line: Little prongs, hooks, eyelets %threaded through you Last Line: As if you were leaving me BAD DAUGHTER First Line: Pale blue clouds over the stockyards Last Line: Staring forever at the stockyards reeking of torn bodies %between her and the distant entirely untro BANQUET First Line: I went down to missalonghi Last Line: And I got up and followed him out %into the feckless sorrow and stupidity, %into the blazes, empty d BASIC BLACK Poem Text First Line: For simplicity's sake I don't think about her Subject(s): Love - Loss Of BASIC BLACK First Line: For simplicity's sake I don't think about her Last Line: Sake-- %it could be anything BEAUTY KILLS Poem Text First Line: In virginia / I stalled a while watching a bay horse Last Line: Or makes him what he is Subject(s): Beauty BEAUTY KILLS First Line: In virginia BEAUTY KILLS First Line: In virginia %I stalled a while watching a bay horse Last Line: Or what makes him what he is Subject(s): Aids (disease); Sickness BEAUTYWORKS First Line: ...All kinds of beauty in the world dense pressed-down spots in grass Last Line: Always on the other side of conciousness, no way .. This is beauty ... %to understand a thing about Subject(s): Beauty; Nature BEDS Poem Text First Line: Terrible beds, soft beds, wily, elusive beds, Subject(s): Beds BEDS First Line: Terrible beds, soft beds, wily, elusive beds Last Line: Come down around us, settled and consonant, happy in our bed BELIEF First Line: From promontories, from low walkways Last Line: On our faces say we're confused, edgy, %stunned by light, and don't believe a thing BETTER THAN HEAVEN Poem Text First Line: So many set-asides, you say, intemperate Last Line: Leads, possible meaning Subject(s): Social Commentaries BUSINESS First Line: My father and his brother didn't get along Last Line: That will feed a man as long as he lives BY-LAWS First Line: Courtesy and a sweet manner were by-laws Last Line: To save each other, and ourselves, %from the loneliness it concealed CALL GIRLS First Line: My rage, you bet Last Line: As I said-I was once %devoted to CAPITALILSM First Line: My father believed in the dynastic principle Last Line: Whose ruckus we fed, howling CEREMONIES First Line: ...Way to put it, a seasonal change Last Line: The old woman in another room dying now CHARACTER PART First Line: The aging actress makes a salad Last Line: The green flags above the lifeguard stand, %the rocking waters, someone's name written in the sand CHILD'S PLAY First Line: I got stranded down south america way, %drunk laid out Last Line: Looking for someone, you never know who CLAIRVOYANCE First Line: In this family everyone knows everything Last Line: The awful facts we rehearsed and memorized just yesterday CLEAN First Line: Flattened, sprawled out, snuffling like a dog Last Line: All the old possibilities-corrigendious, bone-headed and radiant- are here COME DON'T GO SOUTH First Line: Some don't go south for their health Last Line: Something that runs away into the %mossy fog, that we are no longer sure we saw CONCEIT Poem Text First Line: My brother's afraid to get angry Subject(s): Brothers; Anger; Letters; Family Life; Half-brothers; Relatives CONCEIT First Line: My brother's afraid to get angry Last Line: And crossed-out words like scars in flesh CONFEDERATE STATES First Line: It is so simple: our domesticated life Last Line: Choking resin, into the spined of needles %nothing else to do but fall COVERT ACTION First Line: I stab at the waitress Last Line: Winking back at the leaves CREATION RITES First Line: ...Some average of the holiness in every person you have ever run %into Last Line: Waits for her to come up out of the water like a rectified god CROOKED First Line: I keep hanging to the fence outside Last Line: To quit, but then a crooked singing %of birds stirs from the woods and we decide to go on a little l CYCLES First Line: I think it is well known now DAY AFTER THIS First Line: Toward the end my father got desperate Last Line: And you will go on from there, toward the next DEFIANCE First Line: I go through periods, a grown man, still reluctant Last Line: And even then you couldn't be sure DEFIANCE OF HEROES First Line: In stories the old hero turns from the house Last Line: Voyages end only %to reveal the ample treasure: %there is no home in this world DESOLATION YOUR INHERITANCE First Line: Here you might come on yourself, a chef Last Line: The vacant lot where your estate used to be DISTANCE First Line: Among us no one's died in a long time Last Line: Of the last machine he hears grows faint, %he will begin to beg, just to make a noise DREAMBOAT First Line: Some starlet grimacing %is my double Last Line: Disconsolate %yet stubborn, unappeasable DUSK AT HOMER'S First Line: The sun withdraws into its twilight years Last Line: I've got time on my hands, %it won't wash off EASTERN FORESTS Poem Text First Line: I have been walking in the eastern forests Subject(s): Forests; Woods EASTERN FORESTS First Line: I have been walking in the eastern forests Last Line: Like love does in our nomenclature, or rumors of gold ESSENTIAL STORY First Line: We each wanted our own story, my father and I Last Line: My father wouldn't let me get a word in, %he had so much to say about how he missed me EVASIVE ACTION Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: ...The clip ped possessive moment, the barber on his porch Subject(s): Hair; Past EX REGIS First Line: As the road narrows - though it does not EXCURSION First Line: The heart moves on, selects a place for itself Last Line: Somehow we are not surprised or sidetracked FAMILY BURIAL First Line: All around water moves, rocking Last Line: Not until father died, the river says, did I know I could live FAMILY PLOT First Line: There are a few sad graves in our family Last Line: First of a generation, last of a line of thought, %keeping his uncomplicated vigil before the cannon FIDDLER First Line: In general, you want to touch someone everywhere Last Line: Old song, sustained and elegant, that on onebut her %knew the name of FIGURATIVE MARRIAGE First Line: Something so mixed, almost apparent FIVE First Line: Inexplicable foreign substance of life Last Line: The artist places sheets of paper on the grass %everything speaks for itself FIXED POSITIOON First Line: In our family no one ever changes, so it goes Last Line: And still the argument went on FLOWERS OF MANHATTAN Poem Text First Line: ... Early morning petal-strewn sidewalks of manhattan Last Line: Makes a fist and throws punches at the air. Love’s no secret now Subject(s): Flowers; New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple FLOWERS OF MANHATTAN First Line: ... Early morning petal-strewn sidewalks of manhattan Last Line: Makes a fist and throws punches at the air. Love's no secret now Subject(s): Flowers; New York City FORTUNE Poem Text Subject(s): Loss FORTUNE First Line: At a small monastery - or what had been Last Line: That in a month we would lose the child, %and in time you would pass, %like a squandered fortune, fr FRONT MAN First Line: My father was a social man, talking Last Line: Only fear running in your head; the emptiness is moving too Subject(s): Fathers FUCHSIA Poem Text First Line: Apprentice morning come easily now, Subject(s): Nature; Conduct Of Life; Landscape FUCHSIA First Line: Apprentice morning come easily now Last Line: We saw from the window on the way to st. Albans: beautiful, %indifferent, unequivocably doomed GAIN Poem Text First Line: A backwall of mirrors in a deserted store Last Line: Yellow in the whites of my eyes. Pretend to wonder why Subject(s): City & Town Life GESTURE First Line: Tonight my father could be standing here with me Last Line: One in the mirror, one in the room, gesturing wildly GOSNOLD POND: 1 First Line: I get everything I can Last Line: A crumpling sound which is not the sound of crumpling branches %but a sound as if the wind itself we GOSNOLD POND: 2 First Line: The flock of black birds rising Last Line: As one can go - but, and to return, I cannot say %the old world has abandoned me, that what was once GOSNOLD POND: 3 First Line: Has fled, because this all: the rachitic trees Last Line: So the possibility, %as in the western sky the day %burns itself clean, of night, %becomes night GRAVE First Line: I missed my old friend's funeral Last Line: Finding only this one, come to this GREEN LIFE WHERE IT GOES First Line: I go off and visit the trees Last Line: Those around him didn't know what to say HALF-DONE WORLD First Line: I propose to put things differently Last Line: Holds down a world--as dark comes--half-done world, already passed HEADS OF FIRE First Line: Maybe you don't think pigeons Last Line: Not something else - otherwise - %as you had so often claimed, %as you had so often believed HEROIN Poem Text HEROIN First Line: I left a message for my publisher to send copies of the contracts Last Line: As I say in the memorir they are paying me so handsomely for HISTORY First Line: There's a street of houses with women behind %the windows Last Line: But they aren't really thinking about it anymore HOLLY TREE First Line: More than a tragically impaired Last Line: The fresh sea glitters, another %frail extravagance, I guess, depleted, %epicene and impermanent too HOME LESSONS First Line: We were up in the air about things, untethered Last Line: Who when we came to take her home, wouldn't go HONESTY Poem Text First Line: Maybe anna won't arrive Last Line: Rebuking paradise, groping for the cat Subject(s): Honesty HONESTY First Line: Maybe anna won't arrive Last Line: Rebuking paradise, groping for the dog Subject(s): Honesty I DON'T WANT A SON First Line: I don't have a child Last Line: I'll leave you here, she'd say, and, bravely, drive away I MEAN EVERYTHING I SAY First Line: A boy's first fistfight he's crying Last Line: Conveying some new way of life, or nothing important %across town, it touches you IF ANYTHING CAN Poem Text First Line: Of those dark days Last Line: Wondering what to do, what can be done Subject(s): Summer ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO FAMILIAR AMERICAN TREES Poem Text First Line: I don't get it about the natural world Subject(s): New York City; Trees; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple IN BAHIA HONDA Poem Text First Line: Light a blunder, a gaffe Subject(s): Florida Keys; Swimming & Swimmers IN BAHIA HONDA First Line: Light a blunder, a gaffe Last Line: An awful evidence torn to pieces on the floor IN PRAISE OF REGRET Poem Text First Line: Somehow the longing we speak of Subject(s): Grief; Regret; Sorrow; Sadness INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE DARKNESS First Line: The dark under the trees is filled with lightning bugs Last Line: Indistinguishable from darkness. It is not a matter %of being saved. I know this INVENTION OF THE LAND First Line: In those days everything was permanent Last Line: That could mean you well can go JEHOVAH'S WITNESS First Line: Flying into myself is the image, specific Last Line: Nothing has ever happened like this before JUMP SOUL Poem Text First Line: Spirit like an aviary in one of the olde zoos Last Line: And coherent sunshine huffing calmly, not for them Subject(s): Souls KICKING First Line: When we broke up I removed all traces from the house Last Line: I was bereft then too & men were dying & the wild wind blew none of it away KOGANE NO NAMI First Line: In the early morning, rain, then the first KOHAKU First Line: The first time we made love Last Line: Who stood in the wind %calling our dogs with names %that didn't belong to him, or to me LEAVING NEVADA First Line: In the u-bet bucko john reading a travel brochure Last Line: & spending it all in one place Subject(s): Nevada LIAR Poem Text First Line: What brings me alive Subject(s): Lies LIFE ON EARTH First Line: ... Auto parks in layers show off the light Last Line: A power surges through everything, %no rest for the living, work barely begun Subject(s): Automobiles; Labor And Laborers; Life LIGHT SHINING NOW First Line: What has begun %atom by atom, the interiority first constructing itself Last Line: A slight recall of the disintegration, %the terror LITTLE DOORS First Line: Privilege of being withers as Last Line: Something bright and homely we %will purchase complacently, as a gift LOS DOS RANCHEROS Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: I can see the moon like a bullet sunk in the clouds' body Subject(s): Man-woman Relationships; Male-female Relations LOS DOS RANCHEROS First Line: I can see the moon like a bullet sunk in the clouds' body Last Line: What do you think? That nothing can kill the world, not %even love? LOUISIANA PURCHASE Poem Text First Line: Who knows but that meriwether lewis's Last Line: And laughed as if that was something Subject(s): Louisiana LOUISIANA PURCHASE First Line: Who knows but that meriweather lewis's Last Line: That's coming. The past I don't mind, she said, %and laughed as if that was something Subject(s): Louisiana MATURITY First Line: Where they're not banked Last Line: Of the anonymous, hurrying bodies of strangers %that, for a moment, seemed so defenseless %you were MEANING OF BIRDS First Line: Of the genesis of birds we know nothing Last Line: To flap your arms and cry out, to give %one more cracked rendition of your singular, aspirant song MERCIES First Line: In the drift of a moment's pleasure Last Line: Like the shade of elms %lifting the light from the glass, %to replenish my life, wine of paradise MILITARY MIND Poem Text First Line: I wanted to go to military school Last Line: Like a plowblade in her arms Subject(s): Military Education; Military Schools MINIATURE CITY First Line: The aging family life fades out, subsides Last Line: Still unresolved, and the same with grief, %like a perfect wound that aches but doesn't show MISSING DAUGHTER First Line: My mother wanted a daughter; she would Last Line: She thought a daughter would help her bear all this MODERN ART Poem Text First Line: Matisse, in a letter Subject(s): Art & Artists; Nature MODERN ART First Line: Matisse, in a letter %to henry clifford, said an artist must identify himself Last Line: Smell your body in the damp clay and feculence MONASTIC First Line: Carefully, as if you are celibate Subject(s): Daffodils; Spring MONEY First Line: My father and I argue over money - his loss Last Line: For her, is inexplicable MONKEYS IN WHITE SATIN First Line: Now and then you catch a glimpse of space invaders Last Line: That you said meant nothing, wasn't your intention at all MONSTERS Poem Text First Line: Leaf shadows in the streets, flag shadows winkling Last Line: On the surface; the light left burning looks like an ornament now Subject(s): Morning MOON, MOON Poem Text First Line: The moon follows me street by street Subject(s): Moon; City & Town Life MOON, MOON First Line: The moon follows me street by street Last Line: Who would believe me--she wouldn't-- %one more time MUTE Poem Text First Line: It's gotten so I can't say what's in my heart Subject(s): Conduct Of Life MUTE First Line: It's gotten so I can't say what's in my heart Last Line: Repeating their stupid cries in the pines MY MOTHER WAS QUICK First Line: My mother was agile, too quick to catch Last Line: But you do, you turn away MY PARENTS' WEDDING First Line: I cannot believe how beautiful they are Last Line: Her body up to take his lips with hers, and it is one week %before he will find her in bed with his NATURAL HISTORY First Line: Near that revelation a stone Last Line: It was only the next round beginning, %as, near that revelation NEAR RELATION First Line: For months after it happened my brother sent gifts Last Line: Like a yellow lance penetrating her skull, but she is smiling Subject(s): Family Life; Relationships NEITHER ORNAMENTAL NOR TRUE First Line: You say incredible things, like a gun NEW JERSEY TRANSIT Poem Text First Line: Rusted up industrial natures you spy Subject(s): Railroads; New Jersey; Travel; Railways; Trains; Journeys; Trips NEW JERSEY TRANSIT First Line: Rusted up industrial natures you spy Last Line: You spread vast wings and collect the children under them NIGHT WON'T STOP IT First Line: We are tired of arguing about who is the most hurt Last Line: Will be forgotten. It was only an experiment NO NONSENSE Poem Text NOT YET First Line: The scrap of pink net filled Last Line: After the shutters have been pulled %and we are left to the harsh bellowing %of the wounded achillea NOW I SMACK MY HEAD First Line: I've taken too many things seriously Last Line: For about ten seconds but stand there %with my heart pounding wildly, %seriously in love with it all NOW, SINCE First Line: Now, since he's had children, my brother Last Line: The one who looks like our mother NUMBER SIX SHOT First Line: The black dog swims strongly OF THIS I SPEAK TO NO ONE First Line: Some days then the rage %like a fire in the back of the house Last Line: The mortification-of these I say nothing OFFENDED PARTIES First Line: I wake at first light, my mind running fast Last Line: Madman - still one of us Subject(s): Relationships OKEFENOKEE STELLAE' First Line: So we must build to the moment Last Line: The possiblity of murder, %approach the pond - it shimmers %with cold dark light - and carefully dri OMNIPOTENCE First Line: I wanted to see the emotion in my brother's face Last Line: Holding herself in bloody arms apologizing ON EVENING TIDE First Line: At evening, as the tide comes in Last Line: And form - save what we fling out on it, %sails or cries, flying forth into the dark ON NOT BUYING A CELL PHONE Poem Text First Line: Late snow, a re-snow Subject(s): Mobile Telephones ONE LIE AFTER ANOTHER Poem Text First Line: I'd come so far, the last leg Subject(s): Lies ONE POSSIBLE MEANING Poem Text First Line: This afternoon the park is filled with brides Last Line: Releases a magic that changes everything Subject(s): Children; Parks; Childhood ORANGE LIGHT IN THE WINDOWS First Line: ...Of course there are cranberry bogs for sale Last Line: What did she mean, about the smell? ORIGINATIONS First Line: My grandfather, arrested on the ochlocknee for setting illegal %traps Last Line: City, my friend says, 'she probably remembers all that' OUTPATIENT First Line: Later she was loose again, discharged Last Line: Gently closing circles where her breasts used to be PALMS First Line: When the sun went down in l.A. That day I was driving Last Line: Who slaps and slaps his small daughter, until they both are stunned, %stuped and helpless, overwhelm PASSAGE First Line: What you gave to me along with scarlet Last Line: And touch, permanent only %because ongoing PERCEPTION ONE First Line: What is already preposterous, the simple compilation Last Line: That loss - or its mother, desire - would be a part of our lives now, %we would eat it as our daily PERCEPTION TWO First Line: The world this morning is no miracle Last Line: Or use it perhaps, live in it briefly, %and try to remember,and to on, forgetting PLACE IN THE WORLD First Line: We continued a ways... Last Line: Modulant, capacious-%the light striking a clamor of light from the trees-%falling PLANTING MORNING GLORIES IN OCTOBER Poem Text First Line: Black-seed sputter, peppercorns Subject(s): Morning Glories; Autumn; Fall PLANTING MORNING GLORIES IN OCTOBER First Line: Black seed-sputter, peppercorns Last Line: Each morning unfurled-all forgiven in the night- %shining POEMS WITHOUT WORDS First Line: Blue mountainous clouds Last Line: A young man finds it there PORTENTS Poem Text First Line: October fades out in its special colors Subject(s): October; Death; Transience; Dead, The; Impermanence PORTENTS First Line: October fades out in its special colors Last Line: Us in the light, begins to imagine things PORTS OF CALL Poem Text First Line: In sink into the arms of a travel brochure Last Line: For a slack still eden Subject(s): Travel QUEEN OF WINTER First Line: Breasts cut off , uterus removed Last Line: Sadly, like a queen, condemns them all RAISON D'ETRE First Line: Singed, rent, or whatever RANSOM First Line: Thirty years after the first breakdown Last Line: Didn't want to go, we don't either RAPID, IMPOSSIBLE PLACEMENT OF FACT First Line: . . . Chinese market salesmen, unnoticed in their inestimable grace Last Line: The face of man scanning the territory combines will and fate %in a mix so intricate there is no way READING AFTER A CALL FROM MY EX-WIFE Poem Text First Line: I read a novel in which the main character used etcetera Subject(s): Divorce; Family Life; Marriage; Relationships; Relatives; Weddings; Husbands; Wives READING AFTER A CALL FROM MY EX-WIFE First Line: I read a novel in which the main character used etcetera Last Line: Become so again, for a while Subject(s): Divorce; Family Life; Marriage; Relationships REAL TIME Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: .. Where hiroshima was, someone said, there's a little star, Subject(s): Conduct Of Life; Divorce RECALL First Line: Old cadences, cracklings along the sight line Last Line: The operatics-referring to this REDBIRD First Line: Already this june morning, under the glaucous magnolia REDNECK RIVIERA Poem Text First Line: We ate at a poor restaurant Last Line: Like ashes on the lips of the dead Subject(s): Restaurants; Cafes; Diners REDNECK RIVIERA First Line: We ate at a poor restaurant Last Line: Like ashes on the lips of the dead Subject(s): Restaurants REFUGE Poem Text First Line: Even as you climb the tenement stairs Subject(s): Tenementsl Despair RENEWAL: A VERSION First Line: I rise to the dismissive woods, tangle of catbrier Last Line: And I have taken a wife who is slender and black as the night %and she sings to me, oh, she sings to RESPITE First Line: Someone walking in the western dust Last Line: Almost tender, as above the city %lightning flashed %and the suicides climbed down from the roofs RIDER Poem Text First Line: This time we are getting drunk on retsina Subject(s): Family Life; Divorce; Relatives RIDING IN WATER First Line: My memories are common, memories of baseballs Last Line: When the dangerous world %was simply a white line of wave crest %that the night would erase RITES First Line: As the boy buckling Last Line: And heaving %& whistling %a tune %about higher - higher -- %fly higher -- %thus our descent begins RIVER First Line: Finally I know who is traveling Last Line: Looks like crete or portland, or some other place %we never dreamed we'd wind up in ROMANCE First Line: My wife and I make love in the hot Last Line: To forget the stupid bird- %song and the traffic and what's haywire %and always will be ROOM 316L First Line: Dark in the days locked up Last Line: Rats run aground %on my bones RUFFIANS Poem Text First Line: When my father got old, but not too old Subject(s): Fathers; Aging RUFFIANS First Line: When my father got old, but not too old Last Line: Stood on the threshold looking at you, without recognition SANTA MONICA First Line: Someone was writing this incredibly personal poem Last Line: It was a struggle, for both of us, to get to the next part SCHUBERT IN FLORIDA Poem Text First Line: When you slunk across my dream Subject(s): Divorce; Grief; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness SCHUBERT IN FLORIDA First Line: When you slunk across my dream Last Line: To quell and die down, so he might move on from there SEGUNDA SEGUNDO, SEL. First Line: There is hope in description Last Line: I want to see the hands of the rain move up the hill %touching and letting to, alluding to everythin SELF DEFENSE First Line: At the resort hotel SENTINEL First Line: Around the family my brother's sure of himself Last Line: And put a stop to something, somewhere, in some house SHAME First Line: I keep referring to you in transition from Last Line: And foolishly I haunt the stockyards and the record stores SLAUGHTER STREET Poem Text First Line: One time years ago a man tried to sell Subject(s): Children; Abandonment; City & Town Life; Childhood; Desertion SLAUGHTER STREET First Line: One time years ago a man tried to sell Last Line: And allowed %what they had been keeping to themselves %to pour forth SMALL SOUND THE NIGHT MAKES First Line: Outside my father's house the whippoorwills Last Line: When the cunning notes come again, you'll think you've heard it SMARTY PANTS Poem Text First Line: Even the most localized efforts Subject(s): Love Affairs; Disappointment SOLO First Line: My brother bought a ketch Last Line: You go out on by yourself, this is life SOMEONE STILL CAPABLE OF CHANGE First Line: Aged mothers gape at television Last Line: The strong straight torsos jammed into earth, that night erases SONNET First Line: At the track Last Line: Where he wanted. I cannot pretend %to be asleep. I do not know %whether love can save me SONS OF SONS First Line: That old man was strong, once Last Line: This. It's happened anyway SPRUNG Poem Text Recitation First Line: The ministerial shapes of / chinese women Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Family Life; Relatives SPRUNG First Line: The ministerial shapes of %chinese women Last Line: The boy %missing all those spots, %like I did STAGE LIGHT First Line: Up ahead, beyond a rising foreground that is going Last Line: Moves still, with the earnest collapsed delicacy %of the convicted, toward his death STAR First Line: When as now I am defeated by love Last Line: Climbing the subway stairs, someone as yet unknown to you Subject(s): Stars STILL THE MOMENT INTENDS TO REPLACE US Poem Text Subject(s): Evening; Loss; Sunset; Twilight STILL THE MOMENT INTENDS TO REPLACE US First Line: Still the moment intends to replace us, the wistful play of dark Last Line: Across the somber and disappearing pastures STRAIGHT Poem Text First Line: In all these old photographs sun Subject(s): Life STRAIGHT First Line: In all these old photographs sun Last Line: Eternity they don't dream will fail Subject(s): Life STRANGERS First Line: My father never left his parents Last Line: Life was too short to learn to love strangers SUMMERTIME Poem Text First Line: In the u-bet bucko john reading a travel brochure Last Line: "verything is holy Subject(s): Summer SWEETNESS OF A PEACH First Line: Somebody must have rummaged in these attic boxes Last Line: Among the rise and fall of other people's lives TALKNG AMONG OURSELVES Poem Text First Line: In the rental cottage it comes to me, Subject(s): Brothers; Family Life; Divorce; Grief; Half-brothers; Relatives; Sorrow; Sadness TESTAMENT OF WHITE, PART TWO: THE PAST First Line: On the georgia island where I was raised THE CASING Poem Text First Line: For years I sat in bars lying about everything Subject(s): Lies; Conduct Of Life THE ESSENTIAL STORY Poem Text First Line: We each wanted our own story, my father and I Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Stories THE FRONT MAN Poem Text First Line: My father was a social man, talking Subject(s): Fathers THE LAYOUT Poem Text THE LIGHT SHINING NOW Poem Text First Line: What has begun Subject(s): Memory THE MINIATURE CITY Poem Text First Line: The aging family life fades out, subsides Subject(s): Family Life; Transience; Relatives; Impermanence THERE IS NO RAILROAD NAMED DELIGHT First Line: My great-aunt, a diabetic Last Line: And feel the kick of death THERE'S TROUBLE EVERYWHERE Poem Text First Line: There the blind man and his personal dark Subject(s): Blindness; Homeless; City & Town Life; Visually Handicapped THERE'S TROUBLE EVERYWHERE First Line: There the blind man and his personal dark Last Line: By the cathedral's not open to our citizens THIS HOLY ENTERPRISE First Line: The troubled entrepreneurs of evening TOGETHERNESS First Line: My brother was quick Last Line: I promise you, they want to go home TOO MUCH, NEVER ENOUGH First Line: Snow patches on the sea dunes Last Line: Neither as adornment %or supplication -- %to himself, or itself -- that holiness %is bleak, %even ex TRANSFORMATION TO WHITE First Line: Some stranger's Last Line: The simplified eloquence %of a humanness %so apparent, so undistilled, %that I cannot resist it TREASURE First Line: I've spent years Last Line: To lead them by the hand TWO MEN First Line: The day my father had his breakdown, that night Last Line: Evening soaks the fields, there's almost nothing left TWO POEMS ABOUT THE CHILDREN: 1. THE CHILDREN ARE VIGOROUS First Line: The children are vigorous, apt Last Line: I don't say anything about it TWO POEMS ABOUT THE CHILDREN: 2. ROUGH GAMES First Line: My brothers have left their lives ajar Last Line: Speedy lives are all that keep us standing here VISITATION First Line: Fall binds itself, sticks itself loosely in tufts Last Line: Whatever they see -- a moment ago wasn't there VOICE First Line: My mother didn't go crazy in a day Last Line: Maybe the voice just kept talking WALKING HOME THROUGH THE GARDEN First Line: The late hollyhocks are stiff and upright, red WHAT CAN BE UNITED First Line: I speak directly of religion now, of the Last Line: Were white and bare WHAT THIS STANDS FOR Poem Text First Line: Plum bushes unable to bear Subject(s): Love - Complaints WHAT THIS STANDS FOR First Line: Plum bushes unable to bear Last Line: And the dark innuendo everyone calls a love life WHITE FACES First Line: Each new movement - cruising along the salt pond Last Line: Nodding in the rain - the white faces %of cattle, stones in a field, %the blazing conjury of stars WHO KNOWS IF THAT WOULD WORK Poem Text First Line: Repititions might work, for example Last Line: Rounding the bend toot toot Subject(s): Love – Complaints WISDOM First Line: My father's scared, a nervous, guilty man Last Line: Is kneeling in it now, yapping at the snow, afraid to move WITHOUT HAVEN First Line: The lights pull the buildings upward Last Line: It is one of those moments, you think, when, %for a second, one loses heart WOMAN AS FIGURE First Line: Why, when I see the child Last Line: Planning battles and gaily painted ships %on fire and death sentences only he could rescind WOMEN OF AMERICA First Line: On the pale morning I left town Last Line: And thus time began to pass, in america YELLOW POPPIES First Line: I'm mortally impatient for the past to catch up to me Last Line: A way to make herself happy, for a time, out in the dark Subject(s): Family Life |
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