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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: SWENSON, KAREN Matches Found: 198 Swenson, Karen Poet's Biography 198 poems available by this author A CAPPELLA Poem Text First Line: Five days of driving with no voices Last Line: Earth to the contour of its eloquence. Subject(s): Driving & Drivers; Solitude; Travel; Loneliness; Journeys; Trips A COLONIAL MORNING DREAM Poem Text First Line: Cocks crow memories Last Line: Narrates the halftones of love. Subject(s): Memory; Morning A PROBLEM IN AESTHETICS Poem Text First Line: They sent him away Last Line: And one of us forgot. Subject(s): Immigrants; Poetry & Poets; Russia; Emigrant; Emigration; Immigration; Soviet Union; Russians A SENSE OF DIRECTION Poem Text First Line: It was moonless the night I drove my son Last Line: Am shivering in its draft. Subject(s): Fathers & Daughters; Maps; Mothers & Sons ADAM AND HIS FATHER Poem Text First Line: Adam's father, always a good provider Last Line: "perhaps what I have always wanted is to want." Subject(s): Desire; Fathers & Sons; Thailand; Travel; Journeys; Trips AFTER DIVORCE; FOR NAHID SARMAD Poem Text First Line: Every sunday at 9 pm Last Line: Walk from the potter's field of the past. Subject(s): Divorce; Memory AKHMATOVA Poem Text First Line: The dark stair's colder than the snow-wan world Last Line: He who would torture for such adulation. Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Russia; Soviet Union; Russians ALIEN WOMEN; SONGKHLA, THAILAND Poem Text First Line: Sun-blind in the pharmacy's dim light Last Line: Back into the sun's fistful of blades. Subject(s): Intermarriage; Marriage; Shopping; Thailand; Weddings; Husbands; Wives AN AMERICAN IN BANGKOK Poem Text First Line: Perhaps the polluted air Last Line: Still he's optimistic. Subject(s): Americans; Culture Conflict; Ignorance; Thailand; Dullness; Stupdity ANDROGYNY Poem Text First Line: They nestle in the hairs of your chest Last Line: Suckling her thirst at a man's breast. Subject(s): Bodies; Sex ANGEL OF DEATH IN SUMATRA First Line: Exotic is our mutual word in the village Last Line: Intimate, such carnal knowledge of us APOLLO AT LAX Poem Text First Line: At lax, wandering among lost luggage Last Line: In wreaths of another god. Subject(s): Los Angeles; Love Affairs ARTISTS First Line: Their house rose %like rice terraces in bali Last Line: Along the window's sun and %were content as they AT MOTHER TERESA'S IN CALCUTTA First Line: Through the veil of skin I read bone's Last Line: Bone syncopates, 'not long. Not long' BACKGROUND AND DESIGN Poem Text First Line: On tv in a bangkok shop window Last Line: From fiend to lover and back. Subject(s): Culture Conflict; Music & Musicians; Thailand BARE FEET Poem Text First Line: The vulnerable, bare feet of old men Last Line: Is bearable but filling it brings tears. Subject(s): Death; Fathers & Daughters; Hospitals; Poetry & Poets; Dead, The BAYON, ANGKOR THOM First Line: The rise of morning sun sends flights Last Line: The millennium of stony smiles BILLY Poem Text First Line: Returning to the beginning Last Line: And descend the hill balanced in their weight. Subject(s): Children; Death; Winter; Childhood; Dead, The BURNING GHAT First Line: This young man, aids thin, yesterday hid from Last Line: From an old stone fragment, beautiful as he was CHADOR Poem Text First Line: In a taxi in isfahan we have no language Last Line: As the river bosoms the brooch of the sun. Subject(s): Arabs - Women; Travel; Journeys; Trips CITY COLLEGE Poem Text First Line: 5:30 and the winter dark Last Line: Gargoyles smirk into the dusk. Subject(s): City College Of New York; Education CLOSING TIME AT THE SAN DIEGO ZOO Poem Text First Line: The keepers / walk among galapagos turtles Last Line: In the san diego dusk. Subject(s): Caregivers; Galapagos Islands; Turtles; Zoos; Tortoises COIN OF MOTHER TERESA'S First Line: They cannot speak; they do Last Line: Patient in death's ante-room COLD BLOOD Poem Text First Line: After murdering his father Last Line: On limber fingers. Subject(s): Burma; Fear; Murder; Punishment; Reincarnation; Transmigration; Pretas COLD HANDS WARM HEART Poem Text First Line: Every winter friday Last Line: As the ice of ladyhood gloves my fingers. Subject(s): Cold; Dancing & Dancers COLLISION Poem Text First Line: In wind and change Last Line: A hand of leaves into dawn. Subject(s): Birds; Healing; Marriage; Cures; Weddings; Husbands; Wives COME WITH ME INTO WINTER'S DISHEVELED GRASS Poem Text Last Line: Now that death is gone Subject(s): Death COOPER SQUARE Poem Text First Line: A mother on long island buys her son Last Line: And beg beyond all affluence. Subject(s): Drugs & Drug Abuse; New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple CULTURAL EXCHANGE First Line: In the cave of movie-house fictive dark Last Line: Aren't you afraid %a woman traveling DEAR ELIZABETH: (FOR ELIZABETH DIFIORE) Poem Text First Line: We are almost all homely Last Line: Told by a wanderer totally blind. Subject(s): Beauty; Women DECEPTION PASS; FOR JUDY AND MARK KAWASAKI Poem Text First Line: It is very high here Last Line: Lingers upon this thigh of tide. Subject(s): Islands; Nature DEXTER GORDON: COPENHAGEN/AVERY FISHER HALL Poem Text First Line: Last time I listened I turned thirty-six Last Line: Leaving nothing left to play. Subject(s): Gordon, Dexter (1923-1990); Memory; Music & Musicians; Saxophones DINOSAUR NATIONAL Poem Text First Line: Jewelers, / in goggles and buttercup hardhats, Last Line: Footprints, as they passed in the ashes. Subject(s): Archeology; Dinosaurs; Fossils; Mothers DOG'S TOOTH OF FAITH First Line: A traveling merchant's mother asked Last Line: A knife and peel along with tashi DRIFTERS: BELLA COOLA TO WILLIAMS LAKE Poem Text First Line: Used to being his own listener Last Line: He travels this road. Subject(s): Conversation; Hitchhikers; Solitude; Loneliness DUTCHMAN IN BALI First Line: Split, the babe in solomon's judgment Last Line: His doctors prescribe penicillin for his homelessness FANTASIA AT THE LA BREA TAR PITS First Line: The sloth's varnished ribs Last Line: To stain the green %no larger than a whole note FAREWELL TO FARGO: SELLING THE HOUSE Poem Text First Line: Olivia is dying. Bring your best black dress Last Line: Its spring and slams. Subject(s): Death; Family Life; Property; Dead, The; Relatives; Possessions FELICITY First Line: The towels neatly squared along the rod Last Line: Each day I sterilize my path to him FISHERMAN IN SONGKHLA Poem Text First Line: His mirror shines back with approval, god's Last Line: Palms open in the gesture of forgiveness. Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; Thailand FLIGHT FROM MINNEAPOLIS TO FARGO First Line: The fields get larger Last Line: Through which the melody %of the red river runs FOREST LAWN Poem Text First Line: Like an amusement park, the cemetery grounds Last Line: Is death and reproduction. Subject(s): Cemeteries; Death; Imitation; Graveyards; Dead, The FOUR WINDOWS Poem Text First Line: Near grandma's tree-sconced house in brooklyn Last Line: My fact - touches me so quick, quick as life. Subject(s): Life; New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple GARDENS Poem Text First Line: In my walled california patio Last Line: Speaks on this bell's voice. Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Marriage; Memory; Weddings; Husbands; Wives GETTING A PURCHASE Poem Text First Line: Whoring? I guess I thought it was part Last Line: I can send a small check from time to time. Subject(s): Love; Prostitution; Thailand; Harlots; Whores; Brothels GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: HOME TO FARGO Poem Text First Line: Mortals live by mutual interchange Last Line: Drive to the next time zone. Subject(s): Cemeteries; Fargo, North Dakota; Mothers & Daughters; Graveyards GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: OVER THE MACKINAC Poem Text First Line: She always wanted to be dorothy gayle Last Line: Sailboats like dropped handkerchiefs below me. Subject(s): Legacies; Mothers & Daughters; Travel; Journeys; Trips GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: ST. CLOUD, MINNESOTA Poem Text First Line: A small square with elms Last Line: "but she does. She has to." Subject(s): Memory; Mothers & Daughters GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: THE ROAD TO BUFFALO Poem Text First Line: Take all her belongings Last Line: And drove with her knuckles. Subject(s): Legacies; Mothers & Daughters GRAND ARMY PLAZA Poem Text First Line: 10:00 at night in brooklyn Last Line: Where the sky salts a wither of grass. Subject(s): Architecture & Architects; Brooklyn, New York GRAVE CLOTHES First Line: The undertaker asks for clothes Last Line: Yet wear her coat's imitation fur to the funeral - %a last dressing HATCHING; FOR DAW AUNG SAN SUU KYI Poem Text First Line: On university avenue in rangoon Last Line: To crack its walls with wings. Subject(s): Burma; Revolutions; Silence; Solitude; Loneliness HENRY MOORE'S STATUE AT LINCOLN CENTER Poem Text First Line: After listening to durufle's requiem Last Line: Of shapes which refuse to explain. Subject(s): Moore, Henry (1898-1986); New York City; Statues; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple HOOKS AND EYES Poem Text First Line: Irish lace and linen Last Line: Again, and sewed me in. Subject(s): Seamstresses; Sewing; Women HUFFMAN'S PHOTOGRAPH OF THE GRAVES OF THE UNKNOWN AT LITTLE BIGHORN Poem Text First Line: Taken a year after, in '77 Last Line: Turning silver in the wind. Subject(s): Death; Little Bighorn, Battle Of; War; Dead, The HYBRIDS OF WAR: A MORALITY POEM: 1. VIETNAM Poem Text First Line: Shadow cleaves Last Line: Bowl broken by his birth. Subject(s): Children; Vietnam; Childhood HYBRIDS OF WAR: A MORALITY POEM: 2. CAMBODIA Poem Text First Line: Before the rats came Last Line: For a face to match her mirrors'. Subject(s): Abandonment; Cambodia; Children; Desertion; Childhood HYBRIDS OF WAR: A MORALITY POEM: 3. THAILALND Poem Text First Line: His eyes were made green in Last Line: His within this citadel. Subject(s): Children; Thailand; Childhood HYBRIDS OF WAR: A MORALITY POEM: 4. THE MORAL Poem Text First Line: In a world of face values, what Last Line: Into the marrow of your bones? Subject(s): Morality; War; Ethics I HAVE LOST THE ADDRESS OF MY COUNTRY Poem Text Last Line: I have lost the address of my country Subject(s): Women Immigrants - United States; Islam IMPRESSIONS Poem Text First Line: I pluck the leaves and print them Last Line: The fingerprints still wet upon its flank. Subject(s): Artifacts; Mothers & Sons ISHMAEL Poem Text First Line: Fifteen years I have known your face Last Line: Turns with us lashed to its flank and sounds. Subject(s): Mothers & Sons; Ships & Shipping ISN'T IT ROMANTIC Poem Text First Line: The guide book promised birds of paradise Last Line: Whirl me from this place I most wanted to be. Subject(s): Disappointment; Indonesia; Tourists; Dutch East Indies JIGSAW First Line: A christian brother trained, fuzz-checked cherub Last Line: Piece of jigsaw questing for a puzzle JOHANNA PEDERSEN Poem Text First Line: Mouth prickled by crumbs of flatbrod Last Line: Rocked in the swell of the old. Subject(s): Denmark; Immigrants; Danes; Emigrant; Emigration; Immigration JOSIE MORRIS Poem Text First Line: Beyond the petroglyph, / a child's greasy handprint on rock Last Line: In the sun. Subject(s): Graves; Imagination; Women; Tombs; Tombstones; Fancy KALIGHAT IN CALCUTTA Poem Text Subject(s): Calcutta, India; City & Town Life KATHMANDU GUEST HOUSE Poem Text First Line: Dogs bark themselves Last Line: On whose faces the times keep changing. Subject(s): Culture Conflict; Travel; Journeys; Trips LENNIE SWENSON Poem Text First Line: 6:00 in the super's smell of pine sol Last Line: Lay still on the white tile, his pockets empty. Subject(s): Memory; Murder; Uncles LIKE A HENRY MOORE STATUE Poem Text Last Line: And suspend it in my opening Subject(s): Moore, Henry (1898-1986); Body, Human; Self; Mothers & Daughters LOVE IN BLACK AND WHITE Poem Text First Line: My mouth salty with the taste of your flesh Last Line: Across the sparrow's waking. Subject(s): Love; Sex MADNESS First Line: Perhaps I never liked his adult much MAKING THE BED Poem Text First Line: Her regimen's inviolate. They squabble Last Line: Side smoothing the fold of sheet over blanket. Subject(s): Marriage; Tourists; Weddings; Husbands; Wives MAN WHO CANDLED First Line: It was once believed that if you took Last Line: For her need by that light %watching her flesh run down his bone MANOKWARI, IRIAN JAYA; IN MEMORIAM, ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE Poem Text First Line: Dangling rainbows of skipjack swing Last Line: Of notes, a little twilight music. Subject(s): Evolution; Indonesia; Wallace, Alfred Russel (1823-1913); Dutch East Indies MARKET WOMEN: LAKE TOBA Poem Text First Line: They've come on board their grocery baskets full MARKET WOMEN: LAKE TOBA First Line: They've come on board their grocery baskets full Last Line: Our differences our mutual delight MEDIAS RES Poem Text First Line: The middle's where I wonder why as I wake Last Line: Imagination, I wonder knowing why. Subject(s): Culture Conflict; Indonesia; Travel; Dutch East Indies; Journeys; Trips MISSIONARIES Poem Text First Line: Rusted helmets, dog tags in the garden Last Line: How to iron their new white shirts. Subject(s): Civilization; Indonesia; Missions & Missionaries; Dutch East Indies MOON WALK Poem Text First Line: My son lies a monochrome of the moon Last Line: Leaving no mark on this side of space. Subject(s): Children; Moon; Childhood MOTHBALL FLEET AT MARTINEZ First Line: Coming south on 680 to concord Last Line: To turn the gears of war's clock %by which we tell our time MOTHER AND SON Poem Text First Line: Still, in the stale cigarette smell Last Line: Drift separately into dawn. Subject(s): Children; Memory; Mothers & Sons; Parents; Childhood; Parenthood MOVING Poem Text First Line: Tenderly I swathe cups in the times Last Line: As I box my life. Subject(s): Memory; Moving & Movers MY LAI Poem Text First Line: An embassy's tall gate off a dirt road Last Line: Of their lives by what death holds apart. Subject(s): Death; Massacres; Vietnam; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975; War; Dead, The MY MOTHER LEFT ME Poem Text First Line: 24 pairs of unmatched white gloves Last Line: She left me. Subject(s): Death; Gloves; Legacies; Mothers & Daughters; Dead, The; Mittens; Muffs MY MOTHER, 1930 Poem Text First Line: Don't worry, mom,' she wrote from tunis to fargo Last Line: Her secret refuge of remembrance. Subject(s): Marriage; Mothers & Daughters; Travel; Weddings; Husbands; Wives; Journeys; Trips NEW NEIGHBORHOOD Poem Text First Line: I sold my brownstone windows full of leaves Last Line: Their clopping rhythm muffled in fresh snow. Subject(s): Cities; Moving & Movers; Winter; Urban Life NIGHT CRY Poem Text First Line: The radiator taps like a frantic blind man Last Line: A crocheted cap for a stillborn baby. Subject(s): Babies; Death; Infants; Dead, The NIGHT DRIVING First Line: The tidal slide of radio stations Last Line: Tolls me to no channel home. %all truths are equal in this dark NO EXEMPTION FOR TOURISTS Poem Text First Line: A foreign family -- mother, father Last Line: To the bright ribbon of river. Subject(s): Indonesia; Suicide; Tourists; Dutch East Indies NOTES FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (1) First Line: The sprinklers hide their belly button knots Last Line: At 4 am, spray fans across grey lawns - %and windows of my dreams run pale with rain NOTES FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (2) First Line: My insurance agent sends me Last Line: His voice an oily %curcle of sun-warmed mayonnaise NOTES FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (3) First Line: The local classical station plays Last Line: Familiar but unnameable in my mind until %a lion roars through the screen of brass NOTES FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (4) First Line: Waves trespass their white lips Last Line: Allotted the subdivision of this wall, %by money's right to rezone art NOTES FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (5) First Line: Under the moon, the trunks of eucalyptus Last Line: Stiff and white in their snows %as the spread sheets of clipper ships NURSING HOME: THE CANARY Poem Text First Line: In this hospital odor Last Line: Spokes down the hall. Subject(s): Canaries; Nursing Homes; Old Age Homes; Assisted Living NURSING HOME: THE DOLL Poem Text First Line: Rouge the cracked china of her cheeks Last Line: Put her away unbroken. Subject(s): Facades; Nursing Homes; Appearances; Old Age Homes; Assisted Living NURSING HOME: THE VISIT Poem Text First Line: The wild-animal fear is upon him Last Line: His hair through the cage. Subject(s): Grandchildren; Grandparents; Nursing Homes; Grandsons; Granddaughters; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers; Old Age Homes; Assisted Living OFFERING First Line: A black hat in a sunday pew Last Line: And something thrives upon our thirst Subject(s): Prayer; Religion OFFICE PARTY: DISTAFF VIEW Poem Text First Line: My mind is in the deep freeze Last Line: Stylized beyond reality. Subject(s): Facades; Marriage; Office Employees; Appearances; Weddings; Husbands; Wives; Clerks ON THE IRT Poem Text First Line: A lily in a burdock nosegay Last Line: Swarms fireflies in a jar sealed by aphasia. Subject(s): Caregivers; Children; Subways; Childhood ONE AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF Poem Text First Line: One came home from forced labor to Last Line: The fields of where we all are one. Subject(s): Cambodia; Death; Graves; War; Dead, The; Tombs; Tombstones ORANGUTAN REHAB Poem Text First Line: A circle of unbarbered redheads round Last Line: Limb toward a cultivated taste for freedom. Subject(s): Animals; Apes; Freedom; Indonesia; Gorillas; Chimpanzees; Gibbons; Orangutans; Liberty; Dutch East Indies PALOUSE Poem Text First Line: Chaff hovers like pollen Last Line: Spattered with stars. Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers PEOPLE ARE Poem Text First Line: We forget some things are only Last Line: Degradable. Subject(s): Mortality; Nature PLATO'S CAVE Poem Text First Line: Blood is red. They say napalm Last Line: In the fire a day before my eyes. Subject(s): Television; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975; War; Tv PLAYING JACKS IN BHAKTAPUR Poem Text First Line: On a cruciform cloth squared in black and white Last Line: She names. Subject(s): Games; Travel; Recreation; Pastimes; Amusements; Journeys; Trips PLAYING SOMEONE ELSE'S PIANO Poem Text First Line: Touching you / slipping fingers between your thighs Last Line: Which only the other can hear. Subject(s): Musical Instruments; Pianos; Sex POCKETS Poem Text First Line: The point of clothes was line Last Line: To find both hands and pockets empty. Subject(s): Legacies; Mothers & Daughters; Sewing POLYGAMY Poem Text First Line: When an official goes upcountry Last Line: His name green as unreaped fantasy. Subject(s): Children - Illegitimate; Polygamy; Thailand; Birth - Out Of Wedlock; Bastards RATS IN LHASA First Line: All over rough sheet and the pillow case Last Line: Caroused in lhasa's cold beneath my bed REVAMPING THE VIRGIN Poem Text First Line: How green the grass looks on the other side Last Line: To get it right this time and have a girl. Subject(s): Mary. Mother Of Jesus; Religion; Women; Women - Bible; Virgin Mary; Theology SARAH'S MONSTERS Poem Text First Line: There is an entire row of monsters lined up Last Line: Across the front lawn's shadows. Subject(s): Sculpture & Sculptors SELLING HER ENGAGEMENT RING Poem Text First Line: You'd have thought her diamond was set in my flesh Last Line: Wahpeton - mandan - medora - to vanishing point. Subject(s): Jewelry & Jewelers; Legacies; Mothers & Daughters SHARE TAXI TO SINGAPORE First Line: You living hollywood Last Line: Grab-tail at the jungle's curb SIGNATURE OF LOVE Poem Text First Line: In missoula, someone has punched Last Line: Beneath the signature of love on the ceiling. Subject(s): Hotels; Love; Sex; Vandalism; Inns; Innskeepers; Motels; Boarding Houses SPARROWS Poem Text First Line: Where roof-ends rise up into dragons Last Line: To be caged once again in the dark. Subject(s): Buddhism; Salespersons; Sparrows; Buddha; Buddhists; Selling SPRING WALK Poem Text First Line: My father and I go for a walk Last Line: Rotting in the green spring sun. Subject(s): Fathers; Mortality; Time SPRING'S NEBRASKA Poem Text First Line: Spring's nebraska / is no eyelet damsel but a bawd Last Line: Prisms through the air. Subject(s): Nebraska; Spring STALKING LEMURS Poem Text First Line: 4 a.M., the moon down world is dark Last Line: Into leaves and dawn. Subject(s): Hunting; Indonesia; Hunters; Dutch East Indies SULAWESI: BALCONIES OF THE DEAD First Line: Islands of trees hummock up in green Last Line: Up at the audience of the dead SURFACE AND STRUCTURE: BONAVENTURE HOTEL, LOS ANGELES Poem Text First Line: Four black glass silos Last Line: Broken from a necklace. Subject(s): Decay; Hotels; Los Angeles; Rot; Decadence; Inns; Innskeepers; Motels; Boarding Houses SURVIVORS Poem Text First Line: They came up to her, strangers in the street Last Line: Mirrors, for bargirls who ask no questions. Subject(s): Cambodia; Death; Vietnam; Dead, The TEH LOVER Poem Text First Line: There is enough left, he says Last Line: Come in cold and content from his quest. Subject(s): Animals; Cats; Love Affairs; Men THAT KIND OF POEM' Poem Text First Line: He called our son to ask if he Last Line: "of poem"" to keep her alive." Subject(s): Death; Family Life; Women; Dead, The; Relatives THAT KIND OF POEM' Poem Text First Line: He called our son to ask if he THE ARCHITECT (1) Poem Text First Line: The only places I can find you Last Line: Forms most faithfully the face of god. Subject(s): Architecture & Architects; Churches; Faith; Fathers & Daughters; Cathedrals; Belief; Creed THE ARCHITECT (2) Poem Text First Line: Whatever his dreams have been it is now hard to say Last Line: He hears the wind that cries through feathered wings. Subject(s): Ambition; Architecture & Architects; Memory THE ARCHITECT AT THE EDGE OF THE SEA Poem Text First Line: My stride was two to my father's by the sea Last Line: Surge, master of the arch of element. Subject(s): Architecture & Architects; Fathers & Daughters; Memory; Poetry & Poets THE BALINESE WITCH DOCTOR Poem Text First Line: He sits in the circle of his simmering Last Line: Baby chicken stirs in moonlight's shadows. Subject(s): Indonesia; Religion; Dutch East Indies; Theology THE BARMAID AND THE ALEXANDRITE Poem Text First Line: Route 66, a rut of scenery and cigarettes Last Line: From telluride, to taos, to galisteo. Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Stones; Travel; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons; Granite; Rocks; Journeys; Trips THE BEAST Poem Text First Line: The teak is carved, fine as mantilla lace Last Line: The cupped hands of love, to change the beast within. Subject(s): Burma; Fables; Love; Prudence; Allegories; Caution THE BRACELET Poem Text First Line: Two days I bargained over this brass round Last Line: "not at least the way we would mind, for sure." Subject(s): Indonesia; Jewelry & Jewelers; Tourists; Travel; Dutch East Indies; Journeys; Trips THE CAMBODIAN BOX Poem Text First Line: The silver betel box is formed by two geese Last Line: Mated perfectly as these shining geese. Subject(s): Cambodia; Carving (arts) THE CHAM TOWERS AT DA NANG Poem Text First Line: God-faces that once glared at the sun Last Line: Their great-grandparents could not recollect. Subject(s): Colonialism; Sculpture & Sculptors; Vietnam THE CHICAGO HERMIT AT MOTHER TERESA'S Poem Text Subject(s): Teresa Of Calcutta, Blessed (1910-1997); Poverty; Charity; Philanthropy THE CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN Poem Text First Line: He is a librarian of laundry Last Line: To make, one more time, the fabric hold. Subject(s): China; Laundry & Laundering THE DADDY STRAIN Poem Text First Line: Two friends over a chinese lunch Last Line: Can hatch any bird but flightless bromides. Subject(s): Cancer (disease); Comfort; Death; Fear; Dead, The THE DEATH OF A PHOTOGRAPHER Poem Text First Line: Light was his paradigm Last Line: Down to its dark frame. Subject(s): Death; Photography & Photographers; Unfaithfulness; Dead, The; Infidelity; Adultery; Inconstancy THE DIORAMA PAINTER AT THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Poem Text First Line: His enormous hands / with fingers long and white Last Line: As violently foreshortened as a life. Subject(s): Museums; Nature; Paintings And Painters; Art Gallerys THE ENGLISH GRAVEYARD IN MALACCA Poem Text First Line: Downhill from the roofless portuguese cathedral Last Line: Of the tree that spreads its shade across their clay. Subject(s): Cemeteries; Malaysia; Missions & Missionaries; Graveyards THE FLOATING MORMON Poem Text First Line: That summer she hadn't struggled Last Line: Like parents' front-seat voices. Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Mormons; Women; Estrangement; Outcasts THE FOREIGN VOLUNTEERS AT MOTHER TERESA'S First Line: In rubber gloves we strip the beds Subject(s): Missions & Missionaries THE FUN HOUSE FABLE Poem Text First Line: After the mirror of his mother died Last Line: And the roller coaster clocked to the top. Subject(s): Amusement Parks; Death; Dead, The THE GARDEN AGAIN Poem Text First Line: The romans, retreating from the wilderness Last Line: A compost of leaves and wings. Subject(s): Burma; Imperialism THE GHOST Poem Text First Line: Woodsmoke guides us through the mist Last Line: Wept as though he'd met his future's ghost. Subject(s): Culture Conflict; Thailand; Tourists THE GUIDE Poem Text First Line: He leads us to our village destination Last Line: The culture with the most things wins. Subject(s): Culture Conflict; Thailand; Tourists THE HEROINES Poem Text First Line: The heroines lived with their husbands' Last Line: And drowned in the attic. Subject(s): Attics; Heroism; Women; Heroes; Heroines THE HIGHWAY DEATH TOLL Poem Text First Line: The highway's edge / of unmalicious deaths Last Line: If I'd turned it off before I might have heard. Subject(s): Death; Driving & Drivers; Fathers; Popes; Dead, The; Papacy THE ICE-CREAM SANDWICH Poem Text First Line: In second grade I felt about him, and Last Line: Relive the inexplicable in middle age. Subject(s): Children; Love; Memory; Childhood THE IDAHO EGG WOMAN Poem Text First Line: Halfway between troy and moscow Last Line: Her age a cipher of circles. Subject(s): Eggs; Idaho; Women THE ITINERANT POET'S ROAD SONG Poem Text First Line: Comin' out of lolo pass Last Line: All you got is the changes in time... The changes in time. Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Travel; Journeys; Trips THE LADIES OF LEWISTON Poem Text Last Line: Pour syrup over their husbands' silence Subject(s): Women; Conduct Of Life THE LANDLADY IN BANGKOK First Line: Because, separated from us by a language Last Line: From samsara to nirvana. Subject(s): Hotels; Landlords & Tenants; Thailand; Inns; Innskeepers; Motels; Boarding Houses THE LOVE POEM Poem Text First Line: A cranky child curled in my lap Last Line: Who says he'll stay. Subject(s): Creative Ability; Poetry & Poets; Inspiration; Creativity THE LOVERS Poem Text First Line: Keeping hope in the field of next year's harvest Last Line: Dreams, he finds her barren and love spent. Subject(s): Farm Life; Love; Agriculture; Farmers THE MAD WOMAN'S SONG Poem Text First Line: My downy head, dream head, sleep my son Last Line: I sing him safe, my pale chestnut bloom. Subject(s): Comfort; Mothers & Sons THE MASK Poem Text First Line: In open palm the old man cradles his Last Line: I leave with her naked countenance. Subject(s): Language; Travel; Words; Vocabulary; Journeys; Trips THE MOON Poem Text First Line: Their footprints on her face Last Line: For women are, after all, only space. Subject(s): Earth; Snow; Women; World THE PHOSPHORESCENT MAN Poem Text First Line: The smell of roast beef and browning potatoes Last Line: Clung to the stair obstinate as salt. Subject(s): Grandparents; Memory; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers THE PORTRAIT Poem Text First Line: He wouldn't buy her shoes Last Line: A portrait of a woman as less than one. Subject(s): Paintings And Painters; Poverty; Women THE PRICE OF WOMEN Poem Text First Line: Every woman, you say, has her price Last Line: And asked for my life? Subject(s): Trade; Women THE QUARREL Poem Text First Line: You sit behind your coffee Last Line: Lurches a path across the table. Subject(s): Quarrels; Arguments; Disagreements THE QUILT Poem Text First Line: Alive in a brown stucco house Last Line: She smoothed the quilt across their bed. Subject(s): Quilts; Sewing; Women THE RAND MCNALLY ATLAS Poem Text First Line: Belly down on the rug Last Line: Durango, chinook, ramona, monongahela. Subject(s): Maps; Travel; Journeys; Trips THE RED TURTLENECK Poem Text First Line: I stand for approval Last Line: As I wear it into my scent. Subject(s): Beauty; Fashion; Sand, George (1804-1876); Seduction; Women; Dupin, Amanda. Baronne Dudevant THE SAGA OF THE SMALL-BREASTED WOMAN Poem Text First Line: A prepuberty owl with popcorn Last Line: Delights in dumplings at the feast. Subject(s): Beauty; Breasts; Women THE SEALS IN PENOBSCOT BAY Poem Text First Line: The seals dive in the sun-dimpled bay Last Line: Closest to the meaning of our awe. Subject(s): Happiness; Seals (animals); Joy; Delight THE SERE AND YELLOW LEAF Poem Text First Line: Is it time to write the sere Last Line: The brass flower of his horn into the city's evening. Subject(s): Hope; Love; Poetry & Poets; Optimism THE SONG OF THE MAD WOMAN'S SON Poem Text First Line: High in the chestnut tree Last Line: I watch for daddy's sail on the tide. Subject(s): Homecoming; Sailing & Sailors THE STATE OF WYOMING Poem Text First Line: Perhaps a childhood magic-writing tablet Last Line: To the shadow of an antelope stare. Subject(s): History; Imagination; Wyoming; Historians; Fancy THE STONE Poem Text First Line: All day I carry the stone Last Line: Weep when it won't nurse. Subject(s): Babies; Death - Mothers; Stones; Infants; Dead, The; Granite; Rocks THE STRAPLESS Poem Text First Line: A scrawny yank of a kid Last Line: Paint in the women never filled. Subject(s): Beauty; Fashion; Women THE TRANSIENCE OF HANDS Poem Text First Line: A swirl of dead skin Last Line: On a schoolroom counter. Subject(s): Hands; Memory; Men; Touch (sense) THE VIKING GRAVE AT LADBY Poem Text First Line: An old whale hump of earth Last Line: They have grown their wheat out of his grave. Subject(s): Christianity; Graves; Vikings; Tombs; Tombstones THE VIREO Poem Text First Line: An adam and eve in the autumn of their fall Last Line: Flutters a blessing about our nettled knees. Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Love THE WHITE RABBIT Poem Text First Line: Yes, mother / holding the banister with five-year-old fingers Last Line: Come back to climb the stairs. Subject(s): Memory; Mothers & Daughters THIEF AT MOTHER TERESA'S First Line: A stalking cat, she inches toward Last Line: The belly's secret, tell no nun THREE SILENCES IN THAILAND Poem Text First Line: Beside the mekong's silt-thick flow Last Line: I bear no offering but the abstinence of silence. Subject(s): Culture Conflict; Silence; Thailand TIDE POOLS IN DECEPTION PASS Poem Text First Line: A child's microcosm of monsters Subject(s): Crabs; Sea; Ocean TIME AND THE PERFUME RIVER Poem Text First Line: Small buddhas smile above their blooms Last Line: Along the curves of the perfume. Subject(s): Death; Vietnam; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975; War; Dead, The TOWERS OF SIMON RODIA; FOR HOWARD W. SWENSON 1903-1081 Poem Text First Line: Trapped in a tunnel Last Line: The day he locked the door on eden. Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Rodia, Simon (1875-1959); Watts Towers, Los Angeles (1921-1955); Work; Workers TREKKING THE HILLS OF NORTHERN THAILAND Poem Text First Line: The english girl is being sick in the bushes Last Line: That there always be other hills. Subject(s): Thailand; Tourists; Travel; Journeys; Trips TUOL SLENG: POL POT'S PRISON Poem Text First Line: Like photographs of dutch schultz which show a slick Last Line: But all I can do is make them into words. Subject(s): Cambodia; Photography & Photographers; Prisons & Prisoners TWO RECOVERED First Line: Excited, chattering, they're sparrows in Last Line: Her freedom become another facet of despair TWO TREES IN KATHMANDU Poem Text First Line: Remember, in that garden eastward Last Line: East of wherever the gate closed on eden. Subject(s): Cows; Eden; Travel; Journeys; Trips UNCOUPLING IN BALI First Line: Playing with the mystery of distance Last Line: From this middle-aged romance, to loneliness Subject(s): Bali VIRGINIA Poem Text First Line: First they took off one breast Last Line: The more multiples there are. Subject(s): Death; Surgery; Women; Dead, The WALK WITH SHADOWS IN THE BADA VALLEY First Line: He knew in kindergarten he would serve Last Line: Savior cessna, weeps and can't lift off WE Poem Text First Line: In a museum of the city Last Line: They they they they they they they they. Subject(s): Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975; Guilt WEDDING BED IN MANGKUTANA Poem Text First Line: In the village guesthouse Last Line: From the same soil. Subject(s): Indonesia; Marriage; Sex; Dutch East Indies; Weddings; Husbands; Wives WHAT DOES A WOMAN WANT? Poem Text First Line: We read the same books as children - kipling Last Line: Line, gathering my way before the salty wind. Subject(s): Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936); Travel; Women; Journeys; Trips WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL HESTER PRYNNE? Poem Text First Line: Pity him up to his waist in middle age Last Line: "gabriel told me to." Subject(s): Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864); Mary. Mother Of Jesus; Women - Bible; Virgin Mary WHY? Poem Text First Line: Why? Friends ask. Why there? Why not Last Line: Around the why? The shrug of friends. Subject(s): Travel; Journeys; Trips WOMAN, GALLUP, N.M. Poem Text First Line: The shadow of her profile lay stringent Last Line: She shattered on the pavement. Subject(s): Loss; Mothers; Silence WORD POWER Poem Text First Line: First doll, I rocked her blue-eyed blink in my lap Last Line: "I proclaimed, ""dirty." Subject(s): Dolls; Language; Names; Toys; Words; Vocabulary WUPATKI Poem Text First Line: When a people abandon their town Last Line: And the small bones of a family. Subject(s): Abandonment; Legacies; Moving & Movers; Desertion YELLOW COIN Poem Text First Line: Where the only changes are Last Line: The only wall that holds my history. Subject(s): Change; Cities; Memory; Urban Life |
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