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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: WARREN, ROBERT PENN Matches Found: 576 Warren, Robert Penn Poet's Biography 576 poems available by this author A WAY TO LOVE GOD Poem Text First Line: Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true Subject(s): Nothingness; God; Nihilism; Voids ACQUAINTANCE WITH TIME IN EARLY AUTUMN First Line: Never -- yes, never -- before these months just passed Last Line: In life's dime-thin, thumb-worn, two-sided, two-faced coin ADIEU SENTIMENTALE First Line: Collect the ashes of this infatuation Last Line: Of what it is that we are leaving here ADMONITION TO THE DEAD First Line: Such be the end of all the red and gold Last Line: Come to you there ADMONITION TO THOSE WHO MOURN First Line: Now is the hour to rhyme a song for death Last Line: Lest you somehow, should envy him the night AFTER RESTLESS NIGHT First Line: In darkness we cannot see Last Line: No matter how hard you try, to think of truly nothing AFTER TEACUPS First Line: I was not on the parapets at cretae Last Line: Spattering hydrangeas with a gust of bloom AFTER THE DINNER PARTY First Line: You two sit at the table late, each, now and then Last Line: Even so, one hand gropes out for another, again AFTERWARD First Line: After the promise has been kept, or Last Line: There must be so much to exchange AGED MAN SURVEYS THE PAST TIME First Line: Adept, too late, at art of tears he stands Last Line: Thy godless summer and the dusty road! AGING MAN AT NOON IN TIMELESS NOON OF SUMMER First Line: Silence - except below leaves gorge-deep Last Line: Is no sequence at all, but dream mirroring heart's dream AGING PAINTER SITS WHERE THE GREAT TOWER HEAVES DOWN MIDNIGHT First Line: Where american magazines Last Line: Might dawn yet say; %'the world! How can it be so beautiful?' AH, ANIMA! First Line: Watch the great bough lashed by wind and rain. Is it Last Line: Into the blind and antiseptic anger of air ALF BURT, TENANT FARMER Poem Text First Line: Despite that it is summer and the sun Last Line: Thistle and drouth and the crops that never came Subject(s): Tenant Farming ALF BURT, TENANT FARMER First Line: Despite that it is summer and the sun Last Line: Thistle and drouth and the crops that never came Subject(s): Tenant Farming AMAZING GRACE IN THE BACK COUNTRY First Line: In the season of late august star-fall Last Line: But that was long years ago. I was twelve years old then AMERICAN PORTRAIT: OLD STYLE First Line: Beyond the last house, where home was Last Line: And love is a hard thing to outgrow ANOTHER DIMENSION First Line: Over meadows of brittany, the lark Last Line: It may be that some men, dying, have heard it ANSWER TO PRAYER First Line: In that bad year, in a city to have now no name Last Line: Or if she remembers, she laughs into the emptiness of air ANTINOMY: TIME AND IDENTITY First Line: Alone, alone, I lie. The canoe Last Line: Will gleam, sun-purpled, in its magnificence APOCALYPSE First Line: I knew not down what windy nights I fled Last Line: Watched the pale worlds wheel on and faintly on APOLOGIA FOR GRIEF First Line: Now I remember songs you might have sung Last Line: On the wide sand, fired by the sun's last rays? ARIZONA MIDNIGHT Poem Text First Line: The grief of the coyote seeems to make Last Line: Its own necessary beauty Subject(s): Night; Grief; Coyotes ARIZONA MIDNIGHT First Line: The grief of the coyote seems to make Last Line: Its own necessary beauty ASPEN LEAF IN WINDLESS WORLD Poem Text First Line: Watch how the aspen leaf, pale and windless, waggles Subject(s): Leaves ASPEN LEAF IN WINDLESS WORLD First Line: Watch how the aspen leaf, pale and windless, waggles Last Line: Cleared up, the last elephant turd on the lot where the circus had been? ATHENIAN DEATH First Line: Born proud and fitful, hot and cold Last Line: The clever alcibiades AUBADE FOR HOPE First Line: Dawn: and foot on the cold stair treading or Last Line: Above the ash and spittle croaks and leans AUDUBON: 1. WAS NOT THE LOST DAUPHIN First Line: Was not the lost dauphin, though handsome was only Last Line: How thin is the membrane between himself and the world AUDUBON: 2. THE DREAM HE NEVER KNEW THE END OF First Line: Shank-end of day, spit of snow, the call Last Line: The weight of the crow first comes to rest on a rigid shoulder AUDUBON: 3. WE ARE ONLY OURSELVES First Line: We never know what we have lost, or what we have found Last Line: He continued to walk in the world AUDUBON: 4. THE SIGN WHEREBY HE KNEW First Line: His life, at the end seemed - even the anguish - simple Last Line: Whereby we may know the time has come AUDUBON: 5. THE SOUND OF THAT WIND First Line: He walked in the world. Knew the lust of the eye Last Line: I cannot hear the sound of that wind AUDUBON: 6. LOVE AND KNOWLEDGE First Line: Their footless dance %is of the beautiful liability of their nature Last Line: One name for it is knowledge AUDUBON: 7. TELL ME A STORY First Line: Long ago, in kentucky, I, a boy, stood Last Line: Tell me a story of deep delight AUGUST MOON First Line: Gold like a half-slice of orange Last Line: And speak not a word AUGUST REVIVAL : CROSBY JUNCTION First Line: Wheat is threshed and cut the heavy clover Last Line: Forget to-night what manner of man has died! AUTO-DA-FE First Line: Beautiful the intricacy of body! Last Line: From some fumbling thought of the holiness or %beauty of body AUTUMN TWILIGHT PIECE First Line: Now has the brittle incandescent day Last Line: Again the bright amphigories of spring AUTUMNAL EQUINOX ON MEDITERRANEAN BEACH First Line: Sail-bellyer, exciter of boys, come bang Last Line: While human hearts do the bookkeeping in this matter BALLAD OF BILLIE POTTS First Line: Big billie potts was big and stout Last Line: Which is shaped for luck, %which is your luck BALLAD OF YOUR PUZZLEMENT First Line: Purge soul for the guest awaited Last Line: Let walls be well garlanded BALLAD: BETWEEN THE BOXCARS (1923) First Line: I can't remember the name of the one who fell Last Line: To that clobber, and slobber, and scream, between the boxcars? Subject(s): Railroads; Wanderers And Wandering BASIC SYLLOGISM First Line: Down through the latticework of leaves Last Line: In their combustion, flameless, burn BEARDED OAKS First Line: The oaks, how subtle and marine Last Line: That we may spare this hour's term %to practice for eternity Subject(s): Oak Trees BETTER THAN COUNTING SHEEP First Line: For a night when sleep eludes you, I have Last Line: The shadows are dreams -- but of what? And the snowdrift, sleep BICENTENNIAL First Line: Wall street aflame, strategic police stations Last Line: They did not get around to setting us free from ourselves BLESSED ACCIDENT First Line: Even if you are relatively young - say Last Line: The dice-cup? Ah, blessed accident! BOY WANDERING IN SIMMS' VALLEY Poem Text First Line: Through brush and love-vine, well blooded by blackberry thorn Last Line: And stood wondering what life is, and love, and what they might be Subject(s): Decay; Rot; Decadence BOY WANDERING IN SIMMS' VALLEY First Line: Through brush and love-vine, well blooded by blackberry thorn Last Line: And stood wondering what lufe is, and love, %and what they may be Subject(s): Decay BOYHOOD IN TOBACCO COUNTRY First Line: All I can dream tonight is an autumn sunset Last Line: The dark roof hides the sky BREAKING THE CODE First Line: The world around us speaks in code Last Line: It is hard to break the code in our little time and space BROTHERHOOD IN PAIN First Line: Fix your eyes on any chance object. For instance Last Line: You exist only in the delirious illusion of language CALENDAR First Line: The days draw in Last Line: And glad time's waste? CARIBOU Poem Text First Line: Far, far southward, the forest is white, not merely Subject(s): Deer CARIBOU First Line: Far, far southward, the forest is white, not merely Last Line: They must have been going somewhere Subject(s): Deer CHIEF JOSEPH OF THE NEZ PERCE Poem Text First Line: The land of the winding waters, wallowa Last Line: Eyes of the fathers are suddenly fixed on him. To know Subject(s): Joseph, Chief (1840-1904) CHIEF JOSEPH OF THE NEZ PERCE; WHO CALLED THEMSELVES 'THE REAL PEOPLE' First Line: The land of the winding waters, wallowa Last Line: And did not talk much on the way Subject(s): Joseph, Chief (1840-1904) COCKTAIL PARTY First Line: Beynd the haze of alcohol and syntax and Last Line: Or maybe I'm only a little drunk. Oh, waiter! CODE BOOK LOST First Line: What does the veery say, at dusk in shad-thicket? Last Line: The whole world pours at us. But the code book, somehow, is lost COLD COLLOQUY First Line: She loitered to heed his heart's pouring-out Last Line: Or seeks a thing long lost among the fallen leaves CONVERGENCES First Line: By saplings I jerked and swung Last Line: Which led where you cannot know CORNER OF THE EYE First Line: The poem is just beyond the corner of the eye Last Line: Or is it merely a poem, after all? COVERED BRIDGE First Line: Another land, another age, another self CRIME First Line: Envy the mad killer who lies in the ditch and grieves CROESUS IN AUTUMN First Line: If the distrait verdure cleave not to the branch CROSS First Line: Once, after storm, I stood at the cliff-head Last Line: But what use that? The sea comes back CRUSADE First Line: We have not forgot the clanking of grey armors Last Line: We shall be still enough tomorrow CYCLE First Line: Perhaps I have had enough of summer's Last Line: In the dark I will wake, on the hearth see last coals glow DAWN First Line: Dawnward, I wake. In darkness, wait Last Line: The crow, at least once more, call? DAY DR. KNOX DID IT: 1. PLACE AND TIME First Line: Heat-blaze, white dazzle: and white is the dust Last Line: I move toward that coolness. Then I hear the sound DAY DR. KNOX DID IT: 2. THE EVENT First Line: The sound was like one made by a board Last Line: I would wonder how long he had lain there, first DAY DR. KNOX DID IT: 3. A CONFEDERATE VETERAN TRIES TO EXPLAIN THE First Line: But why did he do it, grandpa?' I said Last Line: In that dark, the tongue moved. 'for some folks,' it said DAY DR. KNOX DID IT: 4. THE PLACE WHERE THE BOY POINTED First Line: It was ten days after the event Last Line: I kept wondering who had cleaned up the mess DAY DR. KNOX DID IT: 5. AND ALL THAT CAME THEREAFTER First Line: But ran from such wondering as I ran Last Line: It is night. In the next room she weeps DEAD HORSE IN FIELD First Line: In the last, far field, half-buried Last Line: Can you think of some ground on which that may be gainsaid? DEBATE: QUESTION, QUARRY, DREAM Poem Text First Line: Asking what, asking what? - all a boy's afternoon Subject(s): Youth; Childhood Memories; Sons; Hunting; Hunters DEEP - DEEPER DOWN First Line: By five o'clock - still bright in spring - I'd catch Last Line: Its belly paling in darkness - deep - deeper down DELIGHT: 1. INTO BROAD DAYLIGHT First Line: Out of silence walks delight Last Line: Nor can it be guessed DELIGHT: 2. LOVE: 1 First Line: How instant joy, how clang Last Line: Give me your hand DELIGHT: 2. LOVE: 2 First Line: Now, now, the world Last Line: There is something I am trying to remember DELIGHT: 3. SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN First Line: Something is going to happen, I tell you I know Last Line: Delight may dawn, as the day dawned, calmly, today DELIGHT: 4. DREAM OF A DREAM THE SMALL BOY HAD First Line: All night the small boy kept climbing the tree Last Line: It sings in a foreign language, like pig-latin, or joy DELIGHT: 5. TWO POEMS ABOUT SUDDENLY AND A ROSE: 1 First Line: Suddenly. Is. Now not what was not Last Line: The rose dies, laughing DELIGHT: 5. TWO POEMS ABOUT SUDDENLY AND A ROSE: 2 First Line: Suddenly, suddenly, everything Last Line: The rose dies laughing, suddenly DELIGHT: 6. NOT TO BE TRUSTED First Line: Delight is not to be trusted Last Line: Humps now for someone: you DELIGHT: 7. FINISTERRE First Line: Mist drifts on the bay's face Last Line: Your heart to a last delight - or at least, to wonder DELUSION? - NO! First Line: In atmosphere almost too heavenly Last Line: Open your eyes. Who knows? This may be one DEPARTURE First Line: This is the season when cards are exhanged, or Last Line: It is going somewhere soon. That is a truth we must all face DISTANCE BETWEEN: PICNIC OF OLD FRIENDS First Line: In innocence, and nothing much to rememer Last Line: They tried to sing, too DIVER First Line: Arrowed, the body flies in light Last Line: The earth we walk on, lie down in DOUBLENESS IN TIME First Line: Doubleness coils in time like Last Line: Selfishness and precious guilt DRAGON-TREE First Line: The faucet drips all night, the plumber forgot it Last Line: Twitch. But look! The new leaf flaps gilt in the sunlight. Birds sing DREAM First Line: Waters, hypnotic, long after moonset, murmur Last Line: With wrenched thigh, had blackmailed a blessing, by dawn DREAM OF A DREAM First Line: Moonlight stumbles with bright heel Last Line: But this, of course, belongs to the dream of another dream DREAM, DUMP-HEAP, AND CIVILIZATION Poem Text First Line: Like the stench and smudge of the old dump-heap Last Line: Is civilization possible without it? Subject(s): Civilization; Refuse & Refuse Disposal DREAM, DUMP-HEAP, AND CIVILIZATION First Line: Like the stench and smudge of the old dump-heap Last Line: Is civilization possible without it? Subject(s): Civilization; Refuse And Refuse Disposal DREAMING IN DAYLIGHT First Line: You clamber up rock, crash thicket, leap Last Line: Conscience. Yes, you are less strange to them %than to yourself EAGLE DESCENDING First Line: Beyond the last flamed escarpment of mountain cloud Last Line: The wind to sing with joy of truth fulfilled EASTER MORNING; CROSBY JUNCTION First Line: The psalms are said and three potted lilies nod Last Line: Or pray, or pray - who would so gently pray? EIDOLON First Line: All night, in may, dogs barked in the hollow woods Last Line: The white eidolon from the fanged commotion rude? EMPIRE First Line: Phoenician galley and the sweating slave Last Line: The foam in calyx on the patient sand EMPTY WHITE BLOTCH ON MAP OF UNIVERSE: A POSSIBLE VIEW First Line: The world is that map's white blotch, no charted coast Last Line: Of voices beguiling the distance - like pain, their love-stung cry END OF SEASON First Line: Leave now the beach, and even that perfect friendship ENGLISH COCKER: OLD AND BLIND Poem Text First Line: With what painful deliberation he comes down the stair Last Line: The kinship of all flesh defined by a hlting paradigm Subject(s): Animals; Dogs ENGLISH COCKER: OLD AND BLIND First Line: With what painful deliberation he comes down the stair Last Line: The kinship of all flesh defined by a halting paradigm Subject(s): Animals; Dogs EVENING HAWK Poem Text First Line: From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through Subject(s): Birds; Hawks EVENING HAWK First Line: From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through Last Line: Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar Subject(s): Birds; Hawks EVENING HOUR First Line: There was a graveyard once - or cemetery FALL COMES IN BACK-COUNTRY VERMONT Poem Text First Line: Deader they die here, or at least Last Line: I touch the hand there on the pillow Subject(s): Vermont; Country Life; Autumn FALL COMES IN BACK-COUNTRY VERMONT First Line: Deader they die here, or at least Last Line: The whistling down-plunge to the mountain's shade. %I touch the hand there on the pillow Subject(s): Vermont FAR WEST ONCE Poem Text First Line: Aloud, I said, with a slight stir of heart Last Line: Far off, far off, in vendurous shade, first birdsong Subject(s): Memory FAR WEST ONCE First Line: Aloud, I said, with a slight stir of heart Subject(s): Memory FATAL INTERVIEW: PENTHESILEA AND ACHILLES First Line: Beautiful, bold, shaking the gold glint of sun-foil Last Line: And will pluck the blue eyes that, puzzled, stare up at blue sky they lie under FEAR AND TREMBLING First Line: The sun now angles downward, and southward Last Line: From grottoes, dark - and from the caverned enchainment? FEW AXIOMS FOR A YOUNG MAN First Line: There are certain profitable things to know, and I Last Line: Is true of death, even of suicide - %and sometimes, love FIERCE HORSEMEN First Line: Pitiless, pitiless spoilers Last Line: That a spring may come again.' FILLING NIGHT WITH THE NAME; FUNERAL AS LOCAL COLOR First Line: It was all predictable, and just as well Last Line: For the bird was filling the night with the name: whip-o-will. %whip o-will FIRST DAWN LIGHT First Line: By lines fainter gray than the faintest geometry Last Line: You must wait to resume, in night's black hood, the reality of dream FIRST MOMENT OF AUTUMN RECOGNIZED First Line: Hills haven the last cloud. However white. From brightest blue Last Line: Lips? How can you know? FIRST TIME First Line: Northwest montana, high country, and downward Last Line: Great head lifted in philosophic FOR A FRIEND WHO THINKS HIMSELF URBANE First Line: I know that you have tried, dear friend Last Line: Ynd you...O resolute...Will try again FOR A SELF-POSSESSED FRIEND First Line: Many of us too often now have granted Last Line: Incurious angels of the nether gate GARDEN First Line: How kind, how secret, now the sun Last Line: From appetite to innocence GARDEN WATERS First Line: If in his garden all night fell the stream Last Line: The dead leaf and the summer's chrysalid GARLAND FOR YOU: 1. CLEARLY ABOUT YOU First Line: Whoever you are, this poem is clearly about you Last Line: And its heart to your heart all night make a feather-soft racket GARLAND FOR YOU: 2. LULLABY: EXERCISE IN HUMAN CHARITY AND First Line: Sleep, my dear, whatever your name is Last Line: Is your namelessness GARLAND FOR YOU: 3. MAN IN THE STREET First Line: Why are your eyes as big as saucers - big as saucers?' Last Line: Wearing gray flannel suit, knit tie, and brooks brothers shirt down the sunlit street GARLAND FOR YOU: 4. SWITZERLAND First Line: After lunch take the half-destroyed bodies and put them to bed Last Line: Deliver them all, young and old, to thy health, named joy GARLAND FOR YOU: 5. A REAL QUESTION CALLING FOR SOLUTION First Line: Don't bother a bit, you are only a dream you are having Last Line: And the thought that, on your awaking, identity may be destroyed GARLAND FOR YOU: 6. THE LETTER ABOUT MONEY, LOVE, OR OTHER COMFORT First Line: Having accepted the trust so many years back Last Line: I shall not reduce it to drunken marvel, assuming I know the tongue they speak GARLAND FOR YOU: 7. ARROGANT LAW First Line: Have you crouched with rifle, in woods, in autumn Last Line: Time unwinds like a falling spool GARLAND FOR YOU: 8. THE SELF THAT STARES First Line: Have you seen that brute trapped in your eye Last Line: The human self naked in your own eyes GENEALOGY First Line: Grandfather gabriel rode up to town Last Line: For that other young guy who croaked too late GLIMPSES OF SEASONS: 1. GASP-GLORY OF GOLD LIGHT First Line: Gasp-glory of gold light of dawn on gold maple Last Line: Of the living and the dead GLIMPSES OF SEASONS: 2. SNOW OUT OF SEASON First Line: Once in october - far too early, far out of phase - dawn Last Line: But we often forget GLIMPSES OF SEASONS: 3. REDWING BLACKBIRDS First Line: How far a-winging to keep this appointment with april! Last Line: And catch - how gallant - the flash of epaulets scarlet against blue sky GLIMPSES OF SEASONS: 4. CROCUS DAWN First Line: Oh, crocus dawn! - premise of promise, what Last Line: We know again what we must wake to be GLOBE OF GNEISS First Line: How heavy is it? Fifteen tons? Thirty? More? Last Line: How much will I remember tonight? GOING WEST First Line: Westward the great plains are lifting, as you Last Line: Vision of snowcaps GOLDEN HILLS OF HELL First Line: O, fair the golden hills of hell Last Line: Among the withered lilies GOODBYE (1) First Line: That simplest gesture which can touch Last Line: Familiar, in the sunlit meadows of the mind GOODBYE (2) First Line: What lies youth tells itself all from the need Last Line: What she had said had meant to her, %or me? GRACKLES, GOODBYE First Line: Black of grackles glints purple as, wheeling in sun-glare Last Line: In the name of death do we learn the true name of love HAVE YOU EVER EATEN STARS? First Line: A glade on a bench of the mountain Last Line: Of seeing life as glory? HEART OF AUTUMN First Line: Wind finds the northwest gap, fall comes Last Line: Toward sunset, at a great height HEART OF THE BACKLOG First Line: Snug at hearthside, while heart of the backlog HEAT LIGHTNING First Line: Heat lightning prowls, pranks the mountain horizon like HEAT WAVE BREAKS First Line: In this motionless sun, no leaf now moves, the stream Last Line: That the world stab anew to our hearts in the lightning-stricken air? HISTORY First Line: Past crag and scarp Last Line: Our hearts with fable grey HISTORY DURING NOCTURNAL SNOWFALL First Line: Dark in the cubicle boxed from snow-darkness of night Last Line: And my finger touches a pulse to intuit its truth? HOLY WRIT: 1. ELIJAH ON MOUNT CARMEL First Line: Nothing is re-enacted. Nothing Last Line: Much longer; so prayed: 'dear god, dear god - oh, please, don't exist!' HOLY WRIT: 2. SAUL AT GILBOA First Line: From landscape the color of lions Last Line: If I could weep HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 1. HIS SMILE Poem Text First Line: Over peoria we lost the sun Last Line: When I was a boy I had a wart on the fight finger Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 1. HIS SMILE First Line: Over peoria we lost the sun Last Line: When I was a boy I had a wart on the right forefinger Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 2. THE WART Poem Text First Line: At 38,000 feet you had better Last Line: At 38,000 feet that is hard to remember Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 2. THE WART First Line: At 38,000 feet you had better Last Line: At 38,000 feet that is hard to remember Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 3. THE SPIDER Poem Text First Line: The spider has more eyes than I have money Last Line: All you have to do it not argue Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 3. THE SPIDER First Line: The spider has more eyes than I have money Last Line: All you have to do is not argue Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 4. ONE DRUNK ALLEGORY Poem Text First Line: Not argue, unless, that is, you are the kind Last Line: To my right, far over kentucky, the stars are shining Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 4. ONE DRUNK ALLEGORY First Line: Not argue, unless, that is, you are the kind Last Line: To my right, far over kentucky, the stars are shining Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 5. MULTIPLICATION Poem Text First Line: If the christmas tree at rockefeller center were Last Line: In a room, somewhere, a telephone keeps ringing Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 5. MULTIPLICATION First Line: If the christmas tree at rockefeller center were Last Line: In a room, somewhere, a telephone keeps ringing Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 6. WIND Poem Text First Line: The wind comes off the sound, smelling Last Line: The wind gouges its knuckles into my eye. No wonder there are tears Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 6. WIND First Line: The wind comes off the sound, smelling Last Line: The wind gouges its knuckles into my eye. No wonder there are tears Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 7. DOES THE WILD ROSE? Poem Text First Line: When you reach home tonight you will see Last Line: Is it merely a delusion that they seem about to smile? Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOMAGE TO EMERSON, ON NIGHT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK: 7. DOES THE WILD ROSE? First Line: When you reach home tonight you will see Last Line: Is it merely a delusion that they seem about to smile? Subject(s): Air Travel; Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) HOPE First Line: In the orchidaceous light of evening Last Line: Will dominate the sky, the world, the heart %in white forgiveness HOW TO TELL A LOVE STORY First Line: There is a story that I must tell, but Last Line: Perhaps I can't know till finally the doctor comes in and leans I AM DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS Poem Text First Line: No, not that door - never! But Last Line: May be converted into the future tense / of joy IDENTITY AND ARGUMENT FOR PRAYER First Line: Having been in this place, I will leave it Last Line: This may be taken as an argument for prayer IF First Line: If this is the way it is, we must live trough it Last Line: Tell us of the blind depth of groan out yonder? IF EVER First Line: If ever you come where once it happened Last Line: Stroke, after stroke, sustain you. And all else forget IF SNAKES WERE BLUE First Line: If snakes were blue, it was the kind of day Last Line: Of glittering white above the wrath-torn land IMAGES ON THE TOMB: 1. DAWN: THE GORGON'S HEAD First Line: Too late returns the measured sun and slow Last Line: Is lost in the smoky avenues again?' IMAGES ON THE TOMB: 2. DAY: LAZARUS First Line: Ever in the hot street one walks unseen Last Line: Like lazarus, be warned in the sun again IMAGES ON THE TOMB: 3. EVENING: THE MOTORS First Line: Remorselessly the evening motors pass Last Line: The pageantry of thoughts unreconciled IMAGES ON THE TOMB: 4. NIGHT: BUT A SULTRY WIND First Line: If there were storm tonight, if the loud thunder Last Line: But sleep, sleep - white faces turned to the wall IMMANENCE First Line: Stop! Wait! Wherever you are Last Line: To-even-be considered IMMORTALITY OVER THE DAKOTAS First Line: It is not you that moves. It is the dark Last Line: Stares at lights, green and red, that tread the dark of your immortality IN MOONLIGHT, SOMEWHERE, THEY ARE SINGING Poem Text First Line: Under the maples at moonrise Last Line: Some faith in life yet, by my years, unrepealed IN THE MOUNTAINS: 1. SKIERS First Line: With the motion of angels, out of Last Line: Face has its own beauty IN THE MOUNTAINS: 2. FOG First Line: White, white, luminous but Last Line: That much, at least, in this whiteness INEVITABLE FRONTIER First Line: Be careful! Slow and careful, for you now approach Last Line: Like a groundhog caught in a speeding sportscar's headlight INSTANT ON CROWDED STREET First Line: Knowingly, knowing what secret, but Last Line: You wonder if the wise and forgiving glance ever fixed on your face INSTITUTE OF THE IMPOSSIBLE First Line: I often live in the institute of the impossible Last Line: And weakness and strength, and dwell on the golden chances, now missed, I once had INTERNAL INJURIES: 1. THE EVENT First Line: Nigger: as if it were not Last Line: Why couldn't it of a least been a white man? INTERNAL INJURIES: 2. THE SCREAM First Line: The scream comes as regular Last Line: Of non-scream, they seem merely a part of the silence INTERNAL INJURIES: 3. HER HAT First Line: They are tearing down penn station Last Line: Somewhere - oh, somewhere above the city - a jet is prowling the sky INTERNAL INJURIES: 4. THE ONLY TROUBLE First Line: The only trouble was, you got up Last Line: Descends of - miroscopically - spit INTERNAL INJURIES: 5. THE JET MUST BE HUNTING FOR SOMETHING First Line: One cop holds the spic delicately between thumb and forefinger Last Line: I do not know what the jet is hunting for. It must be hunting for something INTERNAL INJURIES: 6. BE SOMETHING ELSE First Line: Be something else, be something Last Line: For god's sake stop that yelling! INTERNAL INJURIES: 7. THE WORLD IS A PARABLE First Line: I must hurry. I must go somewhere Last Line: All mythologies recoginize that fact INTERNAL INJURIES: 8. DRIVER, DRIVER First Line: Driver, driver, hurry now Last Line: Driver, there's an awful glitter in the air. What is the weather forecast? IRON BEACH First Line: Beyond this bitter shore there is no going Last Line: The arctic summer brings the carrion gull ISLAND OF SUMMER: 1. WHAT DAY IS First Line: In piny, phoenice. Phoenicians Last Line: They will go gray as dead moons ISLAND OF SUMMER: 10. THE IVY First Line: The ivy assaults the wall. The ivy Last Line: Night comes. You sleep. What is your dream? ISLAND OF SUMMER: 11. WHERE PURPLES NOW THE FIG First Line: Where purples now the fig, flame in Last Line: And leave me thus exposed like truth ISLAND OF SUMMER: 12. THE RED MULLET Poem Text First Line: The fig flames inward on the bough, and I Last Line: Burns in the shadow of the black shoal Variant Title(s): The Red Mulle Subject(s): Fish & Fishing ISLAND OF SUMMER: 12. THE RED MULLET First Line: The fig flames inward on the bough, and I Last Line: Burns in the shadow of the black shoal Subject(s): Fishing And Fishermen ISLAND OF SUMMER: 13. A PLACE WHERE NOTHING IS First Line: I have been in a place where Last Line: Nothingness plotinus dreamed ISLAND OF SUMMER: 14. MASTS AT DAWN Poem Text First Line: Past second cock-crow yacht masts in the harbor go slowly white Subject(s): Ships & Shipping ISLAND OF SUMMER: 14. MASTS AT DAWN First Line: Past second cock-crow yacht masts in the harbor go slowly white Last Line: To love so well the world that we may believe, in the end, in god Subject(s): Ships And Shipping ISLAND OF SUMMER: 15. THE LEAF First Line: Here the fig lets down the leaf, the leaf Last Line: A sound like wind ISLAND OF SUMMER: 2 First Line: Where the slow fig's purple sloth Last Line: The darkening room with light ISLAND OF SUMMER: 3. NATURAL HISTORY First Line: Many have died here, but few Last Line: Relief, consult your family physician ISLAND OF SUMMER: 4. RIDDLE IN THE GARDEN First Line: My mind is intact, but the shapes Last Line: The world means only itself ISLAND OF SUMMER: 5. PAUL VALERY STOOD ON THE CLIFF AND CONFRONTED First Line: Where dust gritty as Last Line: Turns. In the sun, it glitters ISLAND OF SUMMER: 6. TREASURE HUNT First Line: Hunt, hunt again. If you do not find it, you Last Line: Even happiness Variant Title(s): Fairy Story; Treasure Hun ISLAND OF SUMMER: 7. MOONRISE First Line: The moon, eastward and over Last Line: Know the names of one another ISLAND OF SUMMER: 8. MYTH ON MEDITERRANEAN BEACH First Line: From left to right, she leads the eye Last Line: And leaves them naked to the day ISLAND OF SUMMER: 9. MISTRAL AT NIGHT First Line: Heat, and cold curdle of wind-thrust, moonlight Last Line: Of crucial importance IT IS NOT DEAD First Line: It is not dead. It is simply weighty with wisdom Last Line: A fleeting fracture of the immensity of the night sky JOHN'S BIRCHES First Line: You stop at the end of the lane, where the birches grow Last Line: With day full of leaves that whisper, and night never visionless KENTUCKY MOUNTAIN FARM: 1. REBUKE OF THE ROCKS First Line: Now on you is the hungry equinox Last Line: May keep the sweet sterility of stone KENTUCKY MOUNTAIN FARM: 2. AT THE HOUR OF THE BREAKING OF THE ROCKS First Line: Beyond the wrack and eucharist of snow Last Line: And strung the bitter tendons of the stone KENTUCKY MOUNTAIN FARM: 3. HISTORY AMONG THE ROCKS First Line: There are many ways to die Last Line: The apple falls, falling in the quiet night KENTUCKY MOUNTAIN FARM: 4. THE CARDINAL First Line: Cardinal, lover of shade Last Line: In a whispering tree, like cedar, evergreen KENTUCKY MOUNTAIN FARM: 5. THE JAY First Line: Jay, flagrant and military Last Line: Bright friend of boys, troubler of old men KENTUCKY MOUNTAIN FARM: 6. WATERSHED First Line: From the high place all things flow Last Line: Sustains the hill's lost granite surge KENTUCKY MOUNTAIN FARM: 7. THE RETURN First Line: Burly and clean, with bark in umber scrolled Last Line: Past light in that fond accident of sleep LANGUAGE BARRIER First Line: Snow-glitter, snow-gleam, all snow-peaks Last Line: It may be that god loves them, too LAST LAUGH Poem Text First Line: The little sam clemens, one night back in hannibal Last Line: And was left alone with his joke, god dead, till he died Subject(s): Twain, Mark (samuel Langhorne Clemens) LAST LAUGH First Line: The little sam clemens, one night back in hannibal Last Line: And was left alone with his joke, god dead, till he died Subject(s): Twain, Mark (samuel Langhorne Clemens) LAST MEETING First Line: A saturday night in august when Last Line: But there must be enough time left for that LAST METAPHOR First Line: The wind had blown the leaves away and left Last Line: But lift unto the gradual dark in prayer LAST NIGHT TRAIN First Line: In that slick and new-fangled coach we go slam-banging Last Line: My way to a parked car LAST WALK OF SEASON First Line: For the last time, for this or perhaps Last Line: Probes for contact with the soft-shadowed land LATE SUBTERFUGE First Line: The year dulls toward its eaves-dripping end Last Line: We say to ourselves we learn some strength from this LESSON IN HISTORY First Line: How little does history manage to tell! Last Line: Or know what, in whisper, the water was trying to say? LETTER FROM A COWARD TO A HERO First Line: What did the day bring? Last Line: Honor, for death shy valentine LETTER OF A MOTHER First Line: Under the green lamplight her letter there Last Line: But dissolves them to itself in weariness LETTER TO A FRIEND First Line: Our eyes have viewed the burnished vineyards where Last Line: Your trimph is not commensurate with stone LIMITED First Line: Since there's no help, come, let them kiss and part Last Line: Wheels from the last week's newspaper to the broom Subject(s): Drayton, Michael (1563-1631) LITERAL DREAM First Line: You now the scene. You read it in a book Last Line: I could hear the plop there. See the leaf quiver LITTLE BLACK HEART OF THE TELEPHONE First Line: That telephone keeps screaming its litle black heart out Last Line: In my dream I wonder why, long since, it's not been disconnected LITTLE GIRL WAKES EARLY First Line: Remember when you were the first one awake, the first Last Line: There's nobody ever to explain to -- though you try again and again LOOSE SHUTTER First Line: All night the loose shutter bangs. This way it won't last Last Line: What voice? What name? By what thin thread does the past hang? LORD JESUS, I WONDER First Line: Lord jesus, I wonder if I would recognize you Last Line: You may do something to heal something within yourself LOSS, OF PERHAPS LOVE, IN OUR WORLD OF CONTINGENCY First Line: Think'! Think hard. Try to remember Last Line: We must learn to live in the world LOVE RECOGNIZED Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: There are many things in the world and you Last Line: "covered in a glitter of crystalline whiteness. Subject(s): Love LOVE RECOGNIZED First Line: There are many things in the world and you Subject(s): Love LOVE'S PARABLE First Line: As kingdoms after civil broil Last Line: That men, by prayer, have mastered grace LOVE'S VOICE First Line: If once we dreamed love had a tongue Last Line: Silent, and on each other gaze MAN COMING OF AGE Poem Text First Line: What rime, what tinsel pure and chill Subject(s): Coming Of Age MAN COMING OF AGE First Line: What rime, what tinsel pure and chill Last Line: Like mist, down the glassy gloom be fled MEDITERRANEAN BASIN: 1. CHTHONIAN REVELATION: A MYTH First Line: Long before sun had toward the mountain dipped Last Line: By its single, minuscule, radiant, enshrined star MEDITERRANEAN BASIN: 2. LOOKING NORTHWARD, AEGEANWARD First Line: Chalky, steel-hard, or glass-slick, the cliff Last Line: The pink corollla of beak-gape - that blind yearning lifeward MEMORY FORGOTTEN First Line: Forget! Forget it to know it. It sings! Last Line: What is it you cannot remember that is so true? MEXICO IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY: 1. BUTTERFLIES OVER THE MAP First Line: Butterflies, over the map of mexico Last Line: The pink cloth is useful to foil the flies, which are not few MEXICO IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY: 2. SIESTA TIME IN VILLAGE PLAZA BY RUINED First Line: If only ernest now were here Last Line: And so I sit and think, 'manana MEXICO IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY: 3. THE WORLD COMES GALLOPING First Line: By the ruined arch, where the bougainvillea bled Last Line: Viene galopando,' - and spat again - 'el mundo.' MEXICO IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY: 4. SMALL SOLDIERS WITH DRUM ... First Line: The little soldiers thread the hills Last Line: And march beside them in the sun MEXICO IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY: 5 First Line: The mango on the mango tree Last Line: Blest in that blasphemy of love we cannot now repeat MEXICO IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY; FOUR STUDIES IN NATURALISM Poem Text First Line: Butterflies, over the map Subject(s): Mexico; Butterflies; Mangoes; Soldiers; Nature; Old Age MIDNIGHT First Line: I cannot sleep at night for dread Last Line: Hesitating on the stair? MIDNIGHT OUTCRY First Line: Torn from the dream-life, torn from the life-dream Last Line: From recall of the nocturnal timbre, and the dark wonder MILLPOND LOST First Line: Lucent, the millpond mirrors september blue Last Line: Or name the names of the boys who there shouted in joy, once MILTON: A SONNET First Line: No doubt he could remembr how in the past Last Line: Upward, and upward again, and, in joy, flash MINNEAPOLIS STORY First Line: Whatever pops into your head, and whitely Last Line: I had wiped them clear, just a moment before MINNESOTA RECOLLECTION First Line: By 3 p.M. The pat of snow-pads had begun Last Line: It had, you might say, an innocent expression MIRROR First Line: Erect, meticulous within the mirror Last Line: Refraction of my own mortality? MISSION First Line: In the dark kitchen the electric icebox rustles Last Line: The possibility of joy in the world's tangled and hieroglyphic beauty MONOLOGUE AT MIDNIGHT First Line: Among the pines we ran and called MOON First Line: Remotely the moon across the window pane Last Line: Bayed the white moon down to its lair of fog MOONLIGHT'S DREAM First Line: Why did I wake that night, all the house at rest? Last Line: Or of the ignorant night I strayed in the moonlight's dream MORTAL LIMIT Poem Text First Line: I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over wyoming Subject(s): Hawks MORTAL LIMIT First Line: I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over wyoming Last Line: Items, and the darkness of whatever dream we clutch? MORTMAIN First Line: After night flight son reaches bedside of already %unconscious father Last Line: Stirring, freshens to the far favor of rain MOUNTAIN MYSTERY First Line: On the mountain trail, all afternoon Last Line: And in dark, lost, lain, hearing frailty of breath beside MOUNTAIN PLATEAU First Line: At the center of acres of snow-whiteness Last Line: To make adequate communication MOUSE First Line: Down the stair had creaked the doctor's feet Last Line: Heavy and terrible feet tramp down the hall.' MR. DODD'S SON First Line: He was born far inland in a little town Last Line: Faintly the surges of eternity MRS. DODD'S DAUGHTER First Line: So many are the things that she has learned Last Line: To smooth the tortured creases of her brain MUTED MUSIC First Line: As sultry as the cruising hum Last Line: As the bud bursts into the world's brightness MYTH OF MOUNTAIN SUNRISE First Line: Prodigious, prodigal, crags steel-ringing Last Line: The sun blazes over the peak. That will be the old tale told NAMELESS THING First Line: I have no name for the nameless thing Last Line: I wonder why it cannot rest NATURAL HISTORY Poem Text First Line: In the rain the naked old father is dancing; he will get wet. Subject(s): Death; Dead, The NEW DAWN: 1. EXPLOSION: SEQUENCE AND SIMULTANEITY First Line: Greenwich time 11:16 p.M. August 5 1945 Last Line: Hiroshima time 8:16 a.M. August 6 1945 NEW DAWN: 10. WHAT THAT IS First Line: What clouds remain part now, magically Last Line: Hiroshima time: 8:16 a.M., august 6, 1945 NEW DAWN: 11. LIKE LEAD First Line: Of that brilliance beyond brilliance, tibbets Last Line: Was later to report; 'a taste like lead.' NEW DAWN: 12. MANIC ATMOSPHERE First Line: Now, after the brilliance Last Line: Again, then, the heave, the tossing %with recovery NEW DAWN: 13. TRIUMPHAL BEAUTY First Line: Now, far behind, from the center of Last Line: In its own triumphal beauty NEW DAWN: 14. HOME First Line: Later, home. Tinian is man's only home Last Line: In bellies expensively swollen NEW DAWN: 15. SLEEP First Line: Some men, no doubt, will, before sleep, consider Last Line: Long stare at the dark ceiling NEW DAWN: 2. GOODBYE TO TINIAN First Line: Now that all the 'unauthorized items' are cleared from the bomber, including Last Line: Screw it up. Let's do this really great!' NEW DAWN: 3. TAKE-OFF: TINIAN ISLAND First Line: Colonel tibbets, co-pilot beside him Last Line: Grope up. Strain up. %are empty NEW DAWN: 4. MYSTIC NAME First Line: Some 600 miles north-nothwest to iwo jima, where Last Line: Will be that. Whatever %that may be NEW DAWN: 5. WHEN? First Line: When can that be known? Only after Last Line: As a thief, will be replaced by plugs marked %lethally red NEW DAWN: 6. IWO JIMA First Line: Over iwo jima, the moon, now westering, sinks in faint glimmer Last Line: All clear signal sounds over hiroshima NEW DAWN: 7. SELF AND NON-SELF First Line: Tibbets looks down, sees Last Line: Tibbets jerks his eyes open. There %is the world NEW DAWN: 8. DAWN First Line: Full dawn comes. Movement begins Last Line: Offers its circular flame, imcomparable, %worship-worthy NEW DAWN: 9. THE APPROACH First Line: Sped 200 miles per hour, altitude Last Line: Changes like a dream NIGHT WALKING First Line: Bear, my first thought at waking. I hear Last Line: Blaze and redeeming white light of the world NO BIRD DOES CALL First Line: Bowl-hollow of woodland, beech-bounded, beech-shrouded Last Line: And now when I wake in the night to remember, no bird ever calls NOCTURNE First Line: Tonight the woods are darkened Last Line: Grows never green again NOCTURNE: TRAVELING SALESMAN IN HOTEL BEDROOM First Line: The toothbrush lies in its case Last Line: Remember - in life's upshot NOT QUITE LIKE A TOP First Line: Did you know that the earth, not like a top in its point Last Line: When there's so much that I, lying in darkness, don't know? NURSERY RHYMES: 1. KNOCKETY-KNOCKETY-KNOCK First Line: Hickory-dickory-dock Last Line: Knockety-knockety-knock NURSERY RHYMES: 2. NEWS OF UNEXPECTED DEMISE OF LITTLE BOY BLUE First Line: Little boy blue, come blow your horn Last Line: I can only walk the green fields, and cry NURSERY RHYMES: 3. MOTHER MAKES THE BISCUITS Last Line: Till the stars disappeared NURSERY RHYMES: 4. THE BRAMBLE BUSH First Line: There was a man in our town Last Line: Of flesh singing on the bone OCTOBER PICNIC LONG AGO First Line: Yassuh, here 'tis,' bumbo said, handing reins to the mister Last Line: But sleepy, I didn't know what a future was, as she sang, %and she sang OLD DOG DEAD Poem Text First Line: Cocker. English. Fifteen years old. Tumor Subject(s): Dogs; Death - Anim Als OLD DOG DEAD First Line: Cocker. English. Fifteen years old. Tumor Last Line: The unlabeled detritus and trash of time OLD FLAME First Line: I never then noticed the rather sausage-like trotters Last Line: Sausage-legs, maybe some kind of braids. Never, never, a face OLD LOVE First Line: At the time when the tulip-tree, even then rare, bloomed Last Line: For the knowing to grow.' OLD NIGGER ON ONE-MULE CART ENCOUNTERED LATE AT NIGHT WHEN DRIVING First Line: Flesh, of a sudden, gone nameless in music, flesh Last Line: Can I see arcturus from where I stand? OLD PHOTOGRAPH OF THE FUTURE First Line: That center of attention - an infantile face OLD-TIME CHILDHOOD IN KENTUCKY First Line: When I was a boy I saw the world I was in ON INTO THE NIGHT First Line: On downward slope gigantic wheels Last Line: Its task in undecipherable metaphor ONLY POEM First Line: The only poem to write I now have in mind Last Line: The pang of unworthiness built into time's own name? OR ELSE: 1. THE NATURE OF A MIRROR First Line: The sky has murder in the eye, and I Last Line: Is the mirror into which you stare OR ELSE: 10. RATTLESNAKE COUNTRY First Line: Arid that country and high, anger of sun on the mountains, but Last Line: All I can do is to offer my testimony OR ELSE: 11. HOMAGE TO THEODORE DREISER: 1 First Line: Who is the ugly one slum-slopping down the street? Last Line: May I present mr. Dreiser? He will write a great novel, someday OR ELSE: 11. HOMAGE TO THEODORE DREISER: 2 First Line: Past terre haute, the diesels pound Last Line: Would look from the tearless and unblinking distance of god's wide eye? OR ELSE: 11. HOMAGE TO THEODORE DREISER: 3 First Line: You need call no psychiatrist Last Line: Of all our human worthlessness OR ELSE: 12. FLAUBERT IN EGYPT First Line: Winterlong, off la manche, wind leaning. Gray stones of the gray Last Line: How black against a bright sky! OR ELSE: 13. THE TRUE NATURE OF TIME: 1 First Line: Once over water, to you borne brightly Last Line: The sea kept slopping the rocks, slow OR ELSE: 13. THE TRUE NATURE OF TIME: 2 First Line: Out of the silence, the saying. Into Last Line: Lifts the brightening of hair OR ELSE: 14. VISION UNDER THE OCTOBER MOUNTAIN First Line: Golding from green, gorgeous the mountain Last Line: The human scheme of values OR ELSE: 15. STARGAZING First Line: The stars are only a backdrop for Last Line: Loved god, too. I truly wish that Variant Title(s): Notes On A Life To Be Live OR ELSE: 16. NEWS PHOTO First Line: Easy, easy, watch that belly! Last Line: Any eyes, I mean Variant Title(s): Notes On A Life To Be Live OR ELSE: 17. LITTLE BOY AND LOST SHOE First Line: The little boy lost his shoe in the field Last Line: The mountains lean. They watch. They know Variant Title(s): Notes On A Life To Be Live OR ELSE: 18. COMPOSITION IN GOLD AND RED-GOLD First Line: Between the event and the word, golden Last Line: Now beyond sight Variant Title(s): Notes On A Life To Be Live OR ELSE: 19. THERE'S A GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK IN THE HALL First Line: There's a grandfather's clock in the hall, watch it closely. The minute hand Last Line: A mink's prick, time thrusts through the time of no-time Subject(s): Time OR ELSE: 2. NATURAL HISTORY First Line: In the rain the naked old father is dancing, he will get wet Last Line: They must learn to stay in their graves. That is what graves are for OR ELSE: 20. READING LATE AT NIGHT, THERMOMETER FALLING First Line: The radiator's last hiss and steam-clang done, he Last Line: However, is another country OR ELSE: 21. FOLLY ON ROYAL STREET BEFORE THE RAW FACE OF GOD First Line: Drunk, drunk, drunk, amid the blaze of noon Last Line: And quoted milton amid the blaze of noon OR ELSE: 22. SUNSET WALK IN THAW-TIME IN VERMONT First Line: Rip, whoosh, wing-whistle: and out of Last Line: The loving vigilance of death? OR ELSE: 23. BIRTH OF LOVE First Line: Season late, day late, sun just down, and the sky Last Line: I do not know what promise it makes to him OR ELSE: 24. A PROBLEM IN SPATIAL COMPOSITION First Line: Through the high window, upright rectangle of distance Last Line: The hawk, in an eyeblink, is gone OR ELSE: 3. TIME AS HYPNOSIS First Line: White, white in that dawnlight, the world was exploding, white Last Line: That was only what the snow dreamed OR ELSE: 4. BLOW, WEST WIND First Line: I know, I know - though the evidence Last Line: But you believe nothing, with the evidence lost OR ELSE: 5. I AM DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS First Line: No, not that door - never! But Last Line: May be converted into the future tense %of joy Subject(s): Christmas OR ELSE: 6. BALLAD OF MISTER DUTCHER AND THE LAST LYNCHING IN GUPTON First Line: He must have been just as old in Last Line: That would, ofcourse, be somewhat difficult OR ELSE: 7. CHAIN SAW AT DAWN IN VERMONT IN TIME OF DROUTH First Line: Dawn and, distant, the steel-snarl and lyric Last Line: Or he himself may have learned by then OR ELSE: 8. SMALL WHITE HOUSE First Line: The sun of july beats down on the small white house Last Line: Swims in that dazzle of no-time. The child's cry comes rom the house OR ELSE: 9. FOREVER O'CLOCK First Line: A clock is getting ready to strike forever o'clock Last Line: A clock somewhere is trying to make up its mind to strike forever o'clock OR ELSE: INTERJECTION 1 First Line: Is this really me? Of course not, for time Last Line: You must re-evaluate the whole question OR ELSE: INTERJECTION 2 First Line: Necessarily, we must think of the Last Line: In an ecstasy of being OR ELSE: INTERJECTION 3 First Line: I know a place where all is real. I Last Line: Pulmonary complaint as soon as they hit the low country OR ELSE: INTERJECTION 4 First Line: That was the year of the bad war. The others Last Line: That sanctifies the shedding of blood OR ELSE: INTERJECTION 5 First Line: Wild with ego, wild with world-blame Last Line: But was - he was - and even yearned after vurtue OR ELSE: INTERJECTION 6 First Line: Out of mist, god's Last Line: Wants only to love you, perhaps OR ELSE: INTERJECTION 7 First Line: You've toughed it out pretty well, old body, done Last Line: In a blinding blaze, from the fifth of the world's floor OR ELSE: INTERJECTION 8 First Line: The unsleeping principle of delight that Last Line: Whether by day or, sometimes, night ORIGINAL SIN: A SHORT STORY Poem Text First Line: Nodding, its great head rattling like a gourd Subject(s): Sin ORIGINAL SIN: A SHORT STORY First Line: Nodding, its great head rattling like a gourd Last Line: Or it goes to the backyard and stands like an old horse cold in the pasture Subject(s): Sin ORPHANAGE BOY First Line: From the orphanage al came to Last Line: It must have taken nigh moonset OWL First Line: Here was the sound of water falling only Last Line: O scaled bent claw, infatuate deep throat! PACIFIC GAZER First Line: Seatide invades Last Line: Could night oppose PARADIGM OF SEASONS First Line: Each year is like a snake that swallows its tail Last Line: A snow-choked trail PARADOX First Line: Running ahead beside the sea Last Line: Version of zeno's paradox PARADOX OF TIME: 1. GRAVITY OF STONE AND ECSTASY OF WIND First Line: Each day now more precious will dawn Last Line: Learn the ecstasy of wind PARADOX OF TIME: 2. LAW OF ATTRITION First Line: Learn the law of attrition Last Line: On a beach where no foot may come PARADOX OF TIME: 3. ONE I KNEW First Line: At the time of sinew dry Last Line: Divulged. On the dusty carpet PART OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A SHORT STORY, ALMOST FORGOTTEN First Line: Fifty-odd years ago if you Last Line: In mere charade, hysterical %or grave, of love PASSERS-BY ON SNOWY NIGHT First Line: Black the coniferous darkness Last Line: And each goes the way he will go PATRIOTIC TOUR AND POSTULATE OF JOY Poem Text First Line: Once, once, in washington Last Line: To live by, in sunlight and moonlight, until they died Subject(s): Mockingbirds; Patriotism; Washington, D.c. PATRIOTIC TOUR AND POSTULATE OF JOY First Line: Once, once, in washington Last Line: To know what postulate of joy men have tried %to live by, in sunlight and moonlight, until they die Subject(s): Mockingbirds; Patriotism; Washington, D.c. PENOLOGICAL STUDY: 1. KEEP THAT MORPHINE MOVING, CAP First Line: Oh, in the pen, oh, in the poem Last Line: Where cans, they have no doors PENOLOGICAL STUDY: 2. TOMORROW MORNING First Line: In the morning the rivers will blaze up blue like sulphur Last Line: A characteristic phase at the threshold of the final narcosis? PENOLOGICAL STUDY: 3. WET HAIR: IF NOW HIS MOTHER SHOULD COME First Line: If out of a dire suspicion Last Line: Then lied, to boot PENOLOGICAL STUDY: 4. THE MOTEL DOWN THE ROAD FROM THE PEN First Line: Now in the cheap motel, I lie, and Last Line: It is going, somewhere PENOLOGICAL STUDY: 5. WHERE THEY COME TO WAIT FOR THE BODY First Line: This is the cheap motel where Last Line: And where, when the time comes, you grab the jet PENOLOGICAL STUDY: 6. NIGHT IS PERSONAL First Line: Night is personal. Day is public. Day Last Line: And you have no reason to think that you are above the law PENOLOGICAL STUDY: 7. DAWN First Line: Owl, owl, stop calling from the swamp, let Last Line: Forgive us - oh, give us! - our joy PICNIC REMEMBERED First Line: That day, so innocent appeared PLACE First Line: From shelving cliff-darkness, green arch and nave Last Line: To come to such a place seeking the most difficult knowledge PLATONIC DROWSE First Line: The shaft of paralyzed sunlight Last Line: The world, in platonic drowse, lay PLATONIC LASSITUDE First Line: Not one leaf stirs, though a high few Last Line: Hasdd you forgotten that history is only the fruit of tomorrow? PONDY WOODS First Line: The buzzards over pondy woods Last Line: The night their eyes burn two by two PORTRAITS OF THREE LADIES First Line: He passed her only once in a crowded street Last Line: With harried eyes in which he read no fear PRAIRIE HARVEST First Line: Look westward over forever miles of wheat stubble Last Line: An adequate definition of self, whatever you are? PRAISE First Line: I want to praise one I love Last Line: That scorns the true good the world can give PRAISES FOR MRS. DODD First Line: Death squats on the bottom stair Last Line: To the harp and crown mrs. Dodd has won PRETERNATURALLY EARLY SNOWFALL IN MATING SEASON First Line: Three days back, first snow had fallen Last Line: It was hard to get a fire going PRO SUA VITA First Line: Nine months I waited in the dark beneath PROBLEM OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY VAGUE RECOLLECTION OR DREAM? First Line: Was it a long-lost recollection crawling Last Line: To know %what self made it PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE First Line: What years, what hours, has spider contemplation spun Last Line: We rest, lapped in the arrogant chastity of our desire PROGNOSIS: A SHORT STORY: 1. AND OH - First Line: She was into her forties, her daughter slick, sly, and no good Last Line: Oh - %and oh PROGNOSIS: A SHORT STORY: 2. WHAT THE SAND SAID First Line: #name? Last Line: I have heard the grain of sand say: I know my joy, I know its name PROGNOSIS: A SHORT STORY: 3. WHAT THE JOREE SAID, THE JOREE BEING ONLY First Line: The joree sang. What does he sing;? He says Last Line: Herself in that sweet, sad asseverant candor, from black shade, in day-blaze, by water PROMISES: 1 First Line: What was the promise the smiled from the maples at Last Line: We died only that every promise might be fulfilled.' PROMISES: 1. WHAT WAS THE PROMISE THAT SMILED FROM THE MAPLES AT EVENNG? Poem Text First Line: To a place of ruined stone we brought you, and sea reaches Subject(s): Promises PROMISES: 10. DARK NIGHT OF First Line: Far off, two fields away Last Line: May we all at last enter into that awfulness of joy he has found there PROMISES: 11. INFANT BOY AT MIDCENTURY: 1 First Line: When the century dragged, like a great wheel stuck at dead center Last Line: That dawning perspective and possibility of human good PROMISES: 11. INFANT BOY AT MIDCENTURY: 2 First Line: There will, indeed, be modification of landscape Last Line: In learning to face truth's glare-glory, from which our eyes are long hid PROMISES: 12. LULLABY: SMILE IN SLEEP First Line: Sleep, my son, and smile in sleep Last Line: Dream, strong son. %sleep on PROMISES: 13. MAN IN MOONLIGHT: 1 First Line: Great moon, white-westering past our battlement Last Line: In diurnal dust and heat, and right and wrong PROMISES: 13. MAN IN MOONLIGHT: 2 First Line: Through the western window full fell moonlight Last Line: Need he stand and shake in that cold blaze of platonic light PROMISES: 13. MAN IN MOONLIGHT: 3 First Line: Moonlight lingers down the air Last Line: Sleep, son. Good night PROMISES: 14. MAD YOUNG ARISTOCRAT ON BEACH First Line: He sits in blue trunks on the sand, and children sing Last Line: Who will never come to the title, and be loved for themselves, at innocent nightfall PROMISES: 15. DRAGON COUNTRY: TO JACOB BOEHME First Line: This is the dragon's country, and these his own streams Last Line: And left, in darkness, the fearful glimmer of joy, like a spoor PROMISES: 16. BALLAD OF A SWEET DREAM OF PEACE: 1 First Line: And why, in god's name, is that elegant bureau Last Line: Besides it's not civil to call her a bitch, and her your own grandma, too PROMISES: 16. BALLAD OF A SWEET DREAM OF PEACE: 2 First Line: Oh, what brings her out in the dark and night? Last Line: When some summer night she opens the drawer and finds that poor self she'd mislaid PROMISES: 16. BALLAD OF A SWEET DREAM OF PEACE: 3 First Line: Out there in the dark, what's that horrible chomping? Last Line: And it's simply absurd how loud she can scream with no shred of a tongue in her head PROMISES: 16. BALLAD OF A SWEET DREAM OF PEACE: 4 First Line: Who else, in god's name, comes out in these woods? Last Line: I have heard the voice in the dark, seeing not who utters. Show me thy face!' PROMISES: 16. BALLAD OF A SWEET DREAM OF PEACE: 5 First Line: Why now, in god's name, is her robe de nuit Last Line: She's the afternoon one who to your bed came, lip damp, the breath like myrrh PROMISES: 16. BALLAD OF A SWEET DREAM OF PEACE: 6 First Line: Could that be a babe crawling there in night's black? Last Line: That to shut the eyes tight and get down on the knees is the quickest and easiest way PROMISES: 16. BALLAD OF A SWEET DREAM OF PEACE: 7 First Line: Yes, clients report it the tidiest way Last Line: And subdues to sweetness the pathside garbage, or thing body had refused PROMISES: 17. BOY'S WILL, JOYFUL LABOR WITHOUT PAY: 1 First Line: By breakfast time the bustle's on Last Line: To our pathos of rapacity PROMISES: 17. BOY'S WILL, JOYFUL LABOR WITHOUT PAY: 2 First Line: The hand that aches for the pitchfork heft Last Line: And grins, then wipes the sweat from his hair Subject(s): Labor And Laborers PROMISES: 17. BOY'S WILL, JOYFUL LABOR WITHOUT PAY: 3 First Line: Daylong, light, gold, leans on the land Last Line: Spits once, says, 'hell, just another snake.' PROMISES: 17. BOY'S WILL, JOYFUL LABOR WITHOUT PAY: 4 First Line: The thresher now has stopped its racket Last Line: That field, pale, under starlit air PROMISES: 17. BOY'S WILL, JOYOUS LABOR WITHOUT PAY AND HARVEST HOME Poem Text First Line: By breakfast time the bustle's on Last Line: That field, pale, under starlit air PROMISES: 18. LULLABY: A MOTION LIKE SLEEP First Line: Under the star and beech-shade braiding Last Line: So, son, now sleep PROMISES: 19. THE NECESSITY FOR BELIEF First Line: The sun is red, and the sky does not scream Last Line: Much is told that is scarcely to be believed PROMISES: 2. COURT-MARTIAL Poem Text First Line: Under the cedar tree Subject(s): American Civil War; Lynching; Confederate States Of America; Soldiers; Veterans; Ancestors & Ancestry; Confederacy; Heritage; Heredity PROMISES: 2. COURT-MARTIAL First Line: Under the cedar tree Last Line: The world is real. It is there PROMISES: 3. GOLD GLADE Poem Text First Line: Wandering, in autumn, the woods of boyhood Subject(s): Religion; Theology PROMISES: 3. GOLD GLADE First Line: Wandering, in autumn, the woods of boyhood Last Line: I shall set my foot, and go there Subject(s): Religion PROMISES: 4. DARK WOODS: 1 First Line: Tonight the woods are darkened Last Line: The woods wait. They wait. All right PROMISES: 4. DARK WOODS: 2. THE DOGWOOD First Line: All right: and with that wry acceptance you follow the cow-track Last Line: All night, the tree glimmmered in darkness, and uttered no word PROMISES: 4. DARK WOODS: 3. THE HAZEL LEAF First Line: Tonight the woods are darkened Last Line: Do not forget you were once there PROMISES: 5. COUNTRY BURYING (1919) First Line: A thousand times you've seen that scene Last Line: Why doesn't that fly stop buzzing - stop buzzing up there! PROMISES: 6. SCHOOL LESSON BASED ON WORD OF TRAGIC DEATH ... First Line: They weren't so bright, or clean, or clever Last Line: There was another lesson, but we were too young to take up that one PROMISES: 7. SUMMER STORM (CIRCA 1916), AND GOD'S GRACE First Line: Toward sun, the sun flared suddenly red Last Line: Let that roar be the roar of god's awful grace, and not of his flail PROMISES: 8. FOUNDING FATHERS, NINETEENTH-CENTURY STYLE, SOUTHEAST U.S First Line: They were human, they suffered, wore long black coat and gold watch chain Last Line: God's closing hand PROMISES: 9. FOREIGN SHORE, OLD WOMAN, SLAUGHTER OF OCTOPUS First Line: What now do the waves say Last Line: The mind's pain of logic somewhat, or the heart's rage PROPHECY First Line: You see no beauty in the parched parade Last Line: And memory will purge the bitter from the sweet PURSUIT Poem Text First Line: The hunchback on the corner, with gum and shoelaces Subject(s): Guilt PURSUIT First Line: The hunchback on the corner, with gum and shoelaces Last Line: And rattles her crutch, which may put forth a small bloom, perhaps white Subject(s): Guilt QUESTION AND ANSWER Poem Text First Line: What has availed Subject(s): Success; Failure QUESTION AT CLIFF-THRUST First Line: From the outthrust ledge of sea-cliff you Last Line: Of one gull that screams from east to west and is %demanding what? QUESTIONS AND ANSWER First Line: What has availed %or failed? Last Line: At god's black, orbed, target eye QUESTIONS YOU MUST LEARN TO LIVE PAST First Line: Have you ever clung to the cliffside while Last Line: Slips down to curl in some dark, wintry hole, with no dream? RANSOM First Line: Old houses, and new-fangled violence Last Line: Though frail as the clasped dream beneath the blanket's wool RATHER LIKE A DREAM First Line: If wordsworth, a boy, reached out Last Line: Tree or stone - just to know RE-INTERMENT: RECOLLECTION OF A GRANDFATHER First Line: What a strange feeling all the years to carry Last Line: To love him - or recognize hs kind. Certainly not his face RECOLLECTION IN UPPPER ONTARIO, FROM LONG BEFORE First Line: Why do I still wake up and not know? - though later Last Line: Or what did I see? RED-TAIL HAWK AND PYRE OF YOUTH First Line: Breath clamber-short, face sun-peeled, stones Last Line: Of youth's poor, angry, slapdash, and ignorant pyre REMARK FOR HISTORIANS First Line: Only truth is deep as the ocean Last Line: Or the wind-ripped medium where great waves mourn RESOLUTION First Line: Grape-treader time Last Line: How ripe is turned the hour RETURN: AN ELEGY First Line: The east wind finds the gap bringing rain Last Line: Out of the dark the dark and swollen orchid of this sorrow REVELATION Poem Text First Line: Because he had spoken harshly to his mother Last Line: Something important about love, and about love's grace. Subject(s): Mothers & Sons ROMANCE MACABRE First Line: Even tonight, I think, if you would ask Last Line: Haunted by anguish of the lustful dead RUMOR AT TWILIGHT Poem Text First Line: Rumor at twilight of whisper, crepuscular Subject(s): Family Life; Relatives RUMOR AT TWILIGHT First Line: Rumor at twilight of whisper, crepuscular Last Line: The cigarette butt. Set heel on it. It is time to go in RUMOR VERIFIED First Line: Since the rumor has been verified, you can, at least Last Line: That you are simply a man, with a man's dead reckoning, nothing more SAFE IN SHADE First Line: Eyes, not bleared but blue Last Line: Where is the truth - oh, unambiguous - %thereof? SAN FRANCISCO NIGHT WINDOWS Poem Text First Line: So hangs the hour like fruit fullblown and sweet, Subject(s): San Francisco SEA HATES THE LAND First Line: Be not deceived by the slow swell and lull of sea lolling Last Line: Absorbed in the innocent solipsism of the sea SEASON OPENS ON WILD BOAR IN CHIANTI First Line: They are hunting the boar in the vineyards Last Line: From darkness, our ignorant dreaming SEASONS: 1. DOWNWARDNESS First Line: Under ledges of snow out-thrust from ledges Last Line: Dark comes again. Shut eyes, and think of a sacred cycle SEASONS: 2. INTERLUDE OF SUMMER First Line: Even in the spruce-dark gorge the last Last Line: After all, aesthetics is a branch of philosophy SHOES IN RAIN JUNGLE First Line: Shoes rot off feet before feet Last Line: This last is very important SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 1. NIGHTMARE OF MOUSE First Line: It was there, but I said it couldn't be true in daylight Last Line: And I wasn't, so didn't - till teeth crunched on my skull SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 2. NIGHTMARE OF MAN First Line: I assembled, marshaled, my data, deployed them expertly Last Line: For I'd thought of the death of my mother, and wept, and weep still SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 3. COLLOQUY WITH COCKROACH First Line: I know I smell. But everyone does, somewhat Last Line: No, I haven't time now - it might take you too long to explain SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 4. LITTLE BOY ON VOYAGE First Line: Little boy, little boy, standing on ship-shudder, wide eyes staring Last Line: So come in for supper and sleep, now; they, too, will help you grow strong SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 5. OBSESSION First Line: Dawn draws on slow when dawn brings only dawn Last Line: And the old thought for the new day as day draws on SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 6. JOY First Line: If you've never had it, discussion is perfectly fruitless Last Line: Let the flute and drum be still, the trumpet tootless SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 7. CRICKET, ON KITCHEN FLOOR, ENTERS First Line: History, shaped like white hen Last Line: But will, no doubt, come again SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 8. LITTLE BOY AND GENERAL PRINCIPLE First Line: Don't cry, little boy, you see it is only natural Last Line: That you'll have to learn soon, so you might, I guess, begin SHORT THOUGHTS FOR LONG NIGHTS: 9. GRASSHOPPER TRIES TO BREAK First Line: Sing summer, summer, sing summer summerlong Last Line: And over all things, all night, his despair, like ice, creep SILA Poem Text First Line: Upgrade, past snow-tangled bramble, past Last Line: The dog exploded Subject(s): Animals; Death; Deer; Dogs; Eskimos; Native Americans; Dead, The; Inuit; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America SILA First Line: Upgrade, past snow-tangled bramble, past Last Line: Heart straining, to utter that cry? - but %cannot, breath short Subject(s): Animals; Death; Deer; Dogs; Eskimos; Native Americans SISTER WATER First Line: ...And to begin again, the night was dark and dreary, and Last Line: You can wash your face in cold water SITTING ON FARM LAWN ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON First Line: The old, the young - they sit Last Line: In another place, and hour SKY First Line: Livid to lurid switched the sky Last Line: Its true name is what we never know SMALL ETERNITY First Line: The time comes when you count the names - whether Last Line: Upon that momentary eternity SMILE First Line: Mellow, mellow, at thrush-hour Last Line: Damp hair to show the flickering smile SNOWFALL First Line: The whiteness of silence, in silence of squadroon Last Line: Which is the perfection of being SNOWSHOEING BACK TO CAMP IN GLOAMING First Line: Scraggle and brush broken through, snow-shower jarred loose Last Line: Of a source far other than firelight - or even %imagined star-glint SO FROST ASTOUNDS Poem Text First Line: I have thought: this will be so Subject(s): Frost SO FROST ASTOUNDS First Line: I have thought: it will be so nothing less Last Line: I have thought: this will I find SO YOU AGREE WITH WHAT I SAY? WELL, WHAT DID I SAY? First Line: Albino-pale, half-blind, his orbit revolved Last Line: For somebody else to try, or an ibm SOME QUIET, PLAIN POEMS: 1. ORNITHOLOGY IN A WORLD OF FLUX First Line: It was only a bird call at evening, unidentified Last Line: That I miss more that stillness at bird-call than some things that were to fail later SOME QUIET, PLAIN POEMS: 2. HOLLY AND HICKORY First Line: Rain, all night, taps the holly Last Line: Who dreamed dawnward; and would rise to go SOME QUIET, PLAIN POEMS: 3. THE WELL HOUSE First Line: What happened there, it was not much Last Line: If you came back - even if you just stood to stare SOME QUIET, PLAIN POEMS: 4. IN MOONLIGHT, SOMEWHERE, THEY ARE SINGING First Line: Under the maples at moonrise Last Line: Some life-faith yet, by my years, unrepealed Subject(s): Love SOME QUIET, PLAIN POEMS: 5. IN ITALIAN THEY CALL THE BIRD CIVETTA First Line: The evening drooped toward owl-call Last Line: The small owl mourns from the moat SOME QUIET, PLAIN POEMS: 6. DEBATE: QUESTION, QUARRY, DREAM First Line: Asking what, asking what? - all a boy's afternoon Last Line: And lift up my eyes to consider more strictly the appalling logic of joy SOMEWHERE First Line: Walking down madison, I suddenly stopped. Stared Last Line: Somewhere, far off, is somewhere SONNET OF AUGUST DROUTH First Line: Eternally our afternoons then stood Last Line: This cairn of darkness piled upon my brow! SONNNET OF A RAINY SUMMER First Line: It was a rainy summer, you remember Last Line: Plashing the mud as I rode home from you SPELEOLOGY First Line: At cliff-foot where great ledges thrust, the cave Last Line: And in darkness have even asked; is this all? What is all? STAR-FALL First Line: In that far land, and time, near the castrated drawbridge where Last Line: We lay watching the stars as they fell SUMMER AFTERNOON AND HYPNOSIS First Line: Lulled by stream murmur and the afternoon's hypnosis Last Line: The mystery of love's redeeming smile SUMMER RAIN IN MOUNTAINS First Line: A dark curtain of rain sweeps slowly over the sunlit mountain Last Line: After all, its the sort of thing that may happen to anybody. %and does SUNSET First Line: Clouds clamber, turgid, the mountain, peakward Last Line: Before seen, nor known SUNSET SCRUPULOUSLY OBSERVED First Line: A flycatcher, small, species not identified, is perched Last Line: The evening slowly, soundlessly, closes. Like %an eyelid SWIMMING IN THE PACIFIC Poem Text First Line: At sunset my foot outreached the mounting pacific's Last Line: Like a dream all years moved to Subject(s): Swimming & Swimmers; Pacific Ocean SWIMMING IN THE PACIFIC First Line: At sunset my foot outreached the mounting pacific's Last Line: Saw your face, slow, take shape, %like a dream that all years had moved to Subject(s): Sports SYNONYMS Poem Text First Line: Where eons back earth slipped and cracked Subject(s): Beauty; Reality; Nature SYNONYMS First Line: Where eons back, earth slipped and cracked Last Line: It is hard sometimes to remember that beauty is one word for reality TALE OF TIME: 1. WHAT HAPPENED First Line: It was october. It was the depression. Money %was tight Last Line: There will also be the dream of the eating of human flesh TALE OF TIME: 2. THE MAD DRUGGIST First Line: I come back to try to remember the faces she saw every day Last Line: A fact some in the street had not grasped - nor the attending physician, nor god, nor I TALE OF TIME: 3. ANSWER YES OR NO First Line: Death is only a technical correction of the market Last Line: Death is only the fulfilment of a wish %whose wish? TALE OF TIME: 4. THE INTERIM First Line: Between the clod and the midnight Last Line: Immortality is not impossible, %even joy TALE OF TIME: 5. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, DEAR MOTHER? First Line: What were you thinking, a child, when you lay Last Line: And the whippoorwill called, beyond the dark cedars TALE OF TIME: 6. INSOMNIA First Line: If to that place. Place of grass Last Line: They are born one by one TELL ME A STORY Poem Text First Line: Long ago, in kentucky, I, a boy, stood Subject(s): Geese; Time TERROR Poem Text First Line: Not pinics nor pageants or the improbable Subject(s): Terror; War; Airplane Accidents; Air Crashes; Aeronautics - Accidents; Airplane Collisions TERROR First Line: Not picnics or pageants or the improbable Last Line: Kisses the terror; for you see an empty chair Subject(s): Adventure And Adventurers; War THE CARDINAL Poem Text First Line: Cardinal, lover of shade Subject(s): Cardinals (birds) THE DAY DR. KNOX DID IT Poem Text First Line: Heat-blaze, white dazzle: and white is the dust Last Line: It us night. In the next room she weeps Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Suicide; Southern States; Death THE GARDEN Poem Text First Line: How kind, how secretly, the sun Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Autumn; Fall THE LIE Poem Text First Line: Yes, meriwether, murdered by your lie Subject(s): Lewis, Meriwether (1774-1809); Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826); Suicide; Lies THE LIMITED Poem Text First Line: Since there's no help, come, let them kiss and part Last Line: Wheels from last week's newspaper to the broom Subject(s): Drayton, Michael (1563-1631) THE MOONLIGHT'S DREAM Poem Text First Line: Why did I wake at night, all the house at rest? Subject(s): Family Life; Sleep; Dreams; Night; Relatives; Nightmares; Bedtime THE NATURE OF A MIRROR Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The sky has murder in the eye, and I Subject(s): Time THE OWL Poem Text First Line: Here was the sound of water falling only Subject(s): Nature; Owls THE RETURN: AN ELEGY Poem Text First Line: The east wind finds the gap bringing rain Subject(s): Grief; Death; Pine Trees; Nature; Sorrow; Sadness; Dead, The THERE'S A GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK IN THE HALL Poem Text First Line: There's a grandfather's clock in the hall, watch it closely. The minute hand Subject(s): Time THREE DARKNESSES First Line: There is some logic here to trace, and I TIMELESS, TWINNED First Line: Angelic, lonely autochthonous, one white Last Line: Snow-bellied, lurks. I stare at the cloud, white and motionless I cling %to our one existence, timel TIRES ON WET ASPHALT AT NIGHT First Line: As my head in darkness dents pillow, the last Last Line: I wish I could think what makes them come together now TO A FACE IN THE CROWD First Line: Brother, my brother, whither do you pass? Last Line: Borne in the lost procession of these feet TO A FRIEND PARTING First Line: Endure friend-parting yet, old soldier Last Line: Thus faith has lived, we feel TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 1. SIROCCO Poem Text First Line: To a place of ruined stone we brought you, and sea-reaches Last Line: And on the exposed approaches the last gold of gorse bloom, in the sorocco, shakes Subject(s): Fathers & Daughters TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 1. SIROCCO First Line: To a place of ruined stone we brought you, and sea-reaches Last Line: And on the exposed approaches the last gold of gorse bloom, in the sirocco, shakes Subject(s): Fathers And Daughters TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 2. GULL'S CRY Poem Text First Line: White goose by palm tree, palm ragged, among stones the white oleander Last Line: Hands and sing, redeem, redeem! Subject(s): Fathers & Daughters TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 2. GULL'S CRY First Line: White goose by palm tree, palm ragged, among stones the white oleander Last Line: Hands and sing: redeem, redeem! Subject(s): Fathers And Daughters TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 3. THE CHILD Poem Text First Line: The child next door is defective because the mother Last Line: I smile stiff, say ciao, and think: this is the world Subject(s): Fathers & Daughters TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 3. THE CHILD First Line: The child next door is defective because the mother Last Line: I smile stiff, saying ciao, saying ciao, and think: this is the world Subject(s): Fathers And Daughters TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 4. THE FLOWER Poem Text First Line: Above the beach, the vineyard Last Line: It will rustle all night, darling Subject(s): Fathers & Daughters TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 4. THE FLOWER First Line: Above the beach, the vineyard Last Line: It will rustle all night, darling Subject(s): Fathers And Daughters TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 5. COLDER FIRE Poem Text First Line: It rained toward day. The morning came sad & white Last Line: But defines, for the fortunate, that joy in which all joys shall rejoice Subject(s): Fathers & Daughters; Childhood Memories TO A LITTLE GIRL, ONE YEAR OLD, IN A RUINED FORTRESS: 5. COLDER FIRE First Line: It rained toward day. The morning came sad and white Last Line: But defines, for the fortunate, that joy in which all joys should rejoice TO CERTAIN OLD MASTERS First Line: I have read you and read you, my betters Last Line: Breathless, awed, and still TO ONE AWAKE First Line: Shut up the book and get you now to bed Last Line: And its dark leaf TOWARD RATIONALITY First Line: Brothers, stones on this moraine of time Last Line: The rude abhorson's spittlebearded grin TRIPS TO CALIFORNIA First Line: Two days behind the dust-storm - man's Last Line: Own fate, which blindly blooms, like a flower TRUE LOVE Poem Text First Line: In silence the heart raves. It utters words Subject(s): Love - Beginnings; Youth TRUE LOVE First Line: In silence the heart raves. It utters words Last Line: She called my name once. I didn't even know she knew it TRUTH First Line: Truth is what you cannot tell Last Line: Their accumulated wisdom must be immense TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING First Line: All things lean at you, and some are Last Line: And no one can predict the consequences TRYST ON VINEGAR HILL First Line: Over vinegar hill somehow the sky Last Line: Still find the ivied earth so cold TWICE BORN First Line: Ah, blaze of vision in the dark hour! Last Line: In calmness, soon, I slept TWO PIECES AFTER SUETONIUS: 1. APOLOGY FOR DOMITIAN First Line: He was not bad, as emperors go, not really Last Line: It gets is at night, and from his old nurse, a woman poor, nonpolitical TWO PIECES AFTER SUETONIUS: 2. TIBERIUS ON CAPRI First Line: All is nothing, nothing all Last Line: Found the sea: I could do that much, after all TWO STUDIES IN IDEALISM: 1. BEAR TRACK PLANTATION: SHORTLY AFTER First Line: Two things a man's built for, killing and you-know-what Last Line: Hell, no. I'd lie easy if jeff had just give me that ten Subject(s): Idealism TWO STUDIES IN IDEALISM: 1. BEAR TRACK PLANTATION: SHORTLY AFTER SHILOH Poem Text First Line: Two things a man's built for, killing and you-know-what Last Line: Hell, no. I'd lie if jeff had just give me that ten Subject(s): Idealism TWO STUDIES IN IDEALISM: 2. HARVARD '61: BATTLE FATIGUE Poem Text First Line: I didn't mind dying - it wasn't that at all Last Line: Where people who haven't the right just die, with ghastly impertinence Subject(s): Harvard University; Idealism TWO STUDIES IN IDEALISM: 2. HARVARD '61: BATTLE FATIGUE First Line: I didn't mind dying - it wasn't that at all Last Line: Where people who haven't the right just die, with ghastly impertinence Subject(s): Harvard University; Idealism UNCERTAIN SEASON IN HIGH COUNTRY First Line: By the descending mountain track, soundless Last Line: I speculate on the weather UNLESS First Line: All will be in vain unless - unless what? Unless Last Line: This is happiness UPWARDNESS First Line: It is hard to know the logic of mere recollection Last Line: Straining beyond the infinite starwardness VARIATION: ODE TO FEAR First Line: When the dentist adjusts his drill Last Line: Timor mortis conturbet me VERMONT BALLAD; CHANGE OF SEASON First Line: All day the fitful rain Last Line: In rain or snow, you pass, and he says: 'kinda rough tonight.' VERMONT THAW First Line: A soft wind southwesterly, something like Last Line: You must try to think of some other answer, by dawn VISION Poem Text First Line: The vision shall come - the truth be revealed - but Subject(s): Truth VISION (1) First Line: I shall build me a house where the larkspur blooms Last Line: When the grey wood smoke drifts away with the wind VISION (2) First Line: The vision will come - the truth be revealed - but Last Line: And you just didn't recognize it? WAITING First Line: You will have to wait. Until it. Until Last Line: True or not. But sometimes true WAKING TO TAP OF HAMMER First Line: Waking up in my curtain-dark bedroom, I hear Last Line: I dreamed it was smiling at me WAS IT ONE OF THE LONG HUNTERS OF KENTUCKY WHO DISCOVERED BOONE AT First Line: The seasons turn like a great wheel Last Line: In joy just because the world is the way it is WATERSHED Poem Text First Line: From this high place all things flow Subject(s): Watersheds WAY TO LOVE GOD First Line: Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true Last Line: That is a way to love god WAYS OF DAY First Line: I have come all this way Last Line: Teach me, my son, the ways of day WEATHER REPORT First Line: In its deep little chasm my brook swells big Last Line: With a creak just this side of silence. %it lurches, perhaps WHAT IS THE VOICE THAT SPEAKS? First Line: What is the voice that speaks? Oh, tongue Last Line: All we can do is strive to learn the cost of experience WHAT VOICE AT MOTH-HOUR Poem Text First Line: What voice at moth-hour did I hear calling Last Line: Once heard, hear the voice: its is late. Come home! Subject(s): Voices WHAT VOICE AT MOTH-HOUR First Line: What voice at moth-hour did I hear calling Subject(s): Voices WHAT WAS THE THOUGHT First Line: The thought creeps along the baseboard of the dark mind Last Line: Skull crushed, partly eviscerated WHATEVR YOU NOW ARE First Line: In the depth and rustle of midnight, how do you know Last Line: Will a more strange one yet inhabit the precinct of day? WHEN LIFE BEGINS First Line: Erect was the old hellenistic head Last Line: But for tail's twitch. Night comes. Eyes glare WHEN THE TOOTH CRACKS - ZING! First Line: When the tooth cracks - zing! - it Last Line: Especially if your memory is not what it used to be WHISTLE OF THE 3 A.M. First Line: At 3 a.M., if the schedule held Last Line: The schedule's gone dead of the 3 a.M WHOLE QUESTION First Line: You'll have to rethink the whole question. This Last Line: Words. Or find some words that make the truth come true WHY BOY CAME TO LONELY PLACE First Line: Limestone and cedar. Indigo shadow Last Line: But what is that? To find out you come to this lonely place WHY HAVE I WANDERED THE ASPHALT OF MIDNIGHT? First Line: Why have I wandered the asphalt of midnight and not known why? Last Line: Lean over his lunch box, and yawn WHY YOU CLIMBED UP First Line: Where, vomit-yellow, the lichen crawls Last Line: Then all begins again. And you are you WILD OATS First Line: I am sowing wild oats Last Line: But I shall be asleep WIND AND GIBBON First Line: All night, over roof, over forest, you hear Last Line: The mountain to dazzlement WINTER DREAMS First Line: From the edge of the drained beaver swamp Last Line: What dreams all winter he may have had? WINTER WHEAT: OKLAHOMA First Line: The omelet of sunset vibrates in the great flat pan Last Line: A man's honest sweat just go for nothing WORLD COMES GALLOPING: A TRUE STORY First Line: By the ruined arch, where the bougainvillea bled Last Line: Viene galopando,'--and spat again--`el mundo.' WRESTLING MATCH First Line: Here in this corner, ladies and gentlemen Last Line: That forever we would keep if we but could YOU SORT OLD LETTERS First Line: Some are pure business, land deals, receipts, a contract Last Line: Bloody, lifted for your kiss YOUTH STARES AT MINOAN SUNSET First Line: On the lap of the mountain meadow Last Line: He is so young YOUTHFUL PICNIC LONG AGO: SAD BALLAD ON BOX First Line: In tennessee once the campfire glowed Last Line: If not her name. %even now Variant Title(s): Recollection Long Ago: Sad Musi YOUTHFUL TRUTH-SEEKER, HALF-NAKED, AT NIGHT, RUNNING DOWN BEACH SOUTH First Line: In dark, climbing up. Then down-riding the sand sluice Last Line: Then ask, if years later, I'll drive again forth under stars, on tottering bones |
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