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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: WRIGLEY, ROBERT Matches Found: 233 Wrigley, Robert Poet's Biography 233 poems available by this author A LOCK OF HER HAIR Poem Text First Line: As a hoodoo-voodoo, get-you-back-to-me tool, Subject(s): Hair; Love ABOUT LANGUAGE First Line: Damn the rain anyway, she says Last Line: She says bye-bye, geese; she says wow; she says jesus AFTER A RAINSTORM Poem Text First Line: Because I have come to the fence at night, Subject(s): Horses AFTER THE COYOTES' SONG Poem Text First Line: Now night is clearly darker than before Subject(s): Dreams; Nightmares AFTER THE FLOOD First Line: These are the halcyon days Last Line: And kissed me back AGENCY First Line: They stumble now and then, the deer Last Line: The ninth of february, 2001, winter %almost halfway gone AMERICAN MANHOOD Poem Text First Line: In the dull ache that is midnight for a boy Subject(s): Teenagers; Boys; Night; Coming Of Age; Bedtime AMERICAN MANHOOD First Line: In the dull ache that is midnight for a boy ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY Poem Text First Line: Lucy doolin, first day on the job, stroked his goatee Subject(s): Refuse & Refuse Disposal; Rats; Murder; Fathers & Sons; Conduct Of Life; Memory; Youth; Relationships ANGEL ON THE BRIDGE First Line: In the picture I remember most from childhood Last Line: Into a dark I could only dream I would see ANGELS First Line: Cigarettes pilfered two at a time Last Line: As I stretched, the weight on my back %only wings APPALONEA (APPALONEA MILLER VOISIN, 1840-1901) First Line: There may have been a time when Last Line: A prize, a poem, appalonea ARROWHEAD First Line: A century of recent sand washed away Last Line: Though I have more than I will ever need ART First Line: How the buck could have tangled himself Last Line: The wind leans against, and one day, will open AT THE BEACH Poem Text First Line: What are they, those burrowing crustaceans, the ones Subject(s): Seashore; Beach; Coast; Shore AT THE BEACH First Line: What are they, those burrowing crustaceans, the ones Last Line: And who, the truth be told, cannot name us either AT THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL First Line: In the sun and wet haze I am walking Last Line: As any climb anywhere else. You walk, %but heavily, slowly, filled with the absent weight of names AUBADE First Line: Sun-baked all day, the south-facing cliffs Last Line: And rise-- %to welcome the daily fire AUBADE FOR MOTHERS First Line: I am alone in the nursery corridor BEAR DREAMS First Line: What had seemed to him in june just a few Last Line: All that is no longer there, those seeds of another hunger BEES First Line: Maybe you heard them first without knowing BELIEFS OF A HORSE First Line: In the field out back BENTON'S PERSEPHONE First Line: Autumn, harvest, the pond still clear of dust Last Line: And bear her home, into the smoke and flame %he bargained for BIG DIPPER First Line: It is winter, we are driving at night Last Line: We're headed, toward home, that cold house %dusted under hoarfrost, under the north star BODIES First Line: Too soon, the foreshadowed curves Last Line: And the touch of skin on air and light BODY AND SOUL First Line: Yellow with newness, the other saxophones Last Line: In love with believing, and despite anything %I might say, believes he's alone in the world BOVINITY Poem Text First Line: The steer has found, among the mud Last Line: Over the vast brown and white body of the earth Subject(s): Cattle BRAMBLE First Line: Cathedral of thorns, brambly fist Last Line: Miraculously white and unscathed, %holding out to her a brooch of diamonds BURNED CEMETERY First Line: Understand the years of drought, the vast expanse Last Line: You could fall heading to the roots on fire BURNING THE BLACK LOCUST First Line: After four years it's seasoned enough, cracks C.O. Poem Text First Line: We left the quarter peep shows, the lurid skin Subject(s): Conscientious Objectors C.O. First Line: We left the quarter peep shows, the lurid skin Last Line: But he stamped my papers, paid me, and said good-bye, %then I found padilla, and we shook hands, and CAMPING Poem Text First Line: I see my father campng, twenty-seven years Subject(s): Campingl Fathers CAMPING First Line: I see my father camping, twenty-seven years Last Line: Listen, another day is almost gone CAPPELLA First Line: Sensitive fellow and bellower of brimstone Last Line: But would find another way to make my peace %with music CHORE First Line: The night we arrived home from our trip ... CIVICS First Line: Seven wild turkeys have assembled Last Line: Must ring, for some reason, again and again CLEMENCY First Line: Over the trough, the long face of the horse Last Line: Let her breathe where the lick of memory wants COLLECTION First Line: Arrayed on the kitchen table CONFESSION First Line: Forgive me, moose head, for I have sinned Last Line: Spring air bringing a flush to her cheeks CONJURE First Line: There is nothing of her body he can't Last Line: And the dark he is kissing is her face COSMOGRAPHY First Line: It takes most of an hour to finish the sky Last Line: But she goes on: %it's the cat, and he's eating a little gray mouse CRECHE First Line: It survived the loud, jostling train CREEL Poem Text First Line: We sentimentalize the weaver, the hands Subject(s): Weaving & Weavers CREEL First Line: We sentimentalize the weaver, the hands DARK FOREST First Line: I love the way the woods arrange themselves Last Line: The man I refuse to be DIARY OF THE STRIKE First Line: Picket lines are for fingers and legs Last Line: Walking quietly home Subject(s): Diaries; Industry; Labor And Laborers DO YOU LOVE ME? Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: She's twelve and she's asking the dog, Subject(s): Children; Dogs; Childhood DO YOU LOVE ME? First Line: She's twelve and she's asking the dog Last Line: Say it,' she hisses, 'say it to me' DOG First Line: For how many days had the dog shaken? Last Line: Never understanding it was no name at all DRUNKARD'S PATH First Line: Under the drum-taut top and backing I knelt Last Line: Off the dew, and above me slivers of light %weave and flicke, and drunkenly flash DUST First Line: From the hard-rutted, high-line road, the dust Last Line: The antithesis of mountains, their imperceptible dance, %their purity of waiting, those certainties EARTHLY MEDITATIONS: 1. THE AFTERLIFE Poem Text First Line: Spring, and the first full crop of dandelions gone Subject(s): Transience; Impermanence EARTHLY MEDITATIONS: THE AFTERLIFE Poem Text First Line: Spring, and the fist full crop of dandelions gone Last Line: The baby's breath is no longer a rose Subject(s): Spring ECONOMICS First Line: He learned economics in the shade EMBLEM First Line: In the last days of the sun EXPLANATORY First Line: The hackberry tree, a static of twigs and branches Last Line: Great horned owls gone into smoke through the going-down sun FINDING A BIBLE IN AN ABANDONED CABIN Poem Text Subject(s): Bible FIREFLIES First Line: Now there are no fireflies. Once Last Line: And they were sweet and golden FIRST PERSON Poem Text First Line: One lies on one's back in the woods Last Line: The last one / to die Subject(s): Forests; Aging; Animals; Poetry & Poets; Mortality FISH DREAMS First Line: She thinks the caught trout's eye must see Last Line: The bottomless sky, the same terrible blue of the eye FIXING THE WINDOW First Line: It is the way some vandal left it FLIES First Line: They come from the walls, from the house Last Line: We must work FLIGHT First Line: All morning I have watched the robins Last Line: And slanted and coasted down the same long breezes %as any birds, swallowed by the air, and believin Subject(s): Birds; Flight FLIGHT LINE First Line: Summer days that paved world shimmers with heat Last Line: Our house a small darkness in the greater dark, %from which we might wave our hands bloody %and neve FLY AWAY First Line: Our daughter finds a glut of ladybugs woven Last Line: Across the meadow, into the odd new light, toward home FOLLOWING SNAKES First Line: Esses, esses, a glassine imaginary axis Last Line: Though now they may wait near the path I walk FOR THE LAST SUMMER Poem Text First Line: That summer with a thousand julys Subject(s): Music, Rock; Youth; Summer; War; Desire; Rock & Roll FOR THE LAST SUMMER First Line: That summer with a thousand julys Last Line: For him, in the only hours of his life he ever knew %as his own, was music, music, music Subject(s): Music, Rock FOR THE ORCHARDIST First Line: So how many desperate men have seen breasts FROM LUMAGHI MINE Poem Text First Line: Dear father, / eleven days without sunlight. We go in Subject(s): Industry; Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers FROM LUMAGHI MINE First Line: Dear father, %eleven days without sunlight. We go in Last Line: And they would burn for days Subject(s): Industry; Labor And Laborers GLOW First Line: Above the playground, from the hung-out GOLD First Line: If the barkeep had taken a check Last Line: From cloud after cloud of coins GRANDMOTHERS First Line: He thought, this is the way they all are Last Line: Smiling. He thought, ozone, the ancient air, %the long, long night they must swim through HAL'S BELLS First Line: There's a horde of wringer washers Last Line: Room to room, making the air itself %clang with light HAVING HEARD THE MOON IS NO LONGER DESIRABLE IN POETRY First Line: I for one am relieved, although I understand Last Line: Am the pink and shimmering flaw inside a jewel HEART ATTACK First Line: Throwing his small, blond son Last Line: His father does not mean to leave, but goes HIS FATHER'S WHISTLE First Line: For hours the boy fought sleep Last Line: Were a man's only reason for whistling HOARFROST First Line: This morning the swing set's a confection Last Line: Into the vast, geometrical whiteness %of ice HOMAGE Poem Text First Line: The three-bladed, dunce-capped agitator pulsed Subject(s): Laundery & Laundering; Family Life; Relatives HOMAGE First Line: The three-bladed, dunce-capped agitator pulsed Last Line: In which, come september, she would look for %work HORSEFLIES Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: After the horse went down Subject(s): Horses; Death - Animals I LIKE THE WIND Poem Text First Line: We are at or near that approximate line Subject(s): Wind ICE FISHING Poem Text First Line: From open water at the lake's Last Line: By the blood-freckled cheek of the evening snow Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; Winter ICE FISHING First Line: From open water at the lake's Last Line: By the blood - freckled cheek of the evening snow IN THE DARK POOL, FINDING YOU Poem Text First Line: No lights, no moon, no stars in the mountains Last Line: High in the pine, dining on imaginary mice Subject(s): Love; Desire IN THE DARK POOL, FINDING YOU First Line: No lights, no moon, no stars in the mountains Last Line: This is love's skill and power, as real as the owl, %high in the pine, and dining on imaginary mice INVISIBLE MEN First Line: For the mile past american steel Last Line: To the edge of its true colors, white on white on white KILLING THE SNAKES First Line: I didn't know you were watching Last Line: Or sleep for, still at the window, %watching and watching KISSING A HORSE Poem Text First Line: Of the two spoiled, barn-sour geldings Subject(s): Horses; Kisses KNOWING First Line: And what rough beast is this? Adam asked Last Line: It would cost them this paradise and more LATER THAT DAY First Line: Because I did not want to walk far from home Last Line: Where we lay and slept like prey LAZARUS First Line: Eventually the fly awakens, whirring Last Line: Who howl, leaving a garnish of dry grass LEANING HOUSE First Line: Everything leans north LESSONS First Line: The water is cold, and I cling to the side Last Line: Might give herself to a man she does not love LETTER TO A YOUNG POET Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: In the biographies of rilke, you get the feeling Subject(s): Rilke, Rainer Maria (1875-1926); Poetry & Poets; Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature LETTER TO A YOUNG POET First Line: In the biographies of rilke, you get the feeling Last Line: Except if only, just for once, you could be him LIGHT AFTER LIGHT First Line: Lut of the corner of his eye it looked Last Line: Sleek for the long drive away LIMBO Poem Text First Line: The preacher waited. So here Subject(s): Abortions; Death; Christianity; Dead, The LIMBO First Line: The preacher waited. So here %was aquinas, scholastically rational Last Line: And look up from, dizzy, toward a blue and cloudless sky LITTLE DEATHS Poem Text First Line: Every minute to two, another moth Subject(s): Death - Animals; Fish & Fishing; Moths; Anglers LITTLE DEATHS First Line: Every minute or two, another moth Last Line: Though I think of her dreams and wonder, %whimpering that way, if she is the one who chases LONGING OF EAGLES First Line: No words can tell what they feel, how Last Line: But not hatred, not need, not human love LOST First Line: Once, miles up kelly creek, walking back Last Line: Where I would curl alone LOVER OF LIFE First Line: Musk-wet, hay smells, the acrid sweet MAMMOTH Poem Text First Line: Returning the refilled feeder to its hanger on the tree, Subject(s): Hummingbirds MAN WITH LANTERN, APPROACHING First Line: At first, from so far away, he could MEMORY OF GARLIC First Line: Across the pale gray otherworldly umbras Last Line: A furnace from within, so many days smoldering %then flaring in a quarter moon's clove of smoke MILKFLOWERS First Line: It is first that angle at which you sleep Last Line: To paint your skin with invisible roses MINERS SHAKING HANDS WITH A UNION MAN Poem Text First Line: These men are solemn and strong Subject(s): Industry; Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers MINERS SHAKING HANDS WITH A UNION MAN First Line: These man are solemn and strong Last Line: The impenetrable blackness off camera Subject(s): Industry; Labor And Laborers MODEL First Line: Last year, too far into my life Last Line: About which they may suddenly have remembered %nothing but the absolute joy of flight MOON IN A MASON JAR First Line: It was what you might as well wish for Last Line: As it pings and seals itself tight MOONLIGHT: CHICKENS ON THE ROAD Poem Text First Line: Called out of dream by the pitch and screech Subject(s): Automobile Accidents; Chickens; Grief; Ozarks (mountains); Sorrow; Sadness MOONLIGHT: CHICKENS ON THE ROAD First Line: Called out of a dream by the pitch and screech Last Line: Like a pincurl, like pulse, like life MORE RAIN First Line: Indolent and watery, the nightcrawlers sprawl Last Line: For the sound of rain on the road MORELITY Poem Text First Line: The heavy thatch of needle and leaf Subject(s): Mushrooms; Morels MOUTH Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: When she bought the gift shop ventriloquist's dummy Subject(s): Ventriloquists & Ventriloquist Dummies MOUTH First Line: When she bought the thrift shop ventriloquist's dummy Last Line: More or less than her fist MOVIES First Line: On the move again, the kidney stone Last Line: I'm looking better all the time MOWING Poem Text First Line: Sleepy and suburban at dusk, Subject(s): Mowing & Mowers; Bees; Lawn Mowers; Beekeeping MOWING First Line: Sleepy and suburban at dusk Last Line: Dying to be seen from tomorrow MUMMY OF A MOUSE First Line: Spit back to sun by an owl or a snake Last Line: No good, god whispers go! Run! Run! MY FATHER'S FINGERNAILS Poem Text First Line: In the hardware store a young clerk Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Human Behavior; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature MY FATHER'S FINGERNAILS First Line: In the hardware store a young clerk MY NAME First Line: One night years ago I was awakened Last Line: Neither she nor her bob would remember MYOPIA First Line: My half-blind lover mourned last night Last Line: So close to her, as he parted and parted his hair NEIGH Poem Text First Line: The farrier drops the left hind hoof, Subject(s): Horses; Accidents NEW WORLD First Line: Twelve-year-old hermit, I'd hacked my way alone Last Line: But into a world I felt new in, freed, %where nothing is nothing, where love is a sin NIGHT CALLS: HIS CHILDREN First Line: In his dream it is the ruined farm Last Line: And the damp wind blowing into the hall, %making nothing better Subject(s): Children NIGHT CALLS: HIS HEART First Line: Not insomnia, but the body's noisy sleep Last Line: He dances to, that monotonous thump %he curses and yearns for NIGHT CALLS: HIS WIFE First Line: At the edge of sleep, in the wash of the covers Last Line: In the front seat of his car, and drew from her %that song of breath, that sigh he will always know Subject(s): Marriage NIGHT CALLS: LOCUSTS First Line: No explanation will suffice, no dictionary Last Line: Dream-breath of all the empty world %he lives in, and speaksto, and loves Subject(s): Locusts NIGHT CALLS: THE MIDNIGHT WHISTLE First Line: On the drive across town he hears it Last Line: Though now he can hear every mile %of the way a single blare louder than the others Subject(s): Sound NIGHT RISING First Line: After an hour or fighting it, I pull Last Line: One slow step after another, my hands %swimming the black fog before me, %finding my way in time NIGHTCRAWLERS First Line: It rains for three days NUTHATCH SITTING ON A BEAR'S NOSE Poem Text First Line: Really just a small cast iron representation Subject(s): Cemeteries; Statues; Graveyards OF DIAMONDS Poem Text First Line: The dew has sown a field of diamonds Last Line: Is walked by animals unaware of the true worth / of diamonds Subject(s): Hunting; Compassion OF DIAMONDS First Line: The dew has sown a field of diamonds Last Line: From beloved sleepers, while the earth %is walked by animals unaware of the true worth %of diamonds OH YEAH, THE MINE TALKS First Line: Secrets %ain't no part of it though, just good learnin' Last Line: And you ain't never leavin' yours Subject(s): Industry; Labor And Laborers ON AN ISLAND IN THE RIVER AFTER A FLOOD First Line: A tv antenna and a portrait of jesus Last Line: Remains unbroken, for all the good it does ONIONS Poem Text First Line: A rooster pheasant crows in the gully Last Line: To the cellar, where they will remain for months Subject(s): Onions; Pregnancy ONIONS First Line: A rooster pheasant crows in the gully Last Line: From the eaves of the porch until I move them %to the cellar, where they will remain for months OPEN GRAVE First Line: This wedge of county land shows up Last Line: And much harder, the climb back out OUR FATHER First Line: A hand, or the shadow of a hand Last Line: One who tries and tries to pray OVERCOAT First Line: The winter sun blinded, glass buildings Last Line: That building, that brutal hall, %that room in which I gave away %what I had no need for OVERTIME First Line: Somewhere the thin and tasteful junior executive ties Last Line: Sweating, working my last hour at time-and-a-half OWL First Line: I was young, and leaned PARENTS Poem Text First Line: Old two-hearted sadness, old blight Last Line: "a kind of bird, who believes he reigns there Subject(s): Ancestors & Ancestry; Relationships PARENTS First Line: Old two-hearted sadness, old blight Last Line: I can dream myself a kind of prince in, %a kind of bird, who believes he reigns there PARKING Poem Text First Line: Today I live where I have always been Last Line: Lands, and coos like a fool in the dark Subject(s): Automobiles; Middle Age; Youth; Passion PARKING First Line: Today I live where I have always been PART ELEGY First Line: Somewhere in this half - wild canyon, not far Last Line: Where his kind, still in hunger and in need %might yet live PEACE First Line: Like the minutes of a board meeting Last Line: In the last word PHEASANT HUNTING First Line: The man believes in blood, in the dog PHOTO OF IMMIGRANTS, 1903 First Line: You could cry at their faces PLAGUE AND FEAST First Line: The horn worm loves tobacco and tomato Last Line: Tomatoes and the greening yokes, an omelet, toothsome, in puce POETRY First Line: We're in a new state, and the dandelions Last Line: The seasons, the sun, this great, odd, and unfathomable drive %toward the dark PRAYER FOR THE WINTER First Line: I place two pennies, one on either rail Last Line: And never lose, and never, never lose PREY Poem Text First Line: We're walking through stubble and rain Last Line: His meat, as the sun that rises is his fire Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Hunting; Nature; Hunters PROGRESS Poem Text First Line: Web by web the ruined work of spiders Subject(s): Spiders PROGRESS First Line: Web by web the ruined work of spiders Last Line: Each one adorned by a single spectacular blue fly PROPHECY First Line: The minister's enunciations cut like knives Last Line: The searing violence of electric guitars, %behind which we wailed and sang Subject(s): Music, Rock RATTLESNAKE First Line: He's asleep, or dead, numb with wind Last Line: And noisy, his dry music %still singing in our ears Subject(s): Rattlesnakes RAVENS AT DEER CREEK First Line: Something's dead in that stand of fir Last Line: To the moon, and waiting for me, simple as sin, %that they may know the delicacy of my eyes REIGN OF SNAKES; 1. REVIVAL First Line: During the heat of summer days, they sprawl Last Line: His eyes sublimely closed REIGN OF SNAKES; 2. CONFESSION First Line: As a boy I flogged a corn snake to death Last Line: Then plucked a carnation for his lapel REIGN OF SNAKES; 3. THE FALL First Line: Why snakes? Always snakes? Last Line: The fat man's dry hack of laughter behind me REIGN OF SNAKES; 4. CATECHISM First Line: You want to taste what's good, you go to lick Last Line: Of some abandoned orchard, beneath a barren tree REIGN OF SNAKES; 5. FELLOWSHIP First Line: The men who made the railroad bed Last Line: A bloody rain of snakes REIGN OF SNAKES; 6. DELIVERANCE First Line: The word for her, I know now, was florid Last Line: Only inches from my eyes, and red as a rose REIGN OF SNAKES; 7. GLOSSOLALIA First Line: Long interlocked ribly abundance scale Last Line: Slick agent of doom snake man mask of god REIGN OF SNAKES; 8. PARADISE First Line: But o you nefarious marionettes, limbless Last Line: To leave you in peace REIGN OF SNAKES; 9. RESURRECTION First Line: The vast basaltic flows cooled to columns Last Line: I blow a huge, undulant ring of smoke %and wait RELIGION Poem Text First Line: The last thing the old dog brought home Subject(s): Dogs; Shoes; Boots; Sneakers; Shoemakers RUNNING IN YOUR SLEEP First Line: You're running, not SAD MOOSE First Line: He's shed his left horn and lists Last Line: Some of us seed and tendril, some of us stone SCAR First Line: In her backpack the baby sputters and cheers Last Line: Above our leaving, that scar, there, %unraveling already in cold, pure air SECRET LIFE IN EVERY STANDING THING First Line: It is the secret life in every standing thing SEEING THE LYNX AGAIN First Line: First time all I saw was the low-slung Last Line: Suddenly gone, vanished, among the ferns SEEN FROM THE PORCH, A BEAR BY THE HOUSE Poem Text First Line: A mail of mud Last Line: So instead I yell hey Subject(s): Bears; Fear SHORT ANSWER: MISHAP WITH A NAIL GUN Poem Text First Line: Something about the nail through my hand said jesus. Or was it shit? Subject(s): Tools; Accidents SHRAPNEL First Line: Shrapnel,' he says to me, 'seems wrong,' Last Line: Back and forth, back and forth, %until the right word comes,and changes nothing SILENCE First Line: Night in the woods, its cool air Last Line: Is earth, warm, against which it licks SIMPLE NUMBERS First Line: We knew nothing of women but spoke of them Last Line: Of our marching hearts, that intoxicating dance %in the problem of numbers, of which we ourselves we SINATRA Poem Text First Line: That skinny fuck-up, all recklessness and bones Last Line: Of man I might've been, what sort I've become Subject(s): Sinatra, Frank (1915-1998) SINATRA First Line: That skinny fuck-up, all recklessness and bones Last Line: My life now, and I wonder what sort %of man I might've been,what sort I've become Subject(s): Sinatra, Frank (1915-1998) SISYPHUS BEE Poem Text First Line: I couldn't help it, I nearly fell asleep Subject(s): Bees; Beekeeping SKULL OF A SNOWSHOE HARE First Line: I found it in the woods, moss-mottled Last Line: And this page, white as my bones, and alive SLOW DREAMS Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: All my life I have been bothered by them Subject(s): Dreams; Nightmares SO LONG SAILOR First Line: Goodbyes, goodbyes, leave-takings, retirements SOUND BARRIER First Line: We were in our beds or daydreaming SOUNDINGS Poem Text First Line: The birdhouse made from a gourd is wired Subject(s): Wind Chimes SPEED OF LIGHT First Line: There's a kind of drunkenness all boys feel Last Line: And a dizzy sweetness falling away %too fast, too fast, as fast as light, faster STAR DUST First Line: That crooning they swooned for, all the moons in june STEELHEAD First Line: Salt-dazed in fresh water, he eats Last Line: Of heart and hard flesh, the slick shot snaked %toward oblivion, that pure dream of home SWALLOWS First Line: Gnatsnappers, say the old time canyon folk Last Line: All I need to know of the sky SWEETBREAD First Line: Thymus of the neck, and of the stomach Last Line: That would lead in time to me TALISMAN First Line: Where the cat went off the riverside cliff Last Line: Some word as charm, a safe passage. That's all TAPERS First Line: My mother owned candles she would not light TERMITES First Line: In one great spasm under the sun THE AFTERLIFE OF MOOSE Poem Text First Line: As the moose is obsessed, relentlessly Last Line: As for the afterlife, I’ll take his chances Subject(s): Moose THE BELIEFS OF A HORSE Poem Text First Line: In the field out back Subject(s): Horses; Ranch Life THE EMBLEM Poem Text First Line: In the last days of the sun Subject(s): Bicycles; Youth; Bad Bheavior; Cycling THE GRANDMOTHERS Poem Text First Line: He thought, this is the way they all are Last Line: The long, long night they must swim through Subject(s): Grandparents; Cancer (disease); Family Life; Mortality THE PROPHECY Poem Text First Line: The minister's enunciations cut like knives Last Line: Behind which we wailed and sang Subject(s): Music, Rock; Rock & Roll THE PUMPKIN TREE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Up a lattice of sumac and into the spars Last Line: Of the wood it cannot know it is bound for Subject(s): Pumpkins THEORY AND PRACTICE OF FABLES First Line: Bagworms glided the ornamental yews either side Last Line: The nib of gold just once against his tongue %and begins THOSE RICHES Poem Text First Line: The week after your father left Subject(s): Poverty; Automobile Drivers THOSE RICHES First Line: The week after your father left TORCH SONGS Poem Text First Line: I would speak of that grief Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Blues (music); Grief; Holiday, Billie (1915-1959); Jazz; Love; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Smith, Bessie (1894-1937); Sorrow; Sadness TORCH SONGS First Line: I would speak of that grief Last Line: Of someone you might always love Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Blues (music); Grief; Holiday, Billie (1915-1959); Jazz; Love; Music And Musicians; Singing And Singers; Smith, Bessie (1894-1937) TOUCHING THE CARP First Line: They looked reptilian in the lake's mud TREATING THE SPRING BOX First Line: I hate this part, the annual april groan Last Line: In the yawning black cistern, and all %across the heavy, almost immovable lid TWO HORSES, TWO MEN First Line: The mare shows, first, pure shadow Last Line: Sweet, cold, and sweated with dew UNDER THE DOUBLE EAGLE Poem Text First Line: His pansies drink / the darkness down, replenishing their purples Last Line: Scented chamber, its smooth grain and slim-waisted body – sing Subject(s): Singing & Singers UNDER THE DOUBLE EAGLE First Line: His pansies drink Last Line: Making the guitar-from its elegant, rich-%scented chamber, its smooth grain and slim-waisted body-si VOLUNTEERS First Line: Siren over snow, blare WAIT Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: He also finds the wood and steel beautiful, Subject(s): Hunting; Hunters WALKING MAN First Line: What some want to know is what WANTING GOD First Line: Even if I were not so drunk, but merely sick Last Line: We too shall enter WEAVER OF WIND First Line: Her hands go on in the dark Last Line: Her fingers swirling in the colander %tracing stars WELCOME TO WEISER First Line: We walk the streets, empty. For the world WHAT MY FATHER BELIEVED Poem Text First Line: Man of his age, he believed in the things Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Teaching & Teachers; Patriotism; Educators; Professors WHAT MY FATHER BELIEVED First Line: Man of his age, he believed in the things WHITE CAT First Line: He swore this once he'd believe in magic Last Line: Still as a root, it waited WHY DO THE CRICKETS SING? First Line: Because it is not enough to open the door Last Line: A shriek of terror, soar of the hawk descending WINDOW KILLS ANOTHER BIRD First Line: The way the plate glass clangs Last Line: White paper, like a cloud of the purest snow WINTERKILL First Line: So many stiffs, cadaver by cadaver Last Line: And kept on moving, a tally the end of which %I would see WISHING TREE First Line: My son left his notebook on the picnic table X-RAY OF A KISS First Line: Not the buss, the peck, the puckered smack Last Line: We like it, not knowing one mouth from the other YARD WORK First Line: I am seven years old |
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