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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: gioia, dana Matches Found: 118 Gioia, Dana Poet's Biography 118 poems available by this author ACCOMPLICE First Line: In dusty fields I harvested the vine Last Line: The mute accomplice of our mutual defeat AFTER A LONE BY CAVAFY First Line: Return and take me, distant afternoon Last Line: We who were neither lovers nor intimates %and never met again ALL SOULS' Poem Text First Line: Suppose there is no heaven and no hell Subject(s): Immortality; Religion; Theology ALL SOULS' First Line: Suppose there is no heaven and no hell Last Line: They watch the shadows lengthen on the grass. %the pallor of the rose is their despair Subject(s): Immortality; Religion ARCHBISHOP First Line: O do not disturb the archbishop Last Line: And the dead shall lie down with the dead AT THE WATERFRONT CAFE First Line: Docked beside the quiet river, yachts are rocking in the sun Last Line: Jealously is all too common, %style and beauty much too rare BARGAIN First Line: Nothing so sordid as an affair Last Line: This exegesis of desire %more tangled than deceit BECOMING A REDWOOD First Line: Stand in a field long enough, and the sounds Last Line: Part of the midnight's watchfulness that knows %there is no silence but when danger comes Subject(s): Environment; Nature BEWARE OF THINGS IN DUPLICATE... Last Line: A twin, an extra key, an echo, %your own reflection in the glass Variant Title(s): Beware Of Things In Duplicat BIX BEIDERBECKE First Line: China boy, lazy daddy. Cryin' all day Last Line: Would heaven be as white as iowa? Subject(s): Beiderbecke, Bix (1903-1931); Jazz; Music And Musicians BORROWED TUNES: 1. ALLEY CAT LOVE SONG First Line: Come into the garden, fred Last Line: As I scratch all night at the door BORROWED TUNES: 2. THE BEGGAR'S NIGHTMARE First Line: If wishes were horses, all beggars would ride Last Line: And beg to be beggars back on the street BURNING LADDER First Line: Jacob %never climbed the ladder Last Line: Shivering. Gravity %always greater than desire Subject(s): Jacob (bible); Religion CALIFORNIA HILLS IN AUGUST First Line: I can imagine someone who found Last Line: Trees that one can count, the grass, %the empty sky, the wish for water CALIFORNIA REQUIEM First Line: I walked among the equidistant graves Last Line: For killing what we cannot even name Subject(s): Environment CLEARED AWAY First Line: Around the corner there may be a man Last Line: Filled with the smells of dinners on the stove %and the soft laughter of the assembled dead CORNER TABLE First Line: You tell me you are going to marry him Last Line: This last mute touch that lingers is farewell COUNT ORLOCK'S ARIA First Line: Look at the land my fathers fought Last Line: I perish or move on COUNTING THE CHILDREN First Line: This must have been her bedroom, mr. Choi Last Line: I feared that if I touched one, it would scream COUNTRY WIFE First Line: She makes her way through the dark trees CRUISING WITH THE BEACH BOYS First Line: So strange to hear that song again tonight Last Line: Bringing on tears shed only for myself Variant Title(s): Cruising With The Beachboy Subject(s): Adolescence; Music, Rock CUCKOOS First Line: I heard them only once. Climbing in the mountains CURRICULUM VITAE First Line: The future shrinks %whether the past %is well or badly spent Last Line: Are never what we meant CURSE ON GEOGRAPHERS First Line: We want an earth to walk upon DESCENT TO THE UNDERWORLD First Line: There is a famous cliff on sparta's coast Last Line: Confined in this black place is worse DIVINATION First Line: Always be ready for the unexpected Last Line: Always be ready for the unexpected DO NOT EXPECT THAT IF YOUR BOOK FALLS OPEN EASTERN STANDARD TIME First Line: Yesterday the clocks went back an hour ELEGY FOR VLADIMIR DE PACHMANN First Line: How absurd,' cried the pianist de pachmann ELEGY WITH SURREALIST PROVERBS AS REFRAIN First Line: Poetry must lead somewhere,' declared breton Last Line: There is always a skeleton on the buffet. %I came. I sat down. I went away ELLEN'S SERENADE First Line: Far away, far away %first star above the sea Last Line: Then call to me, call to me, I wait for your return EMIGRE IN AUTUMN First Line: Walking down the garden path END First Line: Bosch painted it. Van eyck, angelico Subject(s): Bosch, Hieronymus (1540-1616); Paintings And Painters END OF A SEASON First Line: I wanted to tell you how I walked tonight END OF THE WORLD First Line: We're going,' they said, 'to the end of the world' Last Line: The sound of the water, and the water's reply Subject(s): Environment ENTRANCE First Line: Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight Last Line: Then close your eyes and gently set it free EQUATIONS OF THE LIGHT First Line: Turning the corner, we discovered it Last Line: And at the end what else could I have done %but turn the corner back into my life? FAILURE First Line: As with my child, you find your own more beautiful Last Line: You only fail at what you really aim for FIVE SPEECHES FOR PYGMALION First Line: Alone in the workroom of this unkept house FLYING OVER CLOUDS First Line: No earthly image - only clouds FOR SALE First Line: Your first home, your handyman's special! Last Line: Good-bye, good-bye, as if we were the ones %going on a journey FOUR SPEECHES FOR PYGMALION First Line: I wished to carve a face that understood GARDEN ON THE CAMPAGNA First Line: Noon - and the shadows of the trees GOD ONLY KNOWS GODS OF WINTER First Line: Storm on storm, snow on drifting snowfall GUIDE TO THE OTHER GALLERY Poem Text First Line: This is the hall of broken limbs Subject(s): Religion; Theology GUIDE TO THE OTHER GALLERY First Line: This is the hall of broken limbs Last Line: Without a label. It's for you Subject(s): Religion HIS THREE WOMEN First Line: Her frequent letters are like childhood friends HOMAGE TO VALERIO MAGRELLI First Line: Tomorrow morning I will take a shower Last Line: I think of a tailor %who is his own fabric HOMECOMING First Line: I watched your headlights coming up the drive Last Line: All I could do was wait for the police %I had come home, and there was no escape IN CHANDLER COUNTRY First Line: California night. The devil's wind IN CHEEVER COUNTRY Poem Text First Line: Half an hour north of grand central Subject(s): Cheever, John (1912-1982); Country Life; Railroads; Suburbs; Railways; Trains IN CHEEVER COUNTRY First Line: Half an hour north of grand central Last Line: To the modest places which contain our lives Subject(s): Cheever, John (1912-1982); Country Life; Railroads; Suburbs INSOMNIA First Line: Now you hear what the house has to say INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE AFTERNOON First Line: Leave the museums, the comfortable rooms Last Line: Dazzling the eye, the stubborn heart unchanged Subject(s): Religion INTERROGATIONS AT NOON First Line: Just before noon I often hear a voice Last Line: Extravagant and empty, that is you JOURNEY, THE ARRIVAL, AND THE DREAM First Line: You're here. Finally. After hours in a hot compartment JUNO PLOTS HER REVENGE First Line: Call me sister of the thunder god Last Line: The plan is set, and now I must be gone LETTER First Line: And in the end, all that is really left Last Line: Even on days when mail is never brought LITANY First Line: This is a litany of lost things Last Line: Even as it vanishes - were not our life Subject(s): Religion; Spirituality LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS First Line: Herr bruckner often wandered into church LONG DISTANCE First Line: Two weeks of silence broken by this call Last Line: Now words that have no body ask her love LOS ANGELES AFTER THE RAIN First Line: Back home again on one of those bright mornings Last Line: A day to ditch responsibility, look up %old friends, and dream %of quiet love, impossible solutions LOST GARDEN First Line: If ever we see those gardens again Last Line: Behind the wall a garden still in blossom MAD NUN First Line: The convent yard seems larger than before MAN IN THE OPEN DOORWAY First Line: This is the world in which he lives Last Line: And stroke the wall as if it were %some attendant beast Subject(s): Office Employees MAZE WITHOUT A MINOTAUR First Line: If we could only push these walls Last Line: Have memories, they are not ours MEMORY First Line: Don't listen to it. This memory MEN AFTER WORK First Line: Done with work, they are sitting by themselves METAMORPHOSIS First Line: There were a few, the old ones promised us Last Line: Forever lost within your inward gaze METRE First Line: Some years ago geoffrey grigson, the great critic and editor Last Line: Must be that most american poets are not poets in any sense yet %known to the human race MONEY First Line: Money, the long green %cash, stash, rhino, jack Last Line: Money. You don't know where it's been, %but you put it where your mouth is %and it talks MY CONFESSIONAL SESTINA First Line: Let me confess. I'm sick of these sestinas Last Line: Have two workshops, a tasteful little magazine, and sexy students %who worshipfully memorize their e MY DEAD LOVER First Line: How miserable we were together, dear Last Line: Our rituals are never for the dead MY SECRET LIFE First Line: I had from youth an excellent memory ...' NEW YEAR'S First Line: Let other mornings honor the miraculous Last Line: A field of snow without a single footprint NEWS FROM NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR First Line: Is something to be grateful for Last Line: To run their hands across the spines %and reminisce, but no one ever comes to read %or would know ho Variant Title(s): The Silence Of The Poet NEWS FROM NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR First Line: The great offensive in the east began Last Line: With execution of trade dissidents %spring coffee rations climb to twenty grams %arrests continue at NEWS WILL ARRIVE FROM FAR AWAY: THE PHONE NEXT POEM First Line: How much better it seems now %than when it is finally done Last Line: How hungrily one waits to feel %the bright lure seized, the old hook bitten Subject(s): Writing And Writers NIGHT WATCH First Line: I think of you standing on the sloping deck NOTHING IS LOST. NOTHING IS SO SMALL ON APPROACHING FORTY First Line: The thought pursues me through this dreary town Last Line: To disappear in either dust or fire %if any endures beyond its flame ORCHESTRA First Line: Climbing the scales three octaves at a time Last Line: Sonorous lover, when will your return? %the orchestra is mute Subject(s): Bands; Music And Musicians PARTS OF SUMMER WEATHER First Line: The window open and the summer air PENTECOST First Line: Neither the sorrows of afternoon, waiting in the silent house Last Line: I offer you this scarred and guilty hand %until others mix our ashes Subject(s): Religion; Spirituality PHOTOGRAPH OF MY MOTHER AS A YOUNG GIRL First Line: She wasn't looking PLACES TO RETURN First Line: There are landscapes one can own Last Line: Seems almost set upon the rooftops %it illuminates, how shall I %ever summoin it again? PLANTING A SEQUOIA First Line: All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard Last Line: I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to you, %silently keeping the secret of Subject(s): Environment PORNOTOPIA First Line: Everyone has an entrance of his own PRAYER First Line: Echo of the clocktower, footstep %in the alleyway, sweep Last Line: But until then I pray watch over him %as a mountain guards its covert ore %and the harsh falcon its PSEUDO-FORMAL POETRY First Line: Pseudo-formal' verse is a term that I coined to describe a common Last Line: Written and pretentiously presented? ROOM UPSTAIRS First Line: Come over to the window for a moment Last Line: But no, of course not. Let me show you to your room ROUGH COUNTRY First Line: Give me a landscape made of obstacles Last Line: And nesting jays, a sign that there is still %one piece of property that won't be owned Subject(s): Environment; Nature SHORT HISTORY OF TOBACCO First Line: Profitable, poisonous, and purely american SONG First Line: How shall I hold my sould that it Last Line: On what instrument were we strung? %and to what player did we sing %our interrupted song? SONG FOR THE END OF TIME First Line: The hanged man laughs by the garden wall Last Line: And nothing you do will stop what appears SONG FROM A COURTYARD WINDOW First Line: This was the only music we had hoped for SPEAKING OF LOVE First Line: Speaking of love was difficult at first SPEECH FROM A NOVELLA First Line: Every night I wake and find myself SPIDER IN THE CORNER First Line: Cold afternoon: rain spattering the windows Last Line: The endless rain that keeps us here together STARS NOW REARRANGE THEMSELVES ABOVE YOU SUMMER STORM First Line: We stood on the rented patio Last Line: Just by being different SUNDAY NEWS First Line: Looking for something in the sunday paper Last Line: A scrap I knew I wouldn't read again %but couldn't bear to lose SUNDAY NIGHT IN SANTA ROSA First Line: The carnival is over. The high tents Last Line: While a clown stares in a dressing mirror, %takes out a box,and peels away his face Subject(s): Carnivals THANKS FOR REMEMBERING US First Line: The flowers sent here by mistake THE LITANY Poem Text First Line: This is a litany of lost things Subject(s): Religion; Spirituality; Theology THREE SONGS FROM NOSFERATU: 1. ELLEN'S DREAM First Line: I came to a table set for a feast Last Line: And on the altar was-you THREE SONGS FROM NOSFERATU: 2. NOSFERATU'S SERENADE First Line: I am the image that darkens your glass Last Line: You know what I bring. Now I am here THREE SONGS FROM NOSFERATU: 3. MAD SONG First Line: I sailed a ship %in the storm-wracked sea Last Line: A lucky lift for you, lad, a lucky lift for you! TIME TRAVEL First Line: Surely the comic books and movies have it right Last Line: There on the morning that we met? TODAY WILL BE LIKE ANY OTHER DAY UNSAID First Line: So much of what we live goes on inside Last Line: Think of the letters that we write our dead VETERANS' CEMETERY First Line: The ceremonies of the day have ceased Last Line: As one by one the branches fade from sight %and time curls up like paper turning yellow VIEW FROM THE SECOND STORY First Line: There were no colors in the sunset VOYEUR First Line: ...And watching her undress across the room Last Line: The branches shake their dry leaves like alarms WAITING IN THE AIRPORT First Line: On the same journey each of them WORDS First Line: The world does not need words. It articulates itself Last Line: Greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon Subject(s): Environment |
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