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Author: leithauser,
Matches Found: 83


Leithauser, Brad    Poet's Biography
81 poems available by this author


1944: PURPLE HEART       
First Line: Back -- he'd come back, though with a sewed-up chest
Last Line: Grateful to have known so choice a foolishness


AFTER THE DETONATION OF THE MOON       
First Line: We were overwhelmed, just as they'd intended
Last Line: To wonder when if ever this sea too might still


ANGEL       
First Line: There between the riverbank


ANOTHER COUPLE       
First Line: She wanted things respectable
Last Line: You learn how to string them along


ANOTHER DREAM       
First Line: Unreckonable
Last Line: Too, coming my way -- isn't it perfection


ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION       
First Line: Why so dark today?
Last Line: Quenched by water vapor


AT AN ISLAND FARM       
First Line: If only the light might last
Last Line: Or whether, aloft, some few of them found %another shore


BETWEEN LEAPS       
First Line: Binoculars I'd meant for birds


BLESSING FOR MALCOLM LOWRY       
First Line: His was a discriminating taste for error
Last Line: And another damn day done in before the dawn


BOWL OF CHINESE FIREWORKS       
First Line: Late %afternoon light
Last Line: And with the cool, expansive self- %possesion of his kind, %grins extravagantly back %at the blaze t


BURIED GRAVES       
First Line: From the pier, at dusk, the dim
Last Line: A mild but endless winter


CALLER       
First Line: After the final and all
Last Line: Of the cigarettes that, with each passing day, %prove harder to light your hands are shaking so


CANDLE       
First Line: According to %your point of view
Last Line: The single fellow %who hunches darkly, %as though with shame, %there are the blue-yellow %center of
Subject(s): Candles


CAT AND MUSTANG: A STILL LIFE       
First Line: A big yellow cat that has taken
Last Line: And a given, a given good


CLOUDS IN WINTER: DUSK       
First Line: One forgets
Last Line: And the blood freeze


CREST AND CARPET       
First Line: I often picture it as a great cold
Last Line: Their ever more distant errands


CRUSH       
First Line: Harmless, no doubt
Last Line: Undressing and you, yes, whisper my name, %and I take your head in my hands


DEATH OF THE FAMILY ARCHIVIST       
First Line: What you took away
Last Line: On a night-march into the world's least %understood terrain


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MICROSCOPE       
First Line: Still coruscating: this steel fantasy
Last Line: Than any bare, unprivileged eye could see


EXPANDED WANT AD       
First Line: Although it's true


FALSE SPRING       
First Line: (she who'd been taken
Last Line: Of green, of gold, no wonder


FAME TRAIN       
First Line: The season's major talents are
Last Line: Claque, clique, claque


FIRST BIRTHDAY       
First Line: You have your one word, which fills you to brimming
Last Line: As might, too, and flight. And fright. %some will be gone. But you will come right


FLIGHT UP THE COAST       
First Line: Sunlit inlets
Last Line: Lost and divine


FROM R.E.M.       
First Line: What made the moment was the lack of all
Last Line: Was a boon, to be sure, but nothing more


GHOST OF A GHOST       
First Line: The pleasures I took from life


GLACIER       
First Line: The sheerly steadied stubborn tons of it
Last Line: Of whatever gesture-- %call or signal-- %you'd care to offer%by way of a farewell


GLOW       
First Line: Given a day
Last Line: Tongued wonder as %a breathless inner voice exclaims, %how strong they look!


HALF HOME       
First Line: The last time, ever
Last Line: Now I'd have you guiding me


HAUNTED       
First Line: A crying white candle
Last Line: Blows out our faces


HONEYMOON CONCEPTION (1952)       
First Line: All night, though not a flake fell, the snow deepened
Last Line: Smooth and rich-bellied, as if big with child


HONEYMOON CONCEPTION (1952)       
First Line: All night, though not a flake fell, the snow deepened...
Last Line: Smooth and rich-bellied, as if big with child.)
Subject(s): Birth; Conception; Honeymoons


IN MINAKO'S HOUSE       
First Line: In old minako wada's house
Last Line: Perhaps she loves best


IN THE WALL: 1. A NEAR MISS       
First Line: You stepped from the bookstore today
Last Line: Recall ow ever doing him a favor


IN THE WALL: 2. DIRECT HIT       
First Line: Ir rained as well -- a warmer, tropical
Last Line: My sons, both awe-struck and unsentimental


IN THE WALL: 3. HIT AND MISS       
First Line: Do I profane one of the dead
Last Line: Truth ws, I took you for my brother


JUST A MOMENT       
First Line: The jet-lagged, dragged-out series of events
Last Line: Wherein no seconds tick, no hours boom, %is the world breaking up before one's eyes


LATER       
First Line: The goal I suppose is a steadied mind
Last Line: The wind's now ruffling a tree


LIFE-GIVING       
First Line: With nothing but god's word


MAIL FROM ANYWHERE       
First Line: Mail from pretty much anywhere was nearly


NIGHT DIVE       
First Line: It feels so much
Last Line: Ever-lightless %depths are richer %for having some %mobile mind free-- %floating upon them?


NORTH OF NIGHT (ON THE SUMMER SOLSTICE)       
First Line: To a mind uprooted from
Last Line: Wheeling, gleam-relayed rendezvous- %even that made sense


NOT ON SPEAKING TERMS       
First Line: Somehow having become someone who sets aside
Last Line: To turn a fresh configuration to the sun


OLD BACHELOR BROTHER    Poem Text    
First Line: Here from his prominent but thankfully
Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


OLD BACHELOR BROTHER       
First Line: Here from his prominent but thankfully
Last Line: In all their passionate anonymity
Subject(s): Marriage


OLD HUNTER       
First Line: Up at four
Last Line: Or someone else's gun


ONE FROM OFF THE MANTEL       
First Line: He taught astronomy
Last Line: Which I pocketed


PENINSULAR       
First Line: Impuse alone, indicating
Last Line: A message of concern %only to those %so rootless somehow they might %even for a moment have forgotte


PLAY       
First Line: Easily, first our red canoe's
Last Line: Water-filtered sun across its nether ceiling


PLEXAL       
First Line: Below, on the badly cracked floor
Last Line: Some workable emplacement, in which to rest %inclusively, they've escaped again %the unwaking repose


PLUS THE FACT OF YOU       
First Line: The sun, having come
Last Line: Three buttons of your blouse undone


POST-COITUM TRISTESSE: A SONNET       
First Line: Why %do %you %sigh
Last Line: Hum- %drum %come %-mm? %hm


QUILLED QUILT, A NEEDLE BED       
First Line: Under the longleaf pines


RAIN AND SNOW (KYOTO, JAPAN)       
First Line: When, with a shiver, after
Last Line: City glimmer in passing-- %the river, waiting to be %visiblyundazzled by %even beauty so unlikely
Subject(s): Kyoto, Japan


RED LEATHER JACKET       
First Line: Had I not spoken first
Last Line: What would you have said


REYKJAVIK WINTER COUPLETS       
First Line: One senses %waking at dark
Last Line: And, out there, the clouds of snow coming down %are perfectly equal


ROUTES       
First Line: Last night, as you were sleeping
Last Line: A dream, my friend? The only difference is %I actually, this time, hear you


SET IN STONE       
First Line: Of legendary littleness
Last Line: A thing so fine


SHILOH, 1993       
First Line: On the cold battlefield
Last Line: Of another spill of red


SIGNALLED       
First Line: Daybreaks to those gray
Last Line: The old mistake %but we're sorry %to wake you we're %sorry and you must wake


SMALL WATERFALL: A BIRTHDAY POEM       
First Line: Maybe an engineer
Last Line: And the sun's high-lit headwaters


SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW       
First Line: We lived back then a quarter mile or so
Last Line: Now fits a living woman to his hands


SONNET       
First Line: Two years ago, when time magazine (in whose employ I once
Last Line: Accommodated so many divergent talents and temperaments


SUB-ARCTIC       
First Line: Smoke echoes up from a deep fault
Last Line: Catches it all without rising - merely one %feat in a land of miracles where only %the living and th


SUB-TROPICAL       
First Line: Evil's rife %out amon the deep
Last Line: To whisper the evil leaves awake %and, treacherously, %to blase fresh paths on the sea, %where no ma


THROUGH TWO WINDOWS       
First Line: Comforting, in its way, how wherever you may be
Last Line: All a small price to pay for any look %at the roof of another world, of course


TRIPTYCH: A MARSH IN MARCH       
First Line: It's like the morning-after after some
Last Line: Of their upstart beggardom


TRIPTYCH: TROPICS, PSYCHOTROPICS: 1. VERY HOT       
First Line: It is the sun compels
Last Line: Bloody hands in the sea


TRIPTYCH: TROPICS, PSYCHOTROPICS: 2. VERY TRICKY       
First Line: Dusk and a substituting moon
Last Line: Of a working heart


TRIPTYCH: TROPICS, PSYCHOTROPICS: 3. VERY STILL       
First Line: Tonight the moon has set
Last Line: Which, in one unretreating wave %buries all utterly


TWO FOUR-LINERS, SELS.       


TWO SUMMER JOBS, SELS.       


UNCLE GRANT       
First Line: It was the trip up the amazon
Last Line: Now, and in perpetuity, %to the united states government


VERY       
First Line: Something of a surprise
Last Line: His latest arrival drifts further away


VISA       
First Line: The slipping out
Last Line: Granted a new exit. And an entry


WHITE JET       
First Line: The morning's grown so still
Last Line: May be more marvel yet


WINDOW SHOW       
First Line: It's an early fall, perhaps
Last Line: How much brighter's grown the glow %thrown by that small brown flame!


WORDED WELCOM       
First Line: Afloat within %an empty sea, and seemingly at home
Last Line: His little head, he meets, a pledged, %the rich, soiled earnest of %a peopled world


WORDED WELCOME       
First Line: Afloat within


YET NOT YET       
First Line: Yet what do you answer
Last Line: Under an iced-over moon


YOUR NATURAL HISTORY       
First Line: The night of your conception, from the floor
Last Line: From ice. By just such miracles you came



Leithauser, Hailey   
2 poems available by this author


FORM       
First Line: In pattern affirm %expansion of thought
Last Line: When fervor is sought %yield frenzy of storm


GUIDELINES: WRITING THE SONNET       
First Line: It must be quiet: %heart's I am, I am
Last Line: Mulling a solemn %dress of green velvet