|
|
|
|
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: merrill, james Matches Found: 518 Merrill, James G. 8 poems available by this author BABY BOY BATH RITUAL First Line: The mother will ask him - he's 2 and a half - if Last Line: He will say: 'daddy's pee-pee, my pee-pee Subject(s): Masculinity (psychology) DAYS OF 1964 First Line: Houses, an embassy, the hospital Last Line: As who was not, in laughter, pain, and love MAD SCENE First Line: Again last night I dreamed the dream called laundry Last Line: As the lean tree burst into grief MIRROR First Line: I grow old under an intensity Last Line: Echo of mine, I am amenable OCTOPUS First Line: There are many monsters that a glassen surface Last Line: At length the sucking jewels freeze SCENES OF CHILDHOOD First Line: My mother's lamp once out Last Line: You are the heroes without name %or origin TONY: ENDING THE LIFE First Line: Across the sea at alexandria Last Line: Just you head, nodding off in window-glass Subject(s): Aids (disease); Sickness URBAN CONVALESCENCE First Line: Out for a walk, after a week in bed Last Line: Out of the life lived, out of the love spent Merrill, James Ingram Poet's Biography 510 poems available by this author 16.IX.65 First Line: Summer's last half moon waning high Last Line: Return with honey on our drunken feet 164 EAST 72ND STREET First Line: These city apartment windows -- my grandmother's once Last Line: When ceilings flush with unheard ambulances 18 WEST 11TH STREET (HOUSE EXPLODED BY 'WEATHERMEN' .. 1970) First Line: In what at least %seemed anger the aquarians in the basement Last Line: Toy blocks. Church bells. Original vacancy %o deepening spring 1939 First Line: Madame! %and the earth opened Last Line: I still could not help feeling 642719 First Line: I will not dial that number, never fear Last Line: It will be another voice you hear ABDICATION First Line: First I looked at water. It was good Last Line: Now do) and place it smartly on his own ABOUT THE PHOENIX First Line: But in the end one tires of the high-flown Last Line: Away from whatever waited to be endured? ACCUMULATIONS OF THE SEA First Line: The hand with a seagull purpose falls upon Last Line: Is vibrant and the sea again unsounded ACROSTIC First Line: Take first some pleasure in the maker's Last Line: Language one grew radiant %erasing AFTER CAVAFY First Line: Why is the rising sun aflutter from ten thousand flagpoles? Last Line: Were some sort of golden opportunity, but we blew it AFTER GREECE Poem Text First Line: Light into the olive entered Subject(s): Greece; Greeks AFTER GREECE First Line: Light into the olive entered Last Line: Also survive its meanings, and my own Subject(s): Greece AFTER THE BALL First Line: Clasping her magic Last Line: My subway token AFTER THE FIRE First Line: Everything changes; nothing does. I am back Last Line: Am kneeling pressed to her old burning frame AFTERNOONS AT THE NOH First Line: Plays of unself. Peel off the maiden pearl-diver to find her mother's Last Line: Absorb the patience and piety needed to bring the moonlight back? ALABASTER First Line: The original word Last Line: Through the dry channel of a starless night ALESSIO AND THE ZINNIAS Poem Text Recitation First Line: One summer -- was he eight Subject(s): Flowers; Gardens & Gardening ALESSIO AND THE ZINNIAS First Line: One summer -- was he eight Last Line: Never wear orange or pink Subject(s): Flowers; Gardens And Gardening AMSTERDAM First Line: There is a city whose fair houses wizen Last Line: To blind with the emotions they refract! ANGEL First Line: Above my desk, whirring and self-important Last Line: There is no smile on his round, hairless face. %he does not want even these few lines written ANNIE HILL'S GRAVE First Line: Amen. The casket like a spaceship bears her Last Line: The silence drums into her upturned face ANOTHER APRIL First Line: The panes flash, tremble with your ghostly passage Last Line: Along your path will have laid their foreheads in the dust ANOTHER AUGUST First Line: Pines. The white, ocher-pocked houses. Sky unflawed. Upon so much Last Line: And asked no favor but to act the part ANOTHER CEMETERY First Line: We pass it on our descent from the temple. The gravestones are vertically Last Line: Tered by a touch. Any fragrance meanwhile eludes me. Have I caught cold? ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT First Line: Like someone blind from infancy Last Line: They are so worn by time and lit by grace ARABIAN NIGHT First Line: Features unseen embers and tongs once worried Last Line: Forth in one likeness ARCLIGHT First Line: By day unlit, the magic helmet keeping Last Line: Wings battering the naught it makes to shine ARRIVAL IN TOKYO First Line: Our section of town is roppongi, where thirty years ago I dined in w's Last Line: Branches burns moon-bright ART DEALER First Line: Because I hoped to come by, when you died Last Line: Yet one more proof of his appalling taste ASCENDANCY OF CHILDREN First Line: For weeks, for years perhaps, they have been playing Last Line: And will not long be borne by the naked eye ASK FOR NOTHING First Line: Instead walk alone in the evening Last Line: Whitened in moonlight leads everywhere AT A TEXAS WISHING-WELL First Line: Stranger, look down (the jingle said) & you Last Line: Let me love myself until I die AT MAMALLAPURAM First Line: The site relives its tender monotone Last Line: More longed-for and more alien than our own AUTUMN ELEGY First Line: Sumac, your running wild Last Line: To that of the young demi-god camus BAG OF PEANUTS FOR JOHN HOLLANDER First Line: As the double feature began, so did you to un Last Line: The future's dirt spectaculars BANKS OF A STREAM WHERE CREATURES BATHE First Line: Through slits in the plantain leaf Last Line: Downstream with the stars BATH POEM First Line: The wrinkled hand, like one already soaked Last Line: With consciousness of the whole dirty hoax BED First Line: Where do we go, my love, who have been led Last Line: For one strange sleeper. It is time we slept BEGINNER'S GREEK First Line: To one %who smells the sun Last Line: May never be hurt or happy or anything too much BEQUEST First Line: My sorrow was a little child Last Line: My happiness, my happiness BETWEEN US First Line: A - face? There %it lies on the pillow Last Line: Watching it unclench with a soft moan %and reach for you BIG MIRROR OUTDOORS First Line: Specter, inside with you where you belong Last Line: Out that horrifying, harmless dream BIRTHDAY First Line: Beloved dog, in from the wet Last Line: Tell me I will live another year BLACK MESA First Line: So much is parchment where I gloom Last Line: Dust of my dust, when will it all be plain? BLACK SWAN First Line: Black on flat water past the jonquil lawns Last Line: In anguish: I love the black swan BLUE First Line: Dawn. I was just walking Last Line: Of dirty smoke, and the day BLUE AND BLUE First Line: In mid-june the light hangs on until I think Last Line: Under a sky that quickens into blue and blue BLUE GROTTO First Line: The boatman rowed into Last Line: Years passed, and I wrote this BODY First Line: Look closely at the letters. Can you see Last Line: And what the b and d stood for BROKEN BOWL First Line: To say it once held daisies and bluebells Last Line: Love's monuments like tombstones on our lives BROKEN HOME First Line: Crossing the street, %I saw the parents and the child Last Line: With the unstiflement of the entire story, %watch a red setter stretch and sink in cloud Subject(s): Divorce BROKEN HOME, SELS. First Line: My father, who had flown in world war I Last Line: At three score ten. But money was not time BROKEN HOME, SELS. First Line: When my parents were younger this was a popular act Last Line: Father time and mother earth, %a marriage on the rocks BRONZE First Line: Birdsong. May. Tuscany. A house. Sunset Last Line: As much as I could bear BUNRAKU First Line: The very river has stopped during koganosuke's Last Line: In gloom. Did love reach out your %arm then? Sorrow? Sleep? CANDID DECORATOR First Line: I thought I would do over Last Line: And laughed until I wept CARPET NOT BOUGHT First Line: World at his feet Last Line: Over a small waved sea CASEWORKER First Line: Door by door, story by story Last Line: And rumor of a river CASTAWAY First Line: The letters you no longer write Last Line: Someone else to save me if not you CATCH-ALL First Line: Here you came, poor armoire Last Line: By forms that sprang from him CHANGING LIGHT AT SANDOVER, SELS. CHANNEL 13 First Line: It came down to this: that merely naming the creatures Last Line: Launched at hour's end in the snug electronic ark of %what has been CHARIOTEER OF DELPHI First Line: Where are the horses of the sun? Last Line: Uncurbed in us, where fires are fanned Subject(s): Art And Artists; Delphi; Sculpture And Sculptors CHARLES ON FIRE Poem Text First Line: Another evening we sprawled about discussing Subject(s): Perception CHARLES ON FIRE First Line: Another evening we sprawled about discussing Last Line: He filled a fresh glass and sank down among us Subject(s): Perception CHILD OF THE EARTH First Line: They call you here. The scorpion's Last Line: Light the book where both our names are written CHILDLESSNESS First Line: The weather of this winter night, my dream-wife [or, mistress] Last Line: Has fallen onto the shoulders of my parents %whom it is eating to the bone CHIMES FOR YAHYA First Line: Imperiously ringing Last Line: Their told tale with the children's doggerel CHINESE POEM First Line: In the course of many lives before this one Last Line: Turning to seed the weightless moon shines through CHRISTMAS TREE First Line: To be %brought down at last Last Line: Receptive. Still to recall, to praise Subject(s): Christmas Trees CLEARING THE TITLE First Line: Because the wind has changed, because I guess Last Line: Juggled slowly by the changing light CLOUD COUNTRY First Line: How like a marriage is the season of clouds Last Line: Supple and green, these actions of the sun CONSERVATORY First Line: Nothing is not so wasted, my dear wastrel Last Line: For the fighter less than for the skilled beholder CORNWALL First Line: Wind clear and heavy as a paperweight Last Line: The other frosted, near empty, exhaling joy COSMO First Line: Because you are a terrier %- 'earth-dog,' a digger Last Line: Timelessness passing. Man and his best friend COSMOLOGICAL EYE First Line: Vivid to the myopic is the blue Last Line: The mirror that numbs him. It is his ultimate eye Variant Title(s): The Blue Ey COUNTRY MUSIC First Line: Catbirds have inherited the valley Last Line: A doorway yawns. A willow weeps. The end COUNTRY OF A THOUSAND YEARS OF PEACE First Line: Here they all come to die Last Line: Without a death, its finish and sharp weight %flashing in his own hand Subject(s): Lodeizen, Hans (1924-1950); Switzerland CROCHETED CURTAIN First Line: The zany interplay %of thread and motive, oh Last Line: Hooked into them by bone CRUISE First Line: Poor little agnes cried when she saw the iceberg Last Line: Briefly appeased what it could not oppose CUPID First Line: You are one wild boy Last Line: Hand in glove with him CURRENT First Line: Down the dawn-brown %river the charcoal woman Last Line: Would not be going %to let it happen yet DANCING, JOYOUSLY DANCING First Line: And all throughout a breughel matinee Last Line: And for three days such was the dancing there DAVID'S NIGHT IN VELIES First Line: Into the flame godmother put her hand Last Line: Slow claw raised in blessing or farewell DAVID'S WATERCOLOR First Line: Dusk. The old cloaked shepherd of terracotta Last Line: High in space, sunlit (the one source we still trust) glimmers a new moon DAY OF THE ECLIPSE First Line: Summer, until today, burned thought Last Line: To the least pressure of a shaping hand DAY ON THE CONNECTICUT RIVER First Line: The billionth-or-so dawn Last Line: Transaction noted here, in part - %up and away DAYS OF 1935 First Line: Ladder horned against moonlight Last Line: Well. Those were the days DAYS OF 1941 AND '44 First Line: The nightmare shower room. My tormentor leers Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Homoeroticism; Lesbians; Gay Women; Gay Men DAYS OF 1941 AND '44 First Line: The nightmare shower room. My tormentor leers Last Line: Between whose lines it has been life to read Subject(s): Homosexuality DAYS OF 1964 First Line: Houses, an embassy, the hospital Last Line: As who was not, in laughter, pain, and love DAYS OF 1971 First Line: Fallen from the clouds, well-met Last Line: Little horse, still blushing, set to cool Subject(s): Love - Loss Of DAYS OF 1994 First Line: These days in my friend's house Last Line: The laughter of old friends DEAD CENTER First Line: Upon reflection, as I dip my pen Last Line: In now's black waters, burn the stars of then DECLARATION DAY First Line: Shiners dance counter to the tide Last Line: Possession of the old, primed walls DEDICATION First Line: Hans, there are moments when the whole mind Last Line: Lightly and humbly against the angel's hand DELFT First Line: What's left? No place Last Line: Even nowadays %small figures drown DESERT MOTEL WITH FROG AMULET First Line: Fairweather thunder smote. Who then Last Line: And tall erosions rippled what it faced DEVELOPERS AT CRYSTAL RIVER First Line: Elysian glade - %roilings, upshudderings Last Line: Back on earth find words for - a rueful, chaste, %unshaven kiss DIARY OF THE DUC DE L*** First Line: On such a day even the sun stops, even Last Line: Stars and wet fountains, back to her laugh and the world DIVINE COMEDIES, SELS. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE First Line: Honestly now! Another white house scandal Last Line: Haunt this house once white as a blank sheet DOMINO First Line: Delicious, white, refined Last Line: He'll miss those sparkling dregs DONALD'S NEIGHBORHOOD First Line: Narrow streets, lined with pots: wistaria, clematis, bamboo. (can that be Last Line: Gray, smooth, chill curve. His flesh a %single fly explores DOODLER First Line: Most recent in the long race that descends Last Line: Emerge, o sunbursts, garlands, creatures, men, %ever more lifelike out of the white void! DOOR First Line: It is hard going to the door Last Line: As the lady's skirt %moves small beyond it DOWNWARD LOOK First Line: Seen from above, the sky Last Line: Happens upon the plug DOZEN First Line: Circling the island Last Line: From above the waves DREAM: ESCAPE FROM THE SCULPTURE MUSEUM AND WAKING First Line: Softening the marbles, day Last Line: Our sleeps of stone, our wakenings DREAMING IN SWEDISH First Line: The snow is falling on the tall pale reeds Last Line: If only we could fit the letters to each other DREAMS ABOUT CLOTHES First Line: In some, the man they made Last Line: Don't you care how we live? DROWNING POET First Line: The drowning poet hours before he drowned Last Line: Five-finger exercises: a compliment %to all accomplishment DUNES First Line: To have a self, even of salt and sand! Last Line: Soon even they were lost behind the dunes DUST AND MEMORY First Line: A small unshaven man, perhaps fifty Last Line: Warm still in the fire of your care EARLY SETTLERS First Line: Finally two of them go high up to live Last Line: A leathery god or two, crouched there for warmth ECONOMIC MAN First Line: Perhaps it is being off the gold standard Last Line: To his original value in the vault EDWARD LIEBERMAN, ENTREPRENEUR, FOUR YEARS AFTER THE BURNING First Line: The light sifts down from the naked bulb Last Line: Became his act, but because it came to this EIGHT BITS: 1. LASER MAJESTY First Line: Light show at the planetarium Last Line: Breathes wendy. Yes, and he was chewing gum EIGHT BITS: 2. IF U CN RD THS First Line: U cn gt a gd jb w hi pa! Last Line: This counterspell may save your soul EIGHT BITS: 3. VOLTAIRE: A STATUE OF CHRIST IN JESUIT ATTIRE First Line: Admire these monks' excessive art Last Line: Lest someone take you to his heart EIGHT BITS: 4. ANAGRAM/ANAGRAMME First Line: Here pasolini lies, decorum's foil Last Line: Son corps devenant pain, ses cris devenus lois EIGHT BITS: 5. LIPSTICK, 1935 First Line: At aunt pearl's kiss the pointed head Last Line: Looked like our labrador, aroused EIGHT BITS: 6. SNAKE PIT First Line: Uplands. The dead of winter. Yet you've seen Last Line: And baptist ranchers where to dynamite EIGHT BITS: 7. TO AN ACTOR ON LOCATION FOR A FILM ... First Line: Who live a life so charmed, time and again Last Line: Your first night back in town. My place at nine? EIGHT BITS: 8. A BIT OF BLUE TILE ON THE BEACH First Line: Fragments like this, my sunshine, fall Last Line: When you flash from your shower stall ELECTRA: A TRANSLATION First Line: Cold step by step Last Line: Face the first music. Sleep.' EMBARKATION SONNETS First Line: Across the limelit balconies of sleep Last Line: Know our farewell, know what farewell, is like EN ROUTE First Line: The needle on the gauge Last Line: Under the curse or blessing of no love ENTRANCE FROM SLEEP First Line: To wake into the afternoon for you Last Line: And all shade is what music we have rung ENVOI First Line: As I crossed the lot next door, one page I wrote Last Line: The song half sung thrust back into my throat ENVOYS First Line: The scurrier of the courtyard Last Line: And how you bound him close and set him free EPITHALAMIUM First Line: Look! In full view, the woman's hands at his throat Last Line: Trucks of the garment district, passers-by ESCAPE First Line: To come to life in detroit is to be manufactured Last Line: How much you made them pay so I could love EUROPA First Line: The air is sweetest that a thistle guards Last Line: Smiling, a bridal in the wastes of pearl FAMILY WEEK AT ORACLE RANCH First Line: The world outstrips us. In my day Last Line: Ask what that cold comfort means to her FEBRUARY 14TH First Line: Awakening at dawn thirty- %six years ago, I see Last Line: Six weeks, %and the wide world is green FEVER First Line: Two nights with her and I have caught the virus Last Line: I savor the thin paints upon my tongue FIFTEENTH SUMMER First Line: Scrambling with a book Last Line: Those mornings what they weighed FIGURES IN A LEGENDARY GLADE First Line: When the picnic-basket lovers who had been dangling Last Line: Committed to doom, denial, airier things FIRE POEM First Line: How unforgettably the fire that night Last Line: Forgot the blissful nester in its flame FIVE INSCRIPTIONS: 1. WITH A GREEK COIN (HEADS, ATHENA IN PROFILE First Line: The face of love is very old Last Line: Until it turns to gold FIVE INSCRIPTIONS: 2. COPIED ONTO THE THING ITSELF First Line: Although the gingko's older far Last Line: This leaf is art nouveau FIVE INSCRIPTIONS: 3. IN A NOTEBOOK FROM DELPHI First Line: Apollo's whim %consulted as to stephen Last Line: Bespoke a volume even %slimmer than him FIVE INSCRIPTIONS: 4. ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE AUTHOR PRESENTED TO HIS First Line: New wrinkles I daresay Last Line: Made the old master smile FIVE INSCRIPTIONS: 5. WITH A FOUNTAIN PEN First Line: Together half in love and half in pain Last Line: Where hearts are humbled, words are vain FIVE OLD FAVORITES: 1. A DREAM OF OLD VIENNA First Line: The mother sits, the whites of her eyes tinted Last Line: Many a cozy evening round the lamp FIVE OLD FAVORITES: 2. THE MIDNIGHT SNACK First Line: When I was little and he was riled Last Line: Burns into my turned back FIVE OLD FAVORITES: 3. SUNDOWN AND STARLIGHT First Line: He licks the tallest tree, and takes a bite Last Line: Than care for him. She opens her jewel case FIVE OLD FAVORITES: 4. EVENT WITHOUT PARTICULARS First Line: Something will be hanging from the ceiling Last Line: For others, roses of linoleum FIVE OLD FAVORITES: 5. THE DANDELION SERMON First Line: In the heat of a sentence I stopped. You waited Last Line: A white haze not at once or ever with ease construed FLECHE D'OR First Line: Windowglass, warmed plush, a sneeze Last Line: Meet and nothing lasts and nothing ends FLINT EYE First Line: The matriarch with eyes like arrowheads Last Line: And a race of sober children learns long smiles FLYING FROM BYZANTIUM First Line: The hour has come. I'm heading home Last Line: Page, hesitated, dipped his pen FOLIAGE OF VISION First Line: As landscapes richen after rain, the eye Last Line: Time and disaster and the limping blood FOR A BESTIARY: 1. CARP First Line: Bread on the waters.' would %such literary crusts Last Line: Of letters we once knew) %here sleep the appetites FOR A BESTIARY: 2. SPELL First Line: Three times a triple strand Last Line: - and yourself in, no doubt, %for a shock or two FOR A BESTIARY: 3. MONDAY MORNING First Line: Hot sun on duval street %bicycling very slowly Last Line: To fix that unseraphic %duo within my vision FOR A SECOND MARRIAGE First Line: Orchards, we linger here because Last Line: Concentric rings, those many marriages %that life on each living thing bestows Variant Title(s): Upon A Second Marriag Subject(s): Love - Marital; Marriage FOR PROUST First Line: Over and over something would remain Last Line: The world will have put on a thin gold mask FORMAL LOVERS First Line: The windowframe behind the blind Last Line: Dark is the perfect thing we have FORT LAUDERDALE First Line: Listless old women %fiber faces the thin milk Last Line: Self-effacement on both sides %of the looking-glass FOUNTAIN IN DISUSE: ATHENS First Line: Thunder? A distant footfall? Has somebody Last Line: Will not have been withheld much longer, or in vain FOUR LITTLE POEMS: 1. PROCESSION First Line: Virgins and kings: the very fields aquiver Last Line: As girls love daisies, love dismembers hours FOUR LITTLE POEMS: 2. PORTRAIT First Line: A youth last seen by an undecipherable Last Line: Through what he sees as distance FOUR LITTLE POEMS: 3. PARABLE First Line: After the child laughed, and the emperor Last Line: And naked down the avenues they went FOUR LITTLE POEMS: 4. PROVERB First Line: And so at winter's end her perennial bounty Last Line: Fixed in indifference, tree in the tight urn FRIEND OF THE FOURTH DECADE First Line: When I returned with drinks and nuts my friend Last Line: To greet the perfect stranger FROM 'THE BROKEN HOME' First Line: Small beyond great swaying glooms Last Line: It is the house of dreams FROM A NOTEBOOK First Line: The whiteness near and far Last Line: Turns. A new day. Fresh snow FROM MORNING INTO MORNING First Line: Foxglove, larkspur have morning by the throat Last Line: One blue bloom missing. It has become our flesh FROM THE CUPOLA First Line: The sister who told fortunes prophesied Last Line: These letters. Show me, light, if they make sense FROM THE CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR First Line: Thanks, dr. Williams, my throat feels better already Last Line: Revise, rise, shine! Good ah my children night! FULL MOON: LETTER TO T First Line: Under your bald spell who could prevent Last Line: By which I arrive at saying so FURNISHED ROOM First Line: Blue boughs, green fruit Last Line: What no one else could wreak %on the room's myth GADFLY TRIOLETS First Line: Three packs a day %simply won't do Last Line: You are life's clear-%eyed, smiling rhyme GARONCE First Line: Think small. My scene no sooner lit Last Line: Both of us moved in one breath by %the hidden god GEIGER COUNTER First Line: Pictures on a wall: %a view of fuji challenged Last Line: What about this morning's blinding outburst? GETTING THERE First Line: Early august, hours west of omaha Last Line: At once, without harmony or reason GETTING THROUGH First Line: I wrote the postcard to you and went out Last Line: I hear with joy, helpless to understand, %cries of snow-crimson children leaving school GINGER BEEF First Line: Soon to attain its famous afterglow Last Line: In mute, in mortal weariness, alone GOTHIC NOVEL First Line: How rich in opportunity! Part of a wall Last Line: Put down the book unread. The tale is done GRACE First Line: All this is very tiring Last Line: Each night's rain fell unheard GRAFFITO First Line: Deep in weeds, on a smooth chunk of stone Last Line: He held the fate of nations in his fist GRAND CANYON First Line: It is still early, yet Last Line: In one of our highest courts GRAPE CURE First Line: For two days feed on water. The third morning Last Line: The gold cannot be pity, nor ivory charity GRASS First Line: The river irises Last Line: And ten more years -- fifteen? %from disappearing GREAT EMIGRATION First Line: On the low road to skye Last Line: History of slow-motion joys and grievances %under remote control GREEN EYE First Line: Come, child, and with your sunbeam gaze assign Last Line: Things you shall live among, things seen, things known GREENHOUSE First Line: So many girls vague in the yielding orchard Last Line: So none shall tempt, when she is gone HELP First Line: Louis leroy, gentleman's gentleman Last Line: Into our hearts at last, and know their place? HER CRAFT First Line: Elizabeth bishop - swan boat or Last Line: De pire, if I may say so. Less is more HERE TODAY First Line: Looking up from my draft Last Line: To live, or be living still without my knowing, %here, today HILL First Line: It is some time since I have been Last Line: Which is in me %like a hill HINDU ILLUMINATION First Line: T loping down the stairs at mellifont Last Line: The mahout's gaze, upon me all this while Subject(s): Elephant-drivers; Hinduism; Religion HOME FIRES First Line: I peered into the crater's heaving red Last Line: (extinct? I wonder.) love, empedocles HOSPITABLE TRANSLATORS First Line: Here in soho %the tabletop sticks Last Line: Out in the meat sauce HOTEL DE L'UNIVERS ET PORTUGAL First Line: The strange bed, whose recurrent dream we are Last Line: Sleep, by a strange bed in the dark of dreaming HOURGLASS First Line: Alone, one can but toy with imagery Last Line: Love only is replenishment of halves HOURGLASS (2) First Line: Dear at death's door when you stand Last Line: Blessed each other heart to heart HOUSE First Line: Whose west walls take the sunset like a blow Last Line: Beyond my seeing. At a glance they wake HOUSE FLY First Line: Come october, if I close my eyes Last Line: Distinct from both the blessing and the blight HUBBELL PIERCE: 1925-1980 First Line: Well and good to take the fortune, life Last Line: In your odd moments upon gold, pure gold ICECAP First Line: Yes, melting changes Last Line: Wear it, milady %in your frosted hair IDEA First Line: If when you're old and musing Last Line: Hardens to iteration %of nothing if not light IDEAS First Line: Charles and xenia are discussing them Last Line: Has brought our evening concert to a close ILLUSTRATIONS First Line: Slide upon slide, %transparencies of nile and sphinx Last Line: Back to the source. The soul %will keep her vow IMAGE MAKER; A PLAY IN ONE ACT First Line: I am the santero manuel Last Line: What next? What next? IMAGINING IT First Line: Paul phones to say goodbye. He's back in new york two days early, but Last Line: - bon voyage! Write! - upon their final honeymoon IN MONUMENT VALLEY First Line: One spring twilight, during a lull in the war Last Line: Little more to speak of can be done Subject(s): Animals IN NINE SLEEP VALLEY First Line: Trying to read in nature's book Last Line: Sorry things all. Accepting them's the art IN THE DARK (1) First Line: Come, try this exercise Last Line: Begin to glow IN THE DARK (2) First Line: In the last light of a summer day facing the canadian shore Last Line: Are watching from above, I do gown on my knees in prayer IN THE HALL OF MIRRORS First Line: The parquet barely gleams, a lake Last Line: No tracks have ever crossed IN THE PINK First Line: From under a duvet the pink of dunes Last Line: A tear from either spring's lighthearted blue IN THE SHOP First Line: Out came the most fabulous kimono of all Last Line: May be read as having emerged triumphant from the vats of night INDIA: THE DANCE OF GIVING First Line: Stranger, you go from tomb Last Line: Your last blind way alone INSTILLING First Line: All day from high within the skull Last Line: The dreamless gulf between two shoulder blades INTRODUCTION TO THE MEDIA First Line: ...Or take tv, where relatively crude Last Line: All us kids got they fail-safe color sets.' ISLAND IN THE WORKS First Line: From air seen fathom-deep Last Line: Now who did that? JUAN BURNING THE DIARY First Line: It is time. The fire crackles. Drugged by heat Last Line: And in transparent effigy, the years blaze KEY WEST AQUARIUM: THE SAWFISH First Line: Before our day, what had the sawfish seen Last Line: Love's but a dream and only death is kind KIMONO First Line: When I returned from lovers' lane Last Line: Bordered with rushes white on blue KITCHEN KNIGHT First Line: O my white armor, my copper or stainless steel Last Line: My code constrains me to do what I can KITE POEM First Line: One is reminded of a certain person Last Line: And kissed and kissed, as though to escape on a kite KOI First Line: Snow today, the first in seven years Last Line: Is barking - he's losing his footing - he's fallen in! KOMBOLI (THE GREEK 'WORRY-BEADS') First Line: Begin. Carnation underfoot, tea splashing stars Last Line: Out of time? These beads - o marble counter -- done Variant Title(s): Kombolo KOSTAS TYMPAKIANAKIS First Line: Sit, friend. We'll be drinking and I'll tell you why Last Line: Who could have imagined such a life as mine? KYOGEN INTERLUDE: AT THE BANK First Line: It is by now clear that the poor flushed clerk - a trainee's badge on his Last Line: From paul's service thinking. Nobody has to live KYOTO First Line: Daybreak. Brightest air Last Line: To die without assurance of a cult was the supreme calamity Subject(s): Hearn, Lafcadio (1850-1904); Kyoto, Japan KYOTO: AT THE DETACHED PALACE First Line: Struck by the soft look Last Line: Long after fall of night %retains a twilight LABORATORY POEM First Line: Charles used to watch naomi, taking heart Last Line: Easy in the presence of her lover LAME DUCKS, MCKESSON & ROBBINS, 1945 First Line: Late friday afternoon in the final year Last Line: I'd be good for nothing but to tell you this LANDSCAPE WITH TORRENT First Line: Thus far he has not seen her, a spoke Last Line: As though nothing had happened LANDSCAPE WITH VW First Line: This votive spansule driven at top speed Last Line: Sanctuary hurt into blossom, healed by it LAST MORNINGS IN CALIFORNIA First Line: Another misty one. These opaline Last Line: Shutting the lid in a twinkling he'll be gone LAST WORDS First Line: My life, your light green eyes Last Line: And lives to tell you so LAWN FETE OF HOMUNCULUS ARTIFEX First Line: Moisten me, press me %mold me to tumbler, to tin Last Line: Of my three billion closest friends.' LECTURE: THE SKELETON First Line: Nude but for sun %we see the skeleton Last Line: Dust of that ilk, and unappeasable LENSES: 1. CONTACTS First Line: Light as parentheses, your scales Last Line: Of love and dreams LENSES: 2. MICROSCOPIC First Line: The club is tiny, hard to locate. No Last Line: You up, enucleate your inmost eye's %nostalgie du protoplasme LENSES: 3. TELESCOPE First Line: Mark tonight's variation maggiore. Lento Last Line: And earn this dusty corner of his legend LENSES: 4. CAMERA First Line: Eyes wild, hair midnight-tangled, robe in disarray Last Line: Print her next likeness in your own red dark LETTER FROM EGYPT First Line: When our son died Last Line: Our loss, which is your gain LIGHT OF THE STREET, DARKNESS OF YOUR OWN HOUSE' First Line: Fused wires of wit, benighted attic Last Line: Beams of the first unquenchable luster pour LISTEN CAREFULLY First Line: My sister rises from our bed hours before dawn Last Line: The one who's wrong. You haven't heard a word LITTLE FALLACY First Line: Chamber of blossom, not a petal spilled Last Line: With no one killed LITTLE FANFARE FOR FELIX MAGOWAN First Line: Up beyond sense and praise Last Line: During your first days LLANTO First Line: Plum, almond, cherry have come and gone Last Line: That will not sing, that will not even talk LOCUSTS First Line: The plain dries outward from its heart Last Line: Rain wakes you, pounding on the door LOG First Line: Then when the flame forked like a sudden path Last Line: What could be made of you but light, and this? LOOK ASKANCE First Line: Skyward mazes %rise at right angles to a downstream Last Line: Jotted down on stone LORELEI First Line: The stones of kin and friend Last Line: Deepens the lines begun upon your face LOSING THE MARBLES First Line: Morning spent looking for my calendar Last Line: The risen, cloudy brilliances above LOST IN TRANSLATION; FOR RICHARD HOWARD First Line: A card table in the library stands ready Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Rilke, Rainer Maria (1875-1926); Translating & Interpreting; Verlaine, Paul (1844-1896) LOST IN TRANSLATION; FOR RICHARD HOWARD First Line: A card table in the library stands ready Last Line: To shade and fiber, milk and memory Subject(s): Poetry And Poets; Rilke, Rainer Maria (1875-1926); Translating And Interpreting; Verlaine, Paul (1844-1896) LOVER BY FULL MOON First Line: Before he undergoes %what he must, let all be stripped Last Line: Made by the cricket's voice %acting on indigo oxygen LOVERS First Line: They met in loving like the hands of one Last Line: These waited, and would issue from his hands LUNCH WITH A SCHOLAR First Line: Waters lowering, lion and red vole Last Line: Volumes unspoken, for the dove to light MAD SCENE First Line: Again last night I dreamed the dream called laundry Last Line: As the lean tree burst into grief Subject(s): Laundry And Laundering MAGPIETY First Line: You pull over to the shoulder Last Line: Everything is speaking or singing. %we're still here MAISIE First Line: One morning I shall find Last Line: Leaving the newcomer aghast and weak MANDALA First Line: Ok. I see a whirlpool Last Line: Garrulous as you, dear, time will tell MANOS KARASTEFANIS First Line: Death took my father Last Line: From my island, and the sea's %voice in a shell MARSYAS First Line: I used to write in the cafe sometimes Last Line: That no one could have told you what he sang MASTER AND MAN First Line: Services that can be bought Last Line: Of my train de vie MATINEES Poem Text First Line: A gray maidservant lets me in Subject(s): Opera MATINEES First Line: A gray maidservant lets me in Last Line: Ever gratefully, your little friend Subject(s): Opera MCKANE'S FALLS First Line: The great cold shoulders bared Last Line: Come live within me, said the waterfall MEDUSA First Line: The head, of course, had fallen to disrepair Last Line: We raise our quivering swords and think to kill Subject(s): Medusa; Mythology - Classical MEN'S SONG AT WEDDING First Line: Tjokele's woman - ayiii! %they have dressed her in rattan raiment Last Line: As the dugong timorous, as the peewee cute MENU First Line: Dawn. Mist for the grill. As our visual purple Last Line: Clutched its bed for dear life, knuckles white METRO' First Line: One level below street, an airless tank Last Line: And in its place, o memory! A bank MIDAS AMONG GOLDENROD First Line: Divine uncultivation, and look, invariably Last Line: Is he protected? Yes. But mischievously MIDSUMMER EVENING ON THE PRINSENGRACHT First Line: It's late. The sun %gone down, the scene remains Last Line: As if, still thinking out their story, %to ask for time MINOTAUR First Line: A young one who'd have thought Last Line: Depends who tells the tale MIRABELL'S BOOK OF NUMBERS First Line: Oh very well, then. Let us broach the matter Last Line: Look! Look into the red eye of your god! MIRROR First Line: I grow old under an intensity Last Line: Echo of mine, I am amenable MONTH First Line: Sun-up off easterly casings prints a first Last Line: Left to unriddle her new name, and wake MORE BITS: 1. THE POEM AS CRUTCH First Line: Be that as it may, there are some few I've hung Last Line: I reached for a gnarled rhyme to steady me MORE BITS: 2. WOMAN LEAVING SHOP First Line: That was clarissa dalloway! Last Line: Made up three times a day MORE BITS: 3. IN CARAVAGGIO'S STUDIO First Line: The boy's lips parting, a ripe fruit Last Line: Sleep took him. Morpheus with his loot MORE BITS: 4. PEOPLE WILL TALK First Line: Awesome. The nitty-gritty. Wannabes Last Line: Make an appointment for a facial peel MORE BITS: 5. APRIL IN ATHENS First Line: The young cycladic goddesses Last Line: If only they had bodices MORE BITS: 6. REST HOME First Line: They've given up everything - affection, strife Last Line: Scarred, infirm, consumed by it: %addicts of life MORE BITS: 7. LIFE IN THE MEZZOGIORNO First Line: Silenzio? Solitudine? Cried the family's Last Line: And clattering out of the room MORE BITS: 8. WORD MADE FLESH First Line: Dronning. It's the danish word for queen Last Line: I'm farther out than you think, and not waving but dronning.' MORE BITS: 9. HOW LONG? First Line: The lawyer pursed his lips: 'well now, let's see...' Last Line: We shared a vision of attornity MORE ENTERPRISE First Line: A sideways flicker, half headshake of doubt Last Line: Into the grave I'll wear that yes of theirs MORE OR LESS First Line: Nature copies art, said oscar wilde Last Line: Their sad know how, their fingertip control MORNING EXERCISE First Line: Poem, neat pseudonym Last Line: Aux fraises at the old grad MORNING GLORY First Line: The bud a foreskin? More so as it wilts Last Line: Connecticut man found in state of grace MORNINGS IN A NEW HOUSE First Line: And still at dawn the fire is lit Last Line: His pleasure and the doll's are one MOSQUITO First Line: The sheet strains and pulls loose Last Line: Of the faint siren song MOUTHPIECE First Line: Might and must now cast upon the hearth Last Line: Translated by it, blind with salt MUSIC FROM ABOVE First Line: Lying, looking up %at the perfectly white ceiling Last Line: Of all has lighted and dissolved, of all MY BROTHER ABEL, THE WOUNDED First Line: He drew our future in the dirt Last Line: Winter sleep he never wakened from MY FATHER WITH CIGARETTE TWELVE YEARS BEFORE THE NAZIS COULD First Line: I remember the room in which he held Last Line: How close the moon, how utterly silent the piano MY FATHER'S IRISH SETTERS First Line: Always throughout his life Last Line: Love follows, pen in hand MY MOTHER WITH PURSE THE SUMMER THEY MURDERED THE SPANISH First Line: Had she looked out the window she would have seen a quiet street Last Line: Above granada where all time stopped. Her purse snaps shut MY SISTER'S VOICE First Line: Half asleep in my chair, I hear Last Line: The day broke over eveything NARROW ESCAPE First Line: During a lull at dinner the vampire frankly Last Line: Is now a classic in our particular circle NAVARINO First Line: No sleepy harbor is a dream come true Last Line: Risen to cool it in your can of wine NIGHTGOWN First Line: A cold so keen Last Line: And give it form NIKE First Line: The lie shone in her face before she spoke it Last Line: Beneath a ceiling washed by her reflected snows NINE LIVES First Line: The ancient comic theater had it right Last Line: An old tom skirts it. The world's his tonight NO BUYERS First Line: Two books in spanish Last Line: Hatch into smaller and newer %eggs and nobody buys NO WORD First Line: The river flowing from you Last Line: To its narrow bed NOVELETTES First Line: We have settled into this resort hotel Last Line: Piping, trying to reach me. And wake unafraid. He will NOVEMBER ODE First Line: The blow has fallen, or dear dim local grocery Last Line: When speaking american - sounds like that of the people OCTOPUS First Line: There are many monsters that a glassen surface restrains Last Line: Till on glass rigid with his own seizure %at length the sucking jewels freeze Subject(s): Octopuses ODE TO MRS. WILLIAM SETTLE First Line: In lake forest, a suburb of chicago Last Line: Are one though never meant to be OLD TESTAMENT First Line: My twin brother swears that at age thirteen Last Line: Tear stained, bloodied, begging for a moment's peace OLIVE GROVE First Line: The blue wave's slumber and the rocky brow Last Line: Uneasy for its melting images ON THE BLOCK: 1. LAMP, TERRACOTTA BASE, U. S., CA. 1925 First Line: If when you're old and musing Last Line: Light for the likes of you ON THE BLOCK: 2. MANTEL CLOCK, IMITATION SEVRES First Line: Time, passing, glances at the clock Last Line: Child, think well of me, or try. %I must be going.' ON THE BRIDGE First Line: Leaves burn green %over the stupid little wooden bridge Last Line: Will not recoil, feeling the deck grow hot ON THE MEETING OF GARCIA LORCA AND HART CRANE First Line: Brooklyn, 1929. Of course crane's Last Line: What an imagination arthur had ONE DAY First Line: Everyone knows that the trees will go one day Last Line: Into a day that never ended OPAGUE MORNING First Line: Cold mottles gray and lichen mustard Last Line: That have soaked downward into it OPERA COMPANY First Line: The impresario %consigned to the pit Last Line: Before the curtains part ORACLE First Line: Suddenly as of today %the weeping beech in the next garden Last Line: What is not driven where it means to go? ORANGES First Line: His mother wore, as in a fairy tale Last Line: One bright dusk up he sauntered, undismayed ORFEO First Line: Ah downward through the dark coulisse Last Line: Having become perpetual OUT BY DARK First Line: If you take the two-lane highway from tetuan to fez Last Line: A feather of velvet closed down, an eyelid of magpie OUZO FOR ROBIN First Line: Dread of an impending umptieth Last Line: To stop it, stamping with displeasure OVERDUE PILGRIMAGE TO NOVA SCOTIA First Line: Your village touched us by not knowing how Last Line: Gathering phrases for tomorrow's cards PACT WITH THE ASTROLOGER First Line: Suppose I put aside %my past unwound Last Line: The life written in blood PAGE FROM THE KORAN First Line: A small vellum environment Last Line: Letters so handled they are life, and hurt, %leaving the scribe immune? PALM BEACH WITH PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR First Line: A mile-long vertebrate picked clean Last Line: Ease from the dry breast and sheet in foam PARDONER'S TALE First Line: Writing to kill, whose wiles Last Line: Will have a better lover PARNASSIANS First Line: Theirs was a language within ours, a loge Last Line: Our scorn and sound investment of their tips PARROT First Line: I am impatient of the myth that numbs Last Line: To stillness in the bestial night PARROT FISH First Line: The shadow of the little fishing launch Last Line: And throwing back its head the sea began to sing PART OF THE VIGIL First Line: ...Shrinking to enter, did. Your heart Last Line: Blaze on? You might yet see it, see by it. %nothing else mattered PAUL VALERY: PALME First Line: Veiling, barely, his dread Last Line: To grow at any cost PEACOCK First Line: I speak to the unbeautiful of this bird Last Line: Lone angels round each human grave Subject(s): Birds PEARL First Line: Well, I admit Last Line: Where an unconscious world, my yawning oyster, %shuts on it PEELED WANDS First Line: Peeled wands lead on the pedophile. Give me Last Line: Eternal oaths it swore with a salt-grain PELICAN First Line: Squatter on water, ingenuous fisherman Last Line: From air to emptier water dive PERFUME First Line: Ticklish no longer %with tangibility Last Line: Now that you suffer it PERIWINKLES First Line: You have seen at low tide on the rocky shore Last Line: Then we grow old, her lunacy prevails Subject(s): Periwinkle PERSPECTIVES OF A LONESOME EYE First Line: In a green twilight the avenues of our love Last Line: Bound by perspectives, we are loosed by love Subject(s): Solitude PETER First Line: Right arm: a many-splendored Last Line: Aglow down pristine faces only now %seeing the light PHENOMENAL LOVE SONG First Line: Look sharp, love, for here Last Line: Love, keep your eye peeled PHILIP LARKIN: 1922-1985 First Line: He's gone somewhere %but left his writing Last Line: - vacant now? Unwary %reader, all yours PHOTOGRAPHY First Line: My aunt yetta sleeps, her mouth hanging open, her eyes Last Line: While a name hangs in the brilliant morning air PIECES OF HISTORY First Line: Depressions visible from the air Last Line: To the beclouded cortex which impelled his drift PIER: UNDER PISCES First Line: The shallows, brighter, %wetter than water Last Line: The bite. The tug of fate PIPE DREAM First Line: Perfectly still. Yet smoke Last Line: Simply to heel in the garden, not %shown the gate PLEDGE First Line: House on alert %sun setting in a blaze Last Line: I drink to you apart %in that champagne POEM IN SPRING First Line: Being born of earth, we've come to sit Last Line: Such curious vividness begin POEM OF CHALK First Line: On the way to lower broadway Last Line: Below the sea shell's stiffening cry POEM OF SUMMER'S END First Line: The morning of the equinox Last Line: Each learns to read at length the other's gaze POETS AT HOME First Line: Yoo-hoo! This way, dear reader, I so hoped Last Line: Please wright - I'll just lie down with a wet pack POLA DIVA (AFTER CHRISTIAN AYOUB) First Line: Sensational effects have subtle causes Last Line: Knows to have been the phanar's nightingale Variant Title(s): Pola Diva (after Ayoub Sinano PONCHIELLI COMPLEX First Line: Husbands, by my time, dozed beneath the gilt Last Line: That brings the house down and him backstage grinning POWER STATION First Line: Think back now to that cleft Last Line: The blind delirium that still utters it PREFACE TO THE MEMOIRS First Line: Angrier than my now occasional Last Line: From the eruptions of a court whose pageants %these deeply-pitted features chronicle PRESS RELEASE First Line: Now comes word that a new synthetic substance Last Line: For the next deep breath. My hand. Hold. Concentrate PRIMER First Line: A final lassitude, of snapdragons Last Line: Naming the creatures to their latest-born PRISM (A PAPERWEIGHT) First Line: Having lately taken up residence Last Line: The day is breaking someone else's heart Variant Title(s): Pris PROCESSIONAL First Line: Think what the demotic droplet felt Last Line: Once again turns (load, goad) to gold PYROXENES First Line: Well, life has touched me, too Last Line: To-be of hard, scarred sense, %strangers to fire QUATRAINS FOR PEGASUS First Line: Breakfast over, to memorial park we'd go Last Line: Don't let it, I begged the horses, get any worse RADIO First Line: Behind grillwork (buff plastic Last Line: Has never stopped playing our song RADIOMETER First Line: At sunrise on a pin Last Line: Not this one. Look: the setting sun, my friend RAIN First Line: All night the sound had Last Line: Be wet %with a decent happiness RECONNAISSANCE First Line: Up from the ranks a body volunteers Last Line: Far from the sirens' call REMORA First Line: This life is deep and dense Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; Anglers REMORA First Line: This life is deep and dense Last Line: In heavenly sunshine to the corpse a slight %tormented self,live, dapper, black-and-white Subject(s): Fishing And Fishermen RENEWAL First Line: Having used every subterfuge Last Line: Love buries itself in me, up to the hilt RESCUE First Line: Dusk. Rain over but asphalt hissing Last Line: And heaved me into a green haven.' RETURN: ORIHUELA, 1965 First Line: You come over a slight rise Last Line: The fields whisper their courage REVIVALS OF TRISTAN First Line: The loving cup was poisoned Last Line: And huge wings clap in bliss RHAPSODY ON CZECH THEMES First Line: A mauve madness has overrun moravia Last Line: Seasoned wood as witnesses RING' CYCLE First Line: They're doing a ring cycle at the met Last Line: A son till now undreamed of -- makes to rise Subject(s): Composers; Opera; Wagner, Richard (1813-1883) RIVER POEM (1) First Line: This old man had lavender skin, a handkerchief Last Line: But the river stayed at our side, and shone, and ran RIVER POEM (2) First Line: This old man had lavender skin, a handkerchief Last Line: But the river did not vanish, or not then at least RIVER TRIP First Line: Short walk through fields to soft-drink stand Last Line: Step ashore, in our clumsiness hoping not to spill these brief impressions ROGER CLAY'S PROPOSAL First Line: I may be oversusceptible to news Last Line: No one can say it will not. No one can ROMANCE LANGUAGE First Line: When first in love I breakfasted by water Last Line: Although I tell the god's own truth, or try to ROOM AT THE HEART OF THINGS First Line: Two rooms, rather, one flight up, half seen Last Line: Proves itself in the bright way of stars ROUGH SCHEME FOR AN EON IN THE ALPS First Line: One day in autumn an old god sees red Last Line: Instead of feasting on his effigy SAINT First Line: Wanting foreknowledge of eternity Last Line: Eternity refusing to begin SALOME First Line: No wonder, shaggy saint, breast-deep in jordan's Last Line: Back into earth, the easier school SAMOS First Line: And still, at sea all night, we had a sense Last Line: Before the seeds here planted come to light SANCTUM First Line: Another proscenium. At its threshold we sit Last Line: Smoke, praying for dear %life SANTO First Line: Francisco on his shelf %wreathed in dusty wax Last Line: The sick white dog got well %- and that was all it took! SANTORINI: STOPPING THE LEAK First Line: Five sessions of god willing lethal x Last Line: For a black beach, a tavern in the shade SCENES OF CHILDHOOD First Line: My mother's lamp once out Last Line: You are the heroes without name %or origin SCHOOL PLAY First Line: Harry of hereford, lancaster, and derby' Last Line: All unsuspecting into the masters' hands SCRAPPING THE COMPUTER First Line: Like countless others in the digital age, I seem Last Line: On which already he's composed these lines SCRIPTS FOR THE PAGEANT First Line: Cup glides from board. Sun dwindles into sound Last Line: Hold it back hear me brothers I and mine SEASIDE DOORWAY, SUMMER DAWN First Line: Hot low notes undulate the stave Last Line: The other upon passage through its frame SELF-PORTRAIT IN TYVEK (TM) WINDBREAKER First Line: The windbreaker is white with a world map Last Line: To keep the blue wave dancing in its prison SERENADE First Line: Here's your letter the old portable Last Line: And stars appear instead of periods SEVENTH ROUND First Line: Give it to him! Last Line: Drop your own. Take Subject(s): Sports SIESTAS OF AN ARCHITECT First Line: Those afternoons you'd wake Last Line: It is still falling through black air SILENCE First Line: No coffin without nails Last Line: Al least is golden SIMPLE TRUTH First Line: I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes Last Line: In a form we have no words for, and you live on it SMILE First Line: It was going to rain Last Line: He turned his face and died SNAPSHOT OF ADAM First Line: By flash in sunshine 'to reduce contrast' Last Line: Posed never long or nakedly enough SNOW JOBS First Line: X had the funds, the friends, the plan Last Line: But where's the slush of yesteryear? Subject(s): Politics; Snow SOME NEGATIVES: X AT THE CHATEAU First Line: Where skies are thunderous, by a cypress walk Last Line: If the lens winks, it winds them who knows where SONG First Line: Gretchen wishes she weren't blonde Last Line: Awed, and dreaming of renown SOUL First Line: In castelldefels we say, there are four thousand souls Last Line: Souls, some alone, some in pairs, huddle in their beds and pray SPANISH LESSON First Line: In an overstuffed chair, trotsky sits half asleep Last Line: Let the dead rise, let sr. Ruiz question the wind STONES First Line: To a head at daybreak Last Line: Before our journey's end STORM First Line: Rock: control yourself! I've been shattered Last Line: Ah, how that flattered %my self-esteem STRATEGIES First Line: Halfway around the globe from paul the worst keeps dawning on us. We Last Line: Take for model a cone of snow with fire in its bowels STRATO IN PLASTER First Line: Out of the blue, in plaster from wrist to bicep Last Line: I felt no pain at first SUMMER PEOPLE First Line: On our new england coast was once Last Line: And felt his way down in dark SUPPLIANT First Line: Tiny, half-blind life %crouched by the marble stoop Last Line: That least of mercies came %to the right door SURVIVAL First Line: I have forgotten how. I try to wake Last Line: His silvering muzzle towards your perfect calm SUSPENSE OF LOVE First Line: No greater turbulence than light restores Last Line: Until with morning glories it stands overcome SWIMMING BY NIGHT First Line: A light going out in the forehead Subject(s): Swimming & Swimmers SWIMMING BY NIGHT First Line: A light going out in the forehead Last Line: Of waves, their length and sparkle, the spinning globe %you wear, and the star running down his chee Subject(s): Swimming SYRINX First Line: Bug, flower, bird of slipware fired and fluted Last Line: Or stop the four winds racing overhead %nought %waste -- eased %sought TABLE TALK First Line: Food!' exclaims charles. 'each new dish I have tried Last Line: Were here to tell me: go ahead, my son, enjoy the feast! TENANCY First Line: Something in the light of this march afternoon Last Line: May others be at home in it THE 'RING' CYCLE Poem Text First Line: They're doing a ring cycle at the met Subject(s): Composers; Opera; Wagner, Richard (1813-1883) THE BROKEN HOME Poem Text Recitation First Line: Crossing the street, / I saw the parents and the child Subject(s): Divorce THE CHARIOTEER OF DELPHI First Line: Where are the horses of the sun? Subject(s): Art & Artists; Delphi; Sculpture & Sculptors; Castri THE COUNTRY OF A THOUSAND YEARS OF PEACE Poem Text First Line: Here they all come to die Subject(s): Lodeizen, Hans (1924-1950); Switzerland; Swiss THE MAD SCENE Poem Text First Line: Again last night I dreamed the dream called laundry Subject(s): Laundry & Laundering THE OCTOPUS Poem Text First Line: There are many monsters that a glassen surface restrains Subject(s): Octopuses THE PEACOCK Poem Text First Line: I speak to the unbeautiful of this bird Subject(s): Birds THE VICTOR DOG Poem Text First Line: Bix to buxtehude to boulez / the little white dog on the victor label Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Music & Musicians; Sound Recordings; Trademarks; Phonograph Records; Recordings; Records; Audiodiscs; Discography THESE EARLY VERSIONS OF DESIRE THINK TANK First Line: Because our young were drab Last Line: Our servant, huge and blind THISTLEDOWN First Line: First clan of autumn, thistleball on a stem Last Line: Air at a breath blown! THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT First Line: Istanbul. 21 march. I woke today Last Line: He slept through moonset, woke in blinding sun, %too late to question what the tale had meant THREE CHORES: 1. WATER BOILING First Line: When polly's reddening hand Last Line: The kitchen from the hill! THREE CHORES: 2. NIGHT LAUNDRY First Line: Of daily soilure laving Last Line: Bring the new day to light THREE CHORES: 3. ITALIAN LESSON First Line: It will not do luigi Last Line: To certain other lessons hard to learn THREE SKETCHES FOR EUROPA: 1. THE TOURIST First Line: Now henry (said his aunt) take care Last Line: Go now. But do not stay too long THREE SKETCHES FOR EUROPA: 2. GEOGRAPHY First Line: The white bull chased her. Others said Last Line: And she no longer chaste but continent THREE SKETCHES FOR EUROPA: 3. AT THE BULLFIGHT First Line: Deep in the gaunt mask arenas blaze Last Line: And urged him into the foam with gentle phrases TIME First Line: Ever that everest Last Line: Whose diamond grates in the revolving silence TIMEPIECE First Line: Of a pendulum's mildness, with her feet up Last Line: For soon by what it tells the clock is stilled TO A BUTTERFLY Recitation First Line: Already in midsummer / I miss your feet and fur Subject(s): Butterflies; Insects; Bugs TO A BUTTERFLY First Line: Already in midsummer %I miss your feet and fur Last Line: Wiles gather dust. Each will have flown %the other's jail Subject(s): Butterflies; Insects TO A POCKET CALCULATOR First Line: Quiz kid, %behavior's midget Last Line: And lift its heart out, live but paper-thin TO MY GREEK First Line: Dear nut %uncrackable by nuance or debate Last Line: The barest word be what I say to you TO THE READER First Line: Each day, hot off the press from moon & son Last Line: Tomorrow, truer, harder to get right TOMORROWS First Line: The question was an academic one Last Line: Fun, some may morning between five and six TONY: ENDING THE LIFE First Line: Across the sea at alexandria Last Line: Just your head, nodding off in windowglass TOPICS: 1. CASUAL WEAR First Line: Your average tourist: fifty. 2.3 Last Line: Signed with a flourish, like the dead wife's jeans Variant Title(s): Casual Wea TOPICS: 2. POPULAR DEMAND First Line: These few deep strongholds. Each with generator Last Line: For you with cordial venom. Damn you, drink! TOPICS: 3. CAESARION First Line: A glow of cells in the warm sea Last Line: By force of habit to her breast TRADE First Line: Crouching down in the loud morning air Last Line: Angelic, an ordinary man become a gift TRANSFIGURED BIRD First Line: That day the eggshell of appearance split Last Line: And slept and would not till nearly dusk be woken TREES LISTENING TO BACH First Line: Overture. A shutter opens. Down Last Line: On the used plate a wash of silver dries TRELLIS First Line: Again, ramshackle skeleton Last Line: Will be replaced after a season or two TRISTAN First Line: In all sorts of weather tristan Last Line: At all times, it urges me out to sea TSIKOUDHIA First Line: Given us through a misunderstanding Last Line: That drinks as yet no dying of its own TWO DOUBLE DACTYLS: 1. ABOVE ALL THAT? First Line: Higgledy-piggledy %mary of magdala Last Line: Simple amoeba or gasteropod.' TWO DOUBLE DACTYLS: 2. NEO-CLASSIC First Line: Higgledy-piggledy %jacqueline kennedy Last Line: Go home, u.S.' TWO FROM FLORIDA: 1. GREEN COVE SPRINGS First Line: Aqua concrete has girdled this inveterate Last Line: It joins the st. Johns river to the sea TWO FROM FLORIDA: 2. THE DRESDEN DOLL First Line: Mis' annie looks just like a dresden doll Last Line: For what I simply can no longer say TWO POEMS FOR DAVID KALSTONE: 1. INVESTITURE AT CECCONI'S First Line: Caro, that dream (after the diagnosis) Last Line: Miles away, sick, fearful - have yet arranged this %heartstopping present Variant Title(s): Investiture At Cecconi' Subject(s): Aids (disease); Sickness TWO POEMS FOR DAVID KALSTONE: 2. FAREWELL PERFORMANCE Poem Text First Line: Art. It cures affliction. As lights go down and Variant Title(s): Farewell Performance Subject(s): Aids (disease); Gays & Lesbians; Sickness; Homoeroticism; Lesbians; Gay Women; Gay Men; Illness TWO POEMS FOR DAVID KALSTONE: 2. FAREWELL PERFORMANCE First Line: Art. It cures affliction. As lights go down and Last Line: Seen where it led you Variant Title(s): Farewell Performanc Subject(s): Aids (disease); Homosexuality; Sickness UNDER LIBRA: WEIGHTS AND MEASURES First Line: The stones of spring Last Line: These autumn feathers. Learned UNDER MARS First Line: Cricket earphones fail us not Last Line: Though such as we have made them what they are UP AND DOWN: 1. SNOW KING CHAIR LIFT First Line: Prey swooped up, the iron love seat shudders Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Homoeroticism; Lesbians; Gay Women; Gay Men UP AND DOWN: 1. SNOW KING CHAIR LIFT First Line: Prey swooped up, the iron love seat shudders Last Line: We gazed our little fills at boundlessness Subject(s): Homosexuality UP AND DOWN: 2. THE EMERALD Poem Text First Line: Hearing that on sunday I would leave Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Homoeroticism; Lesbians; Gay Women; Gay Men UP AND DOWN: 2. THE EMERALD First Line: Hearing that on sunday I would leave Last Line: The world beneath the world is brightening Subject(s): Homosexuality UPSET First Line: Drowsing in bed alone, quite thoughtless of nights Last Line: First things - the lamp supposes, prone %yet burning wildly on UPWARD LOOK First Line: O heart green acre -- sown with salt Last Line: From inmost depths -- of clear dark blue URBAN CONVALESCENCE First Line: Out for a walk, after a week in bed Last Line: Out of the life lived, out of the love spent VALENTINE IN CRAYONS First Line: As the masque went on sehnsucht was seen to change Last Line: The moon face patted rigid as it dries VARIATIONS AND ELEGY: WHITE STAG, BLACK BEAR First Line: ...And chiefly shone, %set in red gold upon his forefinger Last Line: Speak of its capture as a man who has never been ill %tells everywhere of disease VARIATIONS: THE AIR IS SWEETEST THAT A THISTLE GUARDS: 1 First Line: The air is sweetest that a thistle guards Last Line: Nets that bind back, garland the hungering wave VARIATIONS: THE AIR IS SWEETEST THAT A THISTLE GUARDS: 2 First Line: Midsummer spreads the ticklish mullein leaf Last Line: And this is good for lovers to remember VARIATIONS: THE AIR IS SWEETEST THAT A THISTLE GUARDS: 3 First Line: Flowers are people Last Line: Insist that each latest %is safest, is sweetest VARIATIONS: THE AIR IS SWEETEST THAT A THISTLE GUARDS: 4 First Line: When at midnight jane took off her mask, Last Line: And the thistles took my hand when I reached for them VARIATIONS: THE AIR IS SWEETEST THAT A THISTLE GUARDS: 5 First Line: Three days I wept in the snow, feet bare Last Line: Became at once of pure pearl made VARIATIONS: THE AIR IS SWEETEST THAT A THISTLE GUARDS: 6 First Line: Friday. Clear. Cool. This is your day. Stendhal Last Line: Is sweetest there. The air is very sweet VERSE FOR URANIA First Line: Through the dimness, curtains drawn, eyes closed Last Line: Flooding both levels with the same sunrise VICTOR DOG First Line: Bix to buxtehude to boulez %the little white dog on the victor label Last Line: No honey for the vanquished? Art is art. %the life it asks of us is a dog's life Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Music And Musicians; Sound Recordings; Trademarks VIEW OF THE BURNING First Line: Righteous or not, here comes an angry man Last Line: On which to feast, grinning ourselves, I fear VIOLENT PASTORAL First Line: Against a thunderhead's Last Line: And was not turned to stone VISION OF THE GARDEN First Line: One winter morning as a child Last Line: Joy outstretched in our bodies' place VOICES FROM THE OTHER WORLD First Line: Presently at our touch the teacup stirred Last Line: Nor the full moon more quick to chill VOL. XLIV. NO. 3 First Line: Room set at infrared Last Line: Joy? The tree sparkles on which it sill die VOLCANIC HOLIDAY First Line: Our helicopter shaking like a fist Last Line: With earth's repose and heaven's masquerades WALKING ALL NIGHT First Line: Now each has climbed to the uninhabitable Last Line: Those cloths aside, your sleep is what I know WALKS IN ROME First Line: Little has changed. Of the buildings -- tufted clay Last Line: Remember that. Who loves you? Write. Keep well WATCHING THE DANCE: 1. BALANCHINE'S First Line: Poor savage, doubting that a river flows Last Line: Be still. Observe the powers. Infer the stream Subject(s): Balanchine, George (1904-1983); Ballet; Dancing And Dancers WATCHING THE DANCE: 2. DISCOTHEQUE First Line: Having survived entirely your own youth Last Line: A teenage plankton luminously twitch Subject(s): Dancing And Dancers WATER HYACINTH First Line: When I was four or so Last Line: It would in sixty years %so vividly congest WATERSPOUT First Line: Where foam-white openwork Last Line: Looks down and keeps his head WE WALK IN WOODS First Line: Of our own words Last Line: I make a silence, briefly? WHITEBEARD ON VIDEOTAPE First Line: Indigo, magenta, color of ghee Last Line: Along with being holy, life was hell WHO GUESSED AMISS THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX First Line: In the night my great swamp-willow fell Last Line: Is gone, as if for having blocked a path WILL First Line: I am standing among the coal black Last Line: Leaving to lovers' lips %all further argument WILLOW First Line: If not, why should the willow bend? It bends Last Line: Past blood and tissue where remembrance lies Subject(s): Willow Trees WILLOWWARE CUP Poem Text First Line: Mass hysteria, wave after breaking wave Subject(s): China (porcelain) WILLOWWARE CUP First Line: Mass hysteria, wave after breaking wave Last Line: Tilted honeycombs, thunderhead blue Subject(s): China (porcelain) WINTER WORDS, MANHATTAN First Line: When the young farm laborer Last Line: To me before I found it, %would I cry and for whom WINTERING WEEDS First Line: At last through a deprived dusk we felt Last Line: In the stunned road waking beneath his feet WORDS FOR MARIA First Line: Unjeweled in black as ever comedienne Last Line: Across a brow of faint lines powdered tuberose WORDS FOR THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT First Line: The tongues leap on the summit of your will Last Line: Bubble, the quetzal floating up and up WORLD AND THE CHILD First Line: Letting his wisdom be the whole of love Last Line: Falls on the child awake and wearied of WREATH FOR THE WARM-EYED First Line: Flowers inside the thirteen-year high walls Last Line: Outplayed, play out his patience quite alone YAM First Line: Rind and resurrection, hell and seed Last Line: Against-inhuman-odds-I-celebrate YANNINA First Line: Somnambulists along the promenade Last Line: Buried in his by then snow white beard ZENO REMINDED OF A FAMILY QUARREL First Line: As for continuance of the race Last Line: Has not caught up with me, and never will!' |
|