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Discover our poem explanations - click here!Searching... Author: CIARDI, JOHN Matches Found: 863 Ciardi, John Poet's Biography 863 poems available by this author 0.22 First Line: The legend is bull's eye, part of a local scene Last Line: Death was once a barefoot boy Subject(s): Guns 1-JAN-73 First Line: If caledars are made of square holes, something Last Line: Between the year and the year, where zero is Subject(s): Holidays; New Year 11:02 A.M. THE BIRD DISAPPEARED First Line: A humming bird darning the trumpet vine Last Line: And somewhere an examiner shakes his head Subject(s): Hummingbirds 11:02 A.M. THE BIRD DISAPPEARED First Line: A humming bird darning the trumpet vine Last Line: And somewhere an examiner shakes his head Subject(s): Hummingbirds 13-DEC-79 First Line: Three squirrels wound and sprung to this remitted Last Line: In the feast of being able to. Amen 2-JAN-78 First Line: My neighbor and his children are shoveling snow Last Line: I don't much like fish, and don't care what I catch Subject(s): Holidays; New Year 20-MAR-70 First Line: It snowed too thin to fall 4:00 A.M. ON THE TERRACE First Line: I should -- but anyone can and Last Line: Regularly never bring home? A BOX COMES HOME Poem Text First Line: I remember the united states of america Last Line: By the rain and oak leaves on the domino Subject(s): Coffins; Homecoming; World War Ii; Second World War A CONVERSATION WITH LEONARDO Poem Text First Line: It was a stew of a night. The power failed Last Line: You make me grateful I died in in god's formed day Subject(s): Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519); Paintings & Painters A CRATE OF STERLING SILVER LOVING CUPS Poem Text First Line: I had gone to the freightyard auction of steel crates Subject(s): Auctions A LOVE POEM Poem Text First Line: I have labored to for her love Last Line: I can no longer beat time Subject(s): Love – Unrequited A MAN CAME TUESDAY Poem Text Last Line: What are you prepared to believe? Subject(s): Future; Debt A MEMORY OF THE SAD CHAIR Poem Text First Line: All in a dream of the time it was Last Line: We had shared that sadness, but what's the use? Subject(s): Chairs A POEM FOR BENN'S GRADUATION FROM HIGH SCHOOL Poem Text First Line: Whenever I have an appointment to see the assistant Last Line: To be terrified by that thought and its possibilites Subject(s): Fathers & Sons A SUCCESFUL SPECIES Poem Text First Line: Horeshoe crabs, which are not crabs at all Last Line: But the one success of species is to endure Subject(s): Survival A THANKS TO A BOTANIST Poem Text First Line: Setting his camera to blink a frame Last Line: Would be a / visible symphony Subject(s): Photography & Photographers A THOUSANDTH POEM FOR DYLAN THOMAS Poem Text First Line: Waking outside his babylonian binge Last Line: The chlorophyllous dough of the vast ravens of the future Subject(s): Thomas, Dylan (1914-1953) A TRENTA-SEI OF THE PLEASURE WE TAKE .. EARLY DEATH OF KEATS Poem Text First Line: It is old school custom to pretent to be sad Last Line: The saddest music keeps the sweetest time Subject(s): Customs, Social; Keats, John (1795-1821); Poetry & Poets ABOUT ESKIMOS (AND WHY THEY WEAR PANTS) First Line: The eskimos wears pants because Last Line: And thaws his wife, and sing with her: %brrrr! Brrrr! Brrrr! Brrrr! ABOUT MOOSE OR, TO HAIRY COWS, THE HAIRY BULL IS HANDSOMER THAN.... First Line: Bull moose are beastly and contrary Last Line: And so should I. And so would you ABOUT RIVERS AND TOES First Line: A river has a way to go Last Line: To a river most things are the same ABOUT THE TEETH OF SHARKS Poem Text First Line: The thing about a shark is - teeth Last Line: I’ll never know now! Well, goodbye Subject(s): Sharks; Teeth; Toothaches ABOUT THE TEETH OF SHARKS First Line: The thing about a shark is - teeth Last Line: I'll never know now! Well, goodbye Subject(s): Sharks; Teeth ABUNDANCE Poem Text First Line: Once I had 1000 roses Subject(s): Flowers; Disappointment ABUNDANCE First Line: Once I had 1000 roses Last Line: Know -- have known and must remember -- %you ADDIO Poem Text First Line: The corpse my mother made Last Line: Oh, daughter, if I could call Subject(s): Death – Mothers; Corpses ADDIO First Line: The corpse my mother made Last Line: Oh, daughter, if I could call Subject(s): Mothers ADVERTISEMENT First Line: This itch to sit at paper and to say Last Line: They have forgotten, what they itched to make Subject(s): Writing And Writers AFTER SUNDAY DINNER WE UNCLES SNOOZE First Line: Banana-stuffed, the ape behind the brain Last Line: O angels and attendants past the world, %what shall the sleeps of heaven dream but time? AFTER SUNDAY WE UNCLES SNOOZE Poem Text First Line: Banana-stuffed, the ape behind the brain Last Line: What shall the sleeps of heaven dream but time? Subject(s): Apes; Uncles; Food ^ Eating; Sleep AFTERNOON IN THE PARK First Line: I lived an age that could not be Last Line: And, yes, I knew which I had seen AGING LOVERS First Line: Why would they want one another Last Line: To the persuasion fo kindness, and they sing ALEC Poem Text First Line: At niney-seven my uncle found god heavy Last Line: And gilded an unfinished god for its vault Subject(s): Old Age; Uncles ALEC First Line: At ninety-seven my uncle found god heavy Last Line: And gilded an unfinished god in its vaults ALL ABOUT BOYS AND GIRLS First Line: I know all about boys, I do Last Line: That's not for girls! That's not for boys ALPHABESTIARY: A First Line: A is for ant Last Line: Practically %forever Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Ants; Insects ALPHABESTIARY: B First Line: B is for bombers, our national pride Last Line: And for bills and buck, who are studying braille Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; B (letter Of Alphabet) ALPHABESTIARY: C First Line: C is for camel, a very right beast Last Line: From the camel's point of view Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Camels ALPHABESTIARY: G First Line: G, also inevitably, is for the gnu Last Line: To final view the rear end of a horse? Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Gnus ALPHABESTIARY: H First Line: H is, reluctantly, for human, a word Last Line: By a less visible conclusion Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Mankind ALPHABESTIARY: I First Line: I, naturally enough, any author Last Line: In whatever I-dea time is Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Self ALPHABESTIARY: J First Line: J is, splendidly, for john, my Last Line: Name. I mean truly have it Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Names ALPHABESTIARY: M First Line: M is for mothers, who are, above all Last Line: Kept this, things would go badly Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Mothers ALPHABESTIARY: N First Line: N is for nannygoat -- the silly Last Line: And write your own end to my poem Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Goats ALPHABESTIARY: O First Line: O is for ox, by which word we Last Line: Even it would blush for shame Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Animals; Oxen ALPHABESTIARY: Q First Line: Q may as well be for queen Last Line: Than to keep the money up to face value Subject(s): Alphabet Verse ALPHABESTIARY: R First Line: R is for rat, the noise in man's wall Last Line: Don't start saving words till you learn to select Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Rats ALPHABESTIARY: T First Line: T, the turtle, has been a long time coming Last Line: Armor is its own species and survives Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Turtles AN ALPHABESTIARY: B Poem Text First Line: B is for bombers, our national pride Last Line: And for billy and buck, who are studying braille Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; B (letter Of Alphabet) AN ALPHABESTIARY: G Poem Text First Line: G, also inevitably, is for the gnu Subject(s): Alphabet Verse; Gnus AN APARTMENT WITH A VIEW Poem Text First Line: I am in rome, vatican bells tolling Subject(s): Rome, Italy; Christianity AN APOLOGY FOR NOT INVOKING THE MUSE Poem Text First Line: Erato popped in. What a talent for suspicion! Last Line: By those who haven't had your advantages Subject(s): Muses; Poetry & Poets AN ASPECT OF THE AIR Poem Text First Line: Through my hemlocks and the spruce beyond Last Line: The sourceless light. An aspect of the air Subject(s): Light AN EMERITUS ADDRESSES THE SCHOOL Poem Text First Line: No one can wish nothing Subject(s): Life AN INSCRIPTION FOR RICHARD EBERHART First Line: I do not intend the people I know to believe me Subject(s): Eberhart, Richard AN OLD MAN CONFESSES Poem Text First Line: I have no cause, and god has not confessed Last Line: Inside the fact had drained. And then he died Subject(s): Old Age; Boredom ANATOMY LAB First Line: Wavering his scums and incisions Last Line: Let any man have a slice Subject(s): Corpses AND HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED LAST First Line: It was seven slow years and three months-to the day Last Line: And got on. And %we never %were heard %of again AND HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED NEXT First Line: Miss myra and small benn and john l.-those three Last Line: Of miss myra and small benn and john l.-those three AND OFF HE WENT JUST AS PROUD AS YOU PLEASE First Line: Said billy to willy, %'you have a silly name' Last Line: For my name, my name, %my name is mine! AND THY MOTHER First Line: In my first dark before the world began Last Line: And nothing happens but the world whirled out ANNALS First Line: Tricodon of bruges, a flemish Last Line: Speaks into van gogh's ear, and all perceive %the action of incorrigible farce ANOTHER COMEDY First Line: In storms of half-light, in a separate, dim Last Line: Goddamn the wood that made his death so long ANSWER First Line: A man I knew met a man he knew Last Line: To ask if it is true APARTMENT WITH A VIEW First Line: I am in rome, vatican bells tolling Last Line: Be all that he was schooled to do APOLOGY FOR A LOST CLASSICISM First Line: I was writing a trentesei for the boat-people Last Line: And need not grieve alone for the boat-people APOLOGY FOR NOT INVOKING THE MUSE First Line: Erato popped in. What a talent for suspicion Last Line: And yet ... APPREHENDEE THEN EXITED VEE-HICLE Poem Text First Line: Sorry, said the cop who had shot me Subject(s): Identity; Police; Wit & Humor APPREHENDEE THEN EXITED VEE-HICLE First Line: Sorry,' said the cop who had shot me Last Line: Thank you,' I told him, 'I feel it coming on' AQUARIUM First Line: There is almost no such fish as this which is Last Line: Seeing and being seen Subject(s): Fishing And Fishermen ARE WE THROUGH TALKING, I HOPE? First Line: Why do I have to make Last Line: And what sense is there %in that? AS I WOULD WISH YOU BIRDS First Line: Today -- because I must not lie to you Last Line: With me might be, but close your eyes and see ASPECT OF THE AIR First Line: Through my hemlocks and the spruce beyond Last Line: The sourceless light. An aspect of the air AT COCKTAILS First Line: Benny, the albino marmoset Last Line: And ours, and thus, in fact, unequal AT FIRST FLOWER OF THE EASY DAY Last Line: And waved me off the premises AT LEAST WITH GOOD WHISKEY First Line: She gave me a drink and told me she had tried Last Line: Too busy to make a hobby of being sad Subject(s): Drinks And Drinking AT O'HARE First Line: You!' we chanted together. 'how long has it been' Subject(s): O'hare Airport (chicago); Time AT O'HARE First Line: You!' we chanted together. 'how long has it been' Last Line: Longer now. This time forever Subject(s): O'hare Airport (chicago); Time AUBADE Poem Text First Line: Now from the trumpeted and towering morning AUDIT AT KEY WEST Poem Text First Line: You could put silver dollars on my eyes Last Line: Thumbing my clogged skull at the sons of bitches Subject(s): Key West, Florida AUDIT AT KEY WEST First Line: You could put silver dollars on my eyes Last Line: A bomb of lit fuses sputtering day Subject(s): Key West, Florida AUNT MARY Poem Text First Line: Aunt mary died of eating twelve red peppers Last Line: I pray the tear she taught me of us all Subject(s): Death; Aunts; Gluttony; Dead, The AUNT MARY First Line: Aunt mary died of eating twelve red peppers Last Line: I pray the tear she taught me of us all AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A COMEDIAN First Line: Years long in the insanities of adolescence Last Line: Though, having no other, we must, somehow, try €ŒNOTHING IS REALLY HARD BUT TO BE REAL€”€? Poem Text Subject(s): Religion; Poetry & Poets; Theology BABOON AND THE STATE First Line: A dog snout puzzles out the look of a man Last Line: The killers kill. They kill because they can BACK First Line: On the mountain after vesuvius Last Line: Is good. The fave and the olives %are good BACK HOME IN POMPEII Poem Text Last Line: A curiosity / on holiday Subject(s): Pompeii, Ital BACK HOME IN POMPEII Last Line: A curiosity %on holiday Subject(s): Pompeii, Italy BACK THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS TO THIS SIDE First Line: Yesterday, in a big market, I made seven thousand dollars Last Line: A good guy coming home, the long day done BALANCING ACT Poem Text First Line: Somewhere between miss porter (seventh grade) Subject(s): Childhood Memories BALLAD OF HOW ADAM SAW IT Poem Text First Line: Proverbially, old adam Subject(s): Adam & Eve; Eve BALLAD OF THE ICONDIC First Line: It was the year of the incondic Last Line: (now sleep, and you may dream just what %the gawnose watt was doing) BARMECIDE FEAST First Line: I have been told, and have been glad to hear Last Line: My animal could range on feasted assumptions BASHING THE BABIES; EASTER, 1968 First Line: Sometimes you have hardly been born Last Line: Any suggestions? Well, have a good day Subject(s): Babies; Infants BASHING THE BABIES; EASTER, 1968 First Line: Sometimes you have hardly been born Last Line: Any suggestions? -- well, have a good day Subject(s): Babies BEDLAM First Line: Nobody told me anything much. I was born Last Line: Later they changed the number and we moved away BEDLAM REVISITED Poem Text First Line: Nobody told me anythng much. I was born Last Line: Later they changed the number and we moved away Subject(s): Family Life BEES AND MORNING GLORIES First Line: Morning glories, pale as a mist drying Last Line: And the prize was there to be taken BEES AND MORNING GLORY Poem Text First Line: Morning glories, pale as a mist drying Subject(s): Bees; Morning Glories; Transience; Beekeeping; Impermanence BEING CALLED; A BREAKFAST REVERIE IN KEY WEST First Line: The resident dispenser of bromides Last Line: Wrong quaver that began as mozart BENEFITS OF EDUCATION; BOSTON, 1931 First Line: A hulk, three masted once, three snubbed now Last Line: And for the kingdoms opening like a book BENN First Line: There once was a something-a boy, I guess Last Line: And better than that , he was my boy-benn! BETTY BOOPER First Line: This is little betty booper Subject(s): Dinners & Dining; Food & Eating; Gluttony; Popcorn BETTY BOOPER First Line: This is little betty booper Last Line: Chop the door down! %... Well, too late Subject(s): Dinners And Dining; Food And Eating; Gluttony; Popcorn BETWEEN First Line: I threw a stick. The dog Subject(s): Animals; Dogs BETWEEN First Line: I threw a stick. The dog Last Line: And I threw, and he fetched Subject(s): Animals; Dogs BICENTENNIAL First Line: This official bicentennial arts person programming Subject(s): American Revolution Bicentennial (1976); Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963) BICENTENNIAL First Line: This official bicentennial arts person programming Last Line: A wall of buttons blinking data dead Subject(s): American Revolution Bicentennial (1976); Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963) BIOGRAPHY Poem Text First Line: He will not answer now Last Line: But will not answer now and not answer Subject(s): Science BIOGRAPHY First Line: He will not answer now. He will go down Last Line: But will not answer now and will not answer BIRD IN WHATEVER NAME First Line: A bird with a name it does not itself Last Line: Told od itself, whatever name is given Subject(s): Names BIRD WATCHING Poem Text First Line: Every time we put crumbs out and sunflower Last Line: Be bread and seed in time: all else will follow Subject(s): Bird-watching BIRD WATCHING First Line: Every time we put crumbs out and sunflower Last Line: Be bread and seed in time: all else will follow Subject(s): Bird-watching BIRDS, LIKE THOUGHTS First Line: Watch a wild turkey come in to land Last Line: More instant as they stay light. Both come and gone BIRTHDAY First Line: A fat sicty-year-old man woke me. 'hello Subject(s): Aging BIRTHDAY First Line: A fat sicty-year-old man woke me. 'hello Last Line: Don't shrug away,' he said, 'there's nowhere to go' Subject(s): Aging BLABBERHEAD First Line: The blabberhead is blubbery Last Line: That a universal snubbery %will certainly ensue BLUE MOVIE Poem Text First Line: There is no cause for love in such a script Last Line: The disassembled gestures of the dead Subject(s): Motion Pictures; Pornography; Movies; Cinema BLUE MOVIE First Line: There is no cause for love in such a script Last Line: The disassembled gestures of the dead Subject(s): Motion Pictures; Pornography BOX COMES HOME First Line: I remember the united states of america Last Line: At the red-taped grave in woodmere %by the rain and oakleaves on the domino Subject(s): Coffins; Homecoming; World War Ii BOY Poem Text First Line: He is in his room sulked shut. The small Last Line: May sons forgive the fathers they obey Subject(s): Fathers & Sons BOY First Line: He is in his room sulked shut. The small Last Line: May sons forgive the fathers they obey Subject(s): Fathers And Sons BOY OR GIRL Poem Text First Line: White rows of suburbs alternate with trees Last Line: Turn off your light and take the nighttime in Subject(s): Youth; Suburbs; Night BOY OR GIRL First Line: White rows of suburbs alternate with trees Last Line: Turn off you light and take the nighttime in BRIDAL PHOTO, 1906 Poem Text First Line: A ceremonial rose in the lapel Last Line: Her hand at total rest under his hand Subject(s): Parents; Parenthood BRIDAL PHOTO, 1906 First Line: A ceremonial rose in the lapel Last Line: I am the son of this man and this woman Subject(s): Parents BUMP! BANG! BUMP! First Line: Someone-and I mean you, my sweet Last Line: And lock him up and feed him hay! CALL IT A DAY First Line: On a day I long since started Last Line: And I did. And we started to CALLING ALL COWBOYS First Line: Some of the cowboys I know best Last Line: And I'm out to get him. He's wanted-for bed! CAMPTOWN Poem Text First Line: The streets that slept all afternoon in sun Last Line: And we're late and lost unless we run Subject(s): War CAMPTOWN First Line: The streets that slept all afternoon in sun Last Line: And we're late and lost unless we run Subject(s): War CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHY? Last Line: Is there anymore here who can tell me why? CAPTAIN NICHOLAS STRONG First Line: The moon with venus in her sickle blade Last Line: Troubled his health for mercies with no name CAPTAIN SPUD AND HIS FIRST MATE, SPADE First Line: Tough captain spud and his first mate, spade CARTOGRAPHER OF MEADOWS First Line: The cartographer of meadows does not rose Last Line: As he moves to amber from his resinous drowning CARVING THE TURKEY First Line: Meleager, one of jason's heroes, died Last Line: If only by error. Is everyone served? -- dig in Subject(s): Meleager (100 B.c.); Turkeys CAT HEARD THE CAT-BIRD First Line: One day, a fine day, a high-flying-sky day Subject(s): Animals; Cats CATALPA First Line: The catalpa's white week is ending there Last Line: What should I keep if averages were all? CATHEDRAL Poem Text First Line: One by one the bells have broken their music Last Line: And sun beats down beyond the broken door Subject(s): Churches; Cathedrals CATHEDRAL First Line: One by one the bells have broken their music Last Line: And sun beats down beyond the broken door Subject(s): Churches CAUGHT AS WE ARE First Line: Caught as we all are in the human condition CENSORSHIP Poem Text First Line: Damn that celibate farm, that cracker-box house Last Line: We're watching you! Subject(s): Hate; Parents; Sex; Parenthood CENSORSHIP First Line: Damn that celibate farm, that cracker-box house Last Line: And the plumbing would howl from hell, 'we're %watching you' Subject(s): Hate; Parents; Sex CEZANNE First Line: When I returned from you in the blue of midnight Last Line: Yet she believes a man may say 'I love you' %on arriving, leaving, and all the night between Subject(s): Cezanne, Paul (1839-1906); Love; Paintings And Painters; Truth CHANG MCTANG MCQUARTER CAT Poem Text Subject(s): Cats; Mathematics CHAP WHO DISAPPEARED First Line: There was a drowsy sort of chap Last Line: Why he was never seen again CHELSEA NAVAL HOSPITAL First Line: Oceans beyond the nearest war we fought Last Line: And the barbed fences that defend your wound Subject(s): Hospitals; Veterans CHILDE HAROLD TO THE DARK TOWER CAME First Line: Well, they loaded him with armor and left Last Line: Or if you're real %magic, change him! Change him! CHRISTMAS ALONE IN KEY WEST First Line: That christmas alone in no difference really Last Line: Is there's no reason to go and less to stay Subject(s): Christmas; Selkirk, Alexander (1676-1721); Solitude CHRISTMAS CAROL First Line: The stores wore christmas perfectly Last Line: Morning after memory Subject(s): Christmas Gifts CHRISTMAS EVE Poem Text First Line: Salvation's angel in a tree Last Line: I leave it on and go to bed Subject(s): Christmas; Nativity, The CHRISTMAS EVE First Line: Salvation's angel in a tree Last Line: I leave it on and go to bed Subject(s): Christmas CLOCK IN THE MIRROR First Line: This is the blur of dimension, the past arriving Last Line: In a cubic mirror. Which if ourselves shall we be? Subject(s): Relativity COLOSSUS IN QUICKSAND First Line: One night I read philosophy Last Line: Still standing higher than the sky COME MORNING Poem Text First Line: A young cock in his plebe strut Last Line: For it, and makes it official. It's / morning Subject(s): Morning COME MORNING First Line: A young cock in his plebe strut Last Line: For it, and makes it official. It's %morning Subject(s): Morning COME TO THINK OF IT First Line: I know someone who lives at the zoo Last Line: But, yes, come to think of it, the monkey would do! COMPOSITION FOR A NATIVITY; ISTE PERFECIT OPUS First Line: There are three central figues preoccupied by toplighting Last Line: To rescue identity from all assemblage %of night wonders, a way of wishing well CONVERSATION WITH LEONARDO First Line: It was a stew of a night. The power failed Last Line: I went down and opened a bottle and sat to the dark Subject(s): Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519); Paintings And Painters COQ AU VIN First Line: In paris once, just as the waiter Last Line: And I flung down my napkin and fled %with a sound in me like ripped cloth Subject(s): Paris, France; Restaurants CORPUS CHRISTI First Line: Once a year in some self-secreting lent Last Line: The dark and drift of whatever it is we do COUNTING ON FLOWERS First Line: Once around a daisy counting Last Line: Entirely a flower at the end COW First Line: A greensweet breathing Last Line: In a foreground of the hills Subject(s): Cows CRAFT First Line: A cherry red chrome dazzle Last Line: Some loud night on the interstate CRATE OF STERLING LOVING CUPS First Line: I had gone to a freightyard auction of sealed crates Last Line: Soup is a good that doesn't invite ambition CREDIBILITY Poem Text First Line: Who could believe an ant in theory? CREDIBILITY First Line: Who could believe an any in theory? Last Line: And therefore to teach reason reason CREDO (1) First Line: Today %dr. William carlos williams Last Line: And wrote the name of sunlight on a plum Subject(s): Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963) CREDO (2) First Line: I asked the doctor who had pronounced me dead Last Line: Assured that every error must yield to style DAEMONS Poem Text First Line: I pass enough savages on the street Last Line: In you, living what you live by Subject(s): Mothers DAEMONS First Line: I pass enough savages on the street Last Line: Making the music you didn't know was %in you, living at what you live by DAMN HER First Line: Of all her appalling virtues, none Last Line: Says over empty shells. 'bring on %the body and the blood' DAMNATION OF DOVES First Line: Where did doves perch before there were telephone wires Last Line: Or whatever does for ritual in a.D. Subject(s): Doves DARLING First Line: Some have meant only, though curiously Last Line: But in one slow though gentling to forgiveness DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE Poem Text First Line: First a monkey, then a man Last Line: Just the way the world began Subject(s): Space & Space Travel; Outer Space; Fourth Dimension DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE First Line: First a monkey, then a man Last Line: Just the way the world began Subject(s): Space And Space Travel DAY OF THE PEONIES First Line: This is the day of the peonies. My daughter DAYS First Line: Something in the wild cherry Last Line: And the long weather, %what walks the field is man DEAD PIGEON ON SOUTH STREET First Line: A crumb or maybe a peanut dropped in the suburb Last Line: The lawns had been saved for auntie and we all felt good Subject(s): Pigeons DEAR SIR First Line: Dear sir: we haven't met but my father knew you Last Line: And in some sense I suppose yours also -- %john DEATH OF A BOMBER First Line: We saw the smoke. The blue skull of the sky Last Line: Someone began a drawn-out bedroom joke Subject(s): Air Warfare DEATH'S THE CLASSIC LOOK Poem Text First Line: Death's the classic look, it goes Subject(s): Death; Dead, The DEATHS ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU STIR IN SLEEP Last Line: Our best will be to dream what we were Subject(s): Death; Sleep DEATHS THEY ARE, THOSE GREAT EYES FROM THE AIR DIALOGUE First Line: Good-morning,' says the fine brisk man in the mirror Last Line: But we musn't -- now must we? -- tell DIALOGUE IN THE SHADE First Line: Said the damaged angel to the improved ape Last Line: Among them soul-sure of his father and mother DIALOGUE WITH OUTER SPACE First Line: Do you? Last Line: Because I was born DIARY ENTRY Poem Text First Line: I was in a mood for disaster Last Line: Trying to do business on his scale Subject(s): Diaries DIARY ENTRY First Line: I was in a mood for disaster Last Line: Trying to do business on his scale Subject(s): Diaries DIFFERENCES Poem Text First Line: Choose your own difference between surgery Last Line: And what difference will it make? Subject(s): Surgery DIFFERENCES First Line: Choose your own difference between surgery Last Line: And what difference will it make? Subject(s): Surgery DIVORCED HUSBAND DEMOLISHES HOUSE; NEWS ITEM Poem Text First Line: It is time to break a house Last Line: Done with. Let it come down Subject(s): Divorce DIVORCED HUSBAND DEMOLISHES HOUSE; NEWS ITEM First Line: It is time to break a house Last Line: Done with. Let it come down Subject(s): Divorce DOGMATISM First Line: Between my right big toe, sir, and my bent Last Line: And I am just the dog you are DOING A GOOD DEED First Line: At the foot of the hill, the ice-cream truck Last Line: Especially when he's the ice-cream man DOLLAR DOG (1) First Line: A dollar dog is all mixed up Last Line: Flap-eared, bull-faced, bumble-paw, %stub-tailed, short-haired, biscuit hound Subject(s): Animals; Dogs DOLLAR DOG (2) First Line: I had a dollar dog named spot Last Line: But a lot of kinds to get for a dollar Subject(s): Animals DOLLS First Line: Night after night forever the dolls lay stiff Last Line: Their eyes wide open forever, while all the children slept Subject(s): Dolls; Toys DOMESTIC SONNET First Line: The cat gave birth to an adder. The dog died Last Line: It works somehow, never entirely well Subject(s): Pets DOMESTICITY Poem Text First Line: Because the cat is hungry I must not nap Subject(s): Cats DONE FOR THE DOING First Line: Ape-handed, too bungle -knuckled Last Line: And then, having been DONNE CH'AVETE INTELLETTO D'AMORE; AN ELEGY FOR AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM First Line: Mary and I were having an emotion Last Line: O intellect of love, may I prove worthy? Subject(s): Education DONNE CH'AVETE INTELLETTO D'AMORE; AN ELEGY FOR AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM First Line: Mary and I were having an emotion Last Line: O intellect of love, may I prove worthy Subject(s): Education DOODLES First Line: Except for abstract liberty and susan b. DOWN NARROW STAIRS FROM A THIN EYE First Line: If all example is from nature, I Last Line: Except to go away from an gladly DRAGONS Poem Text First Line: Dragons are not the only beasts Last Line: May be very much to your advantage Subject(s): Dragons DRAGONS First Line: Dragons are not the only beasts Last Line: May be very much to your advantage Subject(s): Dragons DREAM First Line: I had a dream once of dancing with a tiger. As it took Last Line: To one side of all tigers in my arms? DRIVING ACROSS THE AMERICAN DESERT AND THINKING OF THE SAHARA First Line: I hang the cloth water bag from the door mirror Last Line: Outside dens we come to -- form again EARLY BIRD First Line: The early bird - so I have read Last Line: Spoils mine. Call me at noon EAST SIXTY-SEVENTH STREET Poem Text First Line: Any man -- god, if he had the money Last Line: Because we are what we are and that hurts Subject(s): Drinks & Drinking; Poetry & Poets; Gays &y Lesbians; O'hara, Frank (1926-1966) EAST SIXTY-SEVENTH STREET First Line: Wondering what to take seriously Last Line: But because we are what we are and some of it hurts EASTER BUNNY, SELS. First Line: There once was an egg that felt funny Last Line: There's a date I must keep,' %said the bunny, and hip-hopped away Subject(s): Spring ECHOES First Line: Mother and father knew god and were glad to explain Last Line: Except that it pleased me to be touched in the telling EGGS First Line: The egg a chick pokes its head out of Last Line: That they are all hell to fertilize Subject(s): Eggs ELAINE Poem Text First Line: Elaine, the counter-girl from the hat department Last Line: Nor the toes of the silver slippers worn Subject(s): Girls; Salespersons; Selling ELAINE First Line: Elaine, the counter-girl from the hat department Last Line: Nor the toes of the silver slippers worn Subject(s): Girls; Salespersons ELEGY Poem Text First Line: My father was born with a spade in his hand and traded it Last Line: Hymned out my blood to glory, for one good reason Subject(s): Fathers ELEGY Poem Text First Line: I dram awake in the uptown morning Last Line: I dram awake in the uptown morning Subject(s): Death ELEGY First Line: My father was born with a spade in his hand and traded it Last Line: Hymned out my blood to glory, for one good reason Subject(s): Fathers ELEGY 1 First Line: I fell from the bouncing tailgate to roll in traffic Last Line: Till all my tears had whispered 'make me whole' Subject(s): Automobile Accidents ELEGY 2 First Line: I dream awake in the uptown morning Last Line: In a dream-assaulted morning of the dead ELEGY 3. CAVALCANTE First Line: It was cavalcante,' my mother said, 'killed you father' Last Line: I stood in the wreck of the death that had been my blood Subject(s): Automobile Accidents; Fathers ELEGY FOR A CAVE FULL OF BONES Poem Text First Line: Tibia, tarsal, skull, and shin Subject(s): World War Ii; Second World War ELEGY FOR A CAVE FULL OF BONES First Line: Tibia, tarsal, skull, and shin Last Line: I have seen our failure in %tibia, tarsal, skull, and shin Subject(s): World War Ii ELEGY FOR A SEAMAN Poem Text First Line: They say there is no motion undersea Subject(s): Seamen ELEGY FOR A SWEET SHARPY First Line: When everyone else dropped in a handful of dirt Last Line: It is longer than lilies to be remembered in kind ELEGY FOR G.B. SHAW Poem Text First Line: Administrators of minutes into hours Last Line: The race we are not in the race we are Subject(s): Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) ELEGY FOR G.B. SHAW First Line: Administrators of minutes into hours Last Line: The race we are not in the race we are Subject(s): Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) ELEGY FOR JOG Poem Text First Line: Stiff-dog death, all froth on a bloody chin Last Line: He had to bite the tire. Fools have no luck Subject(s): Animals; Dogs ELEGY FOR JOG First Line: Stiff-dog death, all froth on a bloody chin Last Line: He had to bite the tire. Fools have no luck Subject(s): Animals; Dogs ELEGY FOR MORAL SELF-ASSURANCE AND COUNTRY VIRTUE First Line: I could have plowed the slim forty and back in eighty Last Line: On shares to jimmy lee shaw and his boy fred ELEGY FOR SAM First Line: Here's one more dead man, boxed, nosegayed Last Line: Hello. Mrs. Buff-orpington. Cluck-cluck ELEGY FOR SANDRO Poem Text First Line: Read down into the dead and close ELEGY FOR THE FACE AT YOUR ELBOW Poem Text First Line: You know and I know what breeds in the dark Last Line: And nothing you do or dare to drink will break it out of your mind Subject(s): "cody, William ""buffalo Bill"" (1846-1917); ELEGY FOR THE FACE AT YOUR ELBOW First Line: You know and I know what breeds in the dark Last Line: And nothing you do or dare or drink will break it out of your mind ELEGY JUST IN CASE Poem Text First Line: Here lie ciardi's pearly bones Subject(s): World War Ii; Second World War ELEGY JUST IN CASE First Line: Here lie ciardi's pearly bones Last Line: Fragments of a written stone %undeciphered but surmised Subject(s): World War Ii ELEGY: 1. AS I FIND MYSELF REMEMBERING First Line: But because he bought me my first puppy (a brownsilk Last Line: And I am ashamed to remember how he could laugh once Subject(s): Uncles ELEGY: 1. AS I HEAR THE FAMILY THINKING First Line: This is the body of my good gray practical dead Last Line: But a family. And one that knows what to do Subject(s): Funerals; Uncles ELEGY: FOR YOU, FATHER Poem Text First Line: Father, under the stone, accept your ruin Last Line: The end of heaven and the need of earth Subject(s): Death – Fathers ELEGY: FOR YOU, FATHER First Line: Father, under the stone, accept your ruin Last Line: The end of heaven and the need of earth Subject(s): Fathers ELEGY; FOR KURT PORJESCZ, MISSING IN ACTION, 1 APRIL 1945 Poem Text First Line: Some gone like boys to school wearing their badges Last Line: Discuss our futures, and have not concurred Subject(s): World War Ii; Second World War ELEGY; FOR KURT PORJESCZ, MISSING IN ACTION, 1 APRIL 1945 First Line: Some gone like boys to school wearing their badges Last Line: Discuss our futures, and have not concurred Subject(s): World War Ii EMERITUS ADDRESSING THE SCHOOL First Line: No one can wish nothing Last Line: Begun and lived and slept on and begun ENCOUNTER First Line: We,' said my young radical neighbor, smashing my window Last Line: Given young legs, they have no trouble at fences ENGLISH A First Line: No paraphrase does Last Line: You whatsoever %wish. Period Subject(s): English Language EPITAPH First Line: Here, time concurring (and it does) Last Line: This one, beside it, is a slum EPITHALAMIUM AT ST. MICHAEL'S CEMETERY First Line: My father lay fifty years in st. Michael's bed Last Line: He sets his bounds by. Or that simply is Subject(s): Cemeteries; Fathers EVENING OF THE PRIVATE EYE First Line: I live, therefore I love, said the excerpt-lifter Last Line: Including airs, and summoning bones to sing EVENSONG First Line: In late afternoon, when the light Last Line: Is, finally, the grace there is EVERYTIME YOU ARE SLEEPING AND I Last Line: Thus thought of in any way nor I EVERYWHERE THAT UNIVERSE Poem Text First Line: Even wisteria, carefully looked at EVERYWHERE THAT UNIVERSE First Line: Even wisteria, sufficiently looked at Last Line: Behind any leaf his waiting turns? EVIL EYE First Line: Nona poured oil on the water and saw the eye Last Line: Though I had one already and the other came Subject(s): Italy; Superstition EXEGESIS OF AN ALLEGORICAL TEXT First Line: So xiii, 1, 'I yearn, therefore, I am' EXIT LINE First Line: Love should intent realities. Goodbye EXPENDABILITY First Line: Thinking too much of death by curves of chance Last Line: Nearest to hand to prove I will not die FABLE OF SURVIVAL First Line: One of my neighbors began digging himself Last Line: That's when I understood about survival Subject(s): Survival FACES First Line: Once in canandaigua, hitchhiking from ann arbor Last Line: You know as much about that face as I do Subject(s): Faces FANTASY ECHO First Line: Miss merely asked me about 'the fantasy echo' FAST AS YOU CAN COUNT TO TEN Poem Text Subject(s): Forgiveness; Clemency FAST AS YOU CAN COUNT TO TEN Last Line: If you please, your used mercies FEASTS First Line: My uncle alec's friend, dominic cataldo Last Line: That flowered forever, till it wasn't there FIDDLE PRACTICE First Line: I guess you know Last Line: That's good enough for me FIGURE DRAWN IN WIRE; TO MARY AND JOHN AND DICK AND DICK First Line: The curlicue ego bends its own way Last Line: The all-in-all, the me in you, the you in me FINALLY THAT BLUE RECEDING SPHERE First Line: It is only after Last Line: At least you have said it FIRST SNOW ON AN AIRFIELD Poem Text First Line: A window's length beyond the pleiades Subject(s): Airports FIRSTS First Line: At forty, home from traveled intention Last Line: For what I had done with his gift, once perfect FLOWERING QUINCE Poem Text First Line: This devils me: uneasy ease at my window Subject(s): Trees FLOWERING QUINCE First Line: This devils me: uneasy at my window Last Line: Nor than the dreams of angels which they fling %age after age at the invincible world FOOD NOTES First Line: Asparagus is back in all its glory Last Line: Asparagus is here in all its glory Subject(s): Asparagus; Vegetables FOOLISH WING First Line: Is done now with bright thinness of upper air. Weight Last Line: It is time's journalism only: we are reporting merely Subject(s): Time Magazine FOR INSTANCE Poem Text First Line: A boy came up the street and there was a girl FOR INSTANCE First Line: A boy came up the street and there was a girl Last Line: Is a learning experience. Maybe nothing is FOR JUDITH First Line: Waiting %seems to be most of everything Last Line: It ends where you begin FOR MILLER WILLIAMS Poem Text First Line: Though miller lives in arkansas Last Line: The chicken-shit of death Subject(s): Williams, Miller FOR MILLER WILLIAMS First Line: Though miller lives in arkansas Last Line: That sugars sorghum and turns white %the chicken-shit of death Subject(s): Williams, Miller FOR MY 25TH BIRTHDAY IN 1941 First Line: So sleep undoes itself and I arrive Subject(s): War FOR MY NEPHEW GOING TO BED First Line: It takes a whole house to put a child to bed Last Line: Surprised that I have this much pity left Subject(s): Night FOR MY SON JOHN Poem Text First Line: Jonnel, this is for you -- my river-saint-named Last Line: The first life and the first and still the first Subject(s): Fathers & Sons FOR MY SON JOHN First Line: Jonnel, this is for you -- my river-saint-named Last Line: The first life and the first and still the first Subject(s): Fathers And Sons FOR MYRA OUT OF THE ALBUM Poem Text First Line: I changed the baby,fed it, dithered Last Line: I have been here, and some of it was love Subject(s): Babies; Infants FOR MYRA OUT OF THE ALBUM First Line: I changed the baby,fed it, dithered Last Line: I have been here, and some of it was love Subject(s): Babies FOR MYRA, JOHN L., AND BENN Poem Text First Line: If poets are evidence, let's begin with the fact Last Line: I hope I was never too much in your way Subject(s): Children; Parents; Childhood FOR MYRA, JOHN L., AND BENN First Line: If poets are evidence, let's begin with the fact Last Line: I hope I was never too much in your way Subject(s): Children FOR SOMEONE ON HIS TENTH BIRTHDAY First Line: So you're ten! When that's two numbers old? Last Line: By the time you change from two numbers to three? FORMALITIES First Line: On september 2, 1945 Last Line: If only he were a civilian Subject(s): Macarthur, General Douglas (1880-1964); World War Ii FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY POEM Poem Text First Line: It was. I explained to judith Subject(s): Man-woman Relationships; Male-female Relations FOUR THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT A GOAT First Line: Four things about a billy goat Last Line: (and the 'baaaah!' you hear then means 'that's that!') FRAGMENT Poem Text First Line: To the laboratory then I went. What little Last Line: I saw an ogre's eye leap from his face FRAGMENT First Line: To the laboratory then I went. What little Last Line: I saw an ogre's eye leap from his face FRAGMENT OF A BAS RELIEF First Line: The knife, the priest, the heifer Last Line: How shall I ever believe the world is real? FRAGMENTS FROM ITALY: 1 Poem Text First Line: Nona domenica garnaro sits in the sun Last Line: Both of her thumbs, and she look down at it Subject(s): Italy; Italians FRAGMENTS FROM ITALY: 1 First Line: Nona domenica garnaro sits in the sun Last Line: Both of her thumbs, and she look down at it Subject(s): Italy FRAGMENTS FROM ITALY: 2 First Line: One day I went to look at the mediterranean Last Line: And I saw there was no practice in the sea Subject(s): Italy; Mediterranean Sea FRAGMENTS FROM ITALY: 3 First Line: A man-face gathered on the eyes of a child Last Line: A gargoyle might stare down at running water Subject(s): Italy FRAGMENTS FROM ITALY: 4 First Line: You would never believe to watch this man Last Line: Through all of europe and the island-south %the kingdoms and their kings were told about Subject(s): Italy FRAGMENTS FROM ITALY: 5 First Line: What the roman sun says to the romans Last Line: I have said to you in all the tongues of sleep Subject(s): Italy FRAGMENTS FROM ITALY: 6 First Line: The mountains quiver like a low flame Last Line: All but these repetitions of the air Subject(s): Italy FRAGMENTS FROM ITALY: 7. NAPLES First Line: I saw at a table of the bombed cafe Last Line: Changed into flies and drew a cloud about him Subject(s): Flies; Naples, Italy; Ruins FRESHMAN SONNET: SUCCESS First Line: Success in life is when one has a goal Last Line: Depends, of course, on getting along with your wife FRIENDS Poem Text First Line: A man from a house not far who rode the train Last Line: To all the people there we think we know Subject(s): Friendship FRIENDS First Line: A man from a house not far who rode the train Last Line: To all the people there we think we know Subject(s): Friendship FRIENDSHIP First Line: Willy the weep and sad terry and I Last Line: We knew it just had to be true FROM ADAM'S DIARY First Line: In the planetarium of an apple tree Last Line: It all would be. Some day. Whatever tree GALILEO AND THE LAWS First Line: Galileo thought he saw Last Line: Galileo thought he saw? Subject(s): Galileo (1564-1642) GARDEN NOTES FROM ZANZIBAR First Line: The roses down in zanzibar Last Line: What zanzibarians call zinnias GENERATION GAP First Line: He parted a beard where his mouth might be Last Line: I hadn't known till now I was giving it GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE Poem Text First Line: The buttresses of morning lift the sun Last Line: The eye's adagio and the blood's excitement Subject(s): George Washington Bridge GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE First Line: The buttresses of morning lift the sun Last Line: The eye's adagio and the blood's excitement Subject(s): George Washington Bridge GET UP OR YOU'LL BE LATE FOR SCHOOL, SILLY! First Line: Someone I know-and he's very near Last Line: You had better get up! %-well! How do you do? GIFT First Line: In 1945, when the keepers cried kaput Last Line: That clean white paper waiting under a pen %is the gift beyond history and hurt and heaven Subject(s): Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Jews GIRLS GOING TO CHURCH Poem Text First Line: Morning is easter on the lawns Subject(s): Public Worship; Girls; Church Attendance GLORY First Line: My wife said, 'there's an angel at the door' Last Line: Thew glory is met in ritual, there is none GOD First Line: I used to be good friends with god, but he Last Line: But she's dead. And who is left to lie to? GOING LATE TO NEW BRUNSWICK First Line: When you have exactly two dollars and the fare GOING TO THE DOGS First Line: The head of the german shepherd I have now Last Line: Even by a gut that pretends love Subject(s): Animals; Dogs GOOD AND BAD HABITS (THEY ARE SOMETIMES MIXED.) First Line: There once were two slovenly chaps Last Line: Is the sign of a well-ordered mind GOOD MORNING WITH LIGHT; TO TOM AND HELEN FERRIL Poem Text First Line: Civilian for a pause of hours Last Line: The starting spectrum of the dawn Subject(s): War GOOD MORNING WITH LIGHT; TO TOM AND HELEN FERRIL First Line: Civilian for a pause of hours Last Line: The starting spectrum of the dawn Subject(s): War GOODNIGHT First Line: An oyster that went to bed x-million years ago Last Line: If I am not here for breakfast, geologize at will GRAY SPRING MORNING First Line: I can just see from the attic window Last Line: To out-echo all arches %by looking there GREAT NEWS First Line: Someone heard the whole town saying Last Line: Went to bed when it was time! GUIDE TO POETRY; FOR CID CORMAN, WHO NEEDS IT LEAST First Line: One good poet gives an age its voice Last Line: And all you'll lack is sense and poetry Subject(s): Poetry And Poets GULLS LAND AND CEASE TO BE Poem Text First Line: Spread back across the air, wings wide Last Line: And are aground Subject(s): Death – Animals; Gulls GULLS LAND AND CEASE TO BE First Line: Spread back across the air, wings wide Last Line: And are aground HABITAT Poem Text First Line: The satellite telephone building has no lights HAIRY-NOSED PREPOSTEROUS Last Line: On the end of his capable nose HAPPINESS First Line: Whenever I waken and this animal Last Line: To live and die inaccurately. Amen HAPPY FAMILY First Line: Before the children say goodnight Last Line: Sweetly screaming to be fed HAWK First Line: It circled, hand, and circled. I watched it come Last Line: To keep the symbol but to shoot the bird Subject(s): Birds; Hawks HEALTH OF CAPTAINS First Line: The health of captains is the sex of war Last Line: The womb of woman is the kit of war Subject(s): War HEARSAY First Line: The whispering hearsay lives its life Last Line: It snarls back, 'could you do it?' HEATWAVE First Line: By ten we know the day is out of order Last Line: All given to being, a gentler way to die Subject(s): Heat HIGH TENSION LINES ACROSS A LANDSCAPE Poem Text First Line: There are diagrams on stilts all wired together HIGH TENSION WIRES ACROSS A LANDSCAPE First Line: There are diagrams on stilts all wired together Last Line: And what a bald head chewed on my sick heart HOME REVISITED: MIDNIGHT Poem Text First Line: I am the shadow in the shadow of the wicker Last Line: At the center of the center where the shadows throng Subject(s): Homecoming HOME REVISITED: MIDNIGHT First Line: I am the shadow in the shadow of the wicker Last Line: At the center of the center where the shadows throng? Subject(s): Homecoming HOMECOMING - MASSACHUSETTS Poem Text First Line: After the satyr's twilight in the park Last Line: Nothing in our beginnings know our ends Subject(s): Homecoming HOMECOMING - MASSACHUSETTS First Line: After the satyr's twilight in the park Last Line: Nothing in our beginnings know our ends Subject(s): Homecoming HOMETOWN Poem Text First Line: The three pronged armory tower, the civic statue Subject(s): Home; City & Town Life HOMETOWN AFTER A WAR Poem Text First Line: The river blackens in a frame of snow Last Line: Before the war war was ended we were gone from there Subject(s): Homecoming; Veterans HOMETOWN AFTER A WAR First Line: The river blackens in a frame of snow Last Line: Learning what we left for lost, was not Subject(s): Homecoming; Veterans HOW TO TELL THE TOP OF A HILL First Line: The top of a hill %is not until Last Line: The next step up is sky I PICKED A DREAM OUT OF MY HEAD Poem Text Last Line: To find in just one head Subject(s): Dreams I PICKED A DREAM OUT OF MY HEAD Last Line: To find in just one head Subject(s): Authors And Authorship; Poetry And Poets I REMEMBER THE HOUSE THAT WAS DOWN FROM PORTLAND ROAD Last Line: Was at the party in the house that was Subject(s): Houses I WAS NOT SLEEPING NOR AWAKE First Line: I was not sleeping nor awake. It was Last Line: When I woke, all I thought would be there, was I WISH I COULD MEET THE MAN THAT KNOWS Last Line: And as I do, I want to spank him I'M NO GOOD FOR YOU AND YOU Last Line: Rarely) does (now) entirely %come IF YOU SHOULD FALL, DON'T FORGET THIS First Line: Someone big and someone small Last Line: You have less to pick up. Now isn't that true? IMAGE OF MAN AS A GARDENER, AFTER TWO WORLD WARS First Line: In the dead hour of the afternoon Last Line: Through every cat's-paw on the procurable stones IMPROVISATION FOR A SOUTHERN NIGHT First Line: The native's myth, as lavish as the night Last Line: To certify a human night again Subject(s): Night IN PAUL'S ROOM First Line: This is paul whose habits are Last Line: Could I taste the paul in you? IN PITY AS WE KISS AND LIE Poem Text First Line: Softly wrong, we lie and kiss Last Line: In pity as we kiss and lie Subject(s): Pity; Love - Erotic IN PITY AS WE KISS AND LIE First Line: Softly wrong, we lie and kiss Last Line: In pity we kiss and lile Subject(s): Pity IN PLACE OF A CURSE First Line: At the next vacancy for god, if I am elected Last Line: Beware the calculations of the meek, who gambled nothing, %gave nothing, and could never receive eno IN SOME DOUBT BUT WILLINGLY First Line: Nothing is entirely as one Last Line: A piece of the world awake IN SPECIES, DARLING First Line: In species, darling, consider how the whale IN THE AUDIENCE First Line: A sparrow lights on wisteria Last Line: When the shadow is over IN THE HOLE First Line: I had time and a shovel. I began to dig Last Line: Is what a man uncovers by digging for it. %damn my neighbors. Damn brewster diffenbach IN THE RICH FARMER'S FIELD Poem Text First Line: A black stallion and a white mare Last Line: Too obvious to invent or not to know Subject(s): Animals; Horses IN THE RICH FARMER'S FIELD First Line: A black stallion and a white mare Last Line: Original energy in its place below, %too obvious or not to know Subject(s): Animals; Horses IN THE YEAR OF MANY CONVERSIONS AND THE PRIVATE SOUL First Line: A sun gas coughed. A million miles of flames Last Line: The world-offended child, the surplus man, %picking the horn of plenty's garbage can INCIDENT First Line: Not that it matters, or not much, and not Last Line: The madman was shot running over the same flowers %the children had dropped. His. Ours INDIGENOUS First Line: I am home,' said the turtle, as it pulled in its head Last Line: And its feet, and its tail. 'I am home and in bed.' INSCRIPTION FOR RICHARD EBERHART First Line: I do not intend the people I know to believe me Last Line: A vision of the bones that speak themselves Subject(s): Eberhart, Richard INSTANCES First Line: Walt whitman took the earth to bed Last Line: Poets are mad. Are bankers sane? Subject(s): Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886); Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950); Poetry And Poets; Whitman, Walt (1819-1891) INTERRUPTION First Line: Aphrodite phoned. Could I come over? Last Line: How goddesses, above all, must be said INTERSTELLAR First Line: I have an intercom in my attic study INVASION OF SLEEP WALKERS (WHAT I SHALL SAY TO MY FATHER) First Line: They were weeding out the dead at the funeral home Last Line: Can hell be taken more seriously than the world? Subject(s): Death IS THIS SOMEONE YOU KNOW? First Line: There was a boy who skinned his knees Last Line: But he %l %a %n %d %e %d %s %o %hard it made him cry ISLAND GALAXY First Line: Once on saipan at the end of the rains Last Line: I could not read its reasons for its proofs Subject(s): Saipan (island) IT IS FOR THE WAKING MAN TO TELL HIS DREAMS First Line: In the stupors before sleep Last Line: Because the fool's awake Subject(s): Sleep IT IS SPRING, DARLING First Line: It is spring, darling, and the five feathers IT IS THE SAME PLACE ALWAYS ONCE AGAIN First Line: The most truth of what is most usual Last Line: From which they turn once, and never again IT IS TIME, YOU KNOW First Line: Someone I met %downtown today Last Line: Now can you hear? %good-go to bed! IT TOOK FOUR FLOWERBOATS TO CONVEY MY FATHER'S BLACK Poem Text Last Line: Old salt of new, between black and triumph Subject(s): Funerals IT TOOK FOUR FLOWERBOATS TO CONVOY MY FATHER'S BLACK Last Line: Old salt of new, between black and triumph JOE WITH A WOODEN LEG First Line: Joe with a wooded leg comes home Last Line: Without %pity Subject(s): Pity JOHN THE FIRST First Line: King john the first %was terribly cursed Last Line: He had his choice, and he liked the worst JOSHUA ON EIGHTH AVENUE First Line: A man can survive anything except not caring Last Line: More pieces than I can put to one %man JOURNAL Poem Text First Line: Mounts on the living energy of grace KEEPING First Line: Put a dog in a bottle. It won't bark Last Line: And remember there is the bottle, and what's in it KISS ME, HARDY First Line: The last of the unabashed tragedians KNOTHOLE IN SPENT TIME First Line: I have to believe it's a limited society Last Line: And what is, but this lingering back of ghosts? KNOWING BITCHES First Line: I was spading a flower bed while the old dog Last Line: The thing about bitches is knowing who you are Subject(s): Animals; Dogs KNOWING BITCHES First Line: I was spading a flower bed while the old dog Last Line: The thing about bitches is knowing who you are Subject(s): Animals; Dogs L'INGLESE First Line: Walpole, traveling in the alps Last Line: They, milord upon their backs Subject(s): Alps; Mountains LAMB First Line: A month before easter Last Line: After the lamb had been wept for %its flesh was easter Subject(s): Easter; Holidays; Lambs LANDSCAPES OF MY NAME First Line: Like trumpets on a dry mountain, I blow Last Line: From the muddy throat of the gulf Subject(s): Names LAST RITES First Line: A jay slants into a dogwood cloud, then out Last Line: Now for then, at these stations of the air LATE PEACHES First Line: Whatever this is of nature, the peach tree Last Line: Inside each peach, stand by the tree and be Subject(s): Fruit; Peaches LAUNCELOT IN HELL Poem Text First Line: That noon we banged like tubs in a blast from hell's mouth Last Line: Because no other iron dared me whole Subject(s): Arthurian Legend LAUNCELOT IN HELL First Line: That noon we banged like tubs in a blast from hell's mouth Last Line: Because no other iron dared me whole LEAVING LONGBOAT KEY; IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM SLOANE, III First Line: The drawbridge blinks red, yawns. The airport limo Last Line: I touch my inside pockets and feel my ticket Subject(s): Farewell; Longboat Key, Florida LESSON First Line: Of all the fleas that ever flew Last Line: ((((and you'll be wiser when you do.)))) ))) ))) LESSON FOR TONIGHT First Line: Which is: when you do you things, do them right Last Line: Know you've always been polite LESSON IN MANNERS First Line: Someone told me someone said Last Line: Don't be bad till you've been fed Subject(s): Authors And Authorship; Poetry And Poets LETTER FOR THOSE WHO GREW UP TOGETHER Poem Text First Line: Who remembers now the backyards of our innocence Subject(s): Childhood Memories LETTER FOR THOSE WHO GREW UP TOGETHER First Line: Who remembers now the backyards of our innocence Last Line: Are we ready yet? Is the pretense ended? May we advance now? LETTER FROM A DEATH BED First Line: This afternoon, darling, when you were here Last Line: To praise you as you are from all I have LETTER FROM A METAPHYSICAL COUNTRYSIDE; FRANKFORD, MISSOURI First Line: A summer's pastoral looks on barn and bib Last Line: Metaphysics must end in boredom or neuroses Subject(s): Metaphysics; Missouri LETTER FROM A PANDER Poem Text First Line: Nothing, the cross-haired sky tells lenses Last Line: And loved you as god should Subject(s): Poetry & Poets LETTER FROM A PANDER First Line: Nothing, the cross-haired sky tells the lenses Last Line: And loved you as god should LETTER FROM A RUBBER RAFT First Line: Every sleep is a new confusion of hope Last Line: I may live another day Subject(s): Disasters; Shipwrecks; Survival LETTER FROM AN EMPTY HOUSE First Line: The hour pings like a bird hatched from a bell Last Line: And cannot sleep, and then at last I do LETTER FROM AN ISLAND First Line: I gave our difference 10,000 miles Last Line: Stay hungry with my hunger, and we win Subject(s): War LETTER HOMEWARD First Line: Noon breaks to thunder and the iron hawk Last Line: I wait impatiently my turn across these clouds LETTER TO DANTE First Line: I'm doing you a wrong and well I know it Last Line: That hell's the place where dante left argenti Subject(s): Dante Alighieri (1265-1321); Translating And Interpreting LETTER TO MOTHER Poem Text First Line: It was good. You found your america. It was worth all Last Line: But there will be no america discovered by analogy Subject(s): Letters; Mothers; United States; America LETTER TO MOTHER First Line: It was good. You found your america. It was worth all Last Line: But there will be no americas discovered by analogy Subject(s): Letters; Mothers; United States LETTER TO VIRGINIA JOHNSON Poem Text First Line: Our times, virginia, of which you are a doctor Subject(s): Johnson, Virginia Eshelman (b. 1925) LETTER TO VIRGINIA JOHNSON First Line: Our times, virginia, of which you are doctor Last Line: And by a studious decision %be the mechanic of revision LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP; FOR JOE, THE SULLEN BASTARD First Line: Dinner was duckling with tangerine sauce Last Line: After eveything possible had been said and done Subject(s): Friendship - Selectivity LINES Poem Text First Line: I did not have exactly a way of life LINES First Line: I did not have exactly a way of life Last Line: And woke to find I had not lost my way LINES FOR MYRA TO GROW TO First Line: A line drawn straight from my heart to your heart Last Line: But see, I have said 'true.' -- so there is a moral LINES WHILE WALKING HOME FROM A PARTY ON CHARLES STREET First Line: Suffer, do you? I think if wounds were art Last Line: Has more basis in to breakfast than you to your nightmares LITTLE ONE Last Line: To slide into %to nothing LOGICIAN'S NOCTURNE First Line: The fundamental characteristic of matter Last Line: Reason to prattle till you come to bed LOUD PROUD SOMEONE First Line: Someone I knew was very proud Last Line: Just so long as he stays away! LOVE MAKES NO MUSIC Poem Text Subject(s): Love LOVE POEM Poem Text First Line: It is spring, darling, and the five feathers Subject(s): Love LOVE POEM First Line: I have labored for her love Last Line: I can no longer beat time LOVE SONNET: BELIEVING PART OF ALMOST ALL I SAY First Line: It was a day that licked envelope flaps Last Line: No message. No medium. But still something to do LOVING YOU IS SOMETHING TO DO First Line: Imagine having forever nowhere to go Last Line: Until you smile and make me busy being LUNG FISH First Line: In africa, when river beds Last Line: On what we are while we learn it Subject(s): Lung Fish MACHINE Poem Text First Line: It goes, all inside. It keeps touching MACHINE First Line: It goes, all inside itself. It keeps touching Last Line: Of being inside itself, always that stink MAGNUS First Line: A missionary from the mau maul told me Last Line: Then he closes his fist and there is nothing there MAN AND A WOMAN MIGHT AT THIS MOMENT Last Line: To waken a resonant place at the core of things MAN CAME TUESDAY Last Line: What are you prepared to believe? MAN WHO SANG THE SILLIES First Line: I met a man with a triple-chin MANOCALZATTA (GLOVED HAND) First Line: Outside my mother's town in avellino Last Line: Being convinced at last of my presence there MARCH MORNING First Line: Black snow, the winter's excrement Last Line: That shines, and is surprised it does not break MASSACHUSETTS BAY Poem Text First Line: Go south from marblehead and weep for heroes Subject(s): Massachusetts MASSIVE RETALIATION; SAIPAN 1944-1945; AERIAL OFFENSIVE AGAINST JAPAN First Line: I gaped, admitted, at some what we did Last Line: So far from home, almost beyond return Subject(s): Air Raids; Air Warfare; Saipan (island); World War Ii MATINS First Line: It froze in paris last night and a rag doll Last Line: From which mad francis learned to be a priest MEASUREMENTS Poem Text First Line: I've zeroed a barometer on the floor MEASUREMENTS First Line: I've zeroed an altimeter on the floor Last Line: The instruments of april in the seed MEMO:PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF A PRAYER TO GOD THE FATHER First Line: Sir, it is raining tonight in towson, maryland Last Line: With the tv on you do not hear the rain MEMOIR OF A ONE-ARMED HARP TEACHER First Line: Of my three certaintly most impassioned students Last Line: Passion is a crippling hobby, a killing trade MEMORIAL DAY First Line: Well,' they were saying, 'the war's over' Last Line: There are pictures and parades for all the rest, %but you have to dream the buzzard Subject(s): Holidays; Memorial Day MEMORY OF THE SAD CHAIR First Line: All in a dream of the time it was Last Line: We had shared that sadness, but what's the use? MEN MARRY WHAT THEY NEED Poem Text First Line: Men marry what they need. I marry you Last Line: Men marry what they need. I marry you Subject(s): Love; Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives MEN MARRY WHAT THEY NEED First Line: Men marry what they need. I marry you Last Line: Men marry what they need. I marry you Subject(s): Love; Marriage METROPOLITAN ICE CO. Poem Text First Line: Metropolitan on watery calendars MIDDLE CLASS POEM First Line: Some of the itme when nothing ever happens MIDNIGHT Poem Text First Line: He runs in hnis sleep, snaps, leaps up, without Last Line: Who know? His next kioll may be his to keep Subject(s): Rabbits MIDNIGHT First Line: He runs in his sleep, snaps, leaps up Last Line: Who knows? His next kill may be his to keep MINUS ONE Poem Text First Line: Of seven sparrows on a country wire Last Line: Hawk in this now? Unchosen? Come to choose? Subject(s): Sparrows; Hawks; Fathers & Sons MINUS ONE First Line: Of seven sparrows on a country wire Last Line: Again and again with your sparrows, father, and whose %hawk is this now? Unchosen? Come to choose? MISS OLIVIA BRANTON First Line: I remember miss olivia branton, which Last Line: About saying goodbye, when I got home I cried Subject(s): Teaching And Teachers MISS PRISS First Line: Whenever miss myra walks like this Last Line: (if you guessed how it goes, then you know why) MISSION Poem Text First Line: On shadowy chairs. Now let one sudden spark MISSOURI FABLE First Line: A man named finchley once Last Line: You may, in logic, have to %accept his conclusion MONDAY MORNING REVEILLE Poem Text First Line: Birdless, the blood red dawn the engines roar Subject(s): Army Life; Drills & Minor Tactics MONDAY MORNING: LONDON First Line: Sunlight crumbling from rooftops beheads Last Line: All's well. All's well. All's well. All's well. All's well MONSTER DEN First Line: I met your mummy long ago Last Line: We turned into monsters, too! MORE ABOUT PREPOSTERI First Line: Preposteri are born at birth Last Line: In bands, and schools, and herds MORNING First Line: A morning of the life there is Last Line: Do as they say -- I'll meet you here tonight Variant Title(s): Two Hours: 1. Mornin MORNING IN THE PARK First Line: A green morning of indolence one hedge beyond Last Line: In a multi-million stirring of affluent air, %adorations of my rich escape Subject(s): Morning MORNING: I KNOW PERFECTLY HOW IN A MINUTE YOU WILL STRETCH AND SMILE Poem Text First Line: As pilots pay attention to the air Last Line: Spills our precisions in us as we nod Subject(s): Morning MORNING: I KNOW PERFECTLY HOW IN A MINUTE YOU WILL STRETCH AND SMILE First Line: As pilots pay attention to the air Last Line: Spins our precisions in us as we nod MOST LIKE AN ARCH THIS MARRIAGE Poem Text First Line: Most like an arch - an entrance which upholds Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives MOST LIKE AN ARCH THIS MARRIAGE First Line: Most like an arch - an entrance which upholds Last Line: In faultless failing, raised by our own weight MR. & MRS. First Line: It came bone-time. The metric of ten thousand Last Line: Which would be first, and each prayed for himself MULE First Line: See what a trick this is: two meeting bloods Last Line: Planners of species, pity your useful child Subject(s): Asses And Mules; Genetics MUMMY SLEPT LATE AND DADDY FIXED BREAKFAST First Line: Daddy fixed the breakfast Last Line: I'd sooner eat the plate! MUSEUM First Line: Age sits gracefully upon old canvasses MUSIC MASTER First Line: My sons,' said a glurk slurping soup Last Line: But don't spill. Like this, children -- oop!' MUTTERINGS Poem Text First Line: I have nothing more to say to my left arm MUTTERINGS First Line: I may have no more to say to my left arm Last Line: The questions come, and one of them is the answer MY CAT, MRS. LICK-A-CHIN Poem Text First Line: Some of the cats I know about Last Line: No one knows it less than my cat Subject(s): Animals; Cats MY CAT, MRS. LICK-A-CHIN First Line: Some of the cats I know about Last Line: And I'll tell you something about that: %no one knows it less than my cat Subject(s): Animals; Cats MY FATHER DIED IMPERFECT AS A MAN Last Line: My father's love, imperfect as a man Subject(s): Fathers MY FATHER'S WATCH Poem Text First Line: One night I dreamed I was locked in my father's watch Last Line: I saw my father's face frown through the glass Subject(s): Dreams; Fathers; Watches; Nightmares MY FATHER'S WATCH First Line: One night I dreamed I was locked in my father's watch Last Line: I saw my father's face frown through the glass Subject(s): Dreams; Fathers; Watches MY TRIBE First Line: Everyone in my tribe hates Last Line: Shall all finally kick all of your %heads. We are united MYRA SONG First Line: Myra, myra, sing-song Last Line: What a lot of her there are! %I love them all MYSTIC RIVER; MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS First Line: The dirty river by religious explorers Last Line: The death of gods, and makes a life of light - %that breaks,but calls a million birds to flight Subject(s): Mystic River, Massachusetts NAPPING BY THE FENCE First Line: A green-drooled cow all rumpled suede NEW YEAR'S EVE Poem Text First Line: Snow came with dusk, building itself on windows Last Line: Steel guitars played auld lang syne on oaho Subject(s): Holidays; New Year NEW YEAR'S EVE First Line: Snow came with dusk, building itself on windows Last Line: And one more number chanhed inside the mind Subject(s): Holidays; New Year NIGHT CELESTIAL Poem Text First Line: You know the towns by neon. The plants and camps Subject(s): City & Town Life NIGHT FREIGHT, MICHIGAN Poem Text First Line: Punctual to the midnight - lurch, ruck and chime Last Line: From kalamazoo to the junction Subject(s): Michigan; Railroads; Railways; Trains NIGHT FREIGHT, MICHIGAN First Line: Punctual to the midnight - lurch, ruck and chime Last Line: From kalamazoo to the junction Subject(s): Michigan; Railroads NIGHT MAIL Poem Text First Line: By blast and sputter and black oil on the grass NIGHT PIECE FOR MY TWENTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY Poem Text First Line: Punctually now, by all we learned at school Last Line: Law is the last law to be understood Subject(s): Army Life; Birthdays; Drills & Minor Tactics NIGHT PIECE FOR MY TWENTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY First Line: Punctually now, by all we learned at school Last Line: Law is the last law to be understood Subject(s): Army Life; Birthdays NIGHTMARE First Line: Just before dawn the world became a smother NINE GRAY GEESE First Line: I saw nine gray geese flying by NO WHITE BIRD SINGS Poem Text First Line: Can white birds sing? An ornithologist Subject(s): Birds NO WHITE BIRD SINGS First Line: Can white birds sing? An ornithologist Last Line: One sings from, colored to its accidents %which are never entirely accidents. Not when one sings NOON: ROMAGNA Poem Text First Line: You would never believe to watch this man Last Line: The kingdoms and their kings are told about Subject(s): Italy; Italians NOTES First Line: I found myself at the conceptual tomb Last Line: There will be experience and they should be noted NOTHING IS REALLY HARD BIT TO BE REAL --' First Line: Now let me tell you why I said that Last Line: Is only that sound which is exactly not music O CHILD, DO NOT FEAR THE DARK AND SLEEP'S DARK POSSESSION First Line: O child, when you go down to sleep and sleep's secession Last Line: Gleaming serenely and sleekly OBIT First Line: After retired, for something to do Last Line: Day after day when there is nothing to do OBSOLESCENCE Poem Text First Line: My wife, because she day-dreams catalogues Subject(s): Watches; Gifts & Giving OBSOLESCENCE First Line: My wife, because she daydreams catalogues Last Line: Programmed to project a 4-d god OCTOBER: A SNOW TOO SOON First Line: The mower just back from the shop. Chrysanthemums ODE FOR SCHOOL CONVOCATION Poem Text First Line: Mechanically, the academic file Last Line: Suggests the frosted cakes, and prefers lemon Subject(s): Universities & Colleges ODE FOR SCHOOL CONVOCATION First Line: Mechanically, the academic file Last Line: Suggests the frosted cakes, and prefers lemon Subject(s): Universities & Colleges ODE FOR THE BURIAL OF A CITIZEN Poem Text First Line: Recorder, tax collector, landlord, friends OEDIPUS TYRANNUS Poem Text First Line: Catharsis builds across the dreadful air Last Line: Is turned – exclusive spotlight – on the high tragedian Subject(s): Teaching & Teachers OEDIPUS TYRANNUS; FOR MY TEACHERS First Line: Catharsis builds across the dreadful air Last Line: Is turned -- exclusive spotlight -- on the high tragedian OF FISH AND FISHERMEN Poem Text First Line: Fish are subtle. Fishermen Last Line: It needn't be? That's what you think Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; Anglers OF FISH AND FISHERMEN First Line: Fish are subtle. Fishermen Last Line: It needn't be? That's what you think Subject(s): Fishing And Fishermen OF HURRICANES, SUMMER DAYS, AND MISS MYRA First Line: Most of what a girl should be Last Line: Hurricane's over. You're back again OLD MAN First Line: When the old man who had bought all his wives Last Line: Sun about him and learned he would die a lover OLD MAN CONFESSES First Line: I have no cause, and god has not confessed Last Line: Inside the fact had drained. And then he died ON A PHOTO OF SGT. CIARDI A YEAR LATER Poem Text First Line: The sgt. Stands so fluently in leather Last Line: The camera photographs the photographer; Subject(s): World War Ii; Photography & Photographers; Soldiers; Second World War ON A PHOTO OF SGT. CIARDI A YEAR LATER First Line: The sgt. Stands so fluently in leather Last Line: The shadow under the shadow is never caught: %the camera photographs the cameraman Subject(s): World War Ii ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF A GERMAN SOLDIER DEAD IN POLAND Poem Text First Line: Grant him at the end his common humanity Subject(s): World War Ii - Casualties ON BEING MUCH BETTER THAN MOST AND YET NOT QUITE GOOD ENOUGH First Line: There was a great swimmer name jack Last Line: Who swam ten miles out - and nine back Variant Title(s): On Being Much Better Than Most And Not Quite Good Enoug ON BEING SURE AND OF WHAT First Line: Salmon are very sure Last Line: Here ends this bestiary ON FLUNKING A NICE BOY OUT OF SCHOOL Poem Text First Line: I wish I could teach you how ugly Last Line: These sheepfaces to tuesday Subject(s): Teaching & Teachers; Timidity; Educators; Professors ON FLUNKING A NICE BOY OUT OF SCHOOL First Line: I wish I could teach you how ugly Last Line: Than all these martyred repentances from you Subject(s): Teaching And Teachers; Timidity ON LEARNING TO ADJUST TO THINGS First Line: Baxter bickerbone of burlington ON LOOKING EAST TO THE SEA WITH A SUNSET BEHIND ME Poem Text First Line: In a detachment cool as the glint of light ON LOOKING EAST TO THE SEA WITH A SUNSET BEHIND ME First Line: In a detachment cool as the glint of light Last Line: To save unsaved. I practice the man in all, %clutching the world from the world to praise it ON MEETING MISS B First Line: I should have something to say of/to this Last Line: Pretension to one is an assertion of inhumanity ON PASSION AS A LITERARY TRADITION First Line: Asked by a reporter out of questions Last Line: And go home to nick yourself on poetry Subject(s): Art & Artists; Passion ON PASSION AS A LITERARY TRADITION First Line: Asked by a reporter out of questions Last Line: And go home to nick yourself on poetry Subject(s): Art And Artists; Passion ON SENDING HOME MY CIVILIAN CLOTHES Poem Text First Line: -good duds, goodbye before I shut Last Line: The postage to a lost address Subject(s): Clothing & Dress; Veterans ON SENDING HOME MY CIVILIAN CLOTHES First Line: Good duds, good-bye. Before I shut Last Line: The postage to a lost address ON SOMETHING LIKE THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY First Line: The devil that came closest was all sincerity ON THE ISLAND First Line: Wading a summer edge, a naked love ON THE ORTHODOXY AND CREED OF MY POWER MOWER First Line: All summer in power, outroaring the bull fiend Last Line: The dangerous blind beast tame in service Subject(s): Mowing And Mowers ON THE PATIO Poem Text First Line: The rose at the end of my tax structure ON THE PATIO First Line: The rose at the edge of my tax structure Last Line: And must be painstaken beyond nature ON THE POET AS A DAMNED POOR THING First Line: I adored her and she giggled and I adored her Last Line: She giggles and I died and still she giggled ONE BETTY – FIVE SKULLS Poem Text First Line: The search lights caught your enemy and mine Last Line: Turned down a wheel of dials, and fell, and burned Subject(s): World War Ii; Saipan (island) ONE DAY Poem Text First Line: I lay in the grass and looked at the sky ONE DULL THING YOU DID WAS TO DIE, FLETCHER; FOR FLETCHER PRATT First Line: To you, fletcher, from my dark house asleep Last Line: Maudlin, but in the best that money can buy ONE EASTER Poem Text First Line: The stores wore christmas perfectly Last Line: And bit by bit the page begins to fill Subject(s): Writing & Writers; Easter; Dogs ONE EASTER NOT ON THE CALENDAR I WOKE Last Line: And bit by bit the page begins to fill ONE JAY AT A TIME Poem Text First Line: I have never seen a Last Line: I am! And here I go! Subject(s): Bluejays ONE JAY AT A TIME First Line: I have never seen a Last Line: I am! And here I go! ONE MORNING First Line: I remember my littlest one in a field Last Line: So light-struck, flower-sparked-full between him and me ONE NIGHT ON LAKE CHAUTAUQUA First Line: The lake, two miles out, was all fireflies ONE WET IOTA First Line: I could see god once when I believed telling Last Line: Start like that wet iota and become ORDERS Poem Text First Line: Gulls in wyoming, utah, follow the plows Last Line: Put wings to a stomach and all the world is reached Subject(s): Birds; Migration ORDERS First Line: Gulls in wyoming, utah, follow the plows Last Line: Put wings to a stomach and all the world is reached Subject(s): Birds; Migration OVERTHROW First Line: Under the cottonwoods Last Line: Wishing her moonlight P-151 Poem Text First Line: It fills the sky like wind made visible Last Line: Her birth above the hill like a crowd's cheer Subject(s): Aviation & Aviators; Airplanes; Air Pilots P-151 First Line: It fills the sky like wind made visible Subject(s): Aviation And Aviators PALAVER'S NO PRAYER Last Line: And throws rocks through the window PEAKS First Line: One day when I was feeling absolutely healthy Last Line: Absolute tibetans in an upper air of their best days to dream us whole Subject(s): Mountain Climbing PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: CHOICES Poem Text First Line: George says he chooses poverty. That's rash Last Line: I've an experienced aversion to it Subject(s): Poverty; Life Choices PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: CHOICES First Line: George says he chooses poverty. That's rash Last Line: I've experienced an aversion to it Subject(s): Poverty PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: FOR CLAVIA ON A REJECTION SLIP Poem Text First Line: Your soul is full of yearning? So is this prose Last Line: You set to tick and rhyme under my nose Subject(s): Poetry & Poets PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: FOR CLAVIA ON A REJECTION SLIP First Line: Your soul is full of yearning? So is this prose Last Line: You set to tick and rhyme under my nose PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: ON AN EXALTED NONENTITY Poem Text First Line: A summer's pastoral looks on barn and bib Last Line: The eagle's ticks are airborne but no flyers Subject(s): Flight; Ambition PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: ON AN EXALTED NONENTITY First Line: Must we believe that what ascends aspires? Last Line: The eagle's ticks are airborne but no flyers PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: ON EVOLUTION Poem Text First Line: Pithecanthropus erectus Last Line: Could he see us, would reject us Subject(s): Evolution PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: ON EVOLUTION First Line: Pithecanthropus erectus Last Line: Could he see us, would reject us PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: PARENTHOOD Poem Text First Line: My son was insolent to me Last Line: I hit him: libery is to defend Subject(s): Discipline; Fathers & Sons PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: PARENTHOOD First Line: My son was insolent to me Last Line: I hit him: liberty is to defend Subject(s): Discipline; Fathers And Sons PHILOSOPHICAL POEM First Line: The disease of civilization is not tools, citizen Last Line: And columns of soldiers marching PILOT IN THE JUNGLE First Line: Machine stitched rivets ravel on a tree Last Line: Past heads and tails, past vertebrae and gill %to bedrocks out of time, with time to kill Subject(s): Air Warfare; Jungles PLEA First Line: I said to her tears: 'I am fallible and hungry Last Line: Or starve yourself, and starve me, and be right PLEASE DON'T TELL HIM First Line: I know and you know and billy knows, too Last Line: If he doesn't know that-please, don't tell him so PLEASE TELL THIS SOMEONE TO TAKE CARE First Line: Someone I know- %it might be you Last Line: Before you fall through %or-goodbye! Boo-hoo! PLEASE! First Line: Someone about %as big as a mouse Last Line: Take a tip from me- %stop it! PLEASE, JOHNNY! First Line: The shreek is a shiverous beast Last Line: Nothing human could live through its boom. %it's as loud as a boy-and-a-half Subject(s): Monsters POEM FOR A SOLDIER'S GIRL Poem Text First Line: Whatever your mirrors tell you, morning and evening Subject(s): War - Home Front POEM FOR A SOLDIER'S GIRL First Line: Whatever your mirrors tell you, morning and evening Last Line: Is not your image but your history POEM FOR BENN'S GRADUATION FROM HIGH SCHOOL First Line: Whenever I have an appointment to see the assistant Last Line: To be terrified by that thought and its possibilities Subject(s): Fathers And Sons POEM FOR MY THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY Poem Text First Line: The clock that splits Subject(s): Birthdays POEM FOR MY THIRTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY First Line: Itchy with time in the dogday summer stew Last Line: The stuck air open, like a death blown over Subject(s): Birthdays POEM FOR MY THIRTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY First Line: I have driven north after midnight, machined Last Line: Anonymous as catacombs of you, %your unknown twin in the debris of time POEM FOR MY TWENTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY Poem Text First Line: Once more the predawn throbs on engine sound Last Line: The last compassionate necessity Subject(s): Birthdays POEM FOR MY TWENTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY First Line: Once more the predawn throbs on engine sound Last Line: The last compassionate necessity Subject(s): Birthdays POEM FROM A HIRED ROOM Poem Text First Line: You press a switch - too sudden for a word POET'S WORDS First Line: Language ends in the tongue's clay pit Last Line: From what first wells our most thoughts think Subject(s): Poetry And Poets POETRY (1) First Line: Whether or not you like it is not my Last Line: Busyness, it does tell whether or not Subject(s): Poetry And Poets POETRY (2) First Line: Death is everywhere in it. Yet Last Line: An echo off the ice. %oompah! POETRY (3) First Line: All poetry up to the present time Last Line: Meant only, 'folks, our boys have won the trophy' POOR LITTLE FISH First Line: There was a fish who was born in a cup Last Line: I know someone, but I won't say PORT OF AERIAL EMBARKATION Poem Text First Line: There is no widening distance at the shore Last Line: Corrects his role, his gesture, and his walk Subject(s): Air Warfare PORT OF AERIAL EMBARKATION First Line: There is no widening distance at the shore Last Line: Each man looks down and sees he will not die Subject(s): Air Warfare POSSIBILITIES First Line: A week ago on longer clocks than ours Last Line: When the last ape has grunted from his throat POSTHUMOUS First Line: The honor guard at the tomb of the unknown citizen PRAISE First Line: If the art is praise, do saints have it common PRAISE OF GOOD POETS IN A BAD AGE; TO THE MEMORY OF WALLACE STEVENS First Line: Any man -- god, if he had the money Last Line: His news from bronze, most houses will come down Subject(s): Poetry And Poets PRAYER TO THE MOUNTAIN First Line: Of the electric guitar as a percussion instrument Last Line: I ask as a son in thy son's name for my son PROGRAM First Line: The emperor of sax, two eunuch tenors PSALM First Line: I am thinking, sir, how many conversations QUIRKS: 1. BREAKFAST ON THE PATIO Poem Text First Line: Not much but something; before the morning glories Last Line: The phone rang. And the day trekked on and out Subject(s): Breakfast QUIRKS: 1. BREAKFAST ON THE PATIO First Line: Not much but something. Before the morning glories Last Line: The phone rang. And the day trekked on and on QUIRKS: 2. THAT AFTERNOON I REMEMBERED Poem Text First Line: There is a photo of walt whitman posed Last Line: Back through drowsy nowhere to nothing much Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Whitman, Walt (1819-1891) QUIRKS: 2. THAT AFTERNOON I REMEMBERED First Line: There is a photo of walt whitman posed Last Line: Back through drowsy nowhere to nothing much Subject(s): Poetry And Poets; Whitman, Walt (1819-1891) RAIN SIZES First Line: Rain comes in various sizes Last Line: The big rain that rattles and roars READ THIS BEFORE YOU COME IN First Line: Someone told the rhino it Last Line: Yes, you, young man-get out! READ THIS WITH GESTURES First Line: It isn't proper, I guess you know REALITY AND WILLIE YEATS Poem Text First Line: Reality and yeats were two Last Line: Signals from some reality Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Reality; Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939) REALITY AND WILLIE YEATS First Line: Reality and yeats were two Last Line: Signals from reality Subject(s): Poetry And Poets; Reality; Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939) REASON FOR THE PELICAN Last Line: It's really quite a splendid beak %in quite a splendid size RECORD CROWD AT BEACHES Poem Text First Line: Delicatessen and carnival, the beach Subject(s): Seashore; Beach; Coast; Shore REFLECTIONS WHILE OILING A MACHINE GUN Poem Text First Line: I think of plato in a schoolroom dusk Subject(s): Army Life; Memory; Drills & Minor Tactics REPLY TO S.K. Poem Text First Line: Yes, barcelona in three thousand miles Last Line: Crossed wide with danger where the armed men run Subject(s): Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) REPLY TO S.K. First Line: Yes, barcelona in three thousand miles Last Line: Crossed wide with danger where the armed men run Subject(s): Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) REQUISITIONING First Line: There are no imperfect answers from perfect data Last Line: The need that shall be given perfect answers RETURN Poem Text First Line: Once more the searchlights beckon from the night Last Line: Reel after reel of how a city burned Subject(s): World War Ii; Saipan (island); Second World War RETURN First Line: Once more the searchlights beckon from the night Last Line: Reel after reel of how a city burned Subject(s): World War Ii RETURNING HOME First Line: I want to tell you a Last Line: Across whatever room %I look at you REVEILLE FOR MY TWENTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY Poem Text First Line: Now on the bluster and roil of the wind Subject(s): Birthdays REVERIE DURING BRIEFING Poem Text First Line: The simplest memory is books by ferny windows Subject(s): Army Life; Memory; Drills & Minor Tactics REVERIE DURING BRIEFING First Line: The simplest memory is books by ferny windows Last Line: And did not know the world they left was dead RHETORIC FOR DANNY KEOUGH TO RECITE AT THE BAR First Line: Leaving -- for the present -- sunsets, bluebirds, pussywillows Last Line: The bottle on the bar and a round on the house RITE First Line: I wrote the president Last Line: The same, then turned to go %with no viaticum RITUAL FOR SINGING BAT Poem Text First Line: Must we believe that what ascends aspires? Last Line: Into a misty forest of a cloud Subject(s): Soldiers; Native Americans; World War Ii; Death RITUAL FOR SINGING BAT First Line: One part indian, one part tennessee Last Line: For a tennessee man who shot the sky -- and made it RIVER IS A PIECE OF SKY First Line: From the top of a bridge Last Line: The river has splashes, %the sky hasn't any ROMAN DIARY: 1951 First Line: A rag woman, half a child Last Line: “if I go broke,” I said, “I'll rent a baby” Subject(s): Rome, Italy; Begging & Beggars ROMAN DIARY: 1951 First Line: A rag woman, half a child Last Line: If I go broke, I said, I'll rent a baby Subject(s): Rome, Italy ROVER First Line: The rover arrived at a river Last Line: What rock-wracking river's rage can? RULES First Line: Whatever way a thing is done Last Line: That is the rule of four times four S.P.Q.R. A LETTER FROM ROME First Line: It does for the time of man to walk here Last Line: And still a marble marriage pomps the light S.P.Q.R.€”A LETTER FROM ROME Poem Text First Line: It does for the time of man to walk here SAIPAN First Line: In times like lenses, magnified and calm Last Line: To be the following weathers of the dead Subject(s): Saipan (island); World War Ii SATURDAY First Line: The power-mown morning of this spang Last Line: Pattern to newark, and then lunch SATURDAY – MARCH 6 Poem Text First Line: One morning you step out, still in pajamas Last Line: It's on the table and that's what day it is Subject(s): Conduct Of Life SEA BURIAL Poem Text First Line: Through the sea's crust of prisms looking up Last Line: And ran on grass as if it could not die Subject(s): Funerals - At Sea; World War Ii; Burials At Sea; Second World War SEA BURIAL First Line: Through the sea's crust of prisms looking up Last Line: The memory that kissed a mountain girl %and ran on grass as if it could not die Subject(s): Funerals - At Sea; World War Ii SEA MARSHES Poem Text First Line: Marsh hummocks that were were a sabbath hill Last Line: Worlds as worlds will be seen - in what light there is Subject(s): Light SEA MARSHES IN WINTER First Line: Marsh hummocks that were a sabbath hill Last Line: World as worlds will be seen -- in what light there is SEA SHINES First Line: The sea shines. Wind-raked, the waters run tight Last Line: Of what abundance, on what hammered shore Subject(s): Sea SEA-BIRDS First Line: Sea-birds on a windy carousel Last Line: Never saw the navies go SELECTIVITY First Line: Now mist takes the hemlocks and nothing Last Line: I do not hear it. I am listening selectively SERENADE IN A DRUGSTORE Poem Text First Line: I am my verified and proper self Last Line: And home is where the cap comes off the bottle Subject(s): Homecoming; Pharmacy & Pharmacists; Veterans; Drug Store; Apothecary SERENADE IN A DRUGSTORE Poem Text First Line: I am my verified and proper self Subject(s): Homecoming; Pharmacy & Pharmacists; Veterans; Drug Store; Apothecary SERENADE IN A DRUGSTORE First Line: I am my verified and proper self Last Line: And home is where the cap comes off the bottle Subject(s): Homecoming; Pharmacy And Pharmacists; Veterans SERMON NOTES Poem Text First Line: It's easy to walk out of hell. But there Last Line: The anti-hell is not heaven but the void Subject(s): Hell SERMON NOTES First Line: It's easy to walk out of hell. But there Last Line: The anti-hell's not heaven but the void Subject(s): Hell SHAFT First Line: At first light in the shadow, over the roach Last Line: But one more scurry sounding down the shaft? SHARK First Line: My dear, let me tall you about the shark Last Line: Be careful where you swim, my sweet Subject(s): Animals SHORE PIECE Poem Text First Line: It is someone's deserted private beach Last Line: I am my own wind to erase myself Subject(s): Seashore SHORE PIECE First Line: It is someone's deserted private beach Last Line: I am my own wind to erase myself SIT UP WHEN YOU SIT DOWN! First Line: Someone about as big as a bump Last Line: And now he's the very best boy in town! SITTING BULL AT THE CIRCUS First Line: The treaty broken again, the lands lost Subject(s): Native Americans - History; Sitting Bull (hunkpapa Sioux Chief) SIZE OF SONG First Line: Some rule of birds kills off the song Last Line: To anything that sings SLEEP (BY ROUSSEAU) First Line: The deer stand black by water, the lion's head Last Line: The trees fall back and back into the dawn Subject(s): Paintings And Painters; Rousseau, Theodore (1812-1867) SLEEPLESS BEAUTY First Line: There once was a girl who never went to bed Last Line: But what I feel most is: she just wasn't bright SMALL Poem Text First Line: Swatted by a custardy small thing Subject(s): Size & Shape SMALL First Line: Swatted a custardy small thing Last Line: We could have loved through SMALL BENN First Line: Look outside. Do you see small benn Last Line: But we want you to know we'll miss you, benn SMALL ELEGY First Line: I saw a bird pasted to muck Last Line: We leave him guessing our first laws Subject(s): Birds; Death - Animals SNOWY HERON Poem Text First Line: What lifts the heron leaning on the air Last Line: Its heron back. All doubt all else. But praise Subject(s): Herons SNOWY HERON First Line: What lifts the heron leaning on the air Last Line: Its heron back. And doubts all else. But praise Subject(s): Herons SOCIALIZING WITH A CREATURE First Line: Creature,' I said to the blue jay nesting Last Line: Why not nest on the hardtop and be done? SOME FIGURES FOR WHO I AM Poem Text First Line: Forget understanding. There will be none SOME FIGURES FOR WHO MUST SPEAK First Line: Forget understanding. There will be none Last Line: Wins this war must hunt that elk or starve SOME SORT OF GAME First Line: Toy-maker ptolemy Last Line: If any; this may be SOMEONE ASKED ME First Line: What do you think a kite would do Last Line: How would it drop? %flip... %flip... %flip... %flop! SOMEONE AT MY HOUSE SAID First Line: Those things you have on the sides of your head Last Line: And what I am saying is-time for bed!' SOMEONE COULD WIN A POLAR BEAR First Line: I met a polar bear among the floes Last Line: Someone could win a polar bear.-maybe you! SOMEONE HAD A HELPING HAND First Line: Someone I know had a helping hand Last Line: That it made me want to help you, too SOMEONE LOST HIS HEAD AT BEDTIME BUT HE GOT IT BACK First Line: Someone said %that someone I knew Last Line: One more? %good night! SOMEONE MADE ME PROUD OF YOU First Line: Someone-I forget just who Last Line: I hope that all he said was true! SOMEONE SHOWED ME THE RIGHT WAY TO RUN AWAY First Line: Someone fast and someone slow Last Line: And play a game-like joe, like jack SOMEONE SLOW First Line: I know someone who is so slow Last Line: #name? SOMEONE WAS UP IN THAT TREE First Line: Someone up in a tree-that tree Last Line: It was just part ape-was the other part you? SOMETHING / NOTHING ANY LOVE CAN TELL SOMETIMES EVEN PARENTS WIN First Line: There was a young lady from gloucester Last Line: Not at all - they were glad to have lost her SOMETIMES I FEEL THIS WAY First Line: I have one head that wants to be good Last Line: I wish I knew. They are both some fun SOMETIMES RUNNING First Line: To yes nothing and SOMETIMES THE FOUNDERING FURY First Line: Sometimes the foundering fury that directs Last Line: There is no other body in all myth SONG Poem Text First Line: The bells of sunday rang us down Last Line: And all seas were running late Subject(s): War SONG First Line: The bells of sunday rang us down Subject(s): War SONG FOR AN ALLEGORICAL PLAY First Line: Ah could we wake in mercy's name Last Line: Shall rise, grown admirable, and be, %in mercy, each by each set free SORROW OF OBEDIENCE First Line: The lieutenant ordered me to ask abdhul Last Line: I was once more left to grieve for my imperfections Subject(s): Obedience SOUND TRACK JUMPS First Line: Book falls from the table crying 'leave me!' SOUNDS First Line: Sin for my master's sake Last Line: Hardly explain, says man SPEED ADJUSTMENTS First Line: A man stopped by and he wanted to know Last Line: For since that time he hasn't been late SPRING IN THE STATUE SQUARE Poem Text First Line: Spring is open windows and molly picardo Last Line: That later you remember was your own Subject(s): Spring SPRING IN THE STATUE SQUARE First Line: Spring is open windows and molly picardo Last Line: And the boys needing to stretch Subject(s): Spring SPRING SONG (1) Poem Text First Line: Wake early to the early robin Last Line: It is spring Subject(s): Spring SPRING SONG (1) First Line: Wake early to the early robin Last Line: It is spring Subject(s): Spring SPRING SONG (2) Poem Text First Line: Do you remember by morning when the sun Last Line: Thunder's artillery m\named the name of this spring Subject(s): Spring SPRING SONG (2) First Line: Do you remember by morning when the sun Last Line: Thunder's artillery named the name of this spring Subject(s): Spring STARLET First Line: Tilda trimpett and her seventh stage name Last Line: But made a wrong connection and went to the dogs Subject(s): Actors And Actresses STARRY HEAVENS, THE MORAL LAW First Line: Kant saw them as the two eternal sources of awe Last Line: Who will stop by another man's life may need to sit down STATEMENT First Line: Our fathers, whose art was heaven Last Line: For yours is the kindling, and the pyre, and the storied endeavor. -- %a man STATIONS First Line: An organization of clear purposes Last Line: Country keep to the station Subject(s): Rattlesnakes STATIONS First Line: An organization of clear purposes Last Line: Country kept to the stations Subject(s): Rattlesnakes STILLS AND RAPIDS OF YOUR NAKEDNESS Last Line: I start from wood to praise you and grow green Subject(s): Desire; Nudity STONE WITHOUT EDGES HAS NOT BEEN MINED Last Line: I love you of that health STORM First Line: The morning after moonsnow, the bone dunes Last Line: How it grows back to resemblance in a day STRANGER IN THE PUMPKIN SAID Last Line: Go and get your candle lit STYLES First Line: Assuming, in some dreamscape, some Last Line: What time's left over drifts asprawl %on really nothing after all SUBURBAN Poem Text First Line: Yesterday mrs. Friar phoned. 'mr ciardi Last Line: When even these suburbs will give up their dead Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Suburbs SUBURBAN First Line: Yesterday mrs. Friar phoned. 'mr ciardi Last Line: When even these suburbs shall give up their dead Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Suburbs SUBURBAN HOMECOMING First Line: As far as most of what you call people, my darling, are Last Line: If we do and if I stay to be (I doubt it) introduced, I'm still not going SUCCESFUL SPECIES First Line: Horeshoe crabs, which are not crabs at all Last Line: But the one success of species is to endure Subject(s): Survival SUITE FOR LOVE First Line: How shall I reach you till I have imagined SUMMER EVENING Poem Text First Line: The torches of the twilight blur Subject(s): Evening; Sunset; Twilight SUMMER SONG First Line: By the sand between my toes Last Line: You must answer right or.....! SUNDAY MORNING Poem Text First Line: I light a cigarette, my dead mouth steaming SURVIVAL IN MISSOURI First Line: When willie crosby died I thought too much Last Line: I am beginning to understand %the rain TAKE-OFF OVER KANSAS Poem Text First Line: At first the fences are racing under. Horses and men Last Line: That later you remember was your own Subject(s): Air Travel TAKE-OFF OVER KANSAS First Line: At first the fences are racing under. Horses and men Last Line: That later you remember was your own Subject(s): Air Travel TALKING MYSELF TO SLEEP AT ONE MORE HILTON First Line: I have a country but no town Last Line: It does. Or it will have to do TEMPTATION Poem Text First Line: St. Anthony, my father's holy man Subject(s): Temptation; Devil; Temptation; Satan; Mephistopheles; Lucifer; Beelzebub TEMPTATION First Line: St. Anthony, my father's holy man Last Line: I think the devil almost hooked his saint Subject(s): Devil; Temptation TEN MINUTES MY CAPTIVE First Line: A turtle, rattlesnake-backed but horny TEN YEARS AGO WHEN I PLAYED AT BEING BRAVE First Line: Sleep was what deviled it. The days were easy Last Line: A thousandth and a thousandth time again %come from the shapeless waters under time TERZONE: BODY TO SOUL First Line: That grave, secretive, aspirant even, and bang-kneed Last Line: Of today's air, to glitter me time and place TERZONE: SOUL TO BODY First Line: That affable, vital, inspired even, and well-paid Last Line: Look at him guzzle. He actually likes it here! THANKS TO A BOTANIST First Line: Setting his camera to blink a frame Last Line: Would be a visible symphony Subject(s): Photography And Photographers THAT SUMMER'S SHORE First Line: On the island, finding you naked and pearled THE BIRD IN WHATEVER NAME Poem Text First Line: A bird with a name it does not itself Subject(s): Birds; Names THE CARTOGRAPHER OF THE MEADOWS Poem Text Last Line: As he moves to amber from his resinoujs drowning Subject(s): Fields; Maps THE CAT HEARD THE CAT-BIRD Poem Text First Line: One day, a fine day, a high-flying-sky day Last Line: I don't see any cat-bird here Subject(s): Animals; Cats THE CATALPA Poem Text Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening THE CLOCK IN THE MIRROR Poem Text First Line: This is the blur of dimension, the past arriving Last Line: In a cubic mirror. Which of ourselves shall we be? Subject(s): Relativity; Mirrors THE COW Poem Text First Line: A greensweet breathing Last Line: In a foreground of the hills Subject(s): Cows THE DAY OF THE PEONIES Poem Text First Line: This is the day of the peonies. My dfaughter Last Line: Of feasted day, half holy and half daft Subject(s): Peonies THE DEATHS ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU STIR IN SLEEP Poem Text Last Line: Our best will be to dream of what we were Subject(s): Love; Death; Fear; Sleep THE DOLLAR DOG Poem Text First Line: I had a dollar dog named spot Last Line: But a lot of kinds to get for a dollar Subject(s): Dogs THE DOLLS Poem Text First Line: Night after night forever the dolls lay stiff Subject(s): Dolls; Dolls; Toys THE EVIL EYE Poem Text First Line: Nona poured oil on the water and saw the eye Last Line: Though I had one already and the other came Subject(s): Italy; Superstition; Italians THE FOOLISH WING Poem Text First Line: Is done now with bright thinness of upper air. Weight Last Line: It is time's journalism only; we are reporting merely Subject(s): Time Magazine THE GIFT Poem Text First Line: In 1945, when the keepers cried kaput Last Line: Is the gift beyond history and hurt and heaven Subject(s): Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Jews; Shoah; Judaism THE HEALTH OF CAPTAINS Poem Text First Line: The health of captains is the sex of war Last Line: Sleep through the mornings where the captains rise Subject(s): War; Sex Role THE JOURNEY Poem Text First Line: I went through the forest without a tree Subject(s): Forests; Woods THE LAMB Poem Text First Line: A month before easter Last Line: Its flesh was easter Subject(s): Easter; Holidays; Lambs; The Resurrection THE LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP; FOR JOE, THE SULLEN BASTARD First Line: Dinner was duckling with tangerine sauce Subject(s): Friendship - Selectivity THE LUNGFISH Poem Text First Line: In africa, when river beds Subject(s): African Lungfish THE MYSTERY Poem Text First Line: There was this young fellow named chet THE ONE DULL THING YOU DID WAS TO DIE, FLETCHER Poem Text First Line: To you, fletcher, from my dark house asleep Last Line: To you, fletcher, from my dark house asleep Subject(s): Death THE PILOT IN THE JUNGLE Poem Text First Line: Machine stitched rivets ravel on a tree Last Line: To bedrocks out of time, with time to kill Subject(s): Air Warfare; Jungles THE POET'S WORDS Poem Text First Line: Language ends in the tongue's clay pit Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Language THE PROJECT Poem Text First Line: Three or four percent of all the ants THE REASON FOR THE PELICAN Poem Text Last Line: To quite a splendid size Subject(s): Pelicans THE SEA SHINES Poem Text First Line: The sea shines. Wind-raked, the waters run tight Last Line: Of what abundance, on what hammered shore Subject(s): Sea; Ocean THE SHARK Poem Text First Line: My dear, let me tall you about the shark Last Line: Be careful where you swim, my sweet Subject(s): Sharks THE SORROW OF OBEDIENCE First Line: The lieutenant ordered me to ask abdhul Last Line: I was once more left to grieve for my imperfections Subject(s): Obedience; Army Life; Dogs THE STILLS AND RAPIDS OF YOUR NAKEDNESS Poem Text Last Line: I start from wood to praise you and grow green Subject(s): Love; Desire THE STRANGER IN THE PUMPKIN Poem Text Subject(s): Pumpkins THINKING ABOUT GIRLS First Line: All day I been thinking girls Last Line: Which came to nothing really. Where it began THIS MORNING First Line: This morning in installment property Last Line: His strew of announcements, and back to nothing to do THIS MOVING MEANINGLESSNESS First Line: It is, I think a robin tinkling away Last Line: It was not much song but may it repeat and repeat THOUGHT ABOUT SHEIK BEDREDDEN First Line: I read in a tattered book about sheik bedreddin Last Line: There must be something to say of that much death THOUGHTS ON LOOKING INTO A THICKET Poem Text First Line: The name of a fact: at home in that leafy world THOUGHTS ON LOOKING INTO A THICKET First Line: The name of a fact: at home in that leafy world Last Line: I speak from thickets and from nebulae: %till their damnation feed them, all men starve THOUSANDTH POEM FOR DYLAN THOMAS First Line: Waking outside his babylonian binge Last Line: Our addict, and our angel of defeat Subject(s): Thomas, Dylan (1914-1953) THREE A.M. AND THEN FIVE Poem Text First Line: Do you like your life? Last Line: Yawningly, “yes”. “yes” Subject(s): Life; Likes & Dislikes THREE A.M. AND THEN FIVE First Line: Do you like your life' Last Line: Yawningly, 'yes. Yes' THREE EGGS UP Poem Text First Line: Three sunset eggs on a white plate Subject(s): Eggs; War THREE EGGS UP First Line: Three sunset eyes on a white plate Last Line: The protein of eternity Subject(s): War THREE SONGS FOR CADAVER: 1 First Line: Cadaver's a box of cold meat Last Line: And the scholar has opened him wide Subject(s): Corpses THREE SONGS FOR CADAVER: 2 First Line: Oh where is the soul in the meat? Last Line: And what of the stuff of our wish? Subject(s): Corpses THREE SONGS FOR CADAVER: 3 First Line: At that supper the paraclete Last Line: The feast, and the feeder are one Subject(s): Christianity; Corpses THREE VIEWS OF MOTHER: 1 Poem Text First Line: Good soul, my mother holds my daughter Last Line: Leaving the trail of its going wet on the world Subject(s): Mothers THREE VIEWS OF MOTHER: 1 First Line: Good soul, my mother holds my daughter Last Line: Leaving the trail of its going wet on the world Subject(s): Mothers THREE VIEWS OF MOTHER: 2 Poem Text First Line: I see her in the garden, loam-knuckled in spring Last Line: But she can be sure there is time for one more garden? Subject(s): Mothers THREE VIEWS OF MOTHER: 2 First Line: I see her in the garden, loam-knuckled in spring Last Line: But can she be sure there is time for one more garden? Subject(s): Mothers THREE VIEWS OF MOTHER: 3 Poem Text First Line: Three rainy days and the fourth one sunny Last Line: But oh, if you could have seen it in that tree! Subject(s): Mothers THREE VIEWS OF MOTHER: 3 First Line: Three rainy days and the fourth one sunny Last Line: But oh, if you could have seen it in that tree! Subject(s): Mothers THURSDAY First Line: After the living, the attic. Then the rain Last Line: But oh, children, what eyes our father had! THURSDAY ALSO HAPPENS Poem Text First Line: Yesterday when the leaves blew off the elm THURSDAY ALSO HAPPENS First Line: Yesterday when the leaves blew off the elm TIME IS THE LATE TRAIN INTO ALBANY Poem Text Last Line: To get down to cases Subject(s): Sex; Railroads; Time; Opportunity TIME IS THE LATE TRAIN INTO ALBANY Last Line: To get down to cases Subject(s): Railroads; Time TIME LEAVES NO TIME WHEN YOU'RE A BOY First Line: Just being a boy takes all (about) Last Line: Time leaves no time as a boy grows TO A LOVELY LADY GONE TO THEORY First Line: You could be the beginning of treated birds Last Line: Everything responding but in no sequence TO A REVIEWER WHO ADMIRED MY BOOK First Line: Few men in any age have second sight Last Line: But never doubt your gift. You are right! You are right! Subject(s): Critics & Criticism TO A REVIEWER WHO ADMIRED MY BOOK First Line: Few men in any age have second sight Last Line: But never doubt your gift. You are right! You are right! Subject(s): Critics And Criticism TO A YOUNG AMERICAN THE DAY AFTER THE FALL OF BARCELONA Poem Text First Line: Boy with honor in your heart Last Line: And leave your world to be undone Subject(s): Spanish Civil War (1936-1939); Innocence; Evil TO A YOUNG AMERICAN THE DAY AFTER THE FALL OF BARCELONA First Line: Boy with honor in your heart Last Line: And leave your world to be undone Subject(s): Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) TO BE DELIVERED ON ARRIVAL First Line: I thought to send roses. Masses of roses TO DUDLEY FITTS; SOME MORTAL LINES WHILE LYING IN BED WITH SACROLILIAC First Line: Patience, dudley. We are two dried paltries Last Line: Old paltry bones, these two sticks clacked together Subject(s): Aging; Fitts, Dudley (1903-1968) TO JUDITH Poem Text First Line: Now by a ritual of legality Subject(s): Marriage; Love; Weddings; Husbands; Wives TO JUDITH ASLEEP Poem Text First Line: My dear, darkened in sleep, turned from the moon Last Line: Time still must tick this, I am, we are are Subject(s): Sleep; Time; Togetherness TO JUDITH ASLEEP First Line: My dear, darkened in sleep, turned from the moon Last Line: Saga and century, sleep in familiar-far. %time still must tick this is, I am, we are Subject(s): Sleep TO LUCASTA, ABOUT THAT WAR Poem Text First Line: A long winter from home the gulls blew Subject(s): War; World War Ii; Second World War TO LUCASTA, ABOUT THAT WAR First Line: A long winter from home the gulls blew Last Line: Which is called (as noted) war. And it stinks Subject(s): World War Ii TO MY STUDENTS; LAST CLASS, LAST WORDS Poem Text First Line: They are dancing the rain dance in bali Last Line: Go out and make a dollar, and god will love you Subject(s): Schools; Advice; Students TO MY STUDENTS; LAST CLASS, LAST WORDS First Line: They are dancing the rain dance in bali Last Line: Go out and make a dollar, and god will love you Subject(s): Schools TO ONE 'INVESTIGATED' BY THE LAST SENATE COMMITTEE, OR THE NEXT Poem Text First Line: And though the walls have ears Last Line: To make a craven safety / count for honor's part Subject(s): Mccarthyism; United States - Congress - Senate TO ONE 'INVESTIGATED' BY THE LAST SENATE COMMITTEE, OR THE NEXT First Line: And though the walls have ears Last Line: To make a craven safety %count for honor's part Subject(s): Mccarthyism; U.s. - Congress - Senate TO W.T. SCOTT; WITH THANKS FOR A POEM First Line: I like that poem, win. There's a green world in it Last Line: The eighth day of the world, by a man told Subject(s): Scott, Winfield Townley (1910-1968) TO WESTWARD Poem Text First Line: Westward I had expected reminders: somewhere in the dakota's carpet Last Line: Men going nowhere, hands pocketed, heels kicking the wall Subject(s): Middle West; Travel; Midwest; Old Northwest; Central States; North Central States; Journeys; Trips TO WESTWARD First Line: Westward I had expected reminders: somewhere in the dakota's carpet Last Line: Men going nowhere, hands pocketed, heels kicking the wall Subject(s): Middle West; Travel TOMMY'S POND Poem Text First Line: Frogs' eggs in globular clusters Last Line: Unsaid as galaxies. In any pond Subject(s): Ponds TOMMY'S POND First Line: Frogs' legs in globular clusters Last Line: Unsaid as galaxies. In any pond TRAFFIC VICTIM SENDS A SONNET OF CONFUSED THANKS TO GOD First Line: Please do not think of me as a surly guest Last Line: To say you host a sweet world, all in all TRAGEDY-MAKER First Line: Everything you/I do in the natural course Last Line: Poor sufferer at everything, and at last done TREE First Line: There was a tree whose leaves were flowers Last Line: And saw its fruit -- like shrunken heads TREE TRIMMING Poem Text First Line: There's this to a good day's sweat Last Line: A whole wood and touch no memory Subject(s): Trees TREE TRIMMING First Line: There's this to a good day's sweat Last Line: He who could sweat down, tree by tree, %a whole wood and touch no memory Subject(s): Trees TRENTA-SEI OF THE PLEASURE WE TAKE .. EARLY DEATH OF KEATS First Line: It is old school custom to pretent to be sad Last Line: Pale, dying poet, fading as soft as rhyme, %the saddest music keeps the sweetest time Subject(s): Customs, Social; Keats, John (1795-1821); Poetry And Poets TRUE OR FALSE Poem Text First Line: The bard as the olympian quelque chose TRUE OR FALSE First Line: Real emeralds are worth more than synthetics Last Line: From a truth too late. Iknow the principle TRYING TO FEEL SOMETHING Poem Text First Line: Someone is always trying to feel something Last Line: Although I drink it anyway for something to do? Subject(s): Judges; Youth; Conduct Of Life; Judgments TRYING TO FEEL SOMETHING First Line: Someone is always trying to feel something Last Line: Though I drink it anyway for something to do? TWENTY-THREE SKIDOO First Line: When we were grown up the swinging doors TWICE, AWAY FROM JACK, I THOUGHT OF HIM First Line: Once in snowed-in winter I was caught Last Line: Of its own carved canyon -- and I thought of jack TWO DRY POEMS: DROUGHT First Line: Will prayer temper the wind to the shorn lamb? Last Line: My tongue cracks when I call thee, israel TWO DRY POEMS: PRAYING FOR RAIN IN A CRACKED FIELD First Line: Few get wet by it. Nevertheless, the fact Last Line: And, while the words lift, has its kingdom come TWO EGRETS Poem Text First Line: On easter morning two egrets Last Line: And the idea of prayer Subject(s): Egrets; Prayer TWO EGRETS First Line: On easter morning two egrets Last Line: Turned the air -- a prayer %and the idea of prayer Subject(s): Egrets; Prayer TWO FOR GERTRUDE KASLE: 1. THE ABSTRACT CALORIE First Line: A doughnut is no sculpture Last Line: Ten ton concrete doughnuts Subject(s): Doughnuts; Donuts TWO FOR GERTRUDE KASLE: 1. THE ABSTRACT CALORIE First Line: A doughnut is no sculpture Last Line: Especially that of people who assert %ten ton concrete doughnuts Subject(s): Doughnuts TWO FOR GERTRUDE KASLE: 2. THE TITLE OF THE LAST POEM WAS WRONG AGAIN First Line: To trap a chipmunk put a bait of nuts Last Line: Difference, but hopeless not to Subject(s): Poetry & Poets TWO FOR GERTRUDE KASLE: 2. THE TITLE OF THE LAST POEM WAS WRONG AGAIN First Line: Put a dot in an infinite plain Last Line: Difference, but helpless not to TWO HOURS: 1. EVENING First Line: The low-fi scrapes the phrases from the strings Last Line: They still may learn. Come here. We'll show them how TWO POEMS FOR BENN: 1. ROMPING First Line: Silly, all giggles and ringlets and never Last Line: All right. Once more, then. But just once. You hear? TWO POEMS FOR BENN: 2. STOPPED SUDDENLY THAT HE IS BEAUTIFUL First Line: It happens at once and unthought of: what bumbled zooms Last Line: To cry: 'my son! My son! I am well traded!' TWO SONGS FOR A GUNNER: 1. FIRING TRACERS First Line: When I was dangerous tracers leaped from me Last Line: And luminous a sperm I spend in play TWO SONGS FOR A GUNNER: 2. BEING FIRED AT First Line: When I was danger's the tracers' endless Last Line: How deep an egg I curled it very well UGLINESS Poem Text First Line: The windows I see into Last Line: What tear shall I ever / be some of a man to? Subject(s): Cousins; Youth; Juvenile Delinquency UGLINESS First Line: The windows I see into Last Line: What tear shall I ever %be some of a man to? USELESS KNOWLEDGE First Line: To trap a chipmunk put a bait of nuts Last Line: It is useless knowledge, but what other is there? Subject(s): Knowledge V-J DAY Poem Text First Line: On the tallest day in time the dead came back Last Line: Wheels jammed and flaming on a metal sea Subject(s): World War Ii; Second World War V-J DAY First Line: On the tallest day in time the dead came back Last Line: On the tallest day in time we saw them coming %wheels jammed and flaming on a metal sea Subject(s): World War Ii VAGARY OF THE SIMPLE HEART Poem Text First Line: The technicolor virgin sang VALE (TO IRWIN SWERDLOW) First Line: Cambridge, an outdoor library stack full of books Last Line: All we are sure of is goodbye, goodbye Subject(s): Farewell VERBAL GENERATION First Line: As the hostess said Last Line: About being a generation VISIBILITY ZERO Poem Text First Line: All day with mist against the hurdling wind Last Line: We need not waken what we need not see Subject(s): Army Life; World War Ii; Drills & Minor Tactics; Second World War VISIBILITY ZERO First Line: All day with mist against the hurdling wind Last Line: We need not waken and we need not see Subject(s): Army Life; World War Ii VISIT FOR AUNT FRANCESCA First Line: Pigment of wax apples bleeds into Last Line: And footsteps sounding on our last goodnights VODKA First Line: Vodka, I hope you will note, is Last Line: Seems to be coming of that Subject(s): Drinks And Drinking WAFFLEBUTT Poem Text First Line: Reveille rung on the telephone awakes Last Line: Where day and day destroys us after all Subject(s): Army Life; Drills & Minor Tactics WAFFLEBUTT First Line: Reveille rung on the telephone awakes Last Line: Where day and day destroys us after all Subject(s): Army Life WARD THREE: FAITH Poem Text First Line: I only had a tack hammer, an ice pick, faith Subject(s): Faith; Belief; Creed WARD THREE: FAITH First Line: I had only a tack hammer, an ice pick, faith WARNING ABOUT THE PREPOSTEROUS First Line: The hairy-nosed preposterous %is lost. His three fat tails Last Line: And have to go live at the zoo WAS A MAN Poem Text First Line: Ted roethke was a tearing man Last Line: From the town's biggest crooks Subject(s): Roethke, Theodore (1908-1963) WAS A MAN First Line: Ted roethke was a tearing man Last Line: Of what words are, found time and place %in saginaw, in michigan Subject(s): Roethke, Theodore (1908-1963) WASHING YOU FEET First Line: Washing you feet is hard when you get fat Last Line: It is sad to be fat and to have dirty feet Subject(s): Cleanliness; Feet; Obesity WATCHING A KETTLE BOIL First Line: Watching a kettle boil, a puddle Last Line: How life will dare itself from any wet WEEK THAT WAS First Line: The pet shops were advertising non-rabid bats Last Line: Comment? No comment. This is pure mood WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT THE ZOO First Line: What did I learn at the zoo? Last Line: (and so is a bag of peanuts WHAT JOHNNY TOLD ME Poem Text First Line: I went to play with billy. He Last Line: A true good friend is a lot of fun! Subject(s): Friendship WHAT JOHNNY TOLD ME First Line: I went to play with billy. He Subject(s): Friendship WHAT SOMEONE SAID WHEN HE WAS SPANKED ON THE DAY BEFORE HIS BIRTHDAY First Line: Some day %I may %pack my bag and run away Last Line: -but right now I think I'll stay WHAT SOMEONE TOLD ME ABOUT BOBBY LINK First Line: What do you think %of bobby link? Last Line: That he isn't dry yet. %-I hope he didn't drown WHAT WAS HER NAME? First Line: Someone must make out the cards Last Line: Someone will do the work %she used to do better WHAT WORLD IT IS THE CROCODILE MAY KNOW WHATCHAMACALLIT First Line: There once was a thingumajig Last Line: But it stayed and turned into a pig WHEN A MAN DIES First Line: When a man dies angels tick Last Line: Of -- whatever it was about Subject(s): Death WHEN I AM NOT DEAD First Line: When I am not dead I Last Line: Not know it) waiting WHILE I WAS SHAVING First Line: Daddy, you know that billy fitch? Last Line: Someday will I be rich as you? WHY DON'T YOU WRITE FOR ME? First Line: For you, or of you? It can't be Last Line: And nothing can feed you better WHY I HAVE TO WAIT ALL DAY TO KISS BENN First Line: Being a boy begins with noise Last Line: Y-a-w-n!-and that's when I get my kiss WHY NOBODY PETS THE LION AT THE ZOO Poem Text First Line: The morning that the world began Subject(s): Lions WIDGEONRY (AND WHY SHOULDN'T YOU USE YOUR DICTIONARY?) First Line: A widgeon in a wicopy Last Line: A widowed widgeon was WIND First Line: The morning after the night before Last Line: Till I opened a window and kicked it out Subject(s): Wind WINTER MUSIC Poem Text First Line: November and trees blown bare and leaves stippling Last Line: For wisdom, there is the sunlight falling unbent across such fury Subject(s): Winter WINTER MUSIC First Line: November and trees blown bare and leaves stippling Last Line: For wisdom, there is the sunlight falling unbent across such fury Subject(s): Winter WORD ABOUT THE TRUE-PREPOSTEROUS First Line: The true-preposterous is a beast Last Line: And in the park and square, sir WOULDN'T YOU? Poem Text First Line: If I / could go Last Line: I'd go! Subject(s): Imagination; Wind; Farewell; Fancy WOULDN'T YOU? First Line: If I %could go Last Line: I'd go! Subject(s): Imagination; Wind YET NOT TO LISTEN TO THAT SUNG NOTHING First Line: I woke in florida, late and lazy, my sill Last Line: From winter again, sings, and a man, wakened, hears YOU KNOW WHO First Line: You-know-who knows all there is Last Line: That's just what I mean,' said you-know-who |
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