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Author: PANKEY, ERIC Matches Found: 267 Pankey, Eric Poet's Biography 267 poems available by this author A BIT OF GOLD LEAF Poem Text First Line: The day of judgment came and went and still the sun rose on the dragonflies Subject(s): Past AFTER A QUARREL IN FIESOLE First Line: Kindled by the cicada's worn-down flint Last Line: One of two trails back down to town, %one of two, but neither is easy AFTER IT'S SPENT First Line: I've watched the moon move through its wheel of smoke AFTER THE BURIAL First Line: The lank leaves offer her a little shade AFTER THE JAPANESE First Line: A stand of winter trees Last Line: The spotted shapes of unconcerned horses, %daffodil leaves bent beneath white AFTERWARD First Line: Three snow angels cast by the neighbor children ANGEL'S DEPARTURE First Line: Amid thunder there's a sound without thunder Last Line: Outstretched, wheeling over the cowlicked grasses %wheels away from her taking its judgment and reli ANNIVERSARY: 1 First Line: The constellation virgo harbors a black hole at its center, but Last Line: Gathers on the pearl button of the glove, its little satin noose ANNIVERSARY: 2 First Line: When I said, 'but tonight I see the moon,' I did not tell the Last Line: Of my own heart APPROACHING ACCADEMIA: A NOCTURNE First Line: It gets dark while they talk Last Line: As the slack rope unknots and releases AS OF YET First Line: After my parents died, we boxed up their clothes, coats, and Last Line: Mind's random firing as prescience AS WE FORGIVE THOSE First Line: You're excused, my father would say AT THE WAPSIPINICON RIVER First Line: Through the gauze curtain of rain Last Line: That is and was and will be AUGURY OF PROSPERO First Line: In the split-open breast of the lamb Last Line: And makes a feast of his misreading AUGUST FUGUE First Line: Rain, the last rain of evening, falls Last Line: The rain is the sound that is their sleep AUGUST HEIRLOOM First Line: All this was almost mine Last Line: Like the weightless bauble the cicada sloughed BASKET OF APRICOTS First Line: Flustered (words always made him flustered), Last Line: But she slapped at the air and shooed away the gnats BENEATH VENUS Poem Text Subject(s): Venus (planet) Night BEYOND ALCHEMY First Line: Always this half-light old ghost Last Line: How in a dumbshow does silence rebuke BONE FRAGMENTS Poem Text First Line: Stray frays of virga. In the wood grain: line graph of annual rainfall Last Line: Or perhaps a gray fox’s or a dog’s? The cracked femur spills sand Subject(s): Bones; Knowledge BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS First Line: We all have a story to tell. Mine begins Last Line: Well-edged, sharp to the point, has been my fortune Subject(s): Loss; Moving And Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration BORGO ANTICO First Line: Nothing is mercurial above the mid-day shadows Last Line: We live in the body because it is what we have to give BREVIARY: 1 First Line: The air is the physical Last Line: At its brink overbrimming BREVIARY: 2 First Line: Marring the reflected sky Last Line: The real and its reflection BREVIARY: 3 First Line: Take heart. The dark is dismantled Last Line: Take heart. Please take heart BREVIARY: 4 First Line: For an hour, illumination Last Line: All are counted and accountable BREVIARY: 5 First Line: The weight falls between two slides Last Line: Without the clink, the recovery, the fall BREVIARY: 6 First Line: The dome is gray, a gray all its own Last Line: Estranged, common, they do not intervene BREVIARY: 7 First Line: How impenetrable the gradations are Last Line: Barely seen beyond the willows and outcrop BRIC-A-BRAC Poem Text First Line: Say that sin is a seed that mildewed Subject(s): Conduct Of Life BRIC-A-BRAC First Line: Say that sin is a seed that mildewed Last Line: There's no path hacked yet through the thicket BY DUSK First Line: By dusk the greenwood burned BYGONES First Line: What is the past but everything Last Line: A silence etched by burin and acid CENOTAPH: 1 First Line: In the shallow domain of light's fitful flare Last Line: The cold weight of water that unearths a grave CENOTAPH: 2 First Line: How long did the crescent moon trawl in the wake? Last Line: Each a tattered disguise for the travesty CENOTAPH: 3 First Line: From a distilled essence of quartz and rose Last Line: Sleep as silt sleeps in its dark fall and depth CLARITY Poem Text First Line: I hear, between always and to be CLARITY First Line: I hear, between always and to be Last Line: A flicker lingers on the suet. %a peck. A smear of red and it's gone COLD SPRING BROOK: 1 First Line: How does light affirm in its passing Last Line: But breathe he must, so he breathes in COLD SPRING BROOK: 2 First Line: He builds the entire composition Last Line: Within the lightning-quickened instant COLD SPRING BROOK: 3 First Line: He has made of the narrow threshold Last Line: Doused as it is by the cold, damp breeze COLD SPRING BROOK: 4 First Line: One june, after weeks of no rain Last Line: By a restless, wild welter, redeemed COLD SPRING BROOK: 5 First Line: It began as a sketch, and remains such Last Line: Leaves the world, in its abstraction, true COLD SPRING BROOK: 6 First Line: The crow lives in the aftermath Last Line: A hollow that fills and fills with what falls COLD SPRING BROOK: 7 First Line: Say all of it can be taken back Last Line: A net that traps him under the surface COLD SPRING BROOK: 8 First Line: Oh, he half-sings. The book of moonlight Last Line: Bound as he is, he lets the dark come on COLD WAR First Line: My mother nods off. A lit cigarette Last Line: Lightning, our of sync, preens the maple COMES A TIME First Line: There comes a time when you no longer believe the night Last Line: Answer, 'I...,' knowing there comes a time COMMEDIA First Line: Besieged by nightfall, they fear Last Line: And, to resolve the comedy, kiss CONFESSION ON THE ISLAND First Line: Bound to them in their bondage to me Last Line: I am blessed you took pity on me CONFESSIONAL POEM First Line: The story would not resolve itself for the telling. It remained Last Line: From the trauma of creation CONSOLATION First Line: One story he always told CONSTELLATIONS OF AUTUMN First Line: Who oversees this congregation, this collect of caws, this clamor of rooks Last Line: Western hills. The sun all haze. Read the poems of my teachers and go %back to bed Subject(s): Autumn; Constellations; Seasons COORDINATES First Line: Ten thousand worlds in the eye of a deerfly Last Line: Everywhere at once, then nowhere, where it lives CRAB APPLE First Line: The thin chipped branches of the crab apples Last Line: You almost forget the season they flower CROSSROADS First Line: Is it for the enigma of the hour? Last Line: A hollow cathedral of chaff at the crossroads CROW'S COMPLAINT First Line: Beneath the rain, the crow Last Line: It waits, %uncharmed. Stays put DANCE GLYPHS First Line: The riddle begins: the deer enters the winter arbor Last Line: The riddle begins: the far bank of the river DETAIL FROM THE LAMENTATION OVER THE DEAD CHRIST First Line: The final gift that each affords Last Line: Once. Once she was alive with him DETAILS First Line: As the fog lifts %the once-obscured is revealed at this Last Line: Is this. Is this, this, this, and this Subject(s): Details DISQUISITION OF A GESTURE First Line: I am no longer that orphan Last Line: I would count the hours DIVINATION AT CHAPMAN BEACH First Line: I mention the light on cold spring brook Last Line: Like a dove's blurred flight. Then a blue like water DON GIOVANNI IN HELL First Line: The owl and bell betray the hour Last Line: Grace, like a scythe, cuts what it cradles DOTAGE OF PROSPERO First Line: Untouched by his craft or alchemy Last Line: Falls then lifts silently on the night's hot air DREAM LANDSCAPE WITH THE OLD BRICKYARD ROAD CREEK AND BLIND WILLIE First Line: I have returned to the creek, to the current-scalloped sand Last Line: With one or two steps, he can ford the depth and distance home DREAM LANDSCAPE WITH THE OLD BRICKYARD ROAD CREEK AND BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON Poem Text First Line: Not the seed pearl, but the juniper DRIVING SOUTH FROM IOWA CITY First Line: The whole day EAGLE-HEADED GENIE WATERING THE TREE OF LIFE First Line: A thread of fragrance, as from garlands Last Line: No words lift of their own accord from the page ELEGIAC VARIATIONS: 1. MOOD INDIGO First Line: Ahead of me the day ahead Last Line: How far I have come to be only here ELEGIAC VARIATIONS: 2. THE STARLING'S LULLABY First Line: Another day kindled and put out Last Line: What it burns it fuels with the soul ELEGIAC VARIATIONS: 3. THE PARABLE OF THE VINEYARD First Line: The moon %its mouth sealed shut with wax Last Line: And the thistle worn to a crown ELEGIAC VARIATIONS: 4. THREE CROWS First Line: Three crows overthrow the canopy Last Line: I was called by name and did not follow ELEGIAC VARIATIONS: 5. THE BLUES First Line: How heavy the mortal body of christ Last Line: Lord I just can't keep from crying sometimes ELEGIAC VARIATIONS: 6. STUDY FOR RAIN First Line: Between cypress and olive Last Line: I should have said this rain was sweeter ELEGIAC VARIATIONS: 7. NOCTURNE AND REFRAIN First Line: Now you may have the final word Last Line: Now you may have the final word ELEGIAC VARIATIONS: 8. CONFRONTING THE ORACLE IN FIESOLE First Line: Only a lizard to show the way Last Line: For now still it holds its tongue ELEGIST First Line: I exhumed from the muck, loam, and alluvial deposits a thousand Last Line: The very logic of telling ELEGY First Line: Sure, the earth gives back what it chooses Last Line: That takes the shape of everything I own ENCOUNTERS: 1 First Line: He began to climb the slender tree Last Line: And he watched as she walked into the center, %silently, a whit figure descending into blue ENCOUNTERS: 2 First Line: Once, during the occupation, he left the bars Last Line: Faint steam lifted from the eroded furrows, %almost unnoticeable against the settling evening EPHEMERA OF AUGUST First Line: I hung the heavy, beheaded body on the blade Last Line: An heirloom bestowed, at the hot close of those last days EPITAPH Poem Text First Line: Beyond the traceries of the auroras Subject(s): Ghosts EPITAPH First Line: Beyond the traceries of the auroras Last Line: Runoff, pitch-black, from the rivers of psalms ERRATA First Line: I counted the three species of fire Last Line: Annulled by its own reflection ESSAY ON IDLENESS Poem Text First Line: Clear sky, / but somewhere a shrug of thunder Last Line: Delays as it waits for a fig to open Subject(s): Idleness ESSAYS ON A LEMON First Line: Violet shadow. A blur Last Line: It reveals only itself FALSE SPRING First Line: I look into a stubbled field Last Line: It stalls, then lifts %in its bright spasm of flight. %it knows it's been fooled FEAST IN JERUSALEM First Line: Once as clear as ivory Last Line: Or the one we accuse, %but into our eyes FIELD NOTE Poem Text Subject(s): Nature FIELD OF VISION First Line: Overwhelmed by rain, by that cross-grain of cold Last Line: A self-portrait through which he must look to see FINAL THOUGHT First Line: What I have written thus far is but a treatise Last Line: Like a slipknot around nothing and undoes itself FIRE First Line: Fire gnaws the green stems Last Line: How clean and white the glow FIRES First Line: This morning we found Last Line: The dull glow dissolving, %reappearing. Small miracles %firing the air FOOL'S GOLD First Line: I was not the type FOR LUCK Poem Text First Line: You know for sure you're lucky Subject(s): Luck FOR LUCK First Line: You know for sure you are lucky FOR NOW First Line: For now, he prefers adagio to presto Last Line: Balanced like a pearl on his tongue FOR THE END OF THE WORLD First Line: A large torn branch, broken by wind FOR THE NEW YEAR First Line: White walls kept white, rubbed with chalk Last Line: This light after the body's %pleasure. Always this light FROM DANGER First Line: Sometimes the day stalls, but does not falter GHOST OF A CHANCE First Line: It is all here-thistle, ground cherry Last Line: Knot this blood traces through my body. %I forgot how heavy you could be GIFT First Line: No one is waiting. No one watches Last Line: Something simple, ordianry. %something you might learn to fear GRAVE OF A WOMAN First Line: All the flesh left is a patch of leather Last Line: The earth the meek shall inherit GUARD: 1934: 1 First Line: Sometimes I wake up at night Last Line: I asked my brother. Don't you see, he laughed, %it don't mean a thing, not a thing GUARD: 1934: 2 First Line: I get to where I can forget Last Line: Into the length of a tunnel %and I felt better. I felt okay GUARD: 1934: 3 First Line: I went into town for a half-hour Last Line: I didn't care about the chickens anymore GUARD: 1934: 4 First Line: After this evening's rain Last Line: I like that smell. The taste of the air HISTORY Poem Text First Line: A hundred flint arrowheads, chipped, rain Subject(s): Politics & Government; War HISTORY First Line: A hundred flint arrowheads, chipped, rain Last Line: Of fearlessness, the gift-bestowing gesture %of compassion Subject(s): Politics; War HISTORY OF THE WORLD First Line: Cumbersome grief, grief, %by its form fragmentary, is now our history Last Line: A song that calls us to celebrate and mourn %that each day is not the day of judgment HOMAGE First Line: O my god, looming and rough-hewn Last Line: The flawed from this hammerdressed world HOMAGE First Line: What prepares each day for the light that equals day HOME REMEDY Poem Text First Line: The whiskey made me invisible Last Line: To stand in it was to blaze / effaced Subject(s): Drinks & Drinking; Past HOMECOMING Poem Text First Line: In time, thunder unshackles the rain Subject(s): Loss; Moving & Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration HOMECOMING First Line: In time, thunder unshackles the rain Last Line: The bird for the objection its sustains? Subject(s): Loss; Moving And Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration HORSE First Line: The horse my mother sits on is pocked Last Line: The only thing she can do is wait HOW TO SUSTAIN THE VISIONARY MODE First Line: Wherever possible, avoid predication: the night sea, the dark river, this rain Last Line: Longer quarried in these hills, gray as the pigeons tucked in the eaves, this rain, this dark river, IF YOU CAN First Line: In your life you will bruise your heel ILLUMINATION OF HEAVEN AND EARTH First Line: On all sides IMPROVISATION First Line: The only bridge across wind river is the wind Last Line: Put a line through it. X it out: the wind over the lip of the green bottle. The wind-frayed stamen IMPROVISATION OF FOUR LINES FROM THE SANSKRIT First Line: All things have their antidote: %a stick for the ox Last Line: But for the restless repose of my gaze IN ABSENTIA First Line: The sky is indigo and potash Last Line: A sudden drizzle casts its aspersions IN ARCADIA First Line: Half buried in scrub and red poppies Last Line: There and gone. There and gone. There IN BALANCE Poem Text First Line: A large torn branch, broken by wind Subject(s): Snow; Storms IN HEAVEN First Line: If wind slashes through the honey locust Last Line: Her discrete approach? She never arrives IN SIENA, PROSPERO RECONSIDERS THE MARRIAGE AT CANA First Line: All sleight-of-hand trails the dross and clutter Last Line: And no one, not even god, lifted a finger INERTIA Poem Text First Line: Say, for instance the stark exposure and awkward pose of this Subject(s): Crucifixion; Jesus Christ - Crucifixion INTERLUDE Poem Text First Line: Beneath the violet embellishment of trellised wisteria INTERLUDE First Line: Beneath the violet embellishment of trellised wisteria Last Line: Will not break from the shadow and answer INTO HAPPINESS First Line: Just last week I was bent with sickness JUNE VAGARIES Poem Text First Line: Now the mouirning dove vows a doubtful vow Subject(s): Birds JUNE VAGARIES First Line: Now the mourning dove vows a doubtful vow Last Line: Inflects its one sentence as a question KEEPSAKE First Line: Not the seed pearl, but the juniper Last Line: The tallow of flesh KINGDOM LIKENED TO A FIELD OF WEEDS First Line: The green is not wheat, but mustard Last Line: No shade falls on the kingdom of weeds KINGDOM OF GOD LIKENED TO A DEER CARCASS First Line: What the crow abandons, worms relish Last Line: What the wind forsakes, dogs will drag away LANDSCAPE AND SELF-PORTRAIT First Line: Two notes and an interval of silence. Not here Last Line: Held fast and holds. The image was the image at hand LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS First Line: What does the rosemary remember? Last Line: The rue that once cleansed the afflicted? LATE AUGUST First Line: While you are packing Last Line: There is a breeze, %a thick slow wind still full of heat, %but it is motion, a relief LESSON OF SNAKES First Line: The seedpods of the catalpa drooped and curled Last Line: To burn and throb at last, to enliven me LIGHT BY WHICH I READ Poem Text First Line: One does not turn to the rose for shade, nor the charred song of the redwing for solace - see more a Subject(s): Books; Reading LINES IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER: PONTE SANTA TRINITA First Line: Water tarnishes %green and cinnabar Last Line: I can live with it %my father said %meaning he'd rather not LUNAR ODE First Line: O spare charity and arctic ash Last Line: O for even the moon's light, for an iota of air MANIFEST DESTINY First Line: Where his left hand fulcrums the shaft Last Line: All he touches is changed for good MANNER OF FIRE First Line: One season verges into the next Last Line: And crowned by dust, %in its full quiet, %is its own calm commentary MEDITATION AT HINKSON CREEK: THANKSGIVING, 1980 First Line: The wolf knows nothing of the path I follow Last Line: Than the flooded creek's debacle of ice MELANCHOLIA First Line: Removed from its axle, the chipped grindstone Last Line: That distance to arrange and in arranging change MEMORY OF HEAVEN Poem Text First Line: On earth we loved the waste of orchard, those branches Subject(s): Heaven; Paradise MEMORY OF HEAVEN First Line: On earth we loved the waste of orchard, those branches METAPHOR First Line: To capture the morning METAPHYSICIAN'S INSOMNIA First Line: The wind kicks up surf and keeps him awake Last Line: Then the bad aftertaste of a long night MILK GLASS First Line: What was left to her she now leaves to me Last Line: As welcome as frost on the window, hard frost %that daybreak will not melt away MUSE'S ADMONITION First Line: Party lights in the distance waver and dim Last Line: A mouth opening to speak MUTE SPIRITS First Line: There were other ghosts Last Line: Like the cloak of a spirit in a street play, %knows no words to explain this first death to his son NARRATION OF RAIN First Line: Rain blows through the pines. Rain rattles water oak leaves. Rain on the stone Last Line: The rain on the face of the hunter and on the sorrowful face of the prey NARRATIVE POEM First Line: The story of a story is order over chaos Last Line: The story of a story is order over chaos NEARSIGHTED First Line: Over on the far point Last Line: And squint. The whole thing flares like a burning net, %a trap sprung each night and empty NIGHTSHADE First Line: Those shadows, those flame shapes below NOCTURNE AND MORNING SONG First Line: Soon enough silence will reign Last Line: O god of clamor. O god of silence NOSTALGIA First Line: Afterward, it was hard to sleep at night Last Line: Finds his own mouth formed around an unsayable word? ODE ON THE PRESENT TENSE First Line: Once more this winter seems all winters past OLD SAYBROOK First Line: The ray must have been looking for something Last Line: I knew by now the kitchen %would be warm filled with light, %and you would be waking ON THE WAPSIPINICON First Line: A hawk rides a thermal Last Line: Away from a source and toward an end Subject(s): Change ON THE WAY TO SINGAPORE First Line: This kind of fear is not new to me Last Line: And you have the idea that you too %will die and be thrown into the sea OR THORNS COMPOSE SO RICH A CROWN First Line: The greens-kingfisher, fern, cut shoot, mineral-constellate amid the Last Line: Or, I could continue, and offer another story made of only the versions' %contradictions OTHER SIDE OF THE ARGUMENT First Line: But she prefers the morning glory Last Line: How it needs only a foothold %to fill half the day with blue Subject(s): Flowers; Morning Glories OVER HIS SLEEPING AND HIS WAKING First Line: Here, he thinks, was a kingdom. The leaf he crushes OVERCOAT First Line: The day my father came home, blood still wet PALIMPSEST OF CHALKED EQUATIONS AND ERASURES Poem Text First Line: The freight of ambiguity can be figured as Last Line: Collapsed beneath a bountiful harvest Subject(s): Poetry & Poets PALM SUNDAY First Line: Three weeks ago forsythia rattled its sticks Last Line: Each year she looks out for an answer and finds %only spring's unmiraculous onslaught PEAR AS ONE EXAMPLE First Line: Light, the common denominator Last Line: He holds what anyone would call a pear PERSEPHONE'S GARDEN First Line: The makeshift scaffold that held up the moon Last Line: A story the digression overtakes Subject(s): Moon; Night PHOTOGRAPH OF MY PARENTS ICE SKATING, 1954 First Line: The slight mist lifts into the upper branches Last Line: And they will talk quietly %as if not to wake someone PHRASE OF THINE ACTIONS First Line: What I know of the sacred is a gloss Last Line: What is dust that he would think to reshape it PILGRIM'S DEPARTURE First Line: Now that the sedge and reed warblers Last Line: The other is on the tip of my tongue PILGRIMAGE OF MY FATHER'S GHOST First Line: Halfway home, he comes to the field's edge Last Line: The sun, still cold, consumes him like a fever POLITICS OF HAPPINESS First Line: So I said-this is what I am Last Line: This happiness is a curse, %althought to love it %is to call it something else PRAYER First Line: Each day, adorned and in shambles, is your offering Last Line: You who see the cleft in all that is divisible PROSPERO CONSIDERS THE LAST DAYS First Line: What is love in his brackish blood Last Line: He had imagined his love more like that PROSPERO RETURNED FROM EXILE First Line: He cursed the flinty soil and a fig tree grew Last Line: An island to which all are pulled safe ashore PROSPERO STAYS HOME FROM CHURCH First Line: What if he called a thousand miles arrival Last Line: Bach, and therefore the art of the fugue PROSPERO TAKES HIS MORFNING COFFEE WITH THE CONSPIRATORS First Line: This morning a trail of spots mars the sun Last Line: Find themselves lost, wrecked on his words QUARTET First Line: All morning the song of a pulley's creak Last Line: Until he looks again and finds it gone READING IN BED First Line: Chekhov writes of a man Last Line: The trees on either side %would grow larger and separate, %detailed, though bare REASONS OF ICE First Line: The house sits up ahead on the hill Last Line: Its eyes, in shade, darker than mud, %its large fist of a head cowlicked RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FICTIVE SPACE First Line: He opens his eyes and a season passes Last Line: The afterlife of the afterimage REDEMPTION SONGS First Line: The story goes that seth returned to eden in search of a branch Last Line: The simple music served its purpose RESTLESS GHOST Poem Text First Line: The wasp's paper nest hung all winter. Subject(s): Wasps; Ghosts; Yellow Jackets RESURRECTION OF THE BODY First Line: Do all who lie down expect to awake? Last Line: The earth the meek will inherit RETURNING IN WINTER First Line: Think what you will about this place where we have come Last Line: We were so wise then. We believed cruelty was weather, and %could change SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE First Line: If it is indeed more fitting Last Line: What is a heart that consumes and is consumed? SANDY POINT ROAD: AN ECLOGUE First Line: Again the day begins: the hour like galilee Last Line: Yes, there is a path before me and I follow it SANTO SPIRITO First Line: Above the terra cotta roofs, swallows dart Last Line: Revived, we hold each other and we rest SAVANT OF BIRDCALLS Poem Text First Line: The blue herons' do-si-do, Subject(s): Birds SAVANT OF BIRDCALLS First Line: The blue herons' do-si-do Last Line: Question the truth of my name SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS SWEPT CLEAN Poem Text First Line: Words are but an entrance, a door cut deep into cold clay Subject(s): Graves; Language; Tombs; Tombstones; Words; Vocabulary SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS SWEPT CLEAN First Line: Words are but an entrance, a door cut deep into cold clay Last Line: Are words but an entrance? Words are but an entrance Subject(s): Graves; Language SERENADE First Line: All is a tally of remnants and patches: Last Line: Lowers its veil as if a drama's end %were imminent, as if to keep separate %the mundane from the mun SKETCHBOOK OF THE DEMIURGE, SELS. First Line: As one season stains the next Last Line: Taking comfort you'll know what he means SMALL CORPUS First Line: There where the thread breaks Last Line: He sees a sky as blue as a god's body SMOKE First Line: My brother and I cut a tunnel Last Line: Smoke spread through the tunnel. The dark %was close enough to fill the cracks SOBER THEN DRUNK AGAIN Poem Text First Line: On the lightning-struck pin oak, Subject(s): Drinks & Drinking; Wine ST. JEROME: 1 First Line: Outlined in the light of burning brush Last Line: I expect their ghost-weight to lift %above the white branches like smoke ST. JEROME: 2 First Line: When I was young I'd prowl the catacombs Last Line: The place had the smell of the earth %or a thing the body never knows itself to be ST. JEROME: 3 First Line: The translucent shell of a cicada Last Line: Sleep is no good when it is murderous STORM'S END First Line: The tarpaulin of rain torn away Last Line: As much in exhaustion as in reverence STORMS First Line: After a storm unbraided itself Last Line: Only our strokes and the first drops %disturbed the water STRIKING THE COPPER BOWL TO IMITATE THE SINGING DRAGON First Line: All evening the dark bleeds through Last Line: And such a fire feral %and immeasurable STRUCTURE OF FAITH First Line: Something in the air Last Line: A tumultuous stratagem %it seems a gift, a fluke, %or evidence STUDIO WITH VANITAS STILL LIFE First Line: The body, a vessel of shadow Last Line: A flash followed by thunder, by rain STUDY First Line: The wind. All things touched by wind Last Line: Like the eye of a hawk when the hood is lifted STUDY FOR SALOME DANCING BEFORE HEROD Poem Text First Line: In the movement toward disappearance Subject(s): Salome (1st Century A.d.) SWORN DEPOSITION First Line: What he remembers holds like a slipknot Last Line: Read back his answer, he cannot retract it TAINTER'S FARM First Line: Everything in the landscape Last Line: As though each wind adds to the erasures, %to the white sky holding, %by now, nothing TE DEUM LAUDAMUS First Line: Out on the sound Last Line: On how the deed %and the sentence are never just TENDING THE GARDEN: 1 First Line: The clod of earth in his shovel Last Line: He knew what freight the train carried- %white faces framed by narrow slats TENDING THE GARDEN: 2 First Line: I was luckier than most, luckier Last Line: But now, nothing as obvious as a kiss %could reinvent that girl or change anything TENDING THE GARDEN: 3 First Line: That night he woke on the wooden bunk Last Line: It is what might cover one and take one's breath away. %completely, a final time TENDING THE GARDEN: 4 First Line: The trains pass more frequently. The whistle Last Line: And that I would choose to remember it %on this particular day, this moment TENDING THE GARDEN: 5 First Line: She thought it was unusual Last Line: She lifted the pails slightly at her sides %to show she could not accept the gift TENDING THE GARDEN: 6 First Line: The man beside her cried Last Line: And realize she would never touch %herself as intimately %orwith such a pure and generous fear TENDING THE GARDEN: 7 First Line: I often think of going back Last Line: On the soaked black earth. I hope %he survived, if he ever existed TENEBRAE First Line: How can we doubters explain the midday dark Last Line: How can we believe his tomb will stand %emptied, cenotaph to a god and man? TESTAMENT First Line: How far and how keenly the causeway cuts Last Line: On water not calm, but untroubled THE BEAUTIFUL GARDENER OR THE CREATION OF EVE Poem Text First Line: I return to the dream as if to a hive Last Line: Not a flare when the frame snags and burns Subject(s): Dreams THE CONSTELLATIONS OF AUTUMN Poem Text First Line: Who oversees this congregation, this collect of caws, this clamor of rooks Subject(s): Autumn; Constellations; Seasons; Fall THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS Poem Text First Line: What does the rosemary remember? Subject(s): Flowers THE LITTLE VILLAGE Poem Text First Line: Dusk as silent as an owl’s wing. The old wall, built by the romans, or built to keep the romans out Last Line: Planchette on the ouija board centered over no Subject(s): Villages; Ptovence, France THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ARGUMENT Poem Text First Line: But she prefers the morning glory Last Line: To fill half the day with blue Subject(s): Flowers; Morning Glories THE PHRASE OF THINE ACTIONS Poem Text First Line: What I know of the sacred is a gloss Subject(s): Religion; Theology THE PLUM ON THE SILL Poem Text First Line: The cold at its poles and blush Subject(s): Plums; Plum Trees THE PROBLEM WITH THE FIRST PERSON Poem Text First Line: I confront silence as if it were a space THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY Poem Text First Line: Do all who lie down expect to awake? Subject(s): Death; Future Life; Dead, The; Retribution; Eternity; After Life THE UNSTRUNG LYRE Poem Text First Line: With what can I string this antique lyre Subject(s): Life; Musical Instruments THIS MORNING First Line: Hoarfrost flowers on the stubble Last Line: And the gray horse, its mane hatched in ice slivers, %tears at the bent, shagged stalks TO ABEL First Line: I give it up-the earth, what it held for me Last Line: Take this blow with forgiveness, as a gift TO CHRIST OUR LORD First Line: A fire unhooks the snag Last Line: What is love compared to shame TO JOSE DEL VALLE, OCTOBER, 1981 First Line: I walked home last night Last Line: It's raining here. Coincidence TO OLGA KNIPPER First Line: My little actress Last Line: Someday. I hope to see you soon TO THE MAGPIE ON THE ROOF OF THE MANGER First Line: You hid each star but one in a shallow shadow box Last Line: Over which I hang headfirst, confused like the damned TORNADO WEATHER Poem Text First Line: This evening in the settling dark Subject(s): Tornadoes TORNADO WEATHER First Line: This evening in the settling dark Last Line: June bugs rattle the screen, annoying as ever, %like the song he murmured that would not let me slee Subject(s): Tornadoes TULIP First Line: Worthy sovereign of pandemonium Last Line: Lord of farce, make this tilled dirt your altar TWO ASIDES BENEATH THE NEW MOON First Line: Shadows fill the shallow basin of the bay Last Line: Good night, he'll say. Goodnight, I'll say. Good night TWO-PART INVENTION First Line: One should not love the grackle for its song Last Line: If god is a word, then words sally us forth UNDERDRAWING First Line: The wind-brindled marsh surface Last Line: But soon cannot see through the marks my hand has left UNSTRUNG LYRE (2) First Line: These unaccompanied words, a cappella Last Line: Upon which no tomorrow is postponed VALLEJO: PARIS, 1938: 1 First Line: In the gray-green of a photograph Last Line: All this darkness has weight %and you have measured it %and carried it these years VALLEJO: PARIS, 1938: 2 First Line: You said you would die in paris on a thursday Last Line: And from a fever you cried, %voy a espana VARIATIONS ON A THEME: 1. MATTHEW 7:1-2 First Line: Still, there are those who build their houses Last Line: And prattle, and, of course, the vista %that was his temptation to build here VARIATIONS ON A THEME: 2. GENESIS 3:17-24 First Line: Let's asume a fracture, or a tear Last Line: And bricks. The skilled work of hands - no - hooves. %do not, dear reader, think of mercy VENETIAN AFTERTHOUGHT First Line: If a lit chandelier is lowered Last Line: Bit by salt air and rust, lie unhinged VOLATILE SPIRITS First Line: The day I'll die I'll know, if I know it at all, only posthumously, a moment Last Line: To the bracken well, to the whole heavenly host of volatile spirits WALK WITH MY FATHER First Line: A columbine's clear violet after noon rain Last Line: Worked its gill. Opening, open, as if that would help WEEKEND GARDENER First Line: He stands in the garden and thinks as we all do Last Line: Say of him, as if it were the truth, he's at home %in the garden, which he takes to mean the world WHEN THE WOOD IS GREEN First Line: The ample day hisitates, and that brief delay WHITES (ELY, NEVADA, 1953) First Line: The scar, the moon, the blind man's can, the gluey soup of b Last Line: Glaciers' paunches, slow and heavy, on the altar wall, the body %of the savior, in the tub upstairs, WIND'S RELIQUARY First Line: The wind, everywhere and nowhere Last Line: That is how gods were named. One at a tme, like newborns Subject(s): Wind WIND'S RELIQUARY First Line: What rain does not flood, the wind defaces Last Line: The wind bestows at random randomness WINTER ANNIVERSARY First Line: Again this year the moonlight Last Line: The water dripping beneath it, then freezing, %still months before a real thaw WINTER DINNER First Line: When the hunter returned Last Line: And painted on a empty frail ceramic vase, %violets and wild strawberries WINTER IN REVISION First Line: The holly, like a vessel of magic Last Line: But hard berries like blood in their beaks WITHIN A CIRCLE OF RAIN, MY FATHER First Line: He waited for a light WITHOUT YOU First Line: The water yields no distance to the oar Last Line: Four walls and one burnt match are my hell WORDS TO A GHOST First Line: I put my hand on my heart, but pledge nothing Last Line: But first you must breathe WORK Poem Text First Line: Once I believed in days like today Subject(s): Conduct Of Life; Happiness; Joy; Delight WORK First Line: Once I believed in days like today WORLD ENOUGH First Line: Here the garlic is a lily Last Line: By the tool brought to bear |
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