ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 1
NIGHT FEARyou said fire...
BLUE TWEED WITH FLECKSHelp in unlikely places...
TWELVE USES OF AN ABANDONED SPIDERWEBit can be removed with a gesture...
FOUR CHAMBERSlinks the heart...
LOCUSTS, ETC.they do eat after all, for the oak...
untitledcame to you...
BIG KILL IN THE SUBURBSlawns smooth as mint icing...
ADOPTION"Do you know Carlos?____ What is your relationship to him?"...
MUSINGyour red sneakers get bigger...
HOW IS ITlet it be night on the Muscatatuck...
APRILempty play...
POLITICAL POEMThe landlord of the opposing house...
WALKINGgrasshopper flight...
MENThe sale barn: sweat, cigars,...
IMPERFECT POEMI have nothing to say to you now...
!You poets of the on/off guard...
OFFERGuy in a blue shirt...
SIDE WALKBetween the streetlamps there are regions of dark. You can't...
WHY WE SAYgood...
STUDYwe took the measure...
LANDSCAPE: WEATHER BECOMING DOLPHYevidence of high wind...
FROM THE TRAINTom, when the red light blinking...
THE STRANGERHim, the stranger walking toward you, he's the one you take...
INSTEAD OF EATINGI could take a walk I could...
THEFT OF A LINE FROM ORRI am older...
PROPHECYThey shall be raised...
AT A FRIEND'S HOUSEthe sirens, the steps on the sidewalk,...
PORTRAITHe comes up the street,...
MY BIRTHDAYin the belly of night...
8/27/89my notebook is heavy...
SHOPPINGIt is important to tie your...
I HAVE NOT LOVED ENOUGHI am so intimate...
REPLY. . . the kind of woman who lets her ...
MY GIFTthe struggle to maintain...
HE SITS DOWNM the cripple feels his legs unhinge,...
CLOSE CALLUniformed and well-armed bullies...
M THE MURDERERThat man locked in an argument with his wife, the young girl...
EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE AFRAIDThe junkie looks in a window...
MY HOUSEThe bushes are growing up around my house,...
NEW TUBESplugging in the 1955 Gibson amp...
THEFT OF A LINE FROM MONTALEThe obstinate news, the turbulence...
NAKED AGAINIt's night and I'm naked again...
FOR SIR JOHN MANDEVILLEI wear my pants...
IN MY ILLNESSmy thirst my fever...
BACK WAY HOMEblackness in the center of my eye...
POEM POEMmy words from black...
untitledher head turned to one side...
THE VISITORSthey come to us mostly...
MY SONmy son never born...
EARLY WINTERfirst snow fall...
SLEEPYthe fat snow...
DOWN THE HALL, TURN LEFTmy room with the standing lights...
10/5/89Here...
WISHmy feet cold in thin shoes...
COMPARED TO WHICHTruth is an apple...
TELEPHONEout of the length of your hair...
REQUESTlet me borrow blindness...
SUNDAYthe big stones, the little stones...
POEM OF WATERI want to be a different kind of water...
THE AFFLICTEDThat man has ears but he does not hear...
LOOKINGbetween two mirrors...
The work defines itself, pulls itself forward, it is nothing like
looking at the work afterward or imagining it beforehand, it is
done with effort, you feel sore afterward, your mind is involved,
it looks on, it goes into the work and comes back out again to
itself, it rests and something else does the work, the work exists
of itself, it pulls together the place of the work with the doer,
it is neither the place nor the doer, it has left the doer, the
doer is empty of work, the signs of work are there but not the work,
the work is resting in what has been done, it rests but is still
work, the work has no end, it travels from doer to doer, each of
them empty, none exhausted, the spine is involved, hands, brain,
legs, eye, the parts involved are not the work but only the means,
the work smells like blood, it has motion, it lives, it is wanted
dead or alive, no one has seen the end of work, it follows imagina-
tion, it leads imagination, the work is not represented by what it
does, it seeks out the doer, the doer sweats, his back will not
hold up, his mind is not large enough, he dies and is replaced,
that will settle him, let him live for that or stake his reputation
on it, he is deserted, he is dust, he lies under the work, he is
silent, the work and the doer: neither one is sacred, neither one
stays the same.