ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 10

FRESH START
the author of many leaves...


I ASK YOU
what I am about to do and what...


untitled
The work defines itself, pulls itself...


LARRY MILLER
when you call back there to order the flowers...


ADDENDUM TO LARRY MILLER
punched him in the stomach once...


MY FORTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY
the balance point between years...


THE DROUGHT
if the drought means anything we haven't been told...


I SPEND
hours alone with my books...


SO FAR AS I CAN
the trees at night stretch out...


ANGEL MOUND
stone spades hammers awls...


untitled
sleep drunk from a glass of sleep...


EAST
East, innocence, enormous, a blush over half the sky. Now that...


WHAT IS FUCKED UP ABOUT THIS
is a question that can be answered...


CAN'T STOP TALKING
sat so still you noticed...


SETTLEMENT
1....


PAUSE ON THE ROAD IN CUMBERLAND GAP TENNESSEE
It was speed, the technology of rapidity, that made the nation pos-...


ON THE STAIRS IN THE DARK
it is late to be starting again...


THREE SLEEPS
a sleep that wanders...


WINTER PRAISES
of abandoned nests...


untitled
what will always be true?...


KEEPING AT IT
I recite the alphabet in the traditional way...


TALKING TO THE STONES
I am living before you dissolve...


NOT LAMENTING
a lament I am forbidden to speak...


A:
I think it's that I always had the feeling that what is really true,...


HAVE COME HERE
even when I'm late...


THE DAY AFTER THE DAY AFTER
a place in the paperwork...


7/25/00
beetles crushed between my fingers...


MY CURRENT MOOD
certain observations have broken their heads...


STILL
making no effort if I can...


GOLDFINCH ON A WIRE
black line in his feet...


SUMMER PRAISES
the ground-filling rain...


LISTENING TO
the music that keeps me up late...


THE STONE BOAT
that sled of thick oak planks...


DISAPPOINTMENT
under the shade of the words I wrote...


AUGUST
the fields with their fine catch...


AT THE ENCORE CAFE
with your roast potatoes...


WANDERING POEM
on the road...


MY VACANCY
the old hours come back...


untitled
I protest...


8/3/01
when I go inside...


ONE MOTION
swifts of the city come and go...


THE YEAR OF MY ABSENCE
a number of stones under my feet...


REFUSAL
I am awake now...


11/26/01
in the dark before dawn the stars...


WINTER GENESIS I
mornings on this stone seat...


WINTER GENESIS II
under cold tree branches stacked stones outline...

Listen!


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.


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