ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 18

SURVIVAL
Survive the summer, crumbs of dead leaves dropped by the...


THE DREAM OF LAST NIGHT
dreamt of rain...


INHERITANCE
you are heir to a hidden philosophy...


LAST DAYS OF SUMMER
the long dry spell weakens everything...


THE HARVEST
late afternoon...


A MAN
as I left there stood a man...


TIMES/STEPS/FUTURE/TRADE
the times I saw...


untitled
blank page: no wreck yet...


OUR NEIGHBORHOOD THE UNIVERSE
a black hole is empty...


A SQUIRREL MAKES A MEAL OF ACORNS
it looks up and sees...


THE DIVER
the tomb lid sketch a naked man his body arched...


MY FIT
my old clothes carry my old shape...


12/31/10
will I be silenced? yes...


DRIVING BY
a field of crows in winter...


LOSS AND GAIN
the wind that took...


MY INQUIRY
do you piss first thing when you get up...


THREE QUESTIONS
the last cold night passed...


HEMLOCK BLUFFS ONCE AGAIN
along the ridge...


NEWS
somewhere peace has begun...


untitled
we are always...


MY ENVIRONMENT MINUS ME
looks around...


THE WORLD WE ARE NOT IN
the known world...


WORLD NEWS
everything is a containment vessel...


BORROWED THEME
leaf lying there...


3/18/11
moon up...


IN THE HIERARCHY OF POETS
I attempt to find my place...


BEGIN HERE
the light inches forward...


MORE
the old: as they shrink...


WHAT IT IS
something has chosen me for its disguise...


FOLLOW
the one who disguised himself as rain--...


MORNINGS LIKE THIS
inside me...


NIGHT
the spatter on the boards...


TO REASON
I love you because I am not like you...


TO THOSE OF A DISTANT PLANET
there as here...


ERIC RENSBERGER
The date and cause of his death are unknown to the present...


BETWEEN STORMS
the sparrow's hop...


REPORTING ON MYSELF
who tried hardest with me?...


HERE
Here where the alleys cross all the ground has been asphalted...


MY DISASTER PLAN
I will write about it...


WHAT WE HAVE
one sky becomes another...


I RECALL A JUNE DAY IN THE FIFTIES
brief as any...


5/30/11
the wind-felled trees piled in the open...


AFTER EASILY
I take with me ...


EARLY HEAT WAVE
the new moon takes its pincers...


I DON'T LOOK AT PHOTOGRAPHS
so there's no way I'll be inspired...


OF STONE, STONE
to speak of stone...


PURSUIT
the zodiacal beasts bounding...


WE HAVE TO PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY
no one else must ever know what...


INSTANT
lightning that touches earth...


untitled
one stone with one name...


A UNIVERSE
upward is more or less forever...


YELLOW CREEK
each spring the plowing...


LEAVES AND RAIN
the leaves in the wind make a sound like rain...


LISTENING TO A TRAVELER
there you go in the dark...


THE LOSERS
when the bud can no longer strain against...


MY FATHER'S GRADUATION PORTRAIT
your youth faded far more swiftly...


POEM NOT DONE
two thirds...


THE PRESENT MOMENT
overall I'd have to say...


ORCHESTRAL ACCOMPANIMENT
the cicadas' strict song...


HOPE
Never easy in his mind, that man still keeps hoping. It's true:...


AT THE WINDOW LOOKING OUT
a narrow street comes to mind...

OUR COURTHOUSE IS BEAUTIFUL


from the southwest corner on a clear April day
the stone steps rising between two old redbuds
their heads bushy with flowers and behind and above them
the blocky white courthouse itself backed by blue sky
the lawn is green daffodils surge the larger trees bud out
the monument to all the soldiers and wars is solid
even if some of the lettering is dissolving and the words go

but my favorite monument is on this side screened by shrubs
a tall square pillar with dried up faucets at its base
"drink and be grateful" "thirsty and ye gave me drink"
put up by the WCTU many decades ago in pure idealism
and desire for new laws--did it have a statue on top?
I can look this up--because we are a people of ideals and laws

we will break our heads or others' on history if it won't
give way to our banging we have sought a prosperity
to end all prosperity and it never ends the empire
of winners and losers the frontier of it is moving outward
leaving us behind searching the strip malls
for a measure of our limitations

how harsh to love a place that seeks ideal laws
and is always moving away from you
I think it is in a desert now building fires
and spreading ideals our heads have forgotten so sore
from the banging but that's OK I can spin in circles
till I stumble like a drunk in front of the WCTU monument
I can watch the republic dissolve in the distance
into empire and be thankful I'm still here
and lost and ready to fall like a city of millions but really
I'm just a dizzy smalltown provincial who loves April
and stone steps and thinks our courthouse is beautiful