ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 9

SPECULATION
the possession of life...


TO COUNT FOR WHAT
eyes scrape the borderland of no...


WHERE I AM/HAVE BEEN
our decisions are so small...


VIEW OF EARTH FROM MY HOUSE
stars out a light breeze...


MY FIRST LANGUAGE
alive in this time...


10/20/97
steadily consuming the purple-sweetness...


POSTCARD
I write to you from...


HERE
the beast and the waves...


LYRIC
moving through the dark...


APPLICATION
please send more poems...


IN THE DARK
friends the dark as much as you...


FOOTNOTE TO IN THE DARK
those who disappeared while still alive...


NOVEMBER
cold weather settles me...


WITHOUT CLOTHES
the right temperature for singing...


TO THE ASIAN MARKETS
we can be proud of our success...


3/1/98
the sunday walk a path...


REFUSAL TO MAKE MUSIC
I have lost my ears the silence is so large in them...


WEDNESDAY MORNING
with the sudden cold...


MY WINDOW
wonderful day...


untitled
sun flees we pursue...


MY WISHES
steady hand...


ON HIS WORK
bright from the roots...


THE LAST TIME I WAS AT YOUR HOUSE
while I snorted and rolled over...


untitled
sun's careful stroking breaks the frost...


untitled
there were some the wind dried some...


untitled
sun slant the wind dies moist...


FOLLOWING
the laws of migration over the ground...


HOW IT HAS BEEN
half dark or near dark...


THE TASK
There is a god or goddess for first ...


THINGS THAT ARE AND ARE NOT POEMS
things that kill us...


FRAGMENT
Doesn't. And complies again, removes the robe, there is the soft...


DREAMED OF MY EX-WIFE
We were selling a house back to the couple we had bought it from....


GRUMBLE
no other life has been given me...


11/1/98
the world sleeps...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM LALIC
a weight of fire brought home...


untitled
in another dream a pickled man...


AFTER HOURS
red flare west through the trees...


WHERE I STAND WITH HIM
a gift of storms bursts open...


DANCE OF LOVE
I couldn't touch the dancers' radiance...


DECEIVED MYSELF THINKING
of a poetry only...

Listen!


VISITING T.C. STEELE'S HOUSE IN THE RAIN


I.

the trees have had time
to approach the painter's house
and grow large
they have taken away his view
but so has death
and death was never cut down
in his time or ours

his wife's gardens have been copied
by the employees of the state
and under this dull sky
they make earth brighter than heaven

on a rock in one of them
I saw a garter snake looking at me
and wishing I would go
so the frogs would come out


II.

the studio sits just off the peak of the hill
looking like a barn under its hip roof

they let the varnish on the paintings dull
but keep the dust off his brushes

gift shop in the back his work on the walls
examples of the two hands he worked with

a smooth hand for flattering sitters
a rough hand for pleasing himself

one hand plus the other equalled happiness
one made a living (guess which)

one showed the long vistas he lived among
and nearer by the scrubbiness and brilliance

living out in the country brings home to you
his chickens posed for him under the trees

morning light slant on the pecked-bare dirt
also the oak still there a hundred years later

the old woman my guide asks how I make my living
by listening to troubles I say

thinking of my own just now thank god not great
leaving I drop five dollars in the donation box

and put up the hood on my raincoat so
I am equal to the rain ready to go for a walk


III.

from the cabin below the house
I follow the trail of silences
whose name is true
the streams it crosses
make a little noise
but between one and the other
a different silence each time

up the hill again panting
stopping for breath I see
a doe grazing on the grass
covering the family graves
she runs from smelling me