ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 4

ABOUT TO SIT DOWN
Stepping out the back door...


KISS HIS EAR
Brown corn bends as...


STALLING OUT
Just by getting enough distance...


PAGE ZERO
my mind's blank wall...


PARTING
words just off...


CRICKETS HESITATE
the night...


FROM AND TO
my first eternity...


IN THIS LITTLE POEM OR WORLD
I mislaid my travel plans the map...


FIELD GUIDE
indigo bunting no words...


untitled
I knew...


I STAY UP LATE
studying to live...


POEM OF EXPOSURE
the tender outcry...


untitled
underground I'll turn to you...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM TATE
I consider it a citizen's duty...


STANDING STILL IN
november...


HOW I TRAPPED THE MURDERER
I left out the part...


PROVERB
he who sleeps a false sleep...


A SUNDAY NIGHT SERMON FOR DAVID BAKER
The first step is to listen,...


I AM PART BUZZARD
my grandmother was a buzzard...


DEAR FUCKHEADS
my head hurts...


TILL IT THAWS
1....


RESOLUTION
I am so glad...


EVENING POEM
in the cellar...


DISTURBANCE
the world is alive...


FLIGHT
the gamblers...


VISIT
Buying toys, the one remaining copy...


STORM
in trouble again...


JUST AFTER DAWN
We sat among the cattle and he asked me ...


INTERPRETATION
Hour begets hour, dream begets dream,...


THE BUZZARD SPEAKS
I am proud...


INTERRUPTION
not knowing what to say...


JOSEPH'S POEM
if you wish to own a fear...


DIS-ORDER
of course...


BLUE MILLION
in the house dark...


untitled
blank pages spit their silence...


BROKEN POEM
life goes through...


AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOL. II
the day before my birth...


MARENGO
the pressure of seasons...


TODAY
awoke in the forest...

FOR SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE


I wear my pants
but my shoes are in my hand
I search my eyes in the mirror

for reverence and knowledge
I make my face hard as a frame
so my eyes in turn can be a mirror

they are brown and brown
they are bright in their sockets
when they are ready I put on my shirt

like the people of Thana
I am preparing myself to worship
the first thing I see in the morning
       ___________________

the door is guardian
to my tender hellos and farewells
and I worship the wood and the brass

the knob can latch or unlatch
so I must touch it and acknowledge
its usefulness for my staying or my leaving

which is holy either way
but the leaving is more likely
to make me love what is inside my house

the second thing I see
is the honeysuckle bush untended
so that it reaches out and up like a man

praising what he has
before him what he takes
into his mind to keep it right

in May the bush flowers
the scent goes blowing out
the bees are there in their hundreds

but the flowers
are there in thousands
and overwhelm the senses

of the bees and me
because it is of such value
I am sure the bush does the gods' will

and they love its scattered effects
as they do the teem of stars and planets
running circuits of praise in the fields of the night

or the face of the great sun
loving to give its heat to the creatures
who turn their prayers to the warm good above them
       _________________

and so I worship
things in the order I see them
I remember that Adam and Eve wept 100 years
         
after Paradise
till they filled a lake
at the top of a high mountain
         
and in the reeds
growing all round the lake
live crocodiles and other snakes
         
and at the bottom
mud like in any lake
only thicker and blacker
         
it smells like roses
there are precious stones in it
and pearls and gems like mens' eyes