ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20

  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!


WHEN I READ


I read to keep steady
I read to gain courage
I read because of my imperfections
I read when loss or fear threaten to overwhelm me
I read out loud I read silently I read without understanding
    any of it
I read as a form of conversation with the dead or distant
when I read my boney hands become artful
like a surgeon's hands they penetrate to the heart of the
    text and close the body up again
in my reading I am not faithless or changeable I am not on my
    guard or hopeless
my legs are not necessary to my reading but they are there
    too
in fact they may have gained more wisdom than my mind (see
    where they have carried me) and more freedom than my
    speech (they offend no one)
I read books newspapers magazines I read boxes menus directions
    price tags I read free offers self justifications half
    truths pleadings attacks confessions diaries
I read pages scraps bridges bathroom walls the bark of certain
    trees dirty cars the steam on mirrors tattoos public
    monuments
I read misdirected mail that comes my way with a thrill that
    at last I will know someone else's truth
I read with my eyes I read with my tongue my ears fingers
    forehead elbows knees
I read the axe's stroke with the back of my neck the epidemic
    with my fevers famine with my hunger
my heart beats I read that my piss is discolored I read that
alone in bed I read the space next to me composed by many
    others
dawn comes I read the sky seasons roll I read the cold and heat
I read with the face of a child hidden behind my face
I am with you now as you read this
we are at the edge of a forest where a plain of grasses
    stretches to the horizon
a river runs nearby we hear its washing everything is breathing
we look in each other's eyes and see the reading no I mean
    we read each other reading each other
when we touch skin reading skin our books fatten until
we are weary and collapse into sleep our dreams reading us
    and what we know so well we have forgotten