ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 5

untitled
some words last longer...


THEORETICAL
just read the words...


AN ACCOUNT
it wasn't as if any...


THE NIGHT OF THE BIG STORM
the neighbor boy with candles...


untitled
day that hesitates...


9/4/94
morning the flowers...


LUCK
of birds to have wings...


MEMORY
noon the infinite...


9/1/94
eulogy strains those heads...


HOW TO
ceremonies must be long...


A MAN OF WAR
rises through the air...


TALE
midnight pours out his heart...


TITLE NO TITLE
if your hand...


I'LL TRY AGAIN
it chases me...


24 HOURS
night as a cistern...


NOTICING
how to be literal as a last gasp...


LOOKOUT
looking out from a window in the treetops...


RETURN
in someone's house or in a barn...


MY WALK
being secret and smart...


ONGOING
that rush rush...


MONEY WORRIES
dreaming of an owl...


MABLE MCKIBBEN RENSBERGER
grandmother of underground places...


untitled
memory bled...


PAGE TORN FROM THE BOOK OF MEMORY
where it is flat the wind...


APOSTROHE
moon bone bright I...


untitled
for luck a fire...


EXAMPLES
slipped on the carpet at the turn of the stairs...


GIVE ME JUST A MINUTE
The room blurs. I can't think....


TELLING ABOUT
argument with my shadow...


DOCTORS MISUNDERSTAND
blue circles approaching my eyes...


HERE'S AN IDEA
what about...


COLDER WIND
everything is...


BEING TOLD GOODBYE
I am in the limited area...


MY LETTERS
continuator of hieroglyphs...


HELP ME
this poetry has grown too heavy...


RETURN THE FAVOR
doc buzzard in your cart...


SURVEYOR'S DREAM
to keep all the directions...


SEEN FROM A DISTANCE
the poems he has forgotten...


TRAVEL
atlas of devastation...


WE SING
day...


AS I SLEEP
I am blind stumbling...


PRACTICE WITH MY EYES
a hero of waiting...


WORDS I CANNOT UNDERSTAND
bad traffic on the way to...


CHANGE IN THE WEATHER
the wailing stops...


WHAT WILL I WRITE ON THE LAST PAGE
blank paper stares at me...

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