ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 2

12/20/89
Armor and...


PERSONAL APPEARANCE BY THE AUTHOR
I didn't shave or comb my hair this morning. The long coat...


untitled
aching a little...


DAYS BEFORE
the killer's mother is coming...


NIGHT CREATURES
under the devious arch of the night...


AUTOBIOGRAPHY
first I died...


untitled
When I lift my hands do not pull back,...


untitled
Here you are beside me...


untitled
you were leaping from roof to roof...


CONVERSATIONS
arguing about suicide...


I SAW
things...


untitled
putting the beach out...


WRITING ON A MIRROR
my pen is red it sinks into my hand...


PEARL STREET
I love him singing...


I TRY BUT
you won't leave me alone...


untitled
the better I did...


LAMENT
Is now the time to praise...


I COULD FALL OVER
Always losing patience with...


11 ARGUMENTS
I insist on the rightness of my thoughts....


POEM ENDING WITH MY NAME
I watch TV....


untitled
spring loosens up her veins...


AN AFTERNOON
A girl and a boy were walking through a forest of apple...


THE NEW REPUBLIC
a conspiracy against time...


BELIEVING IN A HIDDEN ENEMY
I went up the stairs in the dark....


THOUGHT
Who's behind...


untitled
I will marry my blear eye to a blind eye...


I SUBMIT TO THE DOCTORS
with starved breath...


SUGGESTION
Let the poets die...


WALK WITH FLOWERS
chamomile with their secret of sleep...


FIVE SEASONS
King Curtis blows his...


SKETCH
In the dark the boy...


ON THE OTHER HAND
now that I'm dying...


ON ONE HAND
the mark a cat's claw...


ANOTHER OCTOBER: McCORMICK'S CREEK
upstream stone blocks back the water up...


COMING CLEAN (WITHOUT LOVE)
Cows bellering on their feet....


WAITING FOR THE EARTHQUAKE
the dead who can...


ME AND MY BIRD
The water is round...


SENTENCE
A restaurant where you are left alone...


MYTH
Everyone is shouting...


RETURNING THANKS AFTER EATING
I know I'm out...


SEQUENCE OF DESIRE
wanting to stop smoking...


HOME JOURNAL
I forget...


HERE BEGINS THE POEM OF MY LEFT HAND
My left hand is a child...


HE SAID
everything mastered him...


BRIGHT METAL FRAIL REED
my breath loves to narrow itself...


DEVOTION
the moan bird is soaring...


NOCTURNE
I am waiting...


SCHOOL
I love him in his smelly pants...


1/14/91
Starting the blood...


REPORT
when I say...


TWO SENTENCES
And as for the rest of it: no, I don't believe we should ever...


CHARACTERISTICS OF A DOOR
with a thumbtack for an eye...


DESTINATION
after it is long since dark...


NEW BREATH IN ME
you are clouds...


THE UNLOVED BELOVED
"The Unloved Beloved" is written by the crazy son of the man...


AGAINST REPRISALS
a well cut jacket of despair...

A:

I think it's that I always had the feeling that what is really true,
really valuable is hidden in small, insignificant places.  You know,
like when you're walking someplace and you notice at the back of a
building, right where things necessary to whatever goes on in there
are carried in, a place that's been let go--tall weeds, grass gone
to seed, the steps a bit crumbled, trash or discarded objects left to
sit and make little decomposing sculptures--that sort of thing. I
don't know if I'm saying this right. Anyway, these places or things,
no one notices them, but they've got these bright little flowers
showing, or an odd combination of shapes and lines, there's something
vital there and also something that's failed and is passing, forgotten.
Kind of a bit of history that no one cares about, but it contains the
only wisdom we need, the only comfort available. Again, I think I'm
not saying this well, and maybe I've wandered far from the subject.
Anyway, it's this impulse I have to value what's small, thrown away,
forgotten, but composing its own secret, highly important space.  So
maybe I have this need to leave things short or broken and to discard
them, meaning leave them where they can be found but not where they
call attention to themselves, and my vanity makes me think that by
this means I've given them an importance, a significant insignificance
that some more public and complete construction would lack.