ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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

  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 1

NIGHT FEAR
you said fire...


BLUE TWEED WITH FLECKS
Help in unlikely places...


TWELVE USES OF AN ABANDONED SPIDERWEB
it can be removed with a gesture...


FOUR CHAMBERS
links the heart...


LOCUSTS, ETC.
they do eat after all, for the oak...


untitled
came to you...


BIG KILL IN THE SUBURBS
lawns smooth as mint icing...


ADOPTION
"Do you know Carlos?____ What is your relationship to him?"...


MUSING
your red sneakers get bigger...


HOW IS IT
let it be night on the Muscatatuck...


APRIL
empty play...


POLITICAL POEM
The landlord of the opposing house...


WALKING
grasshopper flight...


MEN
The sale barn: sweat, cigars,...


IMPERFECT POEM
I have nothing to say to you now...


!
You poets of the on/off guard...


OFFER
Guy in a blue shirt...


SIDE WALK
Between the streetlamps there are regions of dark. You can't...


WHY WE SAY
good...


STUDY
we took the measure...


LANDSCAPE: WEATHER BECOMING DOLPHY
evidence of high wind...


FROM THE TRAIN
Tom, when the red light blinking...


THE STRANGER
Him, the stranger walking toward you, he's the one you take...


INSTEAD OF EATING
I could take a walk I could...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM ORR
I am older...


PROPHECY
They shall be raised...


AT A FRIEND'S HOUSE
the sirens, the steps on the sidewalk,...


PORTRAIT
He comes up the street,...


MY BIRTHDAY
in the belly of night...


8/27/89
my notebook is heavy...


SHOPPING
It is important to tie your...


I HAVE NOT LOVED ENOUGH
I am so intimate...


REPLY
. . . the kind of woman who lets her ...


MY GIFT
the struggle to maintain...


HE SITS DOWN
M the cripple feels his legs unhinge,...


CLOSE CALL
Uniformed and well-armed bullies...


M THE MURDERER
That man locked in an argument with his wife, the young girl...


EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE AFRAID
The junkie looks in a window...


MY HOUSE
The bushes are growing up around my house,...


NEW TUBES
plugging in the 1955 Gibson amp...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM MONTALE
The obstinate news, the turbulence...


NAKED AGAIN
It's night and I'm naked again...


FOR SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
I wear my pants...


IN MY ILLNESS
my thirst my fever...


BACK WAY HOME
blackness in the center of my eye...


POEM POEM
my words from black...


untitled
her head turned to one side...


THE VISITORS
they come to us mostly...


MY SON
my son never born...


EARLY WINTER
first snow fall...


SLEEPY
the fat snow...


DOWN THE HALL, TURN LEFT
my room with the standing lights...


10/5/89
Here...


WISH
my feet cold in thin shoes...


COMPARED TO WHICH
Truth is an apple...


TELEPHONE
out of the length of your hair...


REQUEST
let me borrow blindness...


SUNDAY
the big stones, the little stones...


POEM OF WATER
I want to be a different kind of water...


THE AFFLICTED
That man has ears but he does not hear...


LOOKING
between two mirrors...

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