ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

sequence #
1 2 3 4 5
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...

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