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: 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...

NOSTALGIA 


the rain is an empty city 
each drop a building evacuated 
its stairways uninhabitted by echoes its doors and windows 
useless for keeping anything out or in 

each as it falls standing in relation to other drops nearby 
each one composed as if it were thought of only by itself 
or perhaps designed with just its near neighbors in mind 
but the many drops crowded together form a gigantic pattern 
as though this pattern as a whole was foreseen and enacted 
but each drop knows only those near it 
and nothing lives in any of them 

the rooms are empty the roofs are empty the streets and squares 
hold no one and there is no one in a hurry or with time on his 
     hands 
there are no glances no quiet agreements to slip away together 
no first disturbing signs of an illness no firm deals made 
no great bargains or agreements to buy later 
no betrayals or bitter arguments between old friends 
no one is there to love or to lean against when one is tired of 
     all the activity of the day 

in fact one is not there oneself one has been emptied as the city 
     has been emptied 
as if one had never existed as if no as if that included the 
     hypothetical possibility of one's imagined existence or 
     extinction had ever been uttered 
as if the one certainty left is a zero in place of an I 

and in such a city whose citizens have reached such a peak of 
     non-existence 
the streets broaden a little new buildings are not constructed 
     old ones fall 
through the wider spaces between what still stands a fresh wind 
     is blowing 
it parts the buildings or we should be honest the raindrops further 

the sun comes down these channels like an ancient triumph 
the onlookers crowd closer to see the chained slaves and elephants 
the sun is filling all the space now 
one can only feel nostalgia for the stark uninhabitation one has 
     lost 

standing there thinking of it crowded by the sun and all those 
who go by never having even heard of the empty city