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...

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