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: 8

REVEALED BY SPLITTING
my face is of oak...


12/14/96
a voice saying...


MAKING SENSE ON A SNOWY MORNING
my woods fill up with snow...


POINT AT WHICH
the speaking of the heart...


MY HUNGER
I have turned my stones...


MIDNIGHT
midnight your moonlight...


12/23/96
after the singing...


untitled
walk out Eric...


EGYPTIAN
the words which took...


ING
lean sleep...


IN MEMORIAM F.B.
his house of lead...


HOW TO GET THERE
go till the snow falls...


PLAN:
throw four stones...


MY STRUGGLE WITH MY WEIGHT
Mornings around here there is so much fog in the trees...


1/2/97
strange life with...


DARING ABSENCE
the seeing blind man...


FACE THE NATION
1. the fine line in my tranquility...


FOUR BY FOUR
objects I have turned...


untitled
in the waste of sky...


GOOD AND ILL FORTUNE
go through me...


1/17/97
the snow blows the road is battered...


CRITICISM OF SHOVELLING
my stubborn back keeps working...


POET'S DILEMMA
words running up and down...


REQUIREMENT
am I empty yet...


I WROTE THIS WHILE THINKING ABOUT WRITING IT (TITLE LAST)
warm air makes the snow soften...


POEM AS IT HAPPENS
rain gets to fill the spaces used...


EYES AND EARS
eyes very involved in silence...


PROSE POEM ON THE BAKERS (NO COMMAS)
I always see the bakers when I am in a hurry walking past the door...


HELP MIDWINTER
no work snow flies like doves...


THEFT OF LINES FROM THE GNOSTICS
alone with my name...


IF JORDAN FLOODS
season of rising...


COMET AND SAINTS
now don't for-...


THE ARGUMENT
A burning house invites the comet in for a meal. The conver-...


FOOL'S DAY
it was my voice...


SIXTEEN LINES
reading a life...


OUT OF RESPECT
Albert Ayler's jukebox...


AGAIN
what the river of sound delivers...


ASHLAND
all I have buried...


4/27/97
the light rain...


untitled
you want me to stay...


I HEAR
your voice...


THE CLASSIC OF STONE
I had some...


JUST WAIT
too hot to eat the late hours...


NEO WHAT
just got through...


7/6/97
the dusk cool breeze...


KNOWN BY WHAT
deceived by everything...


STOLEN
a voice speaks...


WELCOME TRASH HAULERS
our miles of caves where...


TOO HOT
no rain to satisfy...


THEFT OF LINES FROM THE GNOSTICS AND KAUFMAN
one of rock, one of slime,...


COME ON
in your hand...


GUIDE FROM THE PERPLEXED
this is to let you know...


PRAYER THAT FELL THROUGH MY HANDS
did I understand what I said...


GOOF OFF
it was the ordinary hour...


PRACTICES
juxtaposed thoughts from separate days...


OUR DAYS
my brother in the tree...

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