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: 14

GOOD QUESTION
why do I write all the time ...


SOME MILLERSBURG
of your own ...


8/24/05
the dusk comes out and takes the woods...


untitled
lifting a light to help itself ...


BLACK AND GREEN
on state road four you came down...


SEEN FROM ABOVE
and without the distraction of time...


GROCERIES
when you think you see...


I TELL YOU HOW TO GET THERE
and what it's like...


A LONG LINE
at night in the sky...


SEPTEMBER, 2005
huddled masses...


THIS TIME OF YEAR
walking early out ...


LIVING HERE
on this tail end of white river water...


11/14/05
my nails hurt from the cold ...


untitled
on the track made ...


untitled
I kept a ...


untitled
my cold clothes ...


OUR HOUSES
the town the fields the woods...


A POEM AS A PILE OF STICKS
poetry is where I have not been before...


ALSO
the flames sweep upward...


ON NOT SLEEPING
here on the less end ...


THE MIDDLE OF MY LIFE
when I reached the middle of my life ...


untitled
the guillotine cause and effect ...


1/18/06
the future of one day...


SLEPT
rain fed a fire in the roots ...


POEM
widow...


WET ALL DAY
this cold rain is our earth's ...


ALL DOGS TO GET NEW LEASH
wet when it's wet...


NIGHT/SEA
staring into the night as into a sea...


2/6/06
wood coming today ...


BEND
when I take in hand...


WORK
my books bend under the weight ...


untitled
of the world ...


PEACE
late afternoon...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM OPPEN
return ...


I HAVE GAINED NOTHING I HAVE LOST NOTHING
new moon sliver ...


2/27/06
our disobedient worries ...


MANY DAYS RAIN
driving carefully on ...


THOUGHTS
my second thoughts ...


THEFT OF LINES FROM KHLEBNIKOV
the gouges in the sides ...


TO MY BAD HABITS
when I see you I think of myself ...


ON MY READING LIST THERE IS
a history of funerals so well-written...


WRITING AT NIGHT
its chief object ...


5/24/06
chilly mornings with bright sun ...


WORSHIPPING (WITHOUT GOD)
hands clasped weight on the knees ...


STATE FOREST
the trail through deep woods in a long slope ...


MY BED OF ROSES
on my bed of roses ...


4 A.M. LIGHT SO BRIGHT IT WOKE ME
old moon ...


MAN OF DREAMS
dusk ...


untitled
into the war...


NOT OURS
rain ...


untitled
passion over ...


IMAGINATION IMAGINATION IMAGINATION
earth floats higher...


6/21/06
the sun at noon ...


NOSTALGIA
the rain is an empty city ...


SELF-PORTRAIT (WITHOUT MY FACE)
ambivalent about irony...


LOOKING
blue backs and forked tails ...


7/28/06
first bat and first star...


DRIVING ON THE NARROW ROAD
off to one side this open hill ...


UNLIFTABLE
under all the alasses shadowing me ...


VISIT TO THE CEMETERY
over by the road the careless ...


HOW FAR
built on the water waking ...


FIVE THOUGHTS BEFORE SLEEP
the sand the shore moved...


AWAY LIKE WE WANTED
above the trees ...


WE KNOW THIS
The dead are sleepless, we know this, they need no rest. With ...


INNER WORLD
the river rich in me ...


WITHOUT KINDNESS
on its stalk the corn flames towards the mouth above ...

Listen!


HERE BEGINS THE POEM OF MY LEFT HAND


My left hand is a child
moving clumsily and eagerly,
shy in company.  He lets his older brother
do the clasping and pointing,
all the most dramatic gestures.
Everything is a joke to him
because he knows he is despised
for being left, but all admit
that what is left is the best part.

My left hand is always excited
yet he claims to know nothing,
is rather silent when I question him.

He is growing so much more slowly
than the rest of me--that is why
he is not yet skilled, bold, and learned.
For every ten years of mine he matures one,
and I think when I die and am buried
my left hand will be alive still,
just coming into the strength of youth.
I love to think of him in the ground,
bold amongst the stones and clay,
his time of adventure come at last,

his music a man's music,
studying the worm's mouth without desolation
now that he has entered a time with no sun:
too deep to freeze, too cool to sweat.
He is never alone, he is in the great
multitude of life that has been waiting for him.
He has grown wiser than me through coming to know
the beat of the world in the center of his body.

From his house of clay he can watch
the stars and the stretch of space
beyond the farthest star.  He has graceful
years before he grows old, and even that
will be a blessing like a silk glove,
for as he softens the stones draw close
and cradle him and call him
their little old boy, so weak and in need
of voices to teach him how to die and become
a new mineral, moistened with forever.