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: 11

BEING AND NON-BEING
vastness goes...


FIREFLY NIGHTS
firefly nights and bloom...


SUMMER ENDING SOUNDS
cicada on a willow branch...


YOUR FACE IS HERE
I carry it in both hands...


COMPASS
to point the direction of time's arrow...


WHAT I HEARD
the same sound in the rain coming through the trees...


THE WORKS IN NEWARK AND FORT ANCIENT
the circle I stand in...


BECK'S MILL
stands of corn fields of grass and tall flowers...


THE DROUGHT OF 2002
remember rain...


WAITING FOR COOLER
over all the river lands...


untitled
through misfortune...


STONE QUARRIES
there was never...


CONVERSATION WITH FATE
fate can be found in all directions...


NEWS
here here here here here...


PARALLELS
what goes on at the same time...


OUT OF SLEEP
often when I wake before daylight...


TIME RELIGION
worshipped by ticks prayed to...


THIS AFTERNOON
I walked over the cemetary...


LATE IN SEPTEMBER
the bigger sky...


WHERE I COME FROM
farmers turning in their fields...


TWO BY TWO
in the iron-barred well of a basement window...


IN US
the day of your night is walking...


9/30/02
a crow like me squawks from some way off...


MY METHOD
my method...


TO THE FALLEN/IN PRAISE OF FALLING/THEFT OF LINES FROM TAYLOR
color of flame...


WEATHER
The door holds. Yesterday's violent red morning, today's steady...


CAUSE/EFFECT
because of mirrors I have a face...


PERSONAL REVELATIONS OF 2003
I am in my middle errors waiting in line to migrate...


THE ROADSIDE MARTYRS
there are no coffins under the crosses they only mark...


I LISTEN
even when no one is talking...


2/4/03
this morning the sky was a sea of clouds...


ENTRY FOR A CHRONICLE
In this year, people's talk was often of peace and war....


WIND REMEMBER
the wind blowing the winter I was 11 is still blowing...


HOLD ON
this is not...


MINUS WHATEVER MINUS
sky minus blue earth minus brown...


COMING ACROSS DEER TRACKS IN THE SNOW
my feet step where yours did...


MIRROR MYSELF
being invisible to myself...


SOMEONE AND ME
someone complained about my attitude...


3/22/03
dark the pillow from which dawn lifts its head...


OUR COURTHOUSE IS BEAUTIFUL
from the southwest corner on a clear April day...


LUCKY FOR NOW
I slept but all night in the constant rain...


APOLOGIZE BUT
I should apologize to the county...


VISITING T.C. STEELE'S HOUSE IN THE RAIN
the trees have had time...


METAPHOR
one thing is like another...


ITINERARY
I crossed the Wabash River...


ER
by which I mean Eric Rensberger...


7/20/03
no one to see...


READY I THOUGHT
I am ready I thought...


untitled
subtle...


CHILLY WITH
the window open...


THUNDER DAY
everything loses strength in the heat...


REMINDER
Last summer I looked for the bridge whose enormous piers cast the...


COUNTING UP TO 53
and counting again...


SUMMER NIGHT
day goes down...


JUST BEFORE BED
above the heart a sentence beats...


STORM DAMAGE
trees shattered...


MY HOUSE, A POEM
You are listening when I say that the great thing about a poem...


MARS GETS CLOSER
and catches us looking at him...


A GLIMPSE
for weeks we looked at the sky...

Listen!


WHEN I READ


I read to keep steady
I read to gain courage
I read because of my imperfections
I read when loss or fear threaten to overwhelm me
I read out loud I read silently I read without understanding
    any of it
I read as a form of conversation with the dead or distant
when I read my boney hands become artful
like a surgeon's hands they penetrate to the heart of the
    text and close the body up again
in my reading I am not faithless or changeable I am not on my
    guard or hopeless
my legs are not necessary to my reading but they are there
    too
in fact they may have gained more wisdom than my mind (see
    where they have carried me) and more freedom than my
    speech (they offend no one)
I read books newspapers magazines I read boxes menus directions
    price tags I read free offers self justifications half
    truths pleadings attacks confessions diaries
I read pages scraps bridges bathroom walls the bark of certain
    trees dirty cars the steam on mirrors tattoos public
    monuments
I read misdirected mail that comes my way with a thrill that
    at last I will know someone else's truth
I read with my eyes I read with my tongue my ears fingers
    forehead elbows knees
I read the axe's stroke with the back of my neck the epidemic
    with my fevers famine with my hunger
my heart beats I read that my piss is discolored I read that
alone in bed I read the space next to me composed by many
    others
dawn comes I read the sky seasons roll I read the cold and heat
I read with the face of a child hidden behind my face
I am with you now as you read this
we are at the edge of a forest where a plain of grasses
    stretches to the horizon
a river runs nearby we hear its washing everything is breathing
we look in each other's eyes and see the reading no I mean
    we read each other reading each other
when we touch skin reading skin our books fatten until
we are weary and collapse into sleep our dreams reading us
    and what we know so well we have forgotten