Stars, Songs, Faces
GATHER the stars if you wish it so. Gather the songs and keep them. Gather the faces of women. Gather for keeping years and years. And then… Loosen your hands, let go and say
Crimson
CRIMSON is the slow smolder of the cigar end I hold, Gray is the ash that stiffens and covers all silent the fire. (A great man I know is dead and while he lies
Joy
Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands And take it when it runs by, As the Apache dancer Clutches his woman. I have seen them Live long and laugh loud, Sent on
Losers
IF I should pass the tomb of Jonah I would stop there and sit for awhile; Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark And came out alive after all. If I
On the Way
LITTLE one, you have been buzzing in the books, Flittering in the newspapers and drinking beer with Lawyers And amid the educated men of the clubs you have been Getting an earful of speech
Sandhill People
I TOOK away three pictures. One was a white gull forming a half-mile arch from the pines toward Waukegan. One was a whistle in the little sandhills, a bird crying either to the sunset
Weeds
FROM the time of the early radishes To the time of the standing corn Sleepy Henry Hackerman hoes. There are laws in the village against weeds. The law says a weed is wrong and
Put Off the Wedding Five Times and Nobody Comes to It
(Handbook for Quarreling Lovers)I THOUGHT of offering you apothegms. I might have said, “Dogs bark and the wind carries it away.” I might have said, “He who would make a door of gold must
Fire-Logs
NANCY HANKS dreams by the fire; Dreams, and the logs sputter, And the yellow tongues climb. Red lines lick their way in flickers. Oh, sputter, logs. Oh, dream, Nancy. Time now for a beautiful
River Roads
LET the crows go by hawking their caw and caw. They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere. Let ’em hawk their caw and caw. Let the woodpecker drum and drum on
Threes
I WAS a boy when I heard three red words A thousand Frenchmen died in the streets For: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—I asked Why men die for words. I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
Laughing Corn
THERE was a high majestic fooling Day before yesterday in the yellow corn. And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn There will be high majestic fooling. The ears ripen in late summer And
Jazz Fantasia
DRUM on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen. Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones
Wind Song
LONG ago I learned how to sleep, In an old apple orchard where the wind swept by counting its money and throwing it away, In a wind-gaunt orchard where the limbs forked out and
Moonset
LEAVES of poplars pick Japanese prints against the west. Moon sand on the canal doubles the changing pictures. The moon’s good-by ends pictures. The west is empty. All else is empty. No moon-talk at