Chicago Poet
I SALUTED a nobody. I saw him in a looking-glass. He smiled-so did I. He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning-so did I. Everything I did he did. I said, “Hello, I know
Horse Fiddle
FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill
Handfuls
BLOSSOMS of babies Blinking their stories Come soft On the dusk and the babble; Little red gamblers, Handfuls that slept in the dust. Summers of rain, Winters of drift, Tell off the years; And
New Feet
EMPTY battlefields keep their phantoms. Grass crawls over old gun wheels And a nodding Canada thistle flings a purple Into the summer’s southwest wind, Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet, Reaching
Dream Girl
YOU will come one day in a waver of love, Tender as dew, impetuous as rain, The tan of the sun will be on your skin, The purr of the breeze in your murmuring
Old-fashioned Requited Love
I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedias And slid my fingers among topics and titles Looking for you. And the answer comes slow. There seems to be no answer. I shall ask the next banana peddler
Sixteen Months
ON the lips of the child Janet float changing dreams. It is a thin spiral of blue smoke, A morning campfire at a mountain lake. On the lips of the child Janet, Wisps of
Bones
Sling me under the sea. Pack me down in the salt and wet. No farmer’s plow shall touch my bones. No Hamlet hold my jaws and speak How jokes are gone and empty is
Questionnaire
HAVE I told any man to be a liar for my sake? Have I sold ice to the poor in summer and coal to the poor in winter for the sake of daughters who
Autumn Movement
I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of
Chamfort
THERE’S Chamfort. He’s a sample. Locked himself in his library with a gun, Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye. And this Chamfort knew how to write And thousands read his
Blue Island Intersection
SIX street ends come together here. They feed people and wagons into the center. In and out all day horses with thoughts of nose-bags, Men with shovels, women with baskets and baby buggies. Six
Three Violins
THREE violins are trying their hearts. The piece is MacDowell’s Wild Rose. And the time of the wild rose And the leaves of the wild rose And the dew-shot eyes of the wild rose
Mascots
I WILL keep you and bring hands to hold you against a great hunger. I will run a spear in you for a great gladness to die with. I will stab you between the
A Fence
NOW the stone house on the lake front is finished and the Workmen are beginning the fence. The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that Can stab the life out of