The Most

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1. Lines and Squares Whenever I walk in a London street, I’m ever so careful to watch my feet; And I keep in the squares, And the masses of bears, Who wait at the corners all ready to eat The sillies who tread on the lines of the street Go back to their lairs, And I say to them, […]...
2. The Walkers (He speaks.) Walking, walking, oh, the joy of walking! Swinging down the tawny lanes with head held high; Striding up the green hills, through the heather stalking, Swishing through the woodlands where the brown leaves lie; Marveling at all things windmills gaily turning, Apples for the cider-press, ruby-hued and gold; Tails of rabbits twinkling, scarlet […]...
3. The Pros and Cons He’ll be pleased if I phone to ask him how he is. It will make me look considerate and he likes considerate people. He’ll be reassured to see that I haven’t lost interest, Which might make him happy and then I’ll have done him a favour. If I phone him right now I’ll get to […]...
4. The Night I Was Going To Die the night I was going to die I was sweating on the bed And I could hear the crickets And there was a cat fight outside And I could feel my soul dropping down through the Mattress And just before it hit the floor I jumped up I was almost too weak to walk But […]...
5. Long highway blues highway dancing During a long day Of running My thumb, Carrying me nowhere Grew tired, A sunset and beauty Carved the sky Her eyes and hair A tattoo upon my soul Wouldn’t let go I had nowhere to run And so, Highway dancing And nowhere To call home. Walking the long black road Alone Believing […]...
6. Hilaire Belloc – The South Country When I am living in the Midlands That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind. The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea; And it’s there walking in the […]...
7. Fifth Amendment The fear of perjuring herself turned into a tacit Admission of her guilt. Yet she had the skill And the luck to elude her implacable pursuers. God was everywhere like a faceless guard in a gallery. Death was last seen in the auction room, looking worried. She hadn’t seen him leave. She narrowly avoided him […]...
8. Siren Song I phone from time to time, to see if she’s Changed the music on her answerphone. ‘Tell me in two words’, goes the recording, ‘what you were going to tell in a thousand’. I peer into that thought, like peering out To sea at night, hearing the sound of waves Breaking on rocks, knowing she […]...
9. Metamorphosis a girlfriend came in Built me a bed Scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor Scrubbed the walls Vacuumed Cleaned the toilet The bathtub Scrubbed the bathroom floor And cut my toenails and My hair. Then All on the same day The plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet And the toilet And the gas man […]...
10. The House They are building a house Half a block down And I sit up here With the shades down Listening to the sounds, The hammers pounding in nails, Thack thack thack thack, And then I hear birds, And thack thack thack, And I go to bed, I pull the covers to my throat; They have been […]...
11. Candle Hat In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates: Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes, Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness, Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather From painting The Blinding of Sampson. But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror […]...
12. Long Distance II Though my mother was already two years dead Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, Put hot water bottles her side of the bed And still went to renew her transport pass. You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone. He’d put you off an hour to give him time To clear away […]...
13. July 10 The sky was a midnight blue Velvet cloth draping A birdcage and no moon But the breeze was whistling And the sound of a car On Valentine Place was The rush of a waterfall On the phone in New York City And that’s when the muse Turned up with curly brown locks She was a […]...
14. Flirtation UPON thy purple mat thy body bare Is fine and limber like a tender tree. The motion of thy supple form is rare, Like a lithe panther lolling languidly, Toying and turning slowly in her lair. Oh, I would never ask for more of thee, Thou art so clean in passion and so fair. Enough! […]...
15. Madam And The Phone Bill You say I O. K. ed LONG DISTANCE? O. K. ed it when? My goodness, Central That was then! I’m mad and disgusted With that Negro now. I don’t pay no REVERSED CHARGES nohow. You say, I will pay it Else you’ll take out my phone? You better let My phone alone. I didn’t ask […]...
16. Show Biz I can’t have it And you can’t have it And we won’t Get it So don’t bet on it Or even think about It Just get out of bed Each morning Wash Shave Clothe Yourself And go out into It Because Outside of that All that’s left is Suicide and Madness So you just Can’t […]...
17. In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams I. The poem is important, but Not more than the people Whose survival it serves, One of the necessities, so they may Speak what is true, and have The patience for beauty: the weighted Grainfield, the shady street, The well-laid stone and the changing tree Whose branches spread above. For want of songs and stories […]...
18. For an Earth-Landing the sky sinks its blue teeth Into the mountains. Rising on pure will (the lurch & lift-off, The sudden swing Into wide, white snow), I encourage the cable. Past the wind & crossed tips of my skis & the mauve shadows of pines & the spoor of bears & deer, I speak to my fear, […]...
19. Looking, Walking, Being “The World is not something to Look at, it is something to be in.” Mark Rudman I look and look. Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, Sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever looking takes one. The eyes Dig and burrow into the world. They touch Fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor. World and the […]...
20. Nocturne In A Deserted Brickyard Stuff of the moon Runs on the lapping sand Out to the longest shadows. Under the curving willows, And round the creep of the wave line, Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters Make a wide dreaming pansy of an old pond in the night....
21. Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife, Our chance to live depends on such a sign While others talk and The Pentagon from the moon Is bouncing exact commands: “Forget your faith; Be ready for whatever […]...
22. Legend of the Albino Farm Omaha, Nebraska They do not sleep nights But stand between Rows of glowing corn and Cabbages grown on acres past The edge of the city. Surrendered flags, Their nightgowns furl and Unfurl around their legs. Only women could be this White. Like mules, They are sterile And it appears that Their mouths are always Open. […]...
23. Lines Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance Between the lines is fine but don’t Turn corners, cross, cut in, go over Or out, between two points of no Return’s a line of flight, between Two points of view’s a line of vision. But a line of thought […]...
24. Candles The days of our future stand in front of us Like a row of little lit candles Golden, warm, and lively little candles. The days past remain behind us, A mournful line of extinguished candles; The ones nearest are still smoking, Cold candles, melted, and bent. I do not want to look at them; their […]...
25. Just Walking Around What name do I have for you? Certainly there is not name for you In the sense that the stars have names That somehow fit them. Just walking around, An object of curiosity to some, But you are too preoccupied By the secret smudge in the back of your soul To say much and wander […]...
26. January 31 (The sky is crumbling…) The sky is crumbling into millions of paper dots The wind blows in my face So I duck into my favorite barber shop And listen to Vivaldi and look in the mirror Reflecting the shopfront windows, Broadway And 104th, and watch the dots blown by the wind Blow into the faces of the walkers outside […]...
27. Red Dust This harpie with dry red curls Talked openly of her husband, His impotence, his death, the death Of her lover, the birth and death Of her own beauty. She stared Into the mirror next to Our table littered with the wreck Of her appetite and groaned: Look what you’ve done to me! As though only […]...
28. The Fury Of Abandonment Someone lives in a cave Eating his toes, I know that much. Someone little lives under a bush Pressing an empty Coca-Cola can against His starving bloated stomac, I know that much. A monkey had his hands cut off For a medical experiment And his claws wept. I know tht much. I know that it […]...
29. Eat Your Heart Out I’ve come by, she says, to tell you That this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s Over. this is it. I sit on the couch watching her arrange Her long red hair before my bedroom Mirror. She pulls her hair up and Piles it on top of her head- She lets her eyes look at […]...
30. Walking Across The Atlantic I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach Before stepping onto the first wave. Soon I am walking across the Atlantic Thinking about Spain, Checking for whales, waterspouts. I feel the water holding up my shifting weight. Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface. But for now I try to imagine what […]...
31. The Plaid Dress Strong sun, that bleach The curtains of my room, can you not render Colourless this dress I wear?- This violent plaid Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done Through indolence high judgments given here in haste; The recurring checker of the […]...
32. Tell Me Tell me, dear beauty of the dusk, When purple ribbons bind the hill, Do dreams your secret wish fulfill, Do prayers, like kernels from the husk Come from your lips? Tell me if when The mountains loom at night, giant shades Of softer shadow, swift like blades Of grass seeds come to flower. Then Tell […]...
33. Name His name has been ghosted over the fence, Leaving an alias, burn, prison clothes. I’m half the man, he says, not my sentence, Waiting on time that other people chose. From their windows men sing out numbers, names, Hands to the grille light for the come-back call, But words get lost, change allegiance, and blame’s […]...
34. My Love Was Warm MY love was warm; for that I crossed The mountains and the sea, Nor counted that endeavour lost That gave my love to me. If that indeed were love at all, As still, my love, I trow, By what dear name am I to call The bond that holds me now...
35. For The Country THE DREAM This has nothing to do with war Or the end of the world. She Dreams there are gray starlings On the winter lawn and the buds Of next year’s oranges alongside This year’s oranges, and the sun Is still up, a watery circle Of fire settling into the sky At dinner time, but […]...
36. Wherein Obscurely On the road with billowing poplars, In a country flat and desolate To the far-off gray horizon, wherein obscurely, A man and a woman went on foot, Each carrying a small suitcase. They were tired and had taken off Their shoes and were walking on Their toes, staring straight ahead. Every time a car passed […]...
37. The Fish In a cool curving world he lies And ripples with dark ecstasies. The kind luxurious lapse and steal Shapes all his universe to feel And know and be; the clinging stream Closes his memory, glooms his dream, Who lips the roots o’ the shore, and glides Superb on unreturning tides. Those silent waters weave for […]...
38. The Roman Road The Roman Road runs straight and bare As the pale parting-line in hair Across the heath. And thoughtful men Contrast its days of Now and Then, And delve, and measure, and compare; Visioning on the vacant air Helmeted legionnaires, who proudly rear The Eagle, as they pace again The Roman Road. But no tall brass-helmeted […]...
39. The Premier and the Socialist The Premier and the Socialist Were walking through the State: They wept to see the Savings Bank Such funds accumulate. “If these were only cleared away,” They said, “it would be great.” “If three financial amateurs Controlled them for a year, Do you suppose,” the Premier said, “That they would get them clear?” “I think […]...
40. Tommy I went into a public-‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer, The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.” The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I: O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go […]...