Poem (You, my photographer, you, most aware)

Related poetry:

1. The Naked And The Nude For me, the naked and the nude (By lexicographers construed As synonyms that should express The same deficiency of dress Or shelter) stand as wide apart As love from lies, or truth from art. Lovers without reproach will gaze On bodies naked and ablaze; The Hippocratic eye will see In nakedness, anatomy; And naked shines […]...
2. The Imaginary Iceberg We’d rather have the iceberg than the ship, Although it meant the end of travel. Although it stood stock-still like cloudy rock And all the sea were moving marble. We’d rather have the iceberg than the ship; We’d rather own this breathing plain of snow Though the ship’s sails were laid upon the sea As […]...
3. Poem (As the cat) As the cat Climbed over The top of The jamcloset First the right Forefoot Carefully Then the hind Stepped down Into the pit of The empty Flowerpot...
4. Narcissus, Photographer “…a frozen memory, like any photo, Where nothing is missing, not even, And especially, nothingness…” Julio Cortázar, “Blow Up” Mirror-mad, He photographed reflections: Sunstorms in puddles, Cities in canals, Double portraits framed In sunglasses, The fat phantoms who dance On the flanks of cars. Nothing caught his eye Unless it bent Or glistered Over something […]...
5. The Mother Poem (two) I always wanted to give birth Do that incredible natural thing That women do-I nearly broke down When I heard we couldn’t And then my man said to me Well there’s always adoption (we didn’t have test tubes and the rest Then) and well even in the early sixties there was something Scandalous about adopting […]...
6. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
7. Aware When I found the door I found the vine leaves Speaking among themselves in abundant Whispers. My presence made them Hush their green breath, Embarrassed, the way Humans stand up, buttoning their jackets, Acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if The conversation had ended Just before you arrived. I liked The glimpse I […]...
8. An Almost Made Up Poem I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny Blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny They are small, and the fountain is in France Where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. You used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper […]...
9. This Consciousness that is aware This Consciousness that is aware Of Neighbors and the Sun Will be the one aware of Death And that itself alone Is traversing the interval Experience between And most profound experiment Appointed unto Men How adequate unto itself Its properties shall be Itself unto itself and none Shall make discovery. Adventure most unto itself The […]...
10. Autobiographical The lover in these poems Is me; The doctor, Love. He appears As husband, lover Analyst & muse, As father, son & maybe even God & surely death. All this is true. The man you turn to In the dark Is many men. This is an open secret Women share & yet agree to hide […]...
11. 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 a hickory stump. He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years And the blue has gone […]...
12. From Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem In Warsaw, blackbird girls Swoop down in flocks The old town square A swirl of dark-eyed dark-haired girls In brilliant skirts who circle Laughing at my waist Throw up their arms To beg for sweets Who know among the tourists Whom to choose (how do they know?) So being chosen, being glad In any language […]...
13. There was a Child Once There was a child once. He came to play in my garden; He was quite pale and silent. Only when he smiled I knew everything about him, I knew what he had in his pockets, And I knew the feel of his hands in my hands And the most intimate tones of his voice. I […]...
14. Poem With Refrains The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog Uncurling over the tainted city river, A young girl rowing and her anxious father Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever Abandoned orphan. The great athletic killer Sulking in his tent. As though all stories began With someone dying. When her mother died, My mother refused to attend […]...
15. I took one Draught of Life I took one Draught of Life I’ll tell you what I paid Precisely an existence The market price, they said. They weighed me, Dust by Dust They balanced Film with Film, Then handed me my Being’s worth A single Dram of Heaven!...
16. A SIMPLE POEM I want you to continue writing Because I will not always be around With lips that will never touch mine Read your poems out loud So that the words are left engraved On the wall Make me feel your voice rush through me Like a breeze from Oyá I want to hear about Puerto Rico […]...
17. The Beautiful Poem I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking About you. Pissing a few moments ago I looked down at my penis Affectionately. Knowing it has been inside You twice today makes me Feel beautiful. 3 A. M. January 15, 1967...
18. Dream Song 133: As he grew famousâ€"ah, but what is fame? As he grew famous—ah, but what is fame? — He lost his old obsession with his name, Things seemed to matter less, Including the fame—a television team came From another country to make a film of him Which did not him distress: He enjoyed the hard work & he was good at that, So they […]...
19. The Day Is A Poem (September 19, 1939) This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we hear his voice. A man of genius: that is, of amazing Ability, courage, devotion, cored on a sick child’s soul, Heard clearly through the dog wrath, a sick child Wailing in Danzig; invoking destruction and wailing at it. Here, the day was extremely hot; about noon A south […]...
20. Her Kind I have gone out, a possessed witch, Haunting the black air, braver at night; Dreaming evil, I have done my hitch Over the plain houses, light by light: Lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in […]...
21. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
22. The Channel Swimmer Would you hear a Wild tale of adventure Of a hero who tackled the sea, A super-man swimming the ocean, Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee. Our Channel, our own Straits of Dover Had heen swum by an alien lot: Our British-born swimmers had tried it, But that was as far as they’d […]...
23. Album My father is dead. I who am look at him Who is not, as once he Went looking for me In the woman who was. There are pictures Of the two of them, no Need of a third, hand In hand, hearts willing To be one but not three. What does it mean Life? I […]...
24. Mater Dei She looked to east, she looked to west, Her eyes, unfathomable, mild, That saw both worlds, came home to rest,­ Home to her own sweet child. God’s golden head was at her breast. What need to look o’er land and sea? What could the winged ships bring to her? What gold or gems of price […]...
25. Lover's Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is Beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day And night; it is not of the earth. But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and Space, and it strives evermore to be born in […]...
26. Poem 15 RIng ye the bels, ye yong men of the towne, And leaue your wonted labors for this day: This day is holy; doe ye write it dovvne, That ye for euer it remember may. This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight, With Barnaby the bright, >From whence declining daily by degrees, He somewhat […]...
27. The Fear A lantern light from deeper in the barn Shone on a man and woman in the door And threw their lurching shadows on a house Near by, all dark in every glossy window. A horse’s hoof pawed once the hollow floor, And the back of the gig they stood beside Moved in a little. The […]...
28. POEM TO BE PLACED IN A BOTTLE AND CAST OUT TO SEA for Ken Kesey and his merry pranksters in a bus called ‘Further…’ Dear and here’s where the problem begins For who shall I address this letter to? Friends are few and very special, muses in the main I must confess, the first I lost just fifty years ago. Perhaps the best. I searched for years […]...
29. Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased) The lump of coal my parents teased I’d find in my Christmas stocking Turned out each year to be an orange, For I was their sunshine. Now I have one C. gave me, A dense node of sleeping fire. I keep it where I read and write. “You’re on chummy terms with dread,” It reminds […]...
30. Presences This night has been so strange that it seemed As if the hair stood up on my head. From going-down of the sun I have dreamed That women laughing, or timid or wild, In rustle of lace or silken stuff, Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read All I had rhymed of that monstrous […]...
31. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
32. Admonitions To A Special Person Watch out for power, For its avalanche can bury you, Snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain. Watch out for hate, It can open its mouth and you’ll fling yourself out To eat off your leg, an instant leper. Watch out for friends, Because when you betray them, As you will, They will bury their heads […]...
33. Poem On His Birthday In the mustardseed sun, By full tilt river and switchback sea Where the cormorants scud, In his house on stilts high among beaks And palavers of birds This sandgrain day in the bent bay’s grave He celebrates and spurns His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age; Herons spire and spear. Under and round him go Flounders, […]...
34. Poem Of Night 1 I move my hand over Slopes, falls, lumps of sight, Lashes barely able to be touched, Lips that give way so easily It’s a shock to feel underneath them The bones smile. Muffled a little, barely cloaked, Zygoma, maxillary, turbinate. 2 I put my hand On the side of your face, You lean your […]...
35. Poem In the early evening, a now, as man is bending Over his writing table. Slowly he lifts his head; a woman Appears, carrying roses. Her face floats to the surface of the mirror, Marked with the green spokes of rose stems. It is a form Of suffering: then always the transparent page Raised to the […]...
36. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
37. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
38. Poem for My Wife This morning when we woke up The meat cages still locked us up* We took a bath so they’d look nice Had our breakfast of eggs and rice Wore the the stuff that Pinurbo** From his father once borrowed Braved the traffic never cool Sending our daughter to school Day by day we replay the […]...
39. Poem About the size of an old-style dollar bill, American or Canadian, Mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays this little painting (a sketch for a larger one?) Has never earned any money in its life. Useless and free, it has spent seventy years As a minor family relic Handed along collaterally to owners […]...
40. Love And Marilyn Monroe (after Spillane) Let us be aware of the true dark gods Acknowledgeing the cache of the crotch The primitive pure and pwerful pink and grey private sensitivites Wincing, marvelous in their sweetness, whence rises the future. Therefore let us praise Miss Marilyn Monroe. She has a noble attitude marked by pride and candor She takes […]...