Author: Donald Justice

Papier-mache body; blue-and-black cotton jersey cover. Metal stand. Instructions included. Sears, Roebuck Catalogue O my coy darling, still You wear […]

Thirty today, I saw The trees flare briefly like The candles upon a cake As the sun went down the […]

Lights are burning In quiet rooms Where lives go on Resembling ours. The quiet lives That follow us – These […]

We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell; If anywhere, in […]

Our lives avoided tragedy Simply by going on and on, Without end and with little apparent meaning. Oh, there were […]

It begins again, the nocturnal pulse. It courses through the cables laid for it. It mounts to the chandeliers and […]

This poem is not addressed to you. You may come into it briefly, But no one will find you here, […]

One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a Hired assassin. John […]

Your face more than others’ faces Maps the half-remembered places I have come to I while I slept- Continents a […]

Now comes the evening of the mind. Here are the fireflies twitching in the blood; Here is the shadow moving […]

Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to. At rest […]

Thirty today, I saw The trees flare briefly like The candles on a cake, As the sun went down the […]

It’s snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers. There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote, Like […]

Late arrival, no One would think of blaming you For hesitating so. Who, setting his hand to knock At a […]

We have climbed the mountain. There’s nothing more to do. It is terrible to come down To the valley Where, […]

Jane looks down at her organdy skirt As if it somehow were the thing disgraced, For being there, on the […]

1 Dear ghosts, dear presences, O my dear parents, Why were you so sad on porches, whispering? What great melancholies […]

A delicate young Negro stands With the reins of a horse clutched loosely in his hands; So delicate, indeed, that […]

Turn your head. Look. The light is turning yellow. The river seems enriched thereby, not to say deepened. Why this […]

But these maneuverings to avoid The touching of hands, These shifts to keep the eyes employed On objects more or […]