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1. Poetics You know the old story Ann Landers tells About the houseife in her basement doing the wash? She’s wearing her nightie, and she thinks, “Well, hell, I might’s well put this in as well,” and then Being dripped on by a leaky pipe puts on Her son’s football helmet; whereupon The meter reader happens to […]...
2. Are You Content? I call on those that call me son, Grandson, or great-grandson, On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts, To judge what I have done. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent? Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content. He that in Sligo at Drumcliff […]...
3. Pencils PENCILS Telling where the wind comes from open a story. Pencils Telling where the wind goes end a story. These eager pencils Come to a stop .. only.. when the stars high over Come to a stop. Out of cabalistic to-morrows Come cryptic babies calling life A strong and a lovely thing. I have seen […]...
4. Forget Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting. Sometimes you hear a distant refrain. What does it mean, you ask, who is singing? A childlike sun grows warm. A grandson and a great-grandson are […]...
5. Everybody Knows (co-written by Sharon Robinson) Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows that the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes Everybody knows Everybody knows that the boat […]...
6. Trinity Place THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street. The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street stops. And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on the grass of graves, speaking of war and weather, of babies, […]...
7. Reveille In the brutal nights we used to dream Dense violent dreams, Dreamed with soul and body: To return; to eat; to tell the story. Until the dawn command Sounded brief, low ‘Wstawac’ And the heart cracked in the breast. Now we have found our homes again, Our bellies are full, We’re through telling the story. […]...
8. Daughter Why is the world at peace. This may astonish you a little but when you realise how Easily Mrs. Charles Bianco sells the work of American Painters to American millionaires you will recognize that Authorities are constrained to be relieved. Let me tell you a Story. A painter loved a woman. A musician did not […]...
9. III. THE PARIAH'S THANKS MIGHTY Brama, now I’ll bless thee! ‘Tis from thee that worlds proceed! As my ruler I confess thee, For of all thou takest heed. All thy thousand ears thou keepest Open to each child of earth; We, ‘mongst mortals sunk the deepest, Have from thee received new birth. Bear in mind the woman’s story, Who, […]...
10. Platonic I knew it the first of the summer, I knew it the same at the end, That you and your love were plighted, But couldn’t you be my friend? Couldn’t we sit in the twilight, Couldn’t we walk on the shore With only a pleasant friendship To bind us, and nothing more? There was not […]...
11. Woman with a Past THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry. There was a woman spoke six short words And quit a life that was old to her For a life that was new. There was a woman […]...
12. Shirt I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering shirt of you in the wind. Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff. And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the singing voice of […]...
13. To Juan at the Winter Solstice There is one story and one story only That will prove worth your telling, Whether as learned bard or gifted child; To it all lines or lesser gauds belong That startle with their shining Such common stories as they stray into. Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues, Or strange beasts that […]...
14. Phenomenal Woman Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m […]...
15. Story A woman’s taking her late-afternoon walk On Chestnut where no sidewalk exists And houses with gravel driveways Sit back among the pines. Only the house With the vicious dog is close to the road. An electric fence keeps him in check. When she comes to that house, the woman Always crosses to the other side. […]...
16. Written On A Blank Space At The End Of Chaucer's Tale Of The Flowre And The Lefe This pleasant tale is like a little copse: The honied lines so freshly interlace, To keep the reader in so sweet a place, So that he here and there full-hearted stops; And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops Come cool and suddenly against his face, And, by the wandering melody, may trace Which way the […]...
17. The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page, Wanted to lean, […]...
18. Truth THE HERO first thought it To him ’twas a deed: To those who retaught it, A chain on their speed. The fire that we kindled, A beacon by night, When darkness has dwindled Grows pale in the light. For life has no glory Stays long in one dwelling, And time has no story That’s true […]...
19. One World “The worlds in which we live are two The world ‘I am’ and the world ‘I do.'” The worlds in which we live at heart are one, The world “I am,” the fruit of “I have done”; And underneath these worlds of flower and fruit, The world “I love,” the only living root....
20. Jack JACK was a swarthy, swaggering son-of-a-gun. He worked thirty years on the railroad, ten hours a day, And his hands were tougher than sole leather. He married a tough woman and they had eight children And the woman died and the children grew up and Went away and wrote the old man every two years. […]...
21. Our Mat It came from the prison this morning, Close-twisted, neat-lettered, and flat; It lies the hall doorway adorning, A very good style of a mat. Prison-made! how the spirit is moven As we think of its story of dread What wiles of the wicked are woven And spun in its intricate thread! The letters are new, […]...
22. When A Woman Loves A Man When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri. When she says quixotic she means mercurial. And when she says, “I’ll never speak to you again,” She means, “Put your arms around me from behind As I stand disconsolate at the window.” He’s supposed to know that. When a man loves a woman he is in New […]...
23. Overheard Through The Walls Of The Invisible City . . . telling those who swarm around him his desire Is that an appendage from each of them Fill, invade each of his orifices,- Repeating, chanting, Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Until, as if in darkness he craved the sun, at last he reached Consummation. -Until telling those who […]...
24. 1954 Then dirt scared me, because of the dirt He had put on her face. And her training bra Scared me-the newspapers, morning and evening, Kept saying it, training bra, As if the cups of it had been calling The breasts up-he buried her in it, Perhaps he had never bothered to take it Off. They […]...
25. Nursing You On the first night Of the full moon, The primeval sack of ocean Broke, & I gave birth to you Little woman, Little carrot top, Little turned-up nose, Pushing you out of myself As my mother Pushed Me out of herself, As her mother did, & her mother’s mother before her, All of us born […]...
26. Picture-Books in Winter Summer fading, winter comes Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books. All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, […]...
27. Being Me! Wild are my ways, wilder than you think You will find me standing a little left of frame You will find me a little away from the meeting place I am that and much more, insignificant me. Yes I am the one with the faraway look Of sailors of vast dreamy oceans I look at […]...
28. Tennessee Claflin Shope I was the laughing-stock of the village, Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek The same as English. For instead of talking free trade, Or preaching some form of baptism; Instead of believing in the efficacy Of walking cracks picking up […]...
29. Tree When the sun goes down I have my first drink Standing in the yard, Talking to my neighbor About the alder tree Rising between our houses, A lowly tree that prospered From our steady inattention And shot up quick as a weed To tower over our rooftops, Where it now brandishes A rich, luxuriant crown. […]...
30. A True Story, for Jeremy Jeremy hit the ball today, Over the fence and far away. So very, very far away A neighbor had to toss it back. (She thought it was an air attack!) Jeremy hit the ball so hard It flew across his neighbor’s yard. So very hard across her yard The bat that boomed a mighty “THWACK!” […]...
31. Timber Wings THERE was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley’s timber. Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on the walnuts and the hazel. There was a wild pigeon. There was a summer came year by year to Hinkley’s timber. Rainy months and sunny and pigeons calling and one pigeon best of all who came. […]...
32. Hannah Armstrong I wrote him a letter asking him for old times’ sake To discharge my sick boy from the army; But maybe he couldn’t read it. Then I went to town and had James Garber, Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter. But maybe that was lost in the mails. So I traveled all the way […]...
33. Seashore On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead And the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds The children meet with shouts and dances. They build their houses with sand And they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats And smilingly float […]...
34. On the Seashore On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances. They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float […]...
35. Yes According to Culture Shock: A Guide to Customs and Etiquette Of Filipinos, when my husband says yes, He could also mean one of the following: A.) I don’t know. B.) If you say so. C.) If it will please you. D.) I hope I have said yes unenthusiastically enough For you to realize I mean […]...
36. Before The Flood Why did he promise me That we would build ourselves An ark all by ourselves Out in back of the house On New York Avenue In Union City New Jersey To the singing of the streetcars After the story Of Noah whom nobody Believed about the waters That would rise over everything When I told […]...
37. Portrait Number Five: Against A New York Summer I’d walk her home after work Buying roses and talking of Bechsteins. She was full of soul. Her small room was gorged with heat And there were no windows. She’d take off everything But her pants And take the pins from her hair Throwing them on the floor With a great noise. Like Crete. We […]...
38. The Good-Morrow I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then, But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den? ‘Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, ’twas but […]...
39. The house where I was born (08) I open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where I was born, Exactly as it was and nothing more. The same small dining room whose window Gives onto a peach tree that never grows. A man and a woman are seated At this window, facing one another, They are talking, for once. And the child […]...
40. Plus Ultra Far beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises Heaven, with worlds on worlds that lighten and respond: Thought can see not thence the goal of hope’s surmises Far beyond. Night and day have made an everlasting bond Each with each to hide in yet more deep disguises Truth, till souls of men that thirst for […]...