Howard Nemerov
I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee
I tell you that I see her still At the dark entrance of the hall. One gas lamp burning near her shoulder Shone also from her other side Where hung the long inaccurate glass
September, The First Day Of School
I My child and I hold hands on the way to school, And when I leave him at the first-grade door He cries a little but is brave; he does Let go. My selfish
The Goose Fish
On the long shore, lit by the moon To show them properly alone, Two lovers suddenly embraced So that their shadows were as one. The ordinary night was graced For them by the swift
Because You Asked About The Line Between Prose And Poetry
Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle That while you watched turned into pieces of snow Riding a gradient invisible From silver aslant to random, white, and slow. There came a moment that you
The Beautiful Lawn Sprinkler
What gives it power makes it change its mind At each extreme, and lean its rising rain Down low, first one and then the other way; In which exchange humility and pride Reverse, forgive,
Insomnia I
Some nights it’s bound to be your best way out, When nightmare is the short end of the stick, When sleep is a part of town where it’s not safe To walk at night,
Ozymandias II
I met a guy I used to know, who said: “You take your ’57 Karnak, now, The model that they called their Coop de Veal That had the pointy rubber boobs for bumpers You
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,”
The Dependencies
This morning, between two branches of a tree Beside the door, epeira once again Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap. I test his early-warning system and It works, he scrambles forth in
Storm Windows
People are putting up storm windows now, Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon, I saw storm windows lying on the ground, Frame-full of rain;
The Lobster
Here at the Super Duper, in a glass tank Supplied by a rill of cold fresh water Running down a glass washboard at one end And siphoned off at the other, and so Perpetually
A Spell before Winter
After the red leaf and the gold have gone, Brought down by the wind, then by hammering rain Bruised and discolored, when October’s flame Goes blue to guttering in the cusp, this land Sinks
The Blue Swallows
Across the millstream below the bridge Seven blue swallows divide the air In shapes invisible and evanescent, Kaleidoscopic beyond the mind’s Or memory’s power to keep them there. “History is where tensions were,” “Form
Amateurs of Heaven
Two lovers to a midnight meadow came High in the hills, to lie there hand and hand Like effigies and look up at the stars, The never-setting ones set in the North To circle
Casting
The waters deep, the waters dark, Reflect the seekers, hide the sought, Whether in water or in air to drown. Between them curls the silver spark, Barbed, baited, waiting, of a thought Which in