Hook
I was only a young man In those days. On that evening The cold was so God damned Bitter there was nothing. Nothing. I was in trouble With a woman, and there was nothing
Saint Judas
When I went out to kill myself, I caught A pack of hoodlums beating up a man. Running to spare his suffering, I forgot My name, my number, how my day began, How soldiers
Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry, Ohio
In the Shreve High football stadium, I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville, And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood, And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
The Jewel
There is this cave In the air behind my body That nobodyt is going to touch: A cloister, a silence Closing around a blossom of fire. When I stand upright in the wind, My
Northern Pike
All right. Try this, Then. Every body I know and care for, And every body Else is going To die in a loneliness I can’t imagine and a pain I don’t know. We had
Fear Is What Quickens Me
1 Many animals that our fathers killed in America Had quick eyes. They stared about wildly, When the moon went dark. The new moon falls into the freight yards Of cities in the south,
May Morning
Deep into spring, winter is hanging on. Bitter and skillful in his Hopelessness, he stays alive in every shady place, starving along the Mediterranean: angry to see the glittering sea-pale boulder alive With lizards
A Note Left In Jimmy Leonard's Shack
Near the dry river’s water-mark we found Your brother Minnegan, Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground. Beany, the kid whose yellow hair turns green, Told me to find you, even if the
As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor
And how can I, born in evil days And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate? Written A. D. 819 Po Chu-i, balding old politician, What’s the use? I think of you, Uneasily
Beginning
The moon drops one or two feathers into the fiels. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now. There they are, the moon’s young, trying Their wings. Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the
To A Blossoming Pear Tree
Beautiful natural blossoms, Pure delicate body, You stand without trembling. Little mist of fallen starlight, Perfect, beyond my reach, How I envy you. For if you could only listen, I would tell you something,
Outside Fargo, North Dakota
Along the sprawled body of the derailed Great Northern freight car, I strike a match slowly and lift it slowly. No wind. Beyond town, three heavy white horses Wade all the way to their