Mad Day In March
Beaten like an old hound Whimpering by the stove, I complicate the pain That smarts with promised love. The oilstove falls, the rain, Forecast, licks at my wound; Ice forms, clips the green shoot,
On The Murder Of Lieutenant Jose Del Castillo By The Falangist Bravo Martinez, July 12, 1936
When the Lieutenant of the Guardia de Asalto Heard the automatic go off, he turned And took the second shot just above The sternum, the third tore away The right shoulder of his uniform,
Late Light
Rain filled the streets Once a year, rising almost To door and window sills, Battering walls and roofs Until it cleaned away the mess We’d made. My father told Me this, he told me
Late Moon
2 a. m. December, and still no mon Rising from the river. My mother Home from the beer garden Stands before the open closet Her hands still burning. She smooths the fur collar, The
A Theory Of Prosody
When Nellie, my old pussy Cat, was still in her prime, She would sit behind me As I wrote, and when the line Got too long she’d reach One sudden black foreleg down And
What Work Is
We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is if you’re Old enough to read this you know what Work is, although
The Turning
Unknown faces in the street And winter coming on. I Stand in the last moments of The city, no more a child, Only a man, one who has Looked upon his own nakedness Without
Premonition At Twilight
The magpie in the Joshua tree Has come to rest. Darkness collects, And what I cannot hear or see, Broken limbs, the curious bird, Become in darkness darkness too. I had been going when
Montjuich
“Hill of Jews,” says one, Named for a cemetery Long gone.”Hill of Jove,” Says another, and maybe Jove stalked here Once or rests now Where so many lie Who felt God swell The earth
Belle Isle, 1949
We stripped in the first warm spring night And ran down into the Detroit River To baptize ourselves in the brine Of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles, Melted snow. I remember going under
You Can Have It
My brother comes home from work And climbs the stairs to our room. I can hear the bed groan and his shoes drop One by one. You can have it, he says. The moonlight
Clouds Above The Sea
My father and mother, two tiny figures, Side by side, facing the clouds that move In from the Atlantic. August, ’33. The whole weight of the rain to come, the weight Of all that
On The Meeting Of García Lorca And Hart Crane
Brooklyn, 1929. Of course Crane’s Been drinking and has no idea who This curious Andalusian is, unable Even to speak the language of poetry. The young man who brought them Together knows both Spanish
The Helmet
All the way On the road to Gary He could see Where the sky shone Just out of reach And smell the rich Smell of work As strong as money, But when he got
The House
This poem has a door, a locked door, And curtains drawn against the day, But at night the lights come on, one In each room, and the neighbors swear They hear music and the