My Papa's Waltz
The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother’s
Night Journey
Now as the train bears west, Its rhythm rocks the earth, And from my Pullman berth I stare into the night While others take their rest. Bridges of iron lace, A suddenness of trees,
The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there
The Reckoning
All profits disappear: the gain Of ease, the hoarded, secret sum; And now grim digits of old pain Return to litter up our home. We hunt the cause of ruin, add, Subtract, and put
In A Dark Time
In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood A lord of nature weeping to a tree, I
The Minimal
I study the lives on a leaf: the little Sleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions, Beetles in caves, newts, stone-deaf fishes, Lice tethered to long limp subterranean weeds, Squirmers in bogs, And bacterial creepers
Epidermal Macabre
Indelicate is he who loathes The aspect of his fleshy clothes, The flying fabric stitched on bone, The vesture of the skeleton, The garment neither fur nor hair, The cloak of evil and despair,