ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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11 12 13 14 15
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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 14

GOOD QUESTION
why do I write all the time ...


SOME MILLERSBURG
of your own ...


8/24/05
the dusk comes out and takes the woods...


untitled
lifting a light to help itself ...


BLACK AND GREEN
on state road four you came down...


SEEN FROM ABOVE
and without the distraction of time...


GROCERIES
when you think you see...


I TELL YOU HOW TO GET THERE
and what it's like...


A LONG LINE
at night in the sky...


SEPTEMBER, 2005
huddled masses...


THIS TIME OF YEAR
walking early out ...


LIVING HERE
on this tail end of white river water...


11/14/05
my nails hurt from the cold ...


untitled
on the track made ...


untitled
I kept a ...


untitled
my cold clothes ...


OUR HOUSES
the town the fields the woods...


A POEM AS A PILE OF STICKS
poetry is where I have not been before...


ALSO
the flames sweep upward...


ON NOT SLEEPING
here on the less end ...


THE MIDDLE OF MY LIFE
when I reached the middle of my life ...


untitled
the guillotine cause and effect ...


1/18/06
the future of one day...


SLEPT
rain fed a fire in the roots ...


POEM
widow...


WET ALL DAY
this cold rain is our earth's ...


ALL DOGS TO GET NEW LEASH
wet when it's wet...


NIGHT/SEA
staring into the night as into a sea...


2/6/06
wood coming today ...


BEND
when I take in hand...


WORK
my books bend under the weight ...


untitled
of the world ...


PEACE
late afternoon...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM OPPEN
return ...


I HAVE GAINED NOTHING I HAVE LOST NOTHING
new moon sliver ...


2/27/06
our disobedient worries ...


MANY DAYS RAIN
driving carefully on ...


THOUGHTS
my second thoughts ...


THEFT OF LINES FROM KHLEBNIKOV
the gouges in the sides ...


TO MY BAD HABITS
when I see you I think of myself ...


ON MY READING LIST THERE IS
a history of funerals so well-written...


WRITING AT NIGHT
its chief object ...


5/24/06
chilly mornings with bright sun ...


WORSHIPPING (WITHOUT GOD)
hands clasped weight on the knees ...


STATE FOREST
the trail through deep woods in a long slope ...


MY BED OF ROSES
on my bed of roses ...


4 A.M. LIGHT SO BRIGHT IT WOKE ME
old moon ...


MAN OF DREAMS
dusk ...


untitled
into the war...


NOT OURS
rain ...


untitled
passion over ...


IMAGINATION IMAGINATION IMAGINATION
earth floats higher...


6/21/06
the sun at noon ...


NOSTALGIA
the rain is an empty city ...


SELF-PORTRAIT (WITHOUT MY FACE)
ambivalent about irony...


LOOKING
blue backs and forked tails ...


7/28/06
first bat and first star...


DRIVING ON THE NARROW ROAD
off to one side this open hill ...


UNLIFTABLE
under all the alasses shadowing me ...


VISIT TO THE CEMETERY
over by the road the careless ...


HOW FAR
built on the water waking ...


FIVE THOUGHTS BEFORE SLEEP
the sand the shore moved...


AWAY LIKE WE WANTED
above the trees ...


WE KNOW THIS
The dead are sleepless, we know this, they need no rest. With ...


INNER WORLD
the river rich in me ...


WITHOUT KINDNESS
on its stalk the corn flames towards the mouth above ...

OUR COURTHOUSE IS BEAUTIFUL


from the southwest corner on a clear April day
the stone steps rising between two old redbuds
their heads bushy with flowers and behind and above them
the blocky white courthouse itself backed by blue sky
the lawn is green daffodils surge the larger trees bud out
the monument to all the soldiers and wars is solid
even if some of the lettering is dissolving and the words go

but my favorite monument is on this side screened by shrubs
a tall square pillar with dried up faucets at its base
"drink and be grateful" "thirsty and ye gave me drink"
put up by the WCTU many decades ago in pure idealism
and desire for new laws--did it have a statue on top?
I can look this up--because we are a people of ideals and laws

we will break our heads or others' on history if it won't
give way to our banging we have sought a prosperity
to end all prosperity and it never ends the empire
of winners and losers the frontier of it is moving outward
leaving us behind searching the strip malls
for a measure of our limitations

how harsh to love a place that seeks ideal laws
and is always moving away from you
I think it is in a desert now building fires
and spreading ideals our heads have forgotten so sore
from the banging but that's OK I can spin in circles
till I stumble like a drunk in front of the WCTU monument
I can watch the republic dissolve in the distance
into empire and be thankful I'm still here
and lost and ready to fall like a city of millions but really
I'm just a dizzy smalltown provincial who loves April
and stone steps and thinks our courthouse is beautiful