ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 4

ABOUT TO SIT DOWN
Stepping out the back door...


KISS HIS EAR
Brown corn bends as...


STALLING OUT
Just by getting enough distance...


PAGE ZERO
my mind's blank wall...


PARTING
words just off...


CRICKETS HESITATE
the night...


FROM AND TO
my first eternity...


IN THIS LITTLE POEM OR WORLD
I mislaid my travel plans the map...


FIELD GUIDE
indigo bunting no words...


untitled
I knew...


I STAY UP LATE
studying to live...


POEM OF EXPOSURE
the tender outcry...


untitled
underground I'll turn to you...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM TATE
I consider it a citizen's duty...


STANDING STILL IN
november...


HOW I TRAPPED THE MURDERER
I left out the part...


PROVERB
he who sleeps a false sleep...


A SUNDAY NIGHT SERMON FOR DAVID BAKER
The first step is to listen,...


I AM PART BUZZARD
my grandmother was a buzzard...


DEAR FUCKHEADS
my head hurts...


TILL IT THAWS
1....


RESOLUTION
I am so glad...


EVENING POEM
in the cellar...


DISTURBANCE
the world is alive...


FLIGHT
the gamblers...


VISIT
Buying toys, the one remaining copy...


STORM
in trouble again...


JUST AFTER DAWN
We sat among the cattle and he asked me ...


INTERPRETATION
Hour begets hour, dream begets dream,...


THE BUZZARD SPEAKS
I am proud...


INTERRUPTION
not knowing what to say...


JOSEPH'S POEM
if you wish to own a fear...


DIS-ORDER
of course...


BLUE MILLION
in the house dark...


untitled
blank pages spit their silence...


BROKEN POEM
life goes through...


AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOL. II
the day before my birth...


MARENGO
the pressure of seasons...


TODAY
awoke in the forest...

Listen!


VISITING T.C. STEELE'S HOUSE IN THE RAIN


I.

the trees have had time
to approach the painter's house
and grow large
they have taken away his view
but so has death
and death was never cut down
in his time or ours

his wife's gardens have been copied
by the employees of the state
and under this dull sky
they make earth brighter than heaven

on a rock in one of them
I saw a garter snake looking at me
and wishing I would go
so the frogs would come out


II.

the studio sits just off the peak of the hill
looking like a barn under its hip roof

they let the varnish on the paintings dull
but keep the dust off his brushes

gift shop in the back his work on the walls
examples of the two hands he worked with

a smooth hand for flattering sitters
a rough hand for pleasing himself

one hand plus the other equalled happiness
one made a living (guess which)

one showed the long vistas he lived among
and nearer by the scrubbiness and brilliance

living out in the country brings home to you
his chickens posed for him under the trees

morning light slant on the pecked-bare dirt
also the oak still there a hundred years later

the old woman my guide asks how I make my living
by listening to troubles I say

thinking of my own just now thank god not great
leaving I drop five dollars in the donation box

and put up the hood on my raincoat so
I am equal to the rain ready to go for a walk


III.

from the cabin below the house
I follow the trail of silences
whose name is true
the streams it crosses
make a little noise
but between one and the other
a different silence each time

up the hill again panting
stopping for breath I see
a doe grazing on the grass
covering the family graves
she runs from smelling me