ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

sequence #
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20

  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 8

REVEALED BY SPLITTING
my face is of oak...


12/14/96
a voice saying...


MAKING SENSE ON A SNOWY MORNING
my woods fill up with snow...


POINT AT WHICH
the speaking of the heart...


MY HUNGER
I have turned my stones...


MIDNIGHT
midnight your moonlight...


12/23/96
after the singing...


untitled
walk out Eric...


EGYPTIAN
the words which took...


ING
lean sleep...


IN MEMORIAM F.B.
his house of lead...


HOW TO GET THERE
go till the snow falls...


PLAN:
throw four stones...


MY STRUGGLE WITH MY WEIGHT
Mornings around here there is so much fog in the trees...


1/2/97
strange life with...


DARING ABSENCE
the seeing blind man...


FACE THE NATION
1. the fine line in my tranquility...


FOUR BY FOUR
objects I have turned...


untitled
in the waste of sky...


GOOD AND ILL FORTUNE
go through me...


1/17/97
the snow blows the road is battered...


CRITICISM OF SHOVELLING
my stubborn back keeps working...


POET'S DILEMMA
words running up and down...


REQUIREMENT
am I empty yet...


I WROTE THIS WHILE THINKING ABOUT WRITING IT (TITLE LAST)
warm air makes the snow soften...


POEM AS IT HAPPENS
rain gets to fill the spaces used...


EYES AND EARS
eyes very involved in silence...


PROSE POEM ON THE BAKERS (NO COMMAS)
I always see the bakers when I am in a hurry walking past the door...


HELP MIDWINTER
no work snow flies like doves...


THEFT OF LINES FROM THE GNOSTICS
alone with my name...


IF JORDAN FLOODS
season of rising...


COMET AND SAINTS
now don't for-...


THE ARGUMENT
A burning house invites the comet in for a meal. The conver-...


FOOL'S DAY
it was my voice...


SIXTEEN LINES
reading a life...


OUT OF RESPECT
Albert Ayler's jukebox...


AGAIN
what the river of sound delivers...


ASHLAND
all I have buried...


4/27/97
the light rain...


untitled
you want me to stay...


I HEAR
your voice...


THE CLASSIC OF STONE
I had some...


JUST WAIT
too hot to eat the late hours...


NEO WHAT
just got through...


7/6/97
the dusk cool breeze...


KNOWN BY WHAT
deceived by everything...


STOLEN
a voice speaks...


WELCOME TRASH HAULERS
our miles of caves where...


TOO HOT
no rain to satisfy...


THEFT OF LINES FROM THE GNOSTICS AND KAUFMAN
one of rock, one of slime,...


COME ON
in your hand...


GUIDE FROM THE PERPLEXED
this is to let you know...


PRAYER THAT FELL THROUGH MY HANDS
did I understand what I said...


GOOF OFF
it was the ordinary hour...


PRACTICES
juxtaposed thoughts from separate days...


OUR DAYS
my brother in the tree...

WILDNESS COMES BACK


The wild in America is contained, pushed back, owned by the people
as a public treasure for all time. Thus it is separated from us
and our settlements so that America can possess its wildness and be
free from it, well-ordered. But the wildness comes back. In the
abandoned pastures and on the rock ledges made by highway cuts,
cedar saplings appear and then come up in crowds. Along the old
fencerows and in carelessly-tended alleys trash trees--sumac, tree
of heaven--spring out. Scavenger animals multiply, certain birds
find the suburbs and cities to their liking, cracks in the asphalt
or cement breed greenery suppressed elsewhere, the dumps draw
colorful vermin to their feast. And the wildness takes over new
types of habitat, as when the vines cover abandoned shacks and
trailers, and the rodents shelter there. It takes on new forms
that we don't at first recognize as the wild asserting itself:
toxins and meth labs, birth anomalies and addictions, unchecked
wealth confronted by ever-larger desires--these are wild, these
are crawling over and under our safe buildings. We are crazy for
guns, we have an insatiable desire for power, control, security.
The law devours wildly, contempt for losers is a wild passion,
money is the wildest thing of all. We make the largest explosions
the world has ever known because the wildness is in us. We vote
for it, we consume it, it eats away at us, it is the terror our
eyes see everywhere, and we can't stop our hearts beating too fast,
our breath coming out in shouts. We have a wild, violent desire
to get a peace so endless it seems natural to do anything we can
think of to obtain it.