ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

sequence #
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6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20

  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 10

FRESH START
the author of many leaves...


I ASK YOU
what I am about to do and what...


untitled
The work defines itself, pulls itself...


LARRY MILLER
when you call back there to order the flowers...


ADDENDUM TO LARRY MILLER
punched him in the stomach once...


MY FORTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY
the balance point between years...


THE DROUGHT
if the drought means anything we haven't been told...


I SPEND
hours alone with my books...


SO FAR AS I CAN
the trees at night stretch out...


ANGEL MOUND
stone spades hammers awls...


untitled
sleep drunk from a glass of sleep...


EAST
East, innocence, enormous, a blush over half the sky. Now that...


WHAT IS FUCKED UP ABOUT THIS
is a question that can be answered...


CAN'T STOP TALKING
sat so still you noticed...


SETTLEMENT
1....


PAUSE ON THE ROAD IN CUMBERLAND GAP TENNESSEE
It was speed, the technology of rapidity, that made the nation pos-...


ON THE STAIRS IN THE DARK
it is late to be starting again...


THREE SLEEPS
a sleep that wanders...


WINTER PRAISES
of abandoned nests...


untitled
what will always be true?...


KEEPING AT IT
I recite the alphabet in the traditional way...


TALKING TO THE STONES
I am living before you dissolve...


NOT LAMENTING
a lament I am forbidden to speak...


A:
I think it's that I always had the feeling that what is really true,...


HAVE COME HERE
even when I'm late...


THE DAY AFTER THE DAY AFTER
a place in the paperwork...


7/25/00
beetles crushed between my fingers...


MY CURRENT MOOD
certain observations have broken their heads...


STILL
making no effort if I can...


GOLDFINCH ON A WIRE
black line in his feet...


SUMMER PRAISES
the ground-filling rain...


LISTENING TO
the music that keeps me up late...


THE STONE BOAT
that sled of thick oak planks...


DISAPPOINTMENT
under the shade of the words I wrote...


AUGUST
the fields with their fine catch...


AT THE ENCORE CAFE
with your roast potatoes...


WANDERING POEM
on the road...


MY VACANCY
the old hours come back...


untitled
I protest...


8/3/01
when I go inside...


ONE MOTION
swifts of the city come and go...


THE YEAR OF MY ABSENCE
a number of stones under my feet...


REFUSAL
I am awake now...


11/26/01
in the dark before dawn the stars...


WINTER GENESIS I
mornings on this stone seat...


WINTER GENESIS II
under cold tree branches stacked stones outline...

Listen!


NAKED AGAIN


It's night and I'm naked again
so there is no barrier between my sleep and yours,
I come to you nakedly to tell you
your dreams are real,

you do have to wash away the green clay of our making
outdoors, before thousands,
you do have to tell your father it makes no difference
that he sleeps with a woman younger than you,
though it does--and when you tell yourself
they can do as they please, you'll just watch TV,
you must realize the TV is in the bedroom with them,

and when you say never mind I'll smoke some pot,
you must remember they have the pot, too,
and when you rise, you will see
a man with a shaven head wearing a black skirt,
he is dancing on one foot but he does not spill his coffee,
he is singing his dream, which is of being told
to accept the manifold true ways of the Buddha,
he is joyous that he has awakened and does not
have to accept this or any other dream as true, he begs
to remind you, though, that the decision is ours,

to accept or not to accept, and it is made nakedly,
standing on the green clay, there will be footprints,
they will harden in the sun and hold forever the pattern,
the point of balance can be seen and the joint that carries
the heaviest weight, the callouses are outlined clearly,
but who will be there to read them?