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...

THE TOWN


the town with its mildly hilly north side
its flat and flood prone south and all its
tired crossroads which
the sun passes through every day
tidy angles of light changing calmly minute to minute
everything is a system the mayor proclaims
even what I am not telling you
by telling you that

a cat gray broad headed scarred from fights
has wandered behind the license branch 
on his way to his favorite trash can favorite
not so much for the trash as for the rats
he sees the sun and thinks
ha! you have one but I
have two 
yellow eyes

the grocer in his long white apron
is the only one listening to the mayor
but really he is waiting for him to move
so he can sweep there too
farmers and their wives are coming in
from all directions bearing broken machinery
and shopping lists 
everyone must get busy

an old lady across the alley 
from the cat's favorite trash
looks at him over her back yard
from her seat on her back porch
things have changed the songs she knows best
no one sings out loud anymore
they hum them now as if ashamed to be heard
a little whisper of song works to speed memory
which is slow and stiff and gets stuck in one place
that cat thinks he's so quick and always will be
she says to herself but I have far more years than him
and I know what he doesn't