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: 6

untitled
the first page is spoiled...


WHAT FUN IS THIS
the best-tied shoes and most...


POEM BEGINNING WITH MY NAME
Eric...


SELF PORTRAIT
I am not a poet...


THE MOON'S WHITE BODY
it costs everything...


STOP DON'T DO IT
I am caught on the scaffold...


THEY SAID
I address my prayers to...


STOOD TO SPEAK IN CONFUSION
the eye dividing itself in thirds...


ALL THE NURSING IN THE WORLD
fellow citizens I speak to you of health...


YOUTH OF AMERICA
sex now is not the sex it was...


untitled
I never tell you the truth...


REM
Due to neglect of the most important parts of sleep, all the...


WAKING
their eyes all...


CURIOSITY
the president of the future...


THEN
your rain falls...


EXAMINATION
Called to death's home town to account...


WHAT TO DO
make maps...


HOUSEHOLD
my human soul...


ONE SHELF OF MANY
a book about murdering...


ON THE EIGHTH DAY
God made puddles...


WHAT HE BUILT AND HOW IT WORKED
on a flat surface tilted towards...


REQUEST
I want a stone above me...


APRIL
the horizon is only the horizon...


I AM
whose shadow am I...


untitled
in the cave of my eye...


untitled
a difference...


untitled
it's not possible...


HEEDING
press my wrist to my ear...


THEFT OF LINES FROM ELIADE, ANGLETON, STOKER, AND ROTHENBERG
Mother of Sleep...


WHAT DID I NOTICE ABOUT TODAY
leaves mostly down...


GIFT
here is a stone...


IN INDIANA
dogwood holds out its hands palms upward...


HERE WE ARE
the nuthatches land on my porch...


MAIN THEMES
consciousness of loss...


LOVELINESS OF DISTANCE
some nights...


GOD MY WITNESS
open hearted...


SIGH
once gone...


untitled
so many things...


THE USUAL
a phone call rouses me...


CHECK UP
the noble doctors...


YESTERDAY
one comes to my door...


DIAGNOSIS
needs will need and again will need...


WORKING ON
my biography...


MISTAKEN
have come to understand...


HERE/NOT HERE
a bit of ice on things...


untitled
strip of gold colored ribbon...


BUSY
making my dust...


PROPOSITIONS
white hours...


NIGHT, THAT MAKES US SEE
what enters as a blow on the shoulders...


LIFE WITHOUT IDOLS
like any protestant...


THANK YOU NOTE
the heavy clouds...


I WRITE
to tell you how...


NOTHING WASTED
Trial and disillusionment, the stone's...


THROUGH THIS BEFORE
shoulders bent...


POINT OF VIEW
wind world...


untitled
my pulse in...


TRANSLATION
the eye that...


OCCUPIED
all night erasing...


THE RECOGNITION
bird that unspeaks itself...


REMEMBER WRITERS AND READERS
toward the last...

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