ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 3

BE DIGITAL
and believe what falls between your fingers...


DAYLIGHT FARM SUPPLY
wet lawns along the river...


ASKING FOR HELP
the one I want...


BYE BYE
to be commanded to sit down...


HEAVEN AND HELL
Understand me: I was the boy...


MY FACE IN THE MIRROR
what have you done...


MESSAGE
there is a line...


ALERT
televangelists and...


ANNOUNCEMENT
the modern boat is sinking!...


NO MISTAKES
understand me: I am the musician...


FINDING
my eyes if I should lose them...


LOVE POEM
sh! the poet is sleeping...


AFTER
the crowd without its beggar...


AGAINST IMMORTALITY
I don't want to live forever...


ADJUST
At last the flow of water has changed:...


PROTESTANT MEMORY
to keep myself from crying...


DOWNPOUR
the cats come in...


RELIGIOUS SCENE
on the wall of the steakhouse...


ON MY CARPET
he calls it his...


APPEAL
your honors...


SONG OF CONFESSION
my heart a poisoned well...


DRIVING
the black femur...


INTERSECTION
the corner of lost memory...


FIRST COLD DAY
in the back yard...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM SIMIC
dark night...


EXAMINATION
reading the heart's...


ABSURD
to say...


NEVER COMPLETE
bowing like a long-necked bird...


AS HE SHIFTS THEM
In the back pew of...


untitled
this poetry...


END OF THE EIGHTIES
the story takes...


12/31/91
outside in...


IN A CAR
we're in California...


MORNING INCIDENT
Getting up to let the cat in I felt myself growing weak,...


untitled
you wiped out...


4/3/92
a dream...


FAILING TO RECOGNIZE
even as it occurred...


ROCK PAINTING
the dance I did...


REFUSING TO UNDERSTAND
what comes from the dog's mouth...


NIGHTWORK
the secret government...


ODE TO THE FRIENDS OF POETRY
the friends of poetry...


LOCATION
rights and privileges...


SENSE OF AN ENDING
the last breath I...

1937


the Ohio in flood
my parents have not yet met

my father is a young man 
trying to work out a way
to avoid being a farmer
and just beginning to
fail at one alternative after another
he has not yet reached the last one
and failed at it too
which will force him to show
his true excellence

my mother is still in school
and probably already as angrily unsatisfied
as she will be later
probably as funny and beguiling
as greedy of attention
as sharp-tongued and sad
as eager to tell a story
probably already dreaming of mountains and cities

far to the south of them
another Ohio lays on top of the first
together they escape the banks
that have always defined "Ohio River"
and run over the surrounding lands
ruining homes and scraping away crops
killing and exiling many

for ages people have preferred to live by rivers
it offers many advantages
especially as settlements grow larger
they crowd their houses near the water
they send and receive by it
they get their news off it
and from time to time this happens
and they get their sorrow too

what did my mother and father hear about it?
a disaster so far away it couldn't touch them
but close enough there must have been much talk
probably their knowledge of it was slight
and quickly drifted to the back of the mind
life can be hard enough to account for
without worrying about others' heartaches