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: 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...

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