The last of them now bank the house or have been burned.None are left upon the trees or on the lawn.Green and tall as ever it grew in spring the grassGrows not too tall, will not be cut again this year.Geraniums in bloom behind the windowglassAre safe. Fall has fallen yet winter is not yet…
When others run to windows or out of doorsTo catch the sunset whole, he is contentWith any segment anywhere he sits.From segment, fragment, he can reconstructThe whole, prefers to reconstruct the whole,As if to say, I see more seeing less.A window to the east will serve as wellAs window to the west, for eastern skyEchoes…
One everywhere, one scarcely anywhere.So fair unfair a world. Had we the witTo use the surplus for the deficit,We’d make a fairer fairer world of it.Anonymous submission.
Fingertips pointing the opposites,Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ballOr a kid skipping rope, come on, come on,Running a scattering of steps sidewise,How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases,Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird,He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate—now!
Teasing with attitudes, latitudes, interludes, altitudes,High, make him fly off the ground for it, low, make him stoop,Make him scoop it up, make him as-almost-as possible miss it,Fast, let him sting from it, now, now fool him slowly,Anything, everything tricky, risky, nonchalant,Anything under the sun to outwit the prosy,Over the tree and the long sweet…
Indoors the constant fire, the careful thriftAre facts that I accept and understand.I have brought in red berries and green boughs-Berries of black alder, boughs of pine.They and the sunlight on them, both are mine.I need no florist flowers in my house.Having lived here the years that are my best,I call it home. I am…
Incinerators, the city dumpThe faint scratch of a match.The second speaker saidFear water. Fear drenching rainDrizzle, oceans, puddles, a dampDay and the flush toilet.The third speaker saidFear wind. And it needn’t beA hurricane. Drafts, openWindows, electric fans.The fourth speaker saidFear knives. Fear any sharpThing, machine, shearsScissors, lawnmowers.The fifth speaker saidHope. Hope for the bestA smooth…
Searock he built, not ivory.Searock as well his haunted artWho gave to plunging hawks his hearts.2He loved to stand upon his headTo demonstrate he was not dead.Ah, if his poems misbehave‘Tis only to defy the grave.3This exquisite patrician birdGrooming a neatly folded wingGuarded for years the Sacred Word.A while he sang then ceased to sing.4His…
The page he contemplates he doesn’t see.The lesson, the long lesson, has been summer.His mind holds summer, as his skin holds sun.For once the homework, all of it, was done.What were the crops, where were the fiery fieldsWhere for so many days so many hoursThe sun assaulted him with glittering showers.Expect a certain absence in…
Or burning it, have stood where the sly smokeHas touched them-Know the meaning of its name.The leaf is smooth. Its green is innocence.A clean, unblemished leaf, glossy when young.A leaf the unobserving might overlookAnd the observing find too prosperous.I’ve seen a vine of it so old and crookedIt held a hen-coop in its grip, the…
