with quadrangular shoots—
the boots
of the people
wet inside: they must swim
to church thru the floods
or be taxed—the blossoms
from the bosoms
of the leaves
Fog-thick morning—
I see only
where I now walk. I carry
my clarity
with me.
Hear
where her snow-grave is
the You
ah you
of mourning doves
Cricket-song—
What's in The Times—
your name!
Fame
here
on my doorstep
—an evening seedy
quiet thing.
It rings
a little.
Musical Toys
for a blind child
Do you see?—
sharp spires—
you could be hurt
by the church.
Better
this dog
tinkling
three nice
mice
blind.
I fear this war
will be long and painful
and who
pursue
it
Van Gogh could see
twenty-seven varieties
of black
in capitalism.
No matter where you are
you are alone
and in danger—well
to hell
with it.
How white the gulls
in grey weather
Soon April
the little
yellows
Springtime's wide
water-
yield
but the field
will return
White
among the green pads—
which
a dead fish
or a lily?
Dusk—
He's spearing from a boat—
How slippery is man
in spring
when the small fish
spawn
Beautiful girl—
pushes food onto her fork
with her fingers—
will throw the switches
of deadly rockets?
New-sawed
clean-smelling house
sweet cedar pink
flesh tint
I love you
My friend tree
I sawed you down
but I must attend
an older friend
the sun
1960–1964
In Leonardo's light
we questioned
the sun does not love
My hat
attained
the weight falls
I am at rest
You too
hold a doctorate
in Warmth
You are my friend—
you bring me peaches
and the high bush cranberry
you carry
my fishpole
you water my worms
you patch my boot
with your mending kit
nothing in it
but my hand
Come In
Glen Ellyn
Education, kindness
live here
whose dog does not impose
her long nose
and barks quietly.
Serious wags its tail
—they see us—
from curtain tie-backs
no knick-knacks
between us.
The men leave the car
to bring us green-white lilies
by woods
These men are our woods
yet I grieve
I'm swamp
as against a large pine-spread—
his clear No marriage
no marriage
friend
The wild and wavy event
now chintz at the window
was revolution…
Adams
to Miss Abigail Smith:
You have faults
You hang your head down
like a bulrush
you read, you write, you think
but I drink Madeira
to you
and you cross your Leggs
while sitting.
(Later:)
How are the children?
If in danger run to the woods.
Evergreen o evergreen
how faithful are your branches
FLORIDA
1
Always north of him
1 see
he's close
to orange, flower
roseate bird
soft air
the state
I'm in
2
Henry James
St. Augustine
they overplayed
its Spanish story
yet was this romance
that most solicited
him
3
Cape Canaveral
Space shot off
man appears normal
4
Flocks
of headkerchiefs
the plumed flamingo
gone
the vanity of women
slacked
My life is hung up
in the flood
a wave-blurred
portrait
Don't fall in love
with this face—
it no longer exists
in water
we cannot fish
Easter
A robin stood by my porch
and side-eyed
raised up
a worm
Get a load
of April's
fabulous
frog rattle—
lowland freight cars
in the night
Poet's work
Grandfather
advised me:
Learn a trade
I learned
to sit at desk
and condense
No layoff
from this
condensery
Property is poverty—
I've foreclosed.
I own again
these walls thin
as the back
of my writing tablet.
And more:
all who live here—
card table to eat on,
broken bed—
sacrifice for less
than art.
Now in one year
a book published
and plumbing—
took a lifetime
to weep
a deep
trickle
River-marsh-drowse
and in flood
moonlight
gives sight
of no land.
They fish, a man
takes his wife to town
with his rowboat's 10-horse
ships his voice
to the herons.
Sure they drink
—full foamy folk—
till asleep.
The place is asleep
on one leg in the weeds.
Club 26
Our talk, our books
riled the shore like bullheads
at the roots of the luscious
large water lily
Then we entered the lily
built white on a red carpet
the circular quiet
cool bar
glass stems to caress
We stayed till the stamens trembled
To foreclose
or not
on property
and prose
or care a kite
if the p-p
be yellow, black
or white
/>
To my small
electric pump
To sense
and sound
this world
look to
your snifter
valve
take oil
and hum
T. E. Lawrence
How impossible it is
to be alone
the one thing humanity
has never really
moved towards
As I paint the street
I melt the houses
to point up the turreted cupola
I make hoopla
of the low tavern's neon cross—
very like a cross from here—
I honor the huge blue distant dome
valid somehow to the fellow falling high
Art Center
Glass
and wide seaview
Race that walks
from there
you are lovely
You have seen
Homemade/Handmade Poems
Consider at the outset:
to be thin for thought
or thick cream blossomy
Many things are better
flavored with bacon
Sweet Life, My love:
didn't you ever try
this delicacy—the marrow
in the bone?
And don't be afraid
to pour wine over cabbage
Ah your face
but it's whether
you can keep me warm
Alcoholic dream
that ran him
out from home
to return
leaning
like the house
in this old part
of town leaves him
grieving:
why
do I hurt you
whom I love?
Your ear
is cold!—here,
drink
To my pres-
sure pump
I've been free
with less
and clean
I plumbed for principles
Now I'm jet-bound
by faucet shower
heater valve
ring seal service
cost to my little
humming
water
bird
Laundromat
Casual, sudsy
social love
at the tubs
After all, ecstasy
can't be constant
March
Bird feeder's
snow-cap
sliding
off
Something in the water
like a flower
will devour
water
flower
Santayana's
For heaven's sake, dear Cory,
poetry?—I like somewhat
the putrid Petrarch
and the miserable Milton.
I don't have books,
don't meet important persons
only an occasional stray student
or an old Boston lady.
If only my friend
would return
and remove the leaves
from my eaves
troughs
Frog noise
suddenly stops
Listen!
They turned off
their lights
In the transcendence
of convalescence
the translation
of Bash
…
I lay down
with brilliance
I saw a star whistle
across the sky
before dropping off
To whom
can I leave
Audubon's Avocet
on green sportsman's cloth
wide oak framed
above the warm polished
copper-braced sweet-smelling
cedar box
when I must leave
this flyway
Margaret Fuller
She carried books
and chrysanthemums
to Boston
into a cold storm
Watching dancers on skates
Ten thousand women
and I
the only one
in boots
Life's dance:
they meet
he holds her leg
up
Hospital Kitchen
Return
the night women's
gravy
to the cleaned
stove
Chicory flower
on campus
Open-field
blue-wheeled
gone by hot noon
to revolve
earth-evolved
mind-city
Fall
Early morning corn
shock quick river
edge ice crack duck
talk
Grasses' dry membranous
breaks tick-tack tiny
wind strips
LZ's
As you know mind
aint what attracts me
nor the wingspread
of Renaissance man
but what was sensed
by them guys
and their minds still carry
the sensing
Letter from Ian
Aye sure
a castle on a rock
in the middle of Edinburgh
They floodlight it—
big show up there
with pipe bands
and all
Down here along the road
open your door
to a posse of poets
Some float off on chocolate bars
and some on drink
Harmless, happy, soft of heart
This bottle may breed
a new race
no war
and let birds live
Myself, I gripped my melting container
the night I heard the wild
wet rat, muskrat
grind his frogs and mice
the other side of a thin door
in the flood
I knew a clean man
but he was not for me.
Now I sew green aprons
over covered seats. He
wades the muddy water fishing,
falls in, dries his last pay-check
in the sun, smooths it out
in Leaves of Grass. He's
the one for me.
Scythe
Spite
spit
loud
sound:
where is my scy'?
Why
by your nose—
so close
a snake
would've bit
So he said
on radio
I have to fly
wit Venus arms
I found fishing
to Greece
then back to Univers of Wis
where they got stront. 90
to determ if same marble
as my arms
I visit
the graves
Greatgrandfather
under wild flowers sons
sons here now I
eye
of us all
but sonless
see no
hop
clover boy to stop
before me
For best work
you ought to put forth
some effort
to stand
in north woods
among birch
The obliteration
of the world
his dinner speech
tonight I beseech
you
eat
the recommended melon
before the fruit flies
rise
from it
Spring
stood there
> all body
Head
blown off
(war)
showed up
downstream
October
is the head
of spring
Birch, sumac
before
the blast
The park
“a darling walk
for the mind”
A sense
of starlings musing
on robins
Green statue—
Burns!
near abandoned
steepled
railroad station
lakeshore silence
glass box mushroom
with stairway stem
art museum
and townward
the taverns
Who was Mary Shelley?
What was her name
before she married?
She eloped with this Shelley
she rode a donkey
till the donkey had to be carried.
Mary was Frankenstein's creator
his yellow eye
before her husband was to drown
Created the monster nights
after Byron, Shelley
talked the candle down.
Who was Mary Shelley?
She read Greek, Italian
She bore a child
Who died
and yet another child
who died.
Wild strawberries
Ruskin's consolation
Collecte Works Page 10