Poems 1959-2009

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Poems 1959-2009 Page 35

by Frederick Seidel


  Sunset rolls out the red carpet

  That wasn’t it

  That was the song he found himself singing

  The ants on the kitchen counter stampede toward ecstasy

  The attitude of green to blue is love

  The baby born dead

  The bald still head is filled with that grayish milk—

  The beauty in his arms could kill him easily

  The beauty of the boy had twisted

  The best way not to kill yourself

  The big jet screamed and was hysterical and begged to take off

  The body on the bed is made of china

  The book of nothingness begins

  The bowl of a silver spoon held candlelight

  The child stands at the window, after his birthday party

  The cord delivers electricity

  The darkness coming from the mouth

  The elephant’s trunk uncurling

  The endangered bald eagle is soaring

  The first is take the innards out when you

  The golden light is white

  The golden person curled up on my doormat

  The gold watch that retired free will was constant dawn

  The homeless are blooming like roses

  The honey, the humming of a million bees

  The horsefly landing fatly on the page

  The images received are

  The innocence of the tornado

  The instrument is priceless

  The intubated shall be extubated and it rains green

  The irrigation system wants it to be known it irrigates

  The juice glass throbs against his lips

  The lagoon of the biggest atoll in the world

  The leopard attacks the trainer it

  The man in bed with me this morning is myself, is me

  The Man of La Mamma is a tenor as brave as a lion

  The Master Jeweler Joel Rosenthal, of the Bronx and Harvard

  The most beautiful power in the world has buttocks

  The murderer has been injecting her remorselessly

  The opposite of everything

  The owl you heard hooting

  The perfect body of the yoga teacher

  The perfect petals

  The poem as a human torch. I burn. Burns out

  The poet stands on blue-veined legs, waiting for his birthday to be over

  The pregnant woman stares out the spaceship window at space—

  The Red Guards of love rhythmically stomp their feet

  There is always hope except when there isn’t—it is everywhere

  There was a door because I opened it

  There was a man without ability

  There wasn’t anyone to thank

  The smell of rain about to fall

  The soft street canyon was silent. In silence the new snow

  The solemn radiance

  “The speed of light is not the limit. We

  The stars are happy flowers in a meadow

  The story goes one day

  The suffering in the sunlight and the smell

  The surge of energy death can’t

  The takeoff of the Concorde in a cathedral

  The tan table of the desert is an empty

  The tennis ball is in the air to be struck. Thwock

  The terrorists are out of breath with success

  The tiny octopus

  The trees breathe in like show dogs, stiffening

  The United Nations is listening

  The universe roars an expletive

  The very young universe has reached

  The way a child’s hands stare through glass

  The way the rain won’t fall

  The wind lifts off his face

  The without blinds or curtains and incapable of being opened

  The wobbly flesh of an oyster

  The woman in love with him

  The woman in the boat you shiver with

  The woman is so refined

  They all claim responsibility for inventing God

  They can’t get close enough—there’s no such thing

  They can’t get close enough—there’s no such thing

  The yellow sunlight with

  The young keep getting younger, but the old keep getting younger

  Think of the most disgusting thing you can think of

  Think of the suckers on the tentacles

  Thinner than a fingerprint

  This is Via Gesù

  This jungle poem is going to be my last

  Three hundred steps down

  Three unrelated establishments named Caraceni in Milan

  To return to the impossible

  To start at End

  Umber, somber, brick Bologna

  Venus is getting

  Venus wants Jesus

  Waving News of the World, the other customer

  We are completely

  What could be more pleasant than talking about people dying

  What did the vomit of a god

  What hasn’t happened isn’t everything

  What’s Joel

  When civilization was European

  Who is this face as little

  Will you? Everything? Anything? Weird stuff, too?

  With Jeremy Chisholm at the Lobster Inn on our way to Sagaponack

  Witten is designing

  Women have a playground slide

  You may forget: as I crouch near

  Your eyes gazed

  Your face swims to my window, beautiful

  Your pillow is pouring

  You step into the elevator

  You wait forever till you can’t wait any longer—

  You want

 

 

 


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