by Jim Harrison
A lovely woman in Minnesota owned a 100-year-old horse, 378
A / quarter horse, no rider, 38
A scenario: I’m the Star, Lauren, Faye, Ali, little stars, 164
A whiff of that dead bird along the trail, 443
After the “invitation” by the preacher she collapsed in the, 177
After the passing of irresistible, 352
After thirty years of work, 363
Ah, yes. Fame never got anyone, 288
Aieeee was said in a blip the size of an ostrich egg, 182
All of those little five-dollar-a-week rooms smelling thick of, 209
All those girls dead in the war from misplaced or aimed, 160
Amid pale green milkweed, wild clover, 46
An afterthought to my previous note; we must closely watch any self-, 221
Anconcito. The fisheater. Men were standing on cork rafts, 228
As a child, fresh out of the hospital, 356
As a geezer one grows tired of the story, 432
At dawn I squat on the garage, 45
At 8:12 AM all of the watches in the world are being wound, 227
At Hard Luck Ranch the tea is hot, 365
At the strip club in Lincoln, Nebraska, 366
August, a dense heat wave at the cabin, 341
Awake: / the white hand of, 44
Bear died standing up, 394
Behind my back I have returned to life with much more surprise, 213
Beware, o wanderer, the road is walking too, 374
Come down to earth! Get your head out of your ass!, 372
Concha is perhaps seven, 433
Coyote’s bloody face makes me, 452
Dear friend. It rained long and hard after a hot week and when I, 220
Death thou comest when I had thee least in mind, said Everyman, 203
Deep in the forest there is a pond, 89
Dog, the lightning frightened us, dark house and both of us, 176
Down in the bone myth of the cellar, 345
Driving east on buddha’s birthday, 283
Dusk over the lake, 31
Dust followed our car like a dry brown cloud, 32
Every year, when we’re fly-fishing for tarpon, 336
Everywhere I go I study the scars on earth’s face, 373
First memory, 278
For my horse, Brotherinlaw, who had no character, 157
For my mentor, long dead, Richard Halliburton, 338
For the first time / far in the distance, 396
For the first time the wind, 281
Form is the woods: the beast, 9
From the roof the night’s the color, 83
Fruit and butter. She smelled like the skin of an apple, 202
Ghazal in fear there might not be another, 171
Go, my songs, 30
Go to sleep. Night is a coal pit, 79
God I am cold and want to go to sleep for a long time, 184
Going in the bar last Sunday night I noticed that they were having, 222
Great-uncle Wilhelm, Mennonite, patriarch, 21
Hammering & drifting. Sea wrack. Cast upon & cast out, 293
He climbed the ladder looking over the wall at the party, 190
He Halts. He Haw. Plummets, 111
He is young. The father is dead, 12
He said the grizzly sat eating the sheep and when the bullet, 137
He sings from the bottom of a well but she can hear him up, 149
He thinks of the dead. But they, 27
He waits to happen with the clear, 33
Hear this touch: grass parts, 13
Home again. It looked different for a moment, 375
Hotei didn’t need a zafu, 326
How can I be alone when these brain cells, 448
How heavy I am. My feet sink into the ground and my knees, 411
How long, stone, did it take, 43
How much better these actual dreams, 449
How the love of Tarzan in Africa haunted my childhood, 451
I am four years older than you but scarcely an unwobbling, 200
I am walked on a leash by my dog and am water, 158
I can hear the cow dogs sleeping, 419
I cleaned the granary dust off your photo with my shirtsleeve, 204
I confess that here and there in my life, 370
I couldn’t walk across that bridge in Hannibal, 159
I don’t have any medals. I feel their lack, 198
I forgot to say that at the moment of death Yesenin, 397
I have to kill the rooster tomorrow. He’s being an asshole, 279
I haven’t accepted the fact that I’ll never understand, 372
I hedge when I say “my farm,” 427
I imagined her dead, killed by some local maniac who, 151
I just heard a loon-call on a TV ad, 353
I know a private mountain range, 428
I load my own shells and have a suitcase of pressed, 130
I once thought that life’s what’s left over after, 379
I sat on a log fallen over a river and heard, 438
I shall commit suicide or die, 297
I think of the twenty thousand poems of Li Po, 40
I think that night’s our balance, 55
I thought it was night but found out the windows were painted, 185
I told the dark-haired girl to come down out of the apple, 146
I traded a girl, 119
I walked the same circular path today, 420
I want a sign, a heraldic bird, or even an angel at midnight, 155
I want to be worthy of this waking dream, 231
I want to bother you with some recent nonsense; a classmate dropped, 219
I want to die in the saddle. An enemy of civilization, 122
I wanted to feel exalted so I picked up, 199
I was commanded, in a dream naturally, 436
I was commissioned in a dream by Imanja, 337
I was hoping to travel the world, 430
I was lucky enough to have invented a liquid heart, 180
I was proud at four that my father called me Little Turd of Misery, 208
I was sent far from my land of bears, 435
I was walking because I wasn’t upstairs sitting, 294
I went to Tucson and it gave, 367
I will walk down to a marina, 327
I won my wings! I got all A’s! We bought fresh fruit! The toilet, 223
If I’m not mistaken, everyone seems to go back, 378
If that bald head gets you closer to Buddha, 372
If you laid out all the limbs from the Civil War hospital, 167
If you love me drink this discolored wine, 60
If you were less of a vowel or had a full stop in your, 168
Imagine being a dog and never knowing what you’re doing. You’re, 210
In Montana the badger looks at me in fear, 445
In the best sense, 343
In the Cabeza Prieta from a hillock I saw no human sign, 440
In the end you are tired of those places, 99
In the hotel room (far above the city) I said I bet you, 156
In the next installment I’ll give you Crazy Horse and Anne Frank, 374
In the pasture a shire, 28
In the snow, that is. The “J” could have been, 277
Inside people fear the outside; outside, the in, 375
It certainly wasn’t fish who discovered water, 369
It is an hour before dawn and even prophets sleep, 144
It is difficult to imagine the wordless conversations, 371
It is the lamp on the kitchen table, 292
It was Monday morning for most of the world, 377
It wasn’t until the sixth century that the Christians, 373
It would surely be known for years after as the day I shot, 206
I’ve emerged from the seven-going-on-eight divorces, 380
I’ve known her too long, 14
I’ve w
asted too much moonlight, 363
Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, I sang in Sunday, 377
Just before dark, 383
Just like today eternity is accomplished, 369
Just seven weeks ago in Paris, 384
Li Ho of the province of Honan, 47
“Life’s too short to be a whore anymore,” 441
Limp with night fears: hellebore, wolfsbane, 123
Lin-chi says, having thrown away your head so long, 371
Looking at a big moon too long, 399
Lustra. Officially the cold comes from Manitoba, 201
Man’s not a singing animal, 39
Many a sharp-eyed pilot has noticed, 426
Maps. Maps. Maps. Venezuela, Keewanaw, Iceland open up, 150
March 5: first day without a fire, 331
Mind follow the nose, 90
More lion prints in our creek bed, 368
My favorite stump straddles a gully a dozen, 434
My left eye is blind and jogs like, 10
My soul grew weak and polluted during captivity, 442
My zabuton doubles as a dog bed. Rose sleeps, 368
Naturally we would prefer seven epiphanies a day and an earth, 215
Near a brown river with carp no doubt pressing their, 132
New Matrices, all ice. Fixed here and solidly, 232
New music might, that sucks men down in howls, 170
No tranquil pills this year wanting to live peeled as they, 207
Not a new poem for Helen, 75
Not here and now but now and here, 366
Not how many different birds I’ve seen, 453
Not those who have lived here and gone, 87
Nothing is the same to anyone, 299
Now changed. None come to Carthage. No cauldrons, all love, 134
Now this paste of ash and water, 85
O Atlanta, roseate dawn, the clodhoppers, hillbillies, rednecks, 145
O BLM, BLM, and NFS, 424
O happy day! Said overpowered, had by it all and transfixed, 153
O she buzzed in my ear “I love you” and I dug at, 174
O that girl, only young men, 425
O to use the word wingéd as in bird or victory or airplane for, 224
O triple sob – turned forty, 282
O well, it was the night of the terrible jackhammer, 191
Of the hundred swans in West Bay, 84
On the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost I rose early, 187
On this back road the land, 16
Once and for all there’s no genetic virtue, 378
Once and for all to hear, I’m not going to shoot anybody, 166
Once I saw a wolf tread a circle in his cage, 26
One part of the brain attacks another, 364
Our minds buzz like bees, 363
Our pup is gravely ill, 365
Out in an oak-lined field down the road, 369
Overlooking the Mississippi, 381
Peach sky, 413
Poor little blind boy lost in the storm, 365
Praise me at Durkheim Fair where I’ve never been, hurling, 138
Returning at night, 18
Rich folks keep their teeth, 348
Sam got tired of the way life fudged the big issues, 379
Says Borges in Ficciones, “I’m in hell.
I’m dead,” and the dark, 140
Says he, “Ah Edward I too have a dark past of manual labor,” 135
She called from Sundance, Wyoming, and said the posse had, 188
She / pulls the sheet of this dance, 247
She said in LA of course that she’d be reincarnated as an Indian princess, 446
Shoju sat all night in the graveyard, 364
Six days of clouds since, 290
Sleeping from Mandan to Jamestown, 295
Some eco-ninny released, 422
Some sort of rag of pure language, no dictums but a bell, 148
Someone is screaming almost in Morse, 120
Sometimes a toothpick is the most important thing, 376
Song, / angry bush, 22
Song for Nat King Cole and the dog who ate the baby, 169
Song, I am unused to you, 48
Spring: despondency, 286
Standing at the window at night, 37
Stuffing a crow call in one ear, 296
Sunday, with two weeks of heat lifting from us in a light rain, 412
Talked to the God of Hosts about the Native American, 370
Ten thousand pointless equations left just after dawn, 373
That dew-wet glistening wild iris, 421
That great tree covered with snow, 34
That heartless finch, botulinal. An official wheeze passes through, 142
That her left foot is smaller if only slightly, 161
That hot desert beach in Ecuador, 330
That the housefly is guided in flight by a fly brain diminishes, 192
That’s a dark trough we’d hide in. Said his, 172
The alfalfa was sweet and damp in fields where shepherds, 131
The blond girl, 346
The boots were on the couch and had, 121
The boy stood in the burning house.
Set it up, 234
The brain opens the hand which touches that spot, clinically, 139
The child crawls in widening circles, backs to the wall, 183
The clouds swirling low past the house and, 175
The color of a poppy and bruised, the subalpine green that, 136
The dawn of the day we arrived, Abel Murrietta, 376
The earth is almost round. The seas, 86
The four seasons, the ten oaths, the nine colors, three vowels, 371
The girl’s bottom is beautiful as Peacock’s dancing bear, 377
The hound I’ve known for three years, 366
The last and I’m shrinking from the coldness of your spirit: that, 226
The little bull calf gets his soft pink, 423
The mad have black roots in their brains, 80
The masques of dream – monk in his, 287
The mirror tastes him, 20
The monk is eighty-seven. There’s no fat, 370
The mushrooms helped again: walking hangdoggedly to the granary, 216
The night is thin and watery; fish in the air, 141
The resplendent female “elegant trogon,” 444
The rising sun not beet, 391
The rivers of my life, 303
The soul of water. The most involved play. She wonders if she, 211
The sound of the dog’s pawsteps move away, 376
The sun had shrunk to a dime, 82
The sun’s warm against the slats of the granary, 49
The wallet is as big as earth, 447
The wars: we’re drawn to them, 70
The well pit is beneath where the pump shed burned, 363
The world is wrenched on her pivot, shivering. Politicians, 375
There are no calls from the outside, 285
There are no magic numbers or magic lives, 65
There was a peculiar faint light from low in the east, 193
There’s something I’ve never known, 355
These corners that stick out and catch on things, 181
These last few notes to you have been a bit somber like biographies, 218
These losses are final – you walked out of the grape arbor, 186
These simple rules to live within – a black, 328
Things to paint, 284
This adobe is no protection against the flossy, 370
This amber light floating strangely upward in the woods – nearly, 152
This bronze ring punctures, 41
This is all it is, 229
This is cold salt, 35
This matted and glossy photo of Yesenin, 197
This morning I felt strong and jaunty in my mail-order, 379
This nadir: the wet hole, 92
This other speaks of bones, blood-wet, 19
Through the blinds, 29
Thus the poet is a beached gypsy, the first porpoise to whom it, 214
Time eats us alive, 364
Time gets foreshortened late at night, 368
To answer some of the questions you might ask were you alive and, 217
To move into it again, as it was, 88
Today the warblers undulate, 429
Today we’ve moved back to the granary again and I’ve anointed, 212
Took my own life because I was permanently crippled, 380
Trees die of thirst or cold, 36
Try as you might there’s nothing, 431
Unbind my hair, she says. The night is white and warm, 129
Unwearied / the coo and choke, 42
Up at the Hard Luck Ranch, 367
Walking back on a chill morning past Kilmer’s Lake, 53
Walking the lakeshore at first moonlight I can see, 374
Way up a sandy draw in the foothills, 367
We were much saddened by Bill Knott’s death, 147
We’re nearing the end of this homage that often resembles a, 225
What are these nightmares, 335
What happens when the god of spring, 289
What if I own more paper clips than I’ll ever use in this, 205
What if it were our privilege, 334
What in coils works with riddle’s logic, Riemann’s, 173
What will I do with seven billion cubic feet of clouds, 154
When she dried herself on the dock a drop of water, 163
When she walked on her hands and knees in the Arab, 162
Who could knock at this door left open, repeat, 165
Who could put anything together that would stay in one place, 179
Who is it up to if it isn’t up to you, 439
Who remembers Wang Chi, “the real human like, 374
Why did this sheep die? The legs are thin, stomach hugely, 143
With each shot, 364
With these dire portents, 340
Wondering what this new light is, before he died he walked, 189
Yes yes yes it was the year of the tall ships, 133
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jim Harrison is the author of twenty books, numerous screenplays, and served for several years as the food columnist for Esquire magazine. His work has been translated into twenty-two languages and produced as four feature-length films. As a young poet he co-edited Sumac magazine and earned a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Mr. Harrison divides his time between northern Michigan and southern Arizona.
BOOKS BY JIM HARRISON
Poetry
Plain Song
Locations
Outlyer & Ghazals
Letters to Yesenin