Noontide
noon as far as the light
a little past twelve
a good pit to keep
an hour in
but no sign in it
beyond the milk of my eyes
Contemplative poems
Contemplative poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
Vantage point
where to answer the sea
but in the rain
like the skin of the Lord
or some foul old swan
On Deciding Not to Travel
From the window of the fourth-
floor walk-up, the umbrellas
slid past each other with
assembly-line perfection,
black & blue mingling with
the occasional red, yellow,
lime-green. The street shone
like a mirror that gives
nothing back. The hiss of tires.
This short loop keeps playing
in my head as I watch
the cloud lift & a white moth,
caught out after daybreak,
yawing & veering against
a backdrop of dripping trees.
This summer won’t come again.
Hands-on
the robins have a nest
and I my plain hands
meeting the alder
high against the world
and passing through books
all evening
Present tense
where the present goes
backward instead of forward
I saw her dressing herself
to dress the dead
this kept body treated
all in paint
with art
with odd love
Problematizical
which to be
a ropemaker or a sun
the old East India Company
or the rains
no end of accounts
to tire my yes
Caretaker
winter and all I wish is silver
a true sail
I am writing a history of midnight
I am making myself see
so great a difference
between take and care
Oxidation
I rest in green
and red books
a great library of rust
with nothing to do
and nothing not to do
and one match
Mediocracy
I did not hear it raining
in the night
we who are citizens of the ordinary
sing other songs
even by the sea
uncertain what to think and how
Plowman
daybreak and I am ready
to answer no to anything
my shoes dirty with walking
in the fields
I wear the ground
like a strange piece of ignorance
after so many oats
charged with growing
Corpse meditation
dancing on my own grave
a foolish and simple act
I have met this body
in unmeeting it
a mission to a thing that can do nothing
for all its great noise
Infrastructure
I made a window
to keep out the cold
and the wren built
her home there
all morning I look in books
for a share of quiet
more than I thought I should
open up to
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