Firsts
Another New Year, 8:30 a.m.
Like a bear making claw marks
on a telephone pole,
I decide to take roll.
Low-flying geese,
solitary crow,
squirrel on the head of a concrete dog,
the fog.
Here, I answer.
Here.
Contemplative poems
Contemplative poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
Flood control
shall we have the ground
make way for a sea
poor and still
it ought to forbear our hydrostatics
and become a bed
Demonology
Speak of an itch & it will appear,
pure miserable temptation
to turn on ourselves,
to rub our bodies clean
of all sensitivity. Existing
mainly in the details,
its names are legion:
arm itch, thumb itch,
calf itch, back itch,
breast itch, chest itch,
lip itch, rib itch,
forearm itch, foreskin itch,
elbow itch, ankle itch,
facial itch, anal itch,
mouth itch, muscle twitch,
groin itch, gum itch,
Next to godliness
a home without any dust
would be full of lack
eyes like stones
turn into ore
as somebody’s child
experiments in the garden
Vulpes vulpes
dew
to wash her face
fox in the garden
Against solitude
a little crooked dog
sleeping on a boat
and I reading a book
against solitude
under the trees
where an old swan
is against me being
so near
Earth Tongue
Enchanter’s nightshade,
rattlesnake plantain,
a deer fly stumbles —
jumpseed —
through my matted hair.
In the daylong dusk of midsummer woods,
I find him with the flat of my hand.
White moths dot the ground,
flopping like landed fish.
Who knows what goes on up there
where the leaves run out?
The trees sweat.
Every fifteen feet, another web
& a spider the size of carpet tack.
Stinkhorn,
squawroot,
Aging revolutionary
all the fields between us
so cold a land
how infinite the locks and keys
to keep love out
and touching only in the family
full of sour years together
brothers and sisters
husbands and wives
and me with my great round gut
like a gold watch
to let an inconceivable
time be born
Late frost
a late frost
all things gold
turn silver
Evasions
I have wants
under other names
I believe in idleness
I attend to strangers
I write to become satisfied
with what I said
I take pictures to hide
the hubbub in my eyes
Origins
out of the stone a little milk
out of the sand a little ink
out of the parliament liberty
in a little box
out of the dust you and me
and all fooleries
Earthy
look upon the ground
it is too much to keep or to part with
like a sex organ
having almost a mind
having rain that makes the fields
sweet and full
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
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