Poetry

He goes to cartoons, then to the western; in a suitcase, bound in leather, are pistols used in a duel; upstairs there is a drawing board, a table, the wine-cellar pop bottle sits on the nation's prose, the summer prose of the field.      With a straw hat, and no brim, he whispers about the east,…

The sabbath morning sunlight was coaxed out with promises of wine gums and toffees. Parishioners sped by in spruced up motors: one look for city slickers and country folks. I was left alone with a precocious youngster, blue-eyed, hair greased and groomed, an obstreperous gleam flashed across his features, as if, it seemed, no invisible…

Lawn a mastodon's matted hide Roof shingles dinosaur skin From the fencepost a crow watches afternoon throttle the small white house Clouds unskeining from the maple's hands Down from his front porch The old man      steps Pauses Tests      his balance on a slab of light

THROUGH ME IT LEADS TO THE CITY SORROWFUL. THROUGH ME IT LEADS TO THE ETERNAL PAIN. THROUGH ME IT LEADS AMONG THE LOST PEOPLE. JUSTICE INSPIRED MY MAKER ABOVE. IT WAS DIVINE POWER THAT FORMED ME, SUPREME JUSTICE AND ORIGINAL LOVE. BEFORE ME NO THING WAS CREATED THAT WAS NOT FOREVER CREATED, AND I SHALL…

I won't go with you to Munich's planetarium though I have always loved a wandering moon. I cannot bear to bless a German heaven. Dachau. The sign appears, colloquial amidst the traffic; the radio sputters stau — or is it heil? Everything continues in this language! Every chimney rises with a grudge. The Arbeit gate…

Bare bough clawing for sky Street soaring from town All the crimped rooftops neatly coiffed Fences buckle around plump green yards      buttoned with flagstones Time wedged in the town hall tower Sky clamped down Station closed no train but tracks still strike through the heart and here is the postman again unlocking the trunk of…

I was talking about mutual responsibility; you had been interested in my analysis of the problems of dual control in driving lessons; having control when you had none, I said, “Remember that I am saying all this and that I am taking full responsibility for saying this,” and poured my heart out to you. That…

for Dawn Chin, a student from Korea You're barely twenty. Your last essay for me begins: “Until I realized the value of life, I sure went through a lot of anguish of the heart.” All our Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays together, I put in of and the and couldn't explain why we say, “I tried to…

What in the sour wind Made the voices come again And the trees begin To move in? Spoken to And spoken for, You were waited upon And waiting. The leaves woke On the windcombed branches, And the footed trunks Not in twos advanced But like a lightless fire From the hill descended. *     *      * You…