New and Selected Poems (26 page)

Fear
,
[>]

Fear passes from man to man,
[>]

February
,
[>]

Figure or figures unknown,
[>]

Filthy Landscape
,
[>]

First Frost
,
[>]

First Thing in the Morning
,
[>]

Five, six chairs piled up in the yard,
[>]

Folk Songs
,
[>]

For imaginary visitors, I had a chair,
[>]

Fork
,
[>]

For surely, there's no difficulty in understanding,
[>]

For the Sake of Amelia
,
[>]

For the Very Soul of Me
,
[>]

For those troubled in mind,
[>]

Four of them holding hands like a family,
[>]

Friends of the small hours of the night:,
[>]

Frightening Toys
,
[>]

From the closed, block-long post office,
[>]

From the heel,
[>]

Furniture Mover,
[>]

 

Gallows Etiquette
,
[>]

Ghosts
,
[>]

Ghost stories written as algebraic . . . ,
[>]

Give me a long dark night and no sleep,
[>]

God's refuted but the devil's not,
[>]

Go inside a stone,
[>]

Grandma laughing on her deathbed,
[>]

Grandmothers who wring the necks,
[>]

Grandpa's Spells
,
[>]

Grayheaded Schoolchildren
,
[>]

Gray sewage bubbling up out of street sewers,
[>]

Great are the Hittites,
[>]

Green Buddhas,
[>]

Grocery
,
[>]

 

Hangs by a thread—,
[>]

Haunted Mind
,
[>]

Have You Met Miss Jones?
,
[>]

Head of a Doll
,
[>]

Heart—as in Latin pop songs,
[>]

Heavy mirror carried,
[>]

He gives excellent advice by example,
[>]

He held the beast of the Apocalypse . . . ,
[>]

He is thinking of us,
[>]

He let the whole world know,
[>]

Help me to find what I've lost,
[>]

Help Wanted
,
[>]

Here's a woman's black glove,
[>]

He took a flea,
[>]

He was kneeling down to tie his shoes, which she mistook for a proposal of marriage,
[>]

He was writing the History of Optimism,
[>]

History
,
[>]

History practicing its scissor-clips,
[>]

Hotel Insomnia
,
[>]

Hotel Starry Sky
,
[>]

House of Cards
,
[>]

How much death works,
[>]

Hurricane Season
,
[>]

 

I accused History of gluttony;,
[>]

I am the last Napoleonic . . . ,
[>]

I believe in the soul; so far,
[>]

Icarus's Dog
,
[>]

I could've been that kid,
[>]

I didn't notice,
[>]

I failed miserably at imagining nothing,
[>]

I found a key,
[>]

If you didn't see the six-legged dog,
[>]

I grew up bent over,
[>]

I had a small, nonspeaking part,
[>]

I hate to hear birds sing,
[>]

I have. At the funeral,
[>]

I have my excuse, Mr. Death,
[>]

I left parts of myself everywhere,
[>]

I liked my little hole,
[>]

I like it when,
[>]

I'll go to the island of Cythera,
[>]

I love breasts, hard,
[>]

I love to stay in bed,
[>]

I'm Charles
,
[>]

I'm going over to see what those weeds,
[>]

I miss you winter evenings,
[>]

I'm just a storefront dentist,
[>]

Imported Novelties
,
[>]

I'm still living at all the old addresses,
[>]

I'm telling you, this was the real thing, the same one they kicked out of Aesthetics, told her she didn't exist!,
[>]

I'm the furtive inspector of dimly lit corridors,
[>]

In a Dark House
,
[>]

In a neighborhood once called Hell's Kitchen,
[>]

I never gave them a thought. Years had gone by,
[>]

I never run into anyone from the old days,
[>]

In his fear of solitude, he made us,
[>]

In India I was greatly taken up,
[>]

In Midsummer Quiet
,
[>]

In my great-grandmother's time,
[>]

In my long late-night talks with the jailers,
[>]

In Praise of Worms
,
[>]

In pursuit of happiness, you may yet,
[>]

In Rome, on the street of that name,
[>]

In San Francisco, that winter,
[>]

In summer's idle time,
[>]

In That Big House
,
[>]

In the Afternoon
,
[>]

In the Egyptian Wing of the Museum
,
[>]

In the fine print of her face,
[>]

In the frying pan,
[>]

In the Junk Store
,
[>]

In the Library
,
[>]

In the Planetarium
,
[>]

In the Street
,
[>]

In the woods one fair Sunday,
[>]

Invention of Nothing
,
[>]

I only have a measly ant,
[>]

I only have faith in you, Mr. Worm,
[>]

I preferred the fleeting,
[>]

I saw a high window struck blind,
[>]

I say to the lead,
[>]

Is that foolish youth still sawing,
[>]

It hangs from heaven to earth,
[>]

It isn't the body,
[>]

It likes empty churches,
[>]

It'll be a while before my friends,
[>]

It looks so dark the end of the world may be near,
[>]

It makes my heart glad to hear one of these,
[>]

It must have a reason for concealing,
[>]

It never had a name,
[>]

It occurs to me now,
[>]

It seemed the kind of life we wanted,
[>]

It's just a boarded-up shack with a steeple,
[>]

It's like fishing in the dark,
[>]

It's Mr. Brown looking much better,
[>]

It snows,
[>]

It was always here,
[>]

It was early one Sunday morning,
[>]

It was the epoch of the masters . . . ,
[>]

“I was lucky to have a Bible with me,
[>]

I was stolen by the gypsies . . . ,
[>]

I, who am only an incomprehensible,
[>]

 

Jackstraws
,
[>]

Juggler of hats and live hand grenades,
[>]

Just as the world was ending,
[>]

Just so that each stark,
[>]

 

Knife
,
[>]

 

Labor and Capital
,
[>]

Late Arrival
,
[>]

Late Call
,
[>]

Late September
,
[>]

Late Train
,
[>]

Lay the knife and fork by your plate,
[>]

Leaves
,
[>]

Lewis and Clark,
[>]

Like those who were eyewitnesses,
[>]

Lingering Ghosts
,
[>]

Listen
,
[>]

Little candy in death's candy shop,
[>]

Little Unwritten Book
,
[>]

Lost Glove
,
[>]

Lots of people around here . . . ,
[>]

Love Flea
,
[>]

Lover of endless disappointments . . . ,
[>]

Lovers hold hands in never-opened novels,
[>]

Lovers who take pleasure,
[>]

 

Madame Gabrielle, were you really French?,
[>]

Madame Thebes
,
[>]

Madmen Are Running the World
,
[>]

Madonnas Touched Up with Goatees
,
[>]

Margaret was copying a recipe . . . ,
[>]

Marina's Epic
,
[>]

Master of Disguises
,
[>]

Memories of the Future
,
[>]

Midpoint
,
[>]

Millions of empty rooms with TV sets turned on,
[>]

Millions were dead; everybody was innocent,
[>]

Minds Roaming
,
[>]

Minister of our coming doom, preaching,
[>]

Miracle Glass Co.
,
[>]

Mirrors at 4
A.M.
,
[>]

Missing Child
,
[>]

Monk at the Five Spot,
[>]

Monumental, millennial decrepitude,
[>]

Most ancient Metaphysics (poor Metaphysics!),
[>]

Mother Tongue
,
[>]

Mummy's Curse
,
[>]

Munching on pages edged in gold,
[>]

My Beloved
,
[>]

My beloved, you who spend your nights,
[>]

My chicken soup thickened with pounded young almonds,
[>]

My dear trees, I no longer recognize you,
[>]

My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters
,
[>]

My father loved the strange books . . . ,
[>]

My grandmother prophesied the end,
[>]

My guardian angel is afraid . . . ,
[>]

My insignificance is a sign of my greatness,
[>]

My mother was a braid of black smoke,
[>]

My mother works here,
[>]

My neighbor was telling me,
[>]

My Noiseless Entourage
,
[>]

My Quarrel with the Infinite
,
[>]

My Secret Identity Is
,
[>]

My shadow and your shadow on the wall,
[>]

My Shoes
,
[>]

Mystic Life
,
[>]

Mystics
,
[>]

My Turn to Confess
,
[>]

My Weariness of Epic Proportions
,
[>]

My Wife Lifts a Finger to Her Lips
,
[>]

 

Nancy Jane
,
[>]

Never-yet-equaled, wide-screen blockbuster,
[>]

Night Clerk in a Roach Hotel
,
[>]

Night fell without asking,
[>]

Night is coming,
[>]

Nineteen Thirty-eight
,
[>]

Nobody reads it but the insomniacs,
[>]

No sooner had I left A,
[>]

Note,
[>]

Note
,
[>]

Note Slipped Under a Door
,
[>]

Nothing Else
,
[>]

 

Obscurely Occupied
,
[>]

October Arriving
,
[>]

October Light
,
[>]

O exegetes, somber hermeneuts,
[>]

Of the light in my room:,
[>]

Old Man
,
[>]

Old men have bad dreams,
[>]

On a gray evening,
[>]

Once I knew, then I forgot . . . ,
[>]

One-Man Circus
,
[>]

One night, as I was dropping off to sleep,
[>]

One night I went to keep the clock company,
[>]

One night you and I were walking,
[>]

One saw signs of it in certain families,
[>]

Only brooms,
[>]

Only you understood,
[>]

On the counter among many,
[>]

On the Farm
,
[>]

On the first page of my dreambook,
[>]

On the Meadow
,
[>]

Our sainted great-great-,
[>]

Out of poverty,
[>]

Outside a Dirtroad Trailer
,
[>]

Outside Biaggi's Funeral Home
,
[>]

O witches! O poverty! . . . ,
[>]

 

Paper Dolls Cut Out of a Newspaper
,
[>]

Paradise
,
[>]

Paradise Motel
,
[>]

Pascal's Idea
,
[>]

Past-Lives Therapy
,
[>]

Pastoral Harpsichord
,
[>]

Peaceful Trees
,
[>]

People Eating Lunch
,
[>]

Pigeons at Dawn
,
[>]

Poem Without a Title
,
[>]