Un Carro Triste: A Melancholic Car

We must take the language/by surprise;/seal its every utterance/with a kiss or tear…”

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On the Road to Damascus

(Joel Carillet/Getty Images)

“So here I am in the Radnor Township/Police Department Drunk Tank/in a white paper jumpsuit, shoelaces/removed to be sure I don’t hang myself…”

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Dictionary

Sometimes—in the middle of fair night—/when disobedient moon turns vandal/and violently rips off the bolts/of my window-shutters, my eyelids…”

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Bird Life: A Triptych

No thought, as that of mine, to complete the bare/Purpose of their being, which is to feed and breed,/Become another edible, leave another seed.”

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The Lie of the Land

“And because you are beautiful do not think/The Nereids will hear you, or Neptune wake/And the sea calm, and you will not sink”

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Traffic

And where, but in constant circularity/Is all this moving headed?/The answer Cannot be death…”

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The Tide

“‘Where now security, what to trust?’/The cycle of an invisible moon has/Our harbor in its force, another period/Has begun: the existing limits to be tested.”

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Love Makings

(Michelle Phillips)

Yet there is no one thing, no attribute/Of yours that I can fix on, nothing/I can abstract, describe, isolate…”

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Five Poems of Neighborhood 

“‘What have you got there?’ ‘It’s snapper.’/“Did you catch it?’ ‘No, my dad caught it—/He says to watch out for any tiny bones.'” 

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4 x 9

“Anyone who keeps/A compost heap knows the whole of life”

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Dimorphism

And that we might as well stop killing one another,/because everyone who lived during the French Revolution is dead anyways.”

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As the Leaves Begin to Change

“In that waltz, you find me now/Singing, dancing, with the moon”

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Youth

“and Pastor speaks with God, while I/repent my youth that/like the flower which fades/has been my secret, golden calf.”

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Fly Fishing

“What does it bring to light?/What meaning is there to land?/Have you killed a bit of me? I doubt it.”

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Silver Lining

The silver lining is/you won’t be catching planes/to drag yourself away”

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