Poets From The United States

"I shook the softening chalk of my bones, Saying, Snail, snail, glister me forward, Bird, soft-sigh me home, Worm, be with me. This is my hard time."

"I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road, As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland; Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance, By pulling off flesh from the living planet; As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration."

"Like witches they flew along rows, Keeping creation at ease; With a tendril for needle They sewed up the air with a stem; They teased out the seed that the cold kept asleep, — All the coils, loops and whorls. They trellised the sun; they plotted for more than themselves."

"The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy."

"Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath."

"I saw the separateness of all things! My heart lifted up with the great grasses; The weeds believed me, and the nesting birds."

"This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks, Cut stems struggling to put down feet, What saint strained so much, Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?"

"Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch"

"Over the gulfs of dream Flew a tremendous bird Further and further away Into a moonless black, Deep in the brain, far back."

"My secrets cry aloud. I have no need for tongue. My heart keeps open house, My doors are widely swung. An epic of the eyes My love, with no disguise."

"My truths are all foreknown, This anguish self-revealed. I’m naked to the bone, With nakedness my shield."

"The light comes brighter from the east; the caw Of restive crows is sharper on the ear."

"And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene, The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled, Will turn its private substance into green, And young shoots spread upon our inner world."

"The wind sharpened itself on a rock; A voice sang:"

"He loops in crazy figures half the night Among the trees that face the corner light. But when he brushes up against a screen, We are afraid of what our eyes have seen: For something is amiss or out of place When mice with wings can wear a human face."

"Mother of quartz, your words writhe into my ear. Renew the light, lewd whisper."

"The wasp waits. The edge cannot eat the center. The grape listens. The path tells little to the serpent. An eye comes out of the wave. The journey from flesh is longest. A rose sways least. The redeemer comes a dark way."

"Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse: Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms. Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still called; The flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollows; And love, love sang toward."

"The animal I wanted Couldn't get into the world... I can hear it crying When I sit like this away from life."

"As we are so wonderfully done with each other We can walk into our separate sleep on floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood lies"

"Your lips have splashed my dull house with print of flowers My hands are crooked where they spilled over your dear curving"

"To leave the earth was my wish, and no will stayed my rising. Early, before sun had filled the roads with carts Conveying folk to weddings and to murders; Before men left their selves of sleep, to wander In the dark of the world like whipped beasts."

"You, the sought for; I, the seeker; this, the search: And each is the mission of all. For greatness is only the drayhorse that coaxes The built cart out; and where we go is reason. But genius is an enormous littleness, a trickling Of heart that covers alike the hare and the hunter."

"You, the village; I, the stranger; this, the road: And each is the work of all. Then, not that man do more, or stop pity; but that he be Wider in living; that all his cities fly a clean flag... We have been alone too long, love; it is terribly late For the pierced feet on the water and we must not die now."

"Have you wondered why all the windows in heaven were broken? Have you seen the homeless in the grave of God's hand? Do you want to acquaint the larks with the fatuous music of war?"

"You, the woman; I, the man; this, the world: And each is the work of all."

"O my love my dear lady The world is not very big There is only room for our wonder And the light leaning winds of heaven Are not more sweet or pure Than your mouth on my throat O my love there are larks in our morning And the finding flame of your hands And the moss on the bank of the river And the butterflies And the whirling-mad Butterflies!"

"My tattered Oscar Williams 1943 anthology, with the beautiful faces of Rukeyser, Schwartz"

"Whence, if ever, shall come the actuality Of a voice speaking the mind's knowing, The sunlight bright on the green windowshade, And the self articulate, affectionate, and flowing, Ease, warmth, light, the utter showing, When in the white bed all things are made."

"Where the light is, and each thing clear, Separate from all others, standing in its place, I drink the time and touch whatever's near, And hope for day when the whole world has that face: For what assures her present every year? In dark accidents the mind's sufficient grace."

"How the false truths of the years of youth have passed! Have passed at full speed like trains which never stopped There where I stood and waited, hardly aware, How little I knew, or which of them was the one To mount and ride to hope or where true hope arrives."

"A car coughed, starting. Morning softly Melting the air, lifted the half-covered chair From underseas, kindled the looking-glass, Distinguished the dresser and the white wall. The bird called tentatively, whistled, called, Bubbled and whistled, so! Perplexed, still wet With sleep, affectionate, hungry and cold. So, so, O son of man, the ignorant night, the travail Of early morning, the mystery of the beginning Again and again, while history is unforgiven."

"I no more wrote than read that book which is The self I am, half hidden as it is From one and all who see within a kiss The lounging formless blackness of an abyss. How could I think the brief years were enough To prove the reality of endless love?"

"Each minute bursts in the burning room, The great globe reels in the solar fire, Spinning the trivial and unique away. (How all things flash! How all things flare!) What am I now that I was then? May memory restore again and again The smallest color of the smallest day: This is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn."

"I am my father's father, You are your children's guilt. In history's pity and terror The child is Aeneas again; Troy is in the nursery, The rocking horse is on fire. Child labor! The child must carry His fathers on his back."

"Regard the child, regard the animal, Welcome strangers, but study daily things, Knowing that heaven and hell surround us, But this, this which we say before we're sorry, This which we live behind our unseen faces, Is neither dream, nor childhood, neither Myth, nor landscape, final, nor finished, For we are incomplete and know no future, And we are howling or dancing out our souls In beating syllables before the curtain: We are Shakespearean, we are strangers."

"That inescapable animal walks with me, Has followed me since the black womb held, Moves where I move, distorting my gesture, A caricature, a swollen shadow, A stupid clown of the spirit's motive, Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness, The secret life of belly and bone."

"I've loved Calvin Trillin's The Tummy Trilogy since I was a child, when my dad read it aloud to me."

"Money not spent on a luxury one considered even briefly is the equivalent of windfall income and should be spent accordingly."

"Health food makes me sick."

"The past is more than a memory."

"Every human being is a raindrop. And when enough of the raindrops become clear and coherent they then become the power of the storm."

"Sometimes when it rains, it's not that simple, when the sky has reasons to cry."

"Columbus, I guess it all did start with Columbus. ... To me he was like a virus, a disease. I spent a lot of time protesting, trying to figure out how to deal with this disease. I think we really need to put serious thought into understanding that we're dealing with a disease."

"It's like there's this predator energy on this planet, and this predator energy feeds upon the essence of the spirit, feeds upon the essence of the human being, the spirit. This predator energy can take fossil fuel and other resources out of the Earth, turn it into fuel, to run a machine system. But in order for there to be a need for that system, and in order for that system to work, they have to mine our minds to get at the essence of our spirit. In the same way the external mining takes place, it pollutes—we see now, people understand how it poisons the environment, the water, the air pollution—the mining of the essence, the mining of the spirit, mining our minds ... the pollution from that is all the neurotic, distorted, insecure behavior patterns that we develop. That's the pollution. Because in order for this predatory system, this disease, to work, we must not be able to use our minds in a clear coherent manner. Because if we use our minds in a clear coherent manner, we will not accept the unacceptable."

"They are going to become more brutal. They are going to become more oppressive."

"We have to understand who we are and where we fit in the natural order of the world because our oppressor deals in illusions. They tell us that it is power, but it is not power. They may have all the guns and they may have all the racist laws and judges, and they may control all the money, but that is not power. These are imitations of power and they are only ‘power’ because in our minds we allow it to be power."

"This oppressor, this machine that has gone mad and run amok, it is berserk. They keep telling us, "progress.” They keep telling us “face reality.” Well, let’s deal with reality. Reality is the Earth can no longer take this attack. We can no longer allow this Thing to continue when it’s polluting the air, it’s polluting the water, polluting our food. They pollute the air, they pollute the water, they pollute our food, they pollute our minds."

"There are insane people who wish to rule the world. They wish to continue to rule the world on violence and repression, and we are all the victims of that violence and repression."

"Our obligations and loyalty should not be to a government that will not take care of our needs. Our obligations and loyalty should not be to a government that has proven time and time again that it is the enemy of the people unless the people are rich in dollars."