Building a House Here are the plans taped to the side of the old house, taped to the wall which will be the last to go. I have a hatchet for chopping; I have a radio for entertainment. Last week they sent a man around with a questionnaire. One of the questions was:...

Sister Mary Appassionata To The Ornithology Class Birds can be a mortal danger.If you doubt me walk around downtownunder cooing skyscrapers, brooding statuesand look up. Gulls and crows learnfrom parents how to drop whelkson jagged rocks to shatter their...

The Desire to be Personal: 1 The desire to be personal is what gets me:to walk down the street and not to vanish.O I don't know but I'll assume I'm talking to you,talking although that plugto your heart is what I'm afterbut let's take care of basics.Some food, OK, so...

The Drowning Man The manchild wrapped in my armscould be a woman I'm not in love with. Even in these half-hearted obsessionsI get carried away, I can't concentrate. I come down on the open mouthand for a moment the rain comes downoutside a dark roomfar, far away. But...

Nightblind When the train's headlight veersto kill my right eye, I panicand the road goes black.There are no white-line boundariesas the radio croons "I can'tstop lovin' you," so I askeach truck that passes to rescue meback on course. Aiming for their small red...

Black Wing  To have each understanding of the river represented By starry night, the thing by itself.  To have a time when the black glasses sit so silently in the midnight sun the mind may as   well turn away from them as well to them. To have the absolute question...

French Movies  In memory of Patrick Dewaere  1. A roasted chicken placed on a white cloth. In the movie it is still sitting there. You forget to eat it. We go outside to find glass bottles smashed behind our cars.  2. In some men, the future is written  with a...

The Inviolate Carolyn, New Orleans seems so far away...tonight  the valley's lights keep a planetary distance...there is  only the shallow comfort of gestures left  like dropping more ice in the gin knowing, as it melts,  that I will fail to make you feel I...

Twice First Light   New Born Horse In winter before light it's impossible to guess what I'll knock into next. A lamp in the shape of a ship goes down, its lightbulb in a short white passion. I love the frail tintinnabulations of a broken bulb so appropriate for...

In Gratitude for Talk for John and Joe The blue-grey steeples of the pines, the lake's cold oval: our perception of these shapes makes us particularly human. Like tourists living on the shore of what really matters, we can lean back and say "Those clouds are marble...