Reads Novel Online

Collected Poems

Page 16

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to the door.

After a war

we clutch at watery

scum pulsating on listless

eddies of our spent

deluge…. Convalescent

dancers rising too soon

to rejoin their circle dance

our powerless feet intent

as before but no longer

adept contrive only

half-remembered

eccentric steps.

After years

of pressing death

and dizzy last-hour reprieves

we're glad to dump our fears

and our perilous gains together

in one shallow grave and flee

the same rueful way we came

straight home to haunted revelry.

Christmas 1971

Poems Not About War

Love Song (for Anna)

Bear with me my love

in the hour of my silence;

the air is crisscrossed

by loud omens and songbirds

fearing reprisals of middle day

have hidden away their notes



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