Michael Ardizzone Poems

I sat down under a tree
Where above me stood a man
His neck, to the side
As if asking some deep question
...

I've considered the night
as the moon's influence grew
over the sky.
...

Confused by your deadly art
my friends and foes have come and gone
and still you deftly pick apart
the secrets I have left alone.
...

My lady, I would kill the stars for you
and drain the sky into a paper cup.
I'd cut my heart, my soul, straight into two
if chance should give me knives with which to cut.
...

Greeting the red dawn
she weaves a headdress of fire-
each flame is a weakness,
a flaw in the glass
...

To dream a dream-
a deep day dream-
living through my day dreams:
I'm forever seeming, falling, sleeping,
...

I choose a path
where vast hills roll with my thoughts.

Some call this path I take 'straight.'
...

) the ending;
Here we look at a lonely songbird
-it sings, solitary voice
weaving through leaves:
...

I once dared to ask a clock a question but
it didn't answer like the Kennedies with money and
rumbling rockets for lonely moons or handshakes
for Soviets standing cold and fur-clad as they wait
...

God has built his house of silence,
correspondent with the skies.
Gravely mortal, his creations
crave the fruit which He denies.
...