Michael Ardizzone Poems

As I look at this blade of grass, I notice that
Oh, the sky and winds change a face too little
for this blade of grass to stand up straight
or to bend-to kiss a brother, a sister
...

I never knew the lonely
long dark hours before my father
brought light or warmth into the house
with matches bought from corner shops.
...

I see too much steel
but now plastic
but now the next plastic
painted to look like plastic
...

I dared to ask a clock a question but
it didn't answer like the Kennedies with
rumbling rockets for lonely moons or handshakes
for Soviets that stand cold and fur-clad shivering
...

The sky is congested
with the light of the myriad
stars crowding into the pinpricks
of pupils-nothings within nothings.
...

What is nature
but a buck's head
mounted on a wall
or a lonely grizzly bear
...

Streetlights, cigarette smoke
rudderless cars leak bland pavement,
symptoms of a night flooded
with dull yellow light, flickering
...

And I say if love shall turn to dust
and friends grow bored in lack of trust,
that we should away (most fleet of foot)
go towards the sunset-
...

I am in love with the sky:
its rains can only build
life as it hugs the grateful earth.
(To give life, the greatest
...

This house we've built
to shiver and sway in the wind-
Built of steel and glass,
built of care and foolishness
...