Philip Levine Poems

Hit Title Date Added
51.
Burial Rites

Everyone comes back here to die
as I will soon. The place feels right
since it’s half dead to begin with.
Even on a rare morning of rain,
...

52.
Where We Live Now

1

We live here because the houses
are clean, the lawns run
...

53.
On The Meeting Of GarcÍA Lorca And Hart Crane

Brooklyn, 1929. Of course Crane's
been drinking and has no idea who
this curious Andalusian is, unable
even to speak the language of poetry.
...

54.
Making It Work

3-foot blue cannisters of nitro
along a conveyor belt, slow fish
speaking the language of silence.
On the roof, I in my respirator
...

55.
The Drunkard

from St. Ambrose

He fears the tiger standing in his way.
The tiger takes its time, it smiles and growls.
...

56.
How Much Earth

Torn into light, you woke wriggling
on a woman's palm. Halved, quartered,
shredded to the wind, you were the life
that thrilled along the underbelly
...

57.
Wisteria

The first purple wisteria
I recall from boyhood hung
on a wire outside the windows
of the breakfast room next door
...

58.
Voyages

Pond snipe, bleached pine, rue weed, wart --
I walk by sedge and brown river rot
to where the old lake boats went daily out.
All the ships are gone, the gray wharf fallen
...

59.
Gangrene

Vous êtes sorti sain et sauf des basses
calomnies, vous avey conquis les coeurs.

Zola, J'accuse
...

60.
The Whole Soul

Is it long as a noodle
or fat as an egg? Is it
lumpy like a potato or
ringed like an oak or an
...

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