Jim Levy

I sit in the sun like a cancer patient
but with a lot of hair
and strong teeth and powerful hands
a large man but not larger than life
...

I learned a lot in that bus station, the one near the hotel
that rents rooms by the hour. I noticed a young woman
wearing slippers: the color of her blouse matched
the color of her nails. One sharp dresser's hair was dyed,
...

We went there together, where we imagined, and went on,
and we parted company beyond the Pleiades somewhere
and I saw a far star faintly and something said to me That is home.
I was amazed and wanted to go there and I went, pulled by light,
...

I woke up without hope
and walked out into the wide fields
and saw what may have been a river
or a layer of low mist
...

It has happened again, the green,
green apple tree, green alfalfa field,
I had forgotten it would happen again.
My heart leaps.
...

By the Third Glass

If I could resurrect one writer to be with this afternoon
with this bottle of wine,
...

Under the stars
It was spring and I was sitting as usual
under the flowering plum
and raised my glass to the moon
...

can't sleep at night
can't talk to you

old age caught up to me
...

Lesbia admonishes Catullus °

You mock my sparrow
who hopped here, there and everywhere
...

for Elizabeth Bishop

Why did I write of the artist and not her art?
Her art is all, her life mere driftwood,
...