Joanne Kyger Poems

'The best thing about the past

is that it's over'
...

You know when you write poetry you find
the architecture of your lineage your teachers
like Robert Duncan for me gave me some glue for the heart
Beats which gave confidence
...

Into the party, with engraved invitations, I am bored when
I realize the champagne in the decrepit bowl is going to get
filled up a lot. Well then, on the greens in front of the
Mansion are walking Tom Clark and Ted Berrigan, what chums!
...

Your heart is fine feeling the widest
possible empathy for the day and its inhabitants
...

I reject as absolutely false all opinion in which I have the least doubt.
As our senses often deceive us I assume they show us illusion, and must
reject them. As reason is subject to error, and who can offer more living
proof of that than I, I must reject the faculty or reason.
...

The grasses are light brown
and ocean comes in
long shimmering lines
under the fleet from last night
...

In a room getting ready for a party
with Dotty,
Ducan MacNaughton comes in and says
'Stephen Rodefer is on his way here to kill you!
...

I saw the
dead bird on the sidewalk
his neck uncovered
and prehistoric
...

Well, you had to find it some
where another person passed simplicity
on to you, the practice of some syllables
the position of a seated body and you believe
...

In Tamalpais is a big crystal. An acquaintance told
me the story. A Miwok was giving his grandfather’s medicine
bag to the Kroeber Museum in Berkeley. He said this man
took him over the mountain Tamalpais, at a certain time
...