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The Dead
© Philip Levine
A good man is seized by the police
and spirited away. Months later
someone brags that he shot him once
through the back of the head
My Fathers, The Baltic
© Philip Levine
Along the strand stones,
busted shells, wood scraps,
bottle tops, dimpled
and stainless beer cans.
I Sing The Body Electric
© Philip Levine
People sit numbly at the counter
waiting for breakfast or service.
Today it's Hartford, Connecticut
more than twenty-five years after
The Mercy
© Philip Levine
The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island
Eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy."
She remembers trying to eat a banana
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
The Present
© Philip Levine
The day comes slowly in the railyard
behind the ice factory. It broods on
one cinder after another until each
glows like lead or the eye of a dog
Holding On
© Philip Levine
Green fingers
holding the hillside,
mustard whipping in
the sea winds, one blood-bright
Waking In March
© Philip Levine
Last night, again, I dreamed
my children were back at home,
small boys huddled in their separate beds,
and I went from one to the other
The Simple Truth
© Philip Levine
I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes,
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt.
Then I walked through the dried fields
An Ending
© Philip Levine
Early March.
The cold beach deserted. My kids
home in a bare house, bundled up
and listening to rock music
The Manuscript of Saint Alexius
© Augusta Davies Webster
But, when my father thought my words took shape
of other than boy's prattle, he grew grave,
and answered me "Alexius, thou art young,
and canst not judge of duties; but know this
thine is to serve God, living in the world."
Among Children
© Philip Levine
I walk among the rows of bowed heads--
the children are sleeping through fourth grade
so as to be ready for what is ahead,
the monumental boredom of junior high
What Work Is
© Philip Levine
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
They Feed They Lion
© Philip Levine
Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow.
A Woman Waking
© Philip Levine
She wakens early remembering
her father rising in the dark
lighting the stove with a match
scraped on the floor. Then measuring
I Won, You Lost
© Philip Levine
The last of day gathers
in the yellow parlor
and drifts like fine dust
across the face of
You Can Have It
© Philip Levine
My brother comes home from work
and climbs the stairs to our room.
I can hear the bed groan and his shoes drop
one by one. You can have it, he says.
Patriotism 1. Innominatus
© Sir Walter Scott
BREATHES there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
Patriotism 01 Innominatus
© Sir Walter Scott
BREATHES there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
My Native Land
© Sir Walter Scott
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
Datur Hora Quieti
© Sir Walter Scott
The sun upon the lake is low,
The wild birds hush their song,
The hills have evening's deepest glow,
Yet Leonard tarries long.
