The Man Closing Up," from Night Light" (1967), would make his bed,
If he could sleep on it.
He would make his bed with white
And disappear into the white,
Like a man diving,
If he could be
That the
Would not keep him awake,
The light that
To the vision of life's journey: from "Sestina on Six Words by Weldon Kees"There is no way to ease the burden.
The voyage leads on from harm to harm,
A land of others and of silence."The Miami of Other Days" The winter streets an orchestra of
And gods slept under tabernacle
That sprang up overnight on circus
Like giant toadstools yearning for respectability.
In a portrait of himself at age seven he writes :sometimes he would squat among the foul weeds of the vacant lot,
Waiting for dusk and someone dear to
And whip him down the street, but gently, home."Poem to Be Read at 3 A.
M."Excepting the
On the
The town of
At 3 A.
M.
Was dark
For my
And up
One second story roomA single light.
A more recent poem on the Great Depression shows his cynical side:
Agriculture embraced Industry,
Mammothly, on public walls.
Meanwhile we camped out
Great smiles on billboards fading.
How shall I speak of Doom, and ours in special,
But as of something altogether common ?
