Donald Justice

Thirty today,
I
The trees flare briefly
The candles upon a cake As the sun went down the sky,

Cities burn behind us; the lake glitters
A tall loudspeaker is announcing prizes;
Another, by the lake, the times of cruises
Childhood, once vast with terrors and surprises,

Jane looks down at her organdy
As if it somehow were the thing disgraced,
For being there, on the floor, in the dirt,
And she catches it up about her waist,

Men at
Learn to close
The doors to rooms they will not
Coming back to

Papier-mache body; blue-and-black cotton jersey cover
Metal stand
Instructions included
— Sears,

-- Coronado Beach,
California,
March, 1905 In a hotel room by the sea, the Master Sits brooding on the continent he has crossed
Not that he foresees immediate disaster,

Les morts C’est sous terre; Ça n’en sort Guère
UE Our diaries squatted, toad-like, On dark closet ledges
Forget-me-not and thistle Decalcomaned the pages
But where, where are they now, All the sad squalors Of those between-wars parl...

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,

But the essential advantage for a poet is not, to have a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and the glory
T
S
It was his story

It's snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers
There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote,
Like the memory of scales descending the white
Of a childhood piano—outside the window, palms

R
B
HN speaks: “After so many years of pursuing the ideal I came home
But I had caught sight of it

But these maneuverings to avoid The touching of hands,
These shifts to keep the eyes employed On objects more or less neutral (As honor, for time being, commands) Will hardly prevent their downfall
Stronger medicines are needed
Alre...