Larry Levis

All
The trees held up their silent
As if they mattered
But on one main street of bars and lights,

At Wilshire & Santa Monica I saw an opossum Trying to cross the street
It was late, the street Was brightly lit, the opossum would take A few steps forward, then back away from the breath Of moving traffic
People coming out of the ba...

One was a bay cowhorse from Piedra & the other was a washed out
And both stood at the rail of the corral & both went on
In each effortless tail swish, the flies rising, then congregating
Around their eyes & muzzles &...

—for John Berryrnan—Is dog eat dog out dere'—Big Business,
Mr
Bones
You know what I'm doing now

My youth
I hear it mostly in the long, volleying Echoes of billiards in the pool hall where I spent it all, extravagantly, believing My delicate touch on a cue would last for years
Outside the vineyards vanished under rain,
And the ...

In the background, a few shacks & overturned carts And a gray sky holding the singular pallor of Lent
And here the crowd of onlookers, though a few of them Must be intimate with the victim,
Have been advised to keep their distance

My poem would eat nothing
I tried giving it water but it said no,  worrying me
Day after day,
I held it up to the llight,  turning it over, but it only pressed its lips more tightly together