Weldon Kees

The porchlight coming on again,
Early November, the dead
Raked in piles, the wicker
Creaking

—That spot of blood on the drawing room wall,
No larger than a thumbnail when I looked a moment ago,
Is spreading,
Cousin Agatha, and growing brighter

Then walk the floor, or twist upon your bed While bullets, cold and blind, rush backward from the target’s eye,
And say, “I will not dream that dream again
I will not dream Of long-spent whispers vanishing down corridors That turn throug...

"Wondrous life
" cried Marvell at Appleton House
Renan admired Jesus Christ "wholeheartedly
"But here dried ferns keep falling to the floor,

It must have been in March the rug wore through
Now the day passes and I
At warped pine boards my father's father nailed,
At the twisted grain

The middle is the place to stand If there can be one solid spot,
Undoubted, in that damaged land
Two schools exist; one says there is No region lacking hazard, pain,
And fear; the other mentions plains Enclosed For those Wanting mor...

"A equals X," says Mister One
"A equals B," says Mister Two
"A equals nothing under the
But A," says Mister Three

The surgical mask, the rubber
Are singed, give off an evil smell
You seem to weep more now that
Spreads everywhere we look

Under the bunker, where the reek of kerosene Prepared the marriage rite, leader and whore,
Imperfect kindling even in this wind, burn on
Someone in uniform hums Brahms
Servants

1
Iron, sulphur, steam: the wastes         Of all resorts like this have left their traces
Old canes and crutches line the walls
Light         Floods the room, stripped from the pool, broken         And shimmering like scales

When the
Gave out, we
Burning the books, one by one;
First the

Over the river and through the woods To grandmother’s house we go
She waits behind the bolted door,
Her withered face in thirty pieces,
While blood runs thin, and memory,