My 13 Favorite Larry Levis Poems
February 21st, 2013
Anastasia & Sandman
The Crimes of the Shade Trees
Elegy with a Bridle in Its Hand
Elegy with a Chimneysweep Falling Inside It
Elegy with a Petty Thief in the Rigging
The Girl Who Was a Victim of the Flood
In a Country
In the City of Light
The Map
Unfinished Poem
The Town
To My Ghost Reflected in the Auxvasse River
Truman, Da Vinci, Nebraska
–
Unfinished Poem
Here are all the shadows that have fallen on
no one in particular
Here is the water coming in under the pier
Here is the untouchable woman who sticks out her tongue
Here is the ax handle driven into the pig’s snout
Here are the separated legs of an ant, pulled off one
by one out of boredom
and the stack of dried fish left as an offering
to the bulldozer ticking in the sunlight
Here is the fist of the president falling onto what he imagines
is a table full of multicolored lizards
And here is a multicolored lizard quickly fading into grass
leaving his strange tattoo in the colors of your eyes
I walk the cut road for miles
where the ground is freezing in the name of the father,
and the ghost of the cracked snout, and the dull sons
wielding ax handles in the slaughterhouse Day of Our Lord
ruled by bellies. Ruled by the longings of toys
left under houses for years. Left as offerings. Dust.
Puzzles for the woman turned to a doorstep. Over which
you carried all the dead at the moment of your birth