Abundance (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
IOnce I had 1000 roses.Literally 1000 roses.I was working for a floristback in the shambling 'Thirtieswhen iced skids of 250 ...
John Anthony Ciardi Poems (24 Poems)
On Looking East To The Sea With A Sunset Behind Me (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
IIn a detachment cool as the glint of lighton wet roads through wet spruce, or iced mountainshailed from the sea ...
The Pilot In The Jungle (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
IMachine stitched rivets ravel on a treeWhose name he does not know. Left in the sky,He dangles from a silken ...
A Magus (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
A missionary from the Mau Mau told me.There are spores blowing from space.He has himself seen an amazing botanyspringing the ...
An Apartment With A View (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
I am in Rome, Vatican bells tollinga windowful of God and Bernini.My neighbor, the Pope, has diedand God overnight, has ...
White Heron (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
What lifts the heron leaning on the airI praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,a long stroke through the ...
An Emeritus Addresses The School (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
No one can wish nothing.Even that death wish sophomoresare nouveau-glib aboutreaches for a change of notice."I'll have you know," it ...
Port Of Aerial Embarkation (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
There is no widening distance at the shore-The sea revolving slowly from the piers-But the one border of our take-off ...
High Tension Lines Across A Landscape (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
There are diagrams on stilts all wired togetherOver the hill and the wind and out of sight.There is a scar ...
V-J Day (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
On the tallest day in time the dead came back.Clouds met us in the pastures past a world.By short wave ...
Bees And Morning Glories (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
Morning glories, pale as a mist drying,fade from the heat of the day, but alreadyhunchback bees in pirate pants and ...
Men Marry What They Need (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
Men marry what they need. I marry you,morning by morning, day by day, night by night,and every marriage makes this ...
The Dolls (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
Night after night forever the dolls lay stiffby the children's dreams. On the goose-feathers of the rich,on the straw of ...
The Catalpa (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
The catalpa's white week is ending therein its corner of my yard. It has its arms fullof its own flowering ...
Most Like An Arch This Marriage (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
Most like an arch-an entrance which upholdsand shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.Mass made idea, and idea held ...
The Damned (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
Martyrs, gunmen, angry wives,desperate husbands, and fugitivessnap their lives with guns and knives,lions and visions, jolts and jars,poison, plunges, and ...
In Place Of A Curse (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected,I shall forgive last the delicately woundedwho, having been slugged no ...
Sea Burial (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
Through the sea's crust of prisms looking upInto the run of light above the swellm,And down a fathom, down a ...
For Instance (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
A boy came up the street and there was a girl."Hello," they said in passing, then didn't pass.They began to ...
On An Exalted Nonentity (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
Must we believe that what ascends aspires?That altitudes are measures of desires?That nothing mounts until the holy firesof self have ...
I Wouldn’t (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
There's a mouse houseIn the hall wallWith a small doorBy the hall floorWhere the fat catSits all day,Sits that wayAll ...
About the Teeth Of Sharks (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
The thing about a shark is-teeth,One row above, one row beneath.Now take a close look. Do you findIt has another ...
How To Tell The Top Of A Hill (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
The top of a hillIs not untilThe bottom is below.And you have to stopWhen you reach the topFor there's no ...
Sermon Notes (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
It's easy to walk out of Hell. But thereHell starts again. Another channel butthe same damned show. Hell's what we ...