Free Collecte Works by Lorine Niedecker

alone
    the one thing humanity
        has never really
    moved towards
     

     
    As I paint the street
    I melt the houses
    to point up the turreted cupola
    I make hoopla
    of the low tavern's neon cross—
    very like a cross from here—
    I honor the huge blue distant dome
    valid somehow to the fellow falling high
     

     
    Art Center
    Glass
    and wide seaview
    Race that walks
                  from there
    you are lovely
    You have seen
     

     

Homemade/Handmade Poems
    Consider at the outset:
    to be thin for thought
    or thick cream blossomy
    Many things are better
    flavored with bacon
    Sweet Life, My love:
    didn't you ever try
    this delicacy—the marrow
    in the bone?
    And don't be afraid
    to pour wine over cabbage
     

     
    Ah your face
    but it's whether
    you can keep me warm
     

     
    Alcoholic dream
    that ran him
                 out from home
                        to return
    leaning
    like the house
    in this old part
             of town leaves him
                  grieving:
    why
    do I hurt you
    whom I love?
        Your ear
              is cold!—here,
    drink
     

     
    To my pres-
sure pump
    I've been free
            with less
                  and clean
    I plumbed for principles
    Now I'm jet-bound
    by faucet   shower
    heater   valve
    ring seal   service
    cost to my little
          humming
                water
                       bird
     

     
    Laundromat
    Casual, sudsy
    social love
    at the tubs
    After all, ecstasy
    can't be constant
     

     
    March
    Bird feeder's
             snow-cap
                    sliding
                              off
     

     
    Something in the water
    like a flower
    will devour
    water
    flower
     

     
    Santayana's
    For heaven's sake, dear Cory,
    poetry?—I like somewhat
    the putrid Petrarch
    and the miserable Milton.
    I don't have books,
    don't meet important persons
    only an occasional stray student
    or an old Boston lady.
     

     
    If only my friend
    would return
    and remove the leaves
                    from my eaves
    troughs
     

     
                            Frog noise
                            suddenly stops
    Listen!
    They turned off
    their lights
     

     
    In the transcendence
    of convalescence
    the translation
    of Bash
     
    …
    I lay down
             with brilliance
    I saw a star whistle
             across the sky
    before dropping off
     

     
    To whom
    can I leave
        Audubon's Avocet
        on green sportsman's cloth
        wide oak framed
        above the warm polished
        copper-braced sweet-smelling
        cedar box
    when I must leave
    this flyway
     

     
    Margaret Fuller
    She carried books
    and chrysanthemums
    to Boston
    into a cold storm
     

     
    Watching dancers on skates
    Ten thousand women
          and I
                  the only one
                                in boots
    Life's dance:
           they meet
               he holds her leg
                                      up
     

     
    Hospital Kitchen
    Return
    the night women's
    gravy
    to the cleaned
    stove
     

     
    Chicory flower
on campus
    Open-field
        blue-wheeled
                 gone by hot noon
    to revolve
        earth-evolved
                mind-city
     

     
    Fall
    Early morning corn
    shock quick river
    edge ice crack duck
    talk
    Grasses' dry membranous
    breaks tick-tack tiny
    wind strips
     

     
    LZ's
    As you know mind
    aint what attracts me
    nor the wingspread
    of Renaissance man
    but what was sensed
    by them guys
    and their minds still carry
    the sensing
     

     
    Letter from Ian
    Aye sure
    a castle on a rock
    in the middle of Edinburgh
    They floodlight it—
    big show up there
    with pipe bands
    and all
    Down here along the road
    open