Michael Hofmann Poems

Another one of those Pyrrhic experiences. Call it
an expyrrhience. A day at Lords, mostly rain,
one of those long-drawn-out draws so perplexing to Americans.
...

It's all right
Unless you're either lonely or under attack.
That strange effortful
...

For Hai-Dang Phan

I have no doubt where they will go. They walk
the one life offered from the many chosen.
 — Robert Lowell
...

The luncheon voucher years
(the bus pass and digitized medical record
always in the inside pocket come later,
and the constant orientation to the nearest hospital).
...

Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
— Andrew Marvell
...

Nothing required an account of me
And still I didn't give one.
...

In that aftertime
I wasn't writing. I never wrote,
I didn't know what the aftertime was for.
I felt little, collected nothing.
...