Robert Duncan Poems

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1.
My Mother Would Be A Falconress

My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize,
...

2.
The Song Of The Borderguard

The man with his lion under the shed of wars
sheds his belief as if he shed tears.
The sound of words waits -
a barbarian host at the borderline of sense.
...

3.
Often I Am Permitted To Return To A Meadow

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
...

4.
Passage Over Water

We have gone out in boats upon the sea at night,
lost, and the vast waters close traps of fear about us.
The boats are driven apart, and we are alone at last
under the incalculable sky, listless, diseased with stars.
...

5.
Bending The Bow

We've our business to attend Day's duties,
bend back the bow in dreams as we may
til the end rimes in the taut string
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6.
An African Elegy

In the groves of Africa from their natural wonder
the wildebeest, zebra, the okapi, the elephant,
...

7.
Poetry, A Natural Thing

Neither our vices nor our virtues
further the poem. “They came up
and died
just like they do every year
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8.
Such Is The Sickness Of Many A Good Thing

Was he then Adam of the Burning Way?
hid away in the heat like wrath
conceald in Love’s face,
or the seed, Eris in Eros,
...

9.
Childhood’s Retreat

It’s in the perilous boughs of the tree
out of blue sky the wind
sings loudest surrounding me.
...

10.
A Little Language

I know a little language of my cat, though Dante says
that animals have no need of speech and Nature
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