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“Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
“Go then, O my inseperable, this once more,”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
“Come back now and help me with these verses. Whisper to me some beautiful secret that you remember from life.”
―
―
“The Thin Man
I indulge myself
In rich refusals.
Nothing suffices.
I hone myself to
This edge. Asleep, I
Am a horizon.”
― Night Light
I indulge myself
In rich refusals.
Nothing suffices.
I hone myself to
This edge. Asleep, I
Am a horizon.”
― Night Light
“See how the fearful chandelier trembles above you each time you open your mouth to sing.
Sing.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
Sing.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
“donald justice:
i often wonder about the others,
where they are bound for on the voyage, what is the reason for their silence,
was there some reason to go away?”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
i often wonder about the others,
where they are bound for on the voyage, what is the reason for their silence,
was there some reason to go away?”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
“Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
“Poem to Be Read at 3:00 A.M.
by Donald Justice
Excepting the diner
On the outskirts
The town of Ladora
at 3 A.M.
Was dark but
For my headlights
And up in
One second-story room
A single light
Where someone
Was sick or
Perhaps reading
As I drove past
At seventy
Not thinking
This poem
Is for whoever
Had the light on”
―
by Donald Justice
Excepting the diner
On the outskirts
The town of Ladora
at 3 A.M.
Was dark but
For my headlights
And up in
One second-story room
A single light
Where someone
Was sick or
Perhaps reading
As I drove past
At seventy
Not thinking
This poem
Is for whoever
Had the light on”
―
“Ode to a Dressmaker’s Dummy"
Papier-mache body; blue-and-black cotton jersey cover.
Metal stand. Instructions included. --Sears, Roebuck Catalogue
O my coy darling, still
You wear for me the scent
Of those long afternoons we spent,
The two of us together,
Safe in the attic from the jealous eyes
Of household spies
And the remote buffooneries of the weather;
So high,
Our sole remaining neighbor was the sky,
Which, often enough, at dusk,
Leaning its cloudy shoulders on the sill,
Used to regard us with a bored and cynical eye.
How like the terrified,
Shy figure of a bride
You stood there then, without your clothes,
Drawn up into
So classic and so strict a pose
Almost, it seemed, our little attic grew
Dark with the first charmed night of the honeymoon.
Or was it only some obscure
Shape of my mother’s youth I saw in you,
There where the rude shadows of the afternoon
Crept up your ankles and you stood
Hiding your sex as best you could?--
Prim ghost the evening light shone through.”
― A Donald Justice Reader: Selected Poetry and Prose
Papier-mache body; blue-and-black cotton jersey cover.
Metal stand. Instructions included. --Sears, Roebuck Catalogue
O my coy darling, still
You wear for me the scent
Of those long afternoons we spent,
The two of us together,
Safe in the attic from the jealous eyes
Of household spies
And the remote buffooneries of the weather;
So high,
Our sole remaining neighbor was the sky,
Which, often enough, at dusk,
Leaning its cloudy shoulders on the sill,
Used to regard us with a bored and cynical eye.
How like the terrified,
Shy figure of a bride
You stood there then, without your clothes,
Drawn up into
So classic and so strict a pose
Almost, it seemed, our little attic grew
Dark with the first charmed night of the honeymoon.
Or was it only some obscure
Shape of my mother’s youth I saw in you,
There where the rude shadows of the afternoon
Crept up your ankles and you stood
Hiding your sex as best you could?--
Prim ghost the evening light shone through.”
― A Donald Justice Reader: Selected Poetry and Prose
“Men at Forty"
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it
Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.
And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices trying
His father’s tie there in secret
And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something
That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.”
―
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it
Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.
And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices trying
His father’s tie there in secret
And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something
That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.”
―
“Elsewheres
South
The long green shutters are drawn.
Against what parades?
Closing our eyes against the sun,
We try to imagine
The darkness of an interior
Where something might still happen:
The razor lying open
On the cool marble washstand,
The drip of something--is it water?--
Upon stone floors.”
-
North
Already it is midsummer
In the Sweden of our lives.
The peasants have joined hands,
They are circling the haystacks.
We watch from the veranda.
We sit, mufflered,
Humming the tune in snatches
Under our breath.
We tremble sometimes,
Not with emotion.
-
Waiting Room
Reading the signs,
We learn what to expect--
The trains late,
The machines out of order.
We learn what it is
To stare out into space.
Great farms surround us,
Squares of a checkerboard.
Taking our places, we wait,
We wait to be moved.”
―
South
The long green shutters are drawn.
Against what parades?
Closing our eyes against the sun,
We try to imagine
The darkness of an interior
Where something might still happen:
The razor lying open
On the cool marble washstand,
The drip of something--is it water?--
Upon stone floors.”
-
North
Already it is midsummer
In the Sweden of our lives.
The peasants have joined hands,
They are circling the haystacks.
We watch from the veranda.
We sit, mufflered,
Humming the tune in snatches
Under our breath.
We tremble sometimes,
Not with emotion.
-
Waiting Room
Reading the signs,
We learn what to expect--
The trains late,
The machines out of order.
We learn what it is
To stare out into space.
Great farms surround us,
Squares of a checkerboard.
Taking our places, we wait,
We wait to be moved.”
―
“For only with your help shall They come to see–and with no more Than average daily terror– All things for what they are, All things for what they are.”
― New and Selected Poems of Donald Justice
― New and Selected Poems of Donald Justice
“Waiting for dusk and someone dear to come and whip him down the street, gently home”
―
―
“On the porch, green-shuttered, cool,
Asleep is Bertram, that bronze boy,
Who, having wound her around a spool,
Sends her spinning like a toy
Out to the garden, all alone,
To sit and weep on a bench of stone.
Soon the purple dark will bruise
Lily and bleeding-heart and rose,
And the little Cupid lose
Eyes and ears and chin and nose,
And Jane lie down with others soon
Naked to the naked moon.”
―
Asleep is Bertram, that bronze boy,
Who, having wound her around a spool,
Sends her spinning like a toy
Out to the garden, all alone,
To sit and weep on a bench of stone.
Soon the purple dark will bruise
Lily and bleeding-heart and rose,
And the little Cupid lose
Eyes and ears and chin and nose,
And Jane lie down with others soon
Naked to the naked moon.”
―
“[This poem is not addressed to you.]"
This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.
Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.
Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
“[“This poem is not addressed to you”]
This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.
Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.
It is not sad, really, only empty.
Once perhaps it was sad, no one knows why.
It prefers to remember nothing.
Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.
Your type of beauty has no place here.
Night is the sky over this poem.
It is too black for stars.
And do not look for any illumination.
You neither can nor should understand what it means.
Listen, it comes without guitar,
Neither in rags nor any purple fashion.
And there is nothing in it to comfort you.
Close your eyes, yawn. It will be over soon.
You will forget the poem, but not before
It has forgotten you. And it does not matter.
It has been most beautiful in its erasures.
O bleached mirrors! Oceans of the drowned!
Nor is one silence equal to another.
And it does not matter what you think.
This poem is not addressed to you.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.
Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.
It is not sad, really, only empty.
Once perhaps it was sad, no one knows why.
It prefers to remember nothing.
Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.
Your type of beauty has no place here.
Night is the sky over this poem.
It is too black for stars.
And do not look for any illumination.
You neither can nor should understand what it means.
Listen, it comes without guitar,
Neither in rags nor any purple fashion.
And there is nothing in it to comfort you.
Close your eyes, yawn. It will be over soon.
You will forget the poem, but not before
It has forgotten you. And it does not matter.
It has been most beautiful in its erasures.
O bleached mirrors! Oceans of the drowned!
Nor is one silence equal to another.
And it does not matter what you think.
This poem is not addressed to you.”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
“Nostalgia comes with the smell of rain”
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
― Collected Poems of Donald Justice
“Elsewheres
South
The long green shutters are drawn.
Against what parades?
Closing our eyes against the sun,
We try to imagine
The darkness of an interior
Where something might still happen:
The razor lying open
On the cool marble washstand,
The drip of something--is it water?--
Upon stone floors.”
-
North
Already it is midsummer
In the Sweden of our lives.
The peasants have joined hands,
They are circling the haystacks.
We watch from the veranda.
We sit, mufflered,
Humming the tune in snatches
Under our breath.
We tremble sometimes,
Not with emotion.”
―
South
The long green shutters are drawn.
Against what parades?
Closing our eyes against the sun,
We try to imagine
The darkness of an interior
Where something might still happen:
The razor lying open
On the cool marble washstand,
The drip of something--is it water?--
Upon stone floors.”
-
North
Already it is midsummer
In the Sweden of our lives.
The peasants have joined hands,
They are circling the haystacks.
We watch from the veranda.
We sit, mufflered,
Humming the tune in snatches
Under our breath.
We tremble sometimes,
Not with emotion.”
―
“Elsewheres
South
The long green shutters are drawn.
Against what parades?
Closing our eyes against the sun,
We try to imagine
The darkness of an interior
Where something might still happen:
The razor lying open
On the cool marble washstand,
The drip of something--is it water?--
Upon stone floors.”
―
South
The long green shutters are drawn.
Against what parades?
Closing our eyes against the sun,
We try to imagine
The darkness of an interior
Where something might still happen:
The razor lying open
On the cool marble washstand,
The drip of something--is it water?--
Upon stone floors.”
―
