Dismantlements of Silence: Poems Selected and New

210 Pages·2015·4.556 MB·English

by  William Virgil Davis

D S
ismantlements of ilence
Poems
Selected and New
W V D
illiam irgil aVis
Texas reVieW Press
HunTsVille, Texas
Copyright @ 2015 by William Virgil Davis
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
Requests for permission to acknowledge material from the work should be sent to:
Permissions
Texas Review Press
English Department
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, TX 77341-2146
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The author would like to acknowledge and thank the editors and
journals in which these poems—some in earlier versions—first appeared.
The Early Uncollected Poems and the New Poems were published in: Agni: “An Early November
Meditation,” “The Difference between Art and Artifice”; The Antigonish Review: “The Swamp”;
The Antioch Review: “Home from the Factory”; Arts and Letters: “A Postcard from San
Gimignano,” “Rothko’s ‘Presences’”; Barrow Street: “Home Visit”; The Carleton Miscellany:
“When Things Get Out of Hand”; The Centennial Review: “Coming Home”; The Chariton
Review: “No Time for Welcome”; Cut Bank: “Aftermath”; The Dalhousie Review: “The Jewel
Casket”; The Davidson Miscellany: “I-35, South of Waco”; The Gettysburg Review: “Near the
Cabin,” “The Voyeur,” “Winterset”; The Hopkins Review: “A Cat Named Lonesome,” “A Walk
Around the Block”; Long Pond Review: “Variation on a Theme by Stevens”; The Malahat Review:
“Letters to My Brothers,” “The Tree”; The Massachusetts Review: “Ashes,” “On a Hill in Crete”;
The Michigan Quarterly Review: “Alms”; The Midwest Quarterly: “Driftwood Summer,” “The
Hawk”; The Nation: “Following the Stones”; New England Review: “Pentimento”; Paintbrush:
“Leaving the Cathedral”; Poem: “Confrontation in a Rented Cabin,” “The Obstruction,” “Small
Town on a Winter Night”; Poet & Critic: “In Memory”; Poetry (Chicago): “The Pond”; The
Sewanee Review: “The Last Team”; Shenandoah: “The Hunt”; The Southern Review: “A Visit”;
Three Rivers Poetry Journal: “Razing the Set”
Poems selected from earlier collections appeared in: One Way to Reconstruct the Scene (Yale
University Press); Winter Light (University of North Texas Press); Landscape and Journey (Ivan
R. Dee); The Bones Poems (Lamar University Press)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis, William Virgil, 1940- author.
[Poems. Selections]
Dismantlements of silence : poems selected and new / William Virgil Davis. -- Edition: First.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-68003-047-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Title.
PS3554.A9383A6 2015
811’.54--dc23
2015024625
For My Family
Contents:
Part One: Early Uncollected Poems
The Pond 1
The Hunt 3
In Memory 4
The Hawk 5
Following the Stones 7
Aftermath 8
Alms 9
Razing the Set 11
Leaving the Cathedral 12
When Things Get Out of Hand 13
Variation on a Theme by Stevens 14
The Swamp 15
Confrontation in a Rented Cabin 17
Small Town on a Winter Night 19
Letter to My Brothers 20
The Obstruction 22
I-35, South of Waco 24
The Jewel Casket 25
No Time for Welcome 27
Driftwood Summer 28
The Tree 29
Pentimento 30
On a Hill in Crete 31
Ashes 32
Coming Home 33
Part Two: from One Way to Reconstruct the Scene
Another Night with Snow 37
After the Funeral 39
A Triptych for My Father 41
View from the Backyard 42
My Son in Snow 43
Winter Light 44
Driving Alone in Winter 45
The Sleep of the Insomniac 46
iv
The Oxygen Tent 47
The Cat in the Snow 48
A Late Elegy for John Berryman 49
January 51
Spider 52
The Ring Tree 53
Mexico, My Friend 54
One Way to Reconstruct the Scene 55
The Weight Lifter 57
The Leaving 58
An Odor of Chrysanthemums 59
In a Room 60
That House, This Room 61
Cultivation of Pain 62
Snow 63
The Time of Year, the Hour 64
The Place of Lost Breath 65
Breakfast as a Last Resort 66
Part Three: from Winter Light
Fragments 69
Legacy 70
Snow in Ohio 71
Pathetique 72
The Watchers 73
Windows 74
The Polar Bear 75
A Man and His Hat 76
An Evening in Advent 77
The Light 78
Winter Walk 79
Part Four: from Landscape and Journey
Landscape 83
In the Cold Air Register 84
Those Sunday Mornings 85
The Ohio Poem 86
Winter Solstice 88
Scenes from Childhood 89
Double Elegy 90
A Vision in Late Afternoon 91
v
October with Rain 92
The River: A Vision 93
Vigil at Heiligenkreuz 94
Stave Church 95
A Visit to Manafon 96
Tapestry 98
“Landscape with a Pollard Willow” 99
Winter Roses 100
Pomegranates 101
Poem Ending with a Variation on a Line by Charles Wright 102
A Street Scene 103
Sestina with Two Lines by Charles Tomlinson 104
First Light 106
A Night at the Movies 107
Courtyard Looking Toward Artemis from the West Cloister 108
Poem Beginning and Ending with a Variation of a Line by
Geoffrey Hill 109
Something I Cannot Name Has Come Close to Me 110
November 111
Pilgrimage 112
Diet 113
Call 115
The Other 116
What We Said 119
An Affair 122
“Border View, Hot Springs, Texas” 127
Part Five: from The Bones Poems
Proem 131
After Centuries 132
Their Arrival 133
The Bones Meet the Bones 135
In the Pit 136
The Bones Die and Go On Living 137
Following the Bones 139
The Recognition 140
Their Odyssey 141
In the Dark 144
They Make Love 145
After Three Days 146
They Gather Together 147
vi
Trespass 148
Meeting the Bones 149
Where the Bones Move 150
Their Sleep 152
After Dark 153
Some Things the Bones Never Know 156
The Bones in Search of a Bed 157
Renting Your Bed to the Bones 158
Their Words 159
The Bones Come Home 160
In Far Fields 162
Their Death 163
Oil 164
The Promise 165
And If Shriven at Last They Rise 166
Not Many Years 167
Their Departure 168
Into the Dark 170
Growing Darker as They Deepen 171
At Rest 172
Part Six: New Poems
Rothko’s “Presences” 175
Home Visit 180
A Cat Named Lonesome 181
A Postcard from San Gimignano 182
Home from the Factory 185
The Voyeur 186
Winterset 188
The Difference between Art and Artifice 189
The Last Team 190
Near the Cabin 191
An Early November Meditation 193
A Walk Around the Block 196
A Visit 197
vii
I am a fragment, and this is a fragment of me.
— Emerson
I
Early Uncollected Poems