If It All Went Up in Smoke

George Oppen

that smoke

would remain

the forever

savage country poem's light borrowed

light of the landscape and one's footprints praise

from distance

in the close

crowd all

that is strange the sources

the wells the poem begins

neither in word

nor meaning but the small

selves haunting

us in the stones and is less

always than that help me I am

of that people the grass

blades touch

and touch in their small

distances the poem

begins

Discrete Series by George Oppen

Image of the Engine by George Oppen

Leviathan by George Oppen
Truth also is the pursuit of it

Myself I Sing by George Oppen
Me! he says, hand on his chest

Of Being Numerous, 12 by George Oppen
'In these explanations it is presumed that an experiencing

Of Being Numerous, 13 by George Oppen
unable to begin

Of Being Numerous, 15 by George Oppen
Chorus (androgynous): 'Find me

Of Being Numerous, 24 by George Oppen
In this nation

Of Being Numerous, 32 by George Oppen
Only that it should be beautiful

Of Being Numerous, 33 by George Oppen
Which is ours, which is ourselves,

Of Being Numerous, 40 by George Oppen
The capitol grows upon one in time

Psalm by George Oppen
In the small beauty of the forest

Semite by George Oppen
what art and anti-art to lead us by the sharpness

Street by George Oppen

The Forms of Love by George Oppen
Parked in the fields

Who Shall Doubt by George Oppen
consciousness / in itself