Wild Track

New and Selected Poems

Kevin Hart

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780268030780, 9780268103132
• eBook ISBN: 9780268081805
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

The poems of Kevin Hart have nurtured international poetry audiences for nearly four decades. Translations of Hart's work have appeared in Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, and Vietnamese, among other languages, and bear witness to the growing interest in Hart's poetry both in the United States and abroad. This volume performs a valuable service by bringing together the best of Hart's work from seven published collections, some of them now out of print, and from his forthcoming book, Barefoot. Wild Track reveals a poet capable of articulating genuine feeling and considerable philosophical depth. This volume confirms Hart's standing as one of the most sophisticated poets writing today.

NINETEEN SONGS

Today I think that love

Is simply watching her

Peeling a mandarin

(As though an entire life

Could turn on fingertips)

I have not spared my eyes

Since I became a man

And yet I little thought

That I would feel desire

For fingers sprayed with juice

Today I looked ahead

And sitting opposite

Saw her select some fruit

And quickly pierce its skin

With a fine fingernail

How little it will seem

Enclosed in memory

Sharing that mandarin

(But two entire lives

Turned on her fingertips)

Two yellow tulips in a bottle

That held red wine last night;

Small islands of fermenting green

Played samba in your sleep,

I woke up to admire the way

Your blouse fell on my clock:

I want to love you all the day

With the lightness of blossom,

I want to love you all the night

With the density of hammers

Just sometimes when she speaks

Across the table

Content with claret, ham and cheese

Her voice goes deep

And at that moment (and no other)

She could take my soul

And sometimes when she tears

A hunk of bread

And soaks it in the olive oil

She does not speak

And at that moment (and no other)

She could take my soul

I only want to lay my head upon your lap

And let my hands meet round your waist

I only want to rest and hear you talk awhile

And breathe the perfume of your words

Men simply look at you and fall in love again:

I only want the world to turn

A little faster now so they fall off the globe

And a great turtle eats them up

I only want to live forever in your kiss

And let my hands slip down your thighs

I only want your eyes and breasts to say my name

And your light hand undo my belt

I like to drench my face

In your thick hair, and lick

Where neck and shoulder meet.

There is a fine gray hair

I love, near your left lobe:

God’s captured by a hair!

Exclaimed my patron saint

(My patron poet too)

And I know how He feels

I like to laze an hour

Just gazing in your eyes

And see my future there.

There is a small brown spot

I love, beside a lash:

An eye has captured me!

Exclaimed my patron saint

(My patron poet too)

And I know how he feels

Simply to touch her hand

And know the undertow

Of feelings without names

That pulls my mouth to hers,

To listen for the laugh

That falls between her words

And live there all the week,

A lazy animal,

To run my fingertips

So slowly down her thigh

And feel the honey thicken

Inside my newfound flesh,

To easy her heavy hair

Away from ear and shoulder

The better to kiss her neck,

And hear her saying Yes,

So that the bees will dance

So that the lion feeds

So that the truth is told

So that the ocean lives

When evening stills the birds

I listen to the trees

And think of her at home:

Whenever you fall in love

It is for the first time

At night there are few words

And I trust only those

That taste still of her lips:

Wh...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• The Stone’s Prayer
• The Twenty-First Century
• The Horizon
• Prague, 1968
• The Day Shift: Ford Works, London
• Three Prayers
• The Ten Thousand Things
• This Day
• Midwinter Summer
• Your Shadow
• For Marion, My Sister
• The Hammer
• Sunlight in a Room
• The Members of the Orchestra
• Your Shadow
• Come Back
• Your Shadow’s Songs
• Summers
• The Companion
• The Last Day
• Poem to the Sun
• Gypsophila
• Gacela
• Approaching Sleep
• The Ship
• That Bad Summer
• Haranguing Death
• Facing the Pacific at Night
• The Map
• “This Stone Is Thinking of Vienna”
• “The Present King of France Is Bald”
• The Letter
• Peniel
• Making a Rat
• The Historian of Silence
• The Black Telephone
• The Gift
• Her Name
• No Easy Thing
• The Great Explorers
• The Letter
• The Room
• The Book
• Dark Angel
• Thinking of David Campbell
• The Fragrance of Summer Grass
• Brisbane
• The Voice of Brisbane
• My Mother’s Brisbane
• Those White, Ancient Birds
• The River
• The Calm
• Rain
• The Word
• Beneath the Ode
• Wimmera Songs
• Nights
• Nineteen Songs
• “How Hast Thou Counselled Him . . .”
• The Bird Is Close
• The Little Air
• Prayer
• My Name
• That Life
• Snow
• Yes
• Nights
• Amo Te Solo
• Here
• The Past
• Night Music
• A Tree
• The Mouse
• Summer
• Birdsong
• Colloquies
• Next Year
• No Guide
• March
• Prayer
• Afternoon
• Dark Bird
• With You
• The Museum of Shadows
• Nights
• Morning Knowledge
• Eurydice
• Descartes
• Dominique
• Fall
• Lullaby
• Hell Songs
• Late Questions in Winter
• Winter
• Father
• Father
• Grief
• Apart
• My Daughters
• Tarrawarra
• Your Kiss
• Sugar