Staying Alive

by Astley, Neil

• ISBN13: 9781401359263
• ISBN10: 1401359264
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-02
• Publisher: Miramax

Summary

Staying Alive is an anthology of life-affirming poems fired by belief in the human and the spiritual at a time when much in the world feels unreal and inhuman. These are poems of great personal force connecting our aspirations with our humanity, helping us stay alive to the world and stay true to ourselves. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Wild Geese	p. 5
Poets on poetry	p. 18
Introduction	p. 19
Body and soul
Living	p. 31
Orkney / This Life	p. 31
A Northern Morning	p. 32
Happiness	p. 33
My Father's Irish Setters	p. 33
Touch Me	p. 35
Homage to my hips	p. 36
Naked Vision	p. 36
The Hug	p. 37
The Hug	p. 38
Chemin de Fer	p. 39
He Sits Down on the Floor of a School for the Retarded	p. 40
An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow	p. 41
Some Questions You Might Ask	p. 43
Encounter	p. 44
from The Tenth Duino Elegy	p. 44
Variation on a Theme by Rilke	p. 45
from A Gilded Lapse of Time	p. 46
Dark Angel	p. 47
Temptation	p. 48
Poppies in October	p. 48
"Eyesight of Wasps"	p. 49
The Wasps	p. 49
The Old World	p. 50
Watering the Horse	p. 50
Saint Animal	p. 51
Jarrow	p. 51
Where We Are	p. 52
Roads
The Road Not Taken	p. 55
The Bay	p. 55
Tyranny of Choice	p. 56
Not Waving but Drowning	p. 57
Poem	p. 57
Choose	p. 58
Meeting in a Lift	p. 58
"i thank You God for most this amazing"	p. 58
You	p. 59
Begin	p. 60
Entirely	p. 60
Integrity	p. 61
The Bear	p. 63
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me	p. 66
from Dream Songs	p. 67
from Some mangled Dream Songs for Henry ...	p. 67
A Tale	p. 68
The door	p. 69
The door: anticipation of wisdom	p. 70
Directive	p. 71
The Road Home	p. 72
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening	p. 73
Snow	p. 74
History	p. 74
History	p. 75
Snow	p. 75
That Silent Evening	p. 76
Above Pate Valley	p. 77
The Journey	p. 78
When You've Got	p. 79
Yes	p. 80
Happiness	p. 81
from Blossoms	p. 81
Alone	p. 82
Machines	p. 83
Traveling through the Dark	p. 84
Penitence	p. 85
Slow Animals Crossing	p. 86
The Moose	p. 87
Wife Hits Moose	p. 92
Dead or alive
"To eat a pie and to have it..."	p. 95
Trillium	p. 95
"I saw the daughter of the sun..."	p. 96
Stonepicker	p. 97
The arrow	p. 97
Be Not Too Hard	p. 98
Modern Sorcery	p. 99
Tonight of Yesterday	p. 99
Sonnet	p. 100
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm ...	p. 100
Missing Dates	p. 101
Villanelle	p. 101
Signs	p. 102
from When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone	p. 103
My Dark Fathers	p. 103
Hoping It Might Be So	p. 104
In the Next Galaxy	p. 105
Clear Night	p. 105
Defeated	p. 106
The Waking	p. 107
Mirages	p. 107
How to kill a living thing	p. 108
from Sublimation	p. 109
Hawk's Shadow	p. 111
The Way	p. 111
The way we live	p. 112
Things	p. 113
Warning	p. 113
Thoughts After Ruskin	p. 114
Themes for women	p. 115
What Every Woman Should Carry	p. 116
Handbag	p. 116
In Your Mind	p. 117
Dolor	p. 117
One Art	p. 118
Lamium	p. 119
A Glass of Water	p. 119
Sadness	p. 120
Sweetness	p. 121
The Execution	p. 122
A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard's Shack	p. 123
Epistle on suicide	p. 124
Harold's Leap	p. 124
Her Kind	p. 125
Desdichada	p. 126
Otherwise	p. 127
My November Guest	p. 128
She Dotes	p. 128
The Cry	p. 129
The Leaden-Eyed	p. 130
And the Days Are Not Full Enough	p. 130
A Removal from Terry Street	p. 130
Bittersweet
from Ukulele Music	p. 133
The One Twenty Pub	p. 134
Luck in Sarajevo	p. 135
All of These People	p. 136
Shirt	p. 136
Waking This Morning	p. 138
I Am a Cameraman	p. 138
from The Wasting Game	p. 140
Brinkwomanship	p. 143
Here	p. 144
The Unprofessionals	p. 144
Visiting Hour	p. 145
from Changing the Subject	p. 145
The Shade	p. 150
Past-Lives Therapy	p. 151
Diving into the Wreck	p. 152
April 5, 1974	p. 154
Try to Praise the Mutilated World	p. 155
Kissing	p. 156
How my true love and I lay without touching	p. 156
"You idiot!..."	p. 157
90 North	p. 158
Watching for Dolphins	p. 159
Goat	p. 160
The Drainage	p. 161
Three Ways of Recovering a Body	p. 162
Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days	p. 163
Mushrooms	p. 164
A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford	p. 166
Unwittingly	p. 167
Growing up
Being the third song of Urias	p. 171
White Asparagus	p. 172
Ultrasound	p. 173
It's Good To Be Here	p. 177
Safe period	p. 178
IVF	p. 178
Miscarriage	p. 180
Freight	p. 181
First Birth	p. 181
Her First Week	p. 182
The Spirit is too Blunt an Instrument	p. 183
Sonnet: How Life Too Is Sentimental	p. 184
Poem for a Daughter	p. 184
Daughter	p. 185
Beattie Is Three	p. 186
from Heart's Needle	p. 186
Supernatural Love	p. 191
Poem from a Three Year Old	p. 193
Cinders	p. 194
A Sword in a Cloud of Light	p. 195
On the Back of a Photograph	p. 197
The Video	p. 197
Young Girls	p. 197
A Puppy Called Puberty	p. 198
A Dog Called Elderly	p. 199
Cuba	p. 199
My Flu	p. 200
"We were so poor..."	p. 201
Those Winter Sundays	p. 201
The Back Seat of My Mother's Car	p. 202
Mirror Image	p. 203
Mirror	p. 203
Father's Old Blue Cardigan	p. 204
This Be the Verse	p. 205
Possession	p. 205
A Night with Lions	p. 206
from A Part of Speech	p. 207
Old Man	p. 209
Thinking of the Lost World	p. 211
Springfield, Virginia	p. 213
Forgetfulness	p. 214
Forgetfulness	p. 214
Unknown Forbear	p. 215
Quoof	p. 216
Man and beast
Pigs	p. 218
Experimental Animals	p. 218
Weakness	p. 219
Spiritual Chickens	p. 220
The Heaven of Animals	p. 221
Sacrilege	p. 222
Remembrance of Strange Hospitality	p. 223
Federal Case	p. 224
Animals	p. 224
The stone curlew	p. 225
My Life with Horses	p. 226
Switch	p. 226
A Blessing	p. 227
Horse	p. 228
The Horses	p. 228
The Skunk	p. 229
Considering the Snail	p. 229
For a Five-Year-Old	p. 230
Full Moon and Little Frieda	p. 231
Birds	p. 231
The Trout	p. 232
Night Toad	p. 233
A Bird	p. 233
They Feed They Lion	p. 234
The Thought-Fox	p. 235
Swans Mating	p. 236
The Strange Case	p. 236
Cow	p. 237
Lies	p. 238
Glow Worm	p. 239
Salmon	p. 240
Ants on the Melon	p. 241
A Mosquito	p. 242
Octopus	p. 242
Fable of the mermaid and the drunks	p. 243
The Mermaid Tank	p. 243
The Loch Ness Monster's Song	p. 244
The Death of the Loch Ness Monster	p. 245
Oysters	p. 246
In and out of love
My Beloved Compares Herself to a Pint of Stout	p. 248
Finney's Bar	p. 249
Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes	p. 250
Canadian Love Song	p. 251
Bite	p. 252
Desire's a Desire	p. 252
Raisin Pumpernickel	p. 253
Love: Beginnings	p. 254
The Honeycomb	p. 255
The Linen Industry	p. 255
Last Night	p. 256
Definition of Your Attraction	p. 257
The Cinnamon Peeler	p. 257
True Love	p. 259
Lullaby	p. 259
In Defence of Adultery	p. 261
The Did-You-Come-Yets of the Western World	p. 261
The Mistress	p. 263
Ecstasy	p. 263
Zoology Is Destiny	p. 264
Only if Love Should Pierce You	p. 265
Muse	p. 265
Life	p. 266
Distances	p. 267
"As our bloods separate"	p. 268
Woman to Man	p. 268
Snow Melting	p. 269
August	p. 270
The Room	p. 274
Don't Let's Talk About Being in Love	p. 274
Being in Love	p. 275
Poem about heartbreak that go on and on	p. 275
Bitch	p. 276
Bitcherel	p. 277
This Dead Relationship	p. 278
Each from Different Heights	p. 280
Badly-Chosen Lover	p. 280
After the End of It	p. 281
Relationship	p. 282
Hesitate to Call	p. 282
Lady of Miracles	p. 282
Advice to a Discarded Lover	p. 283
The All Purpose Country and Western Self Pity Song	p. 284
Because	p. 286
Cross	p. 287
The Quarrel	p. 288
And they were both right	p. 289
Between	p. 290
When You Are Old	p. 290
Spell	p. 291
Conch	p. 291
"O tell me the truth about love"	p. 292
Lightness	p. 293
In Paris with You	p. 294
My people
"The East-West border..."	p. 297
My People	p. 297
Our Own Land	p. 298
Countries and Explanations	p. 299
A Summer Morning	p. 301
The Heron	p. 302
The Door	p. 303
from Going On	p. 303
In Britain	p. 304
from Evagatory	p. 305
Inniskeen Road: July Evening	p. 308
The Toome Road	p. 309
The Sightseers	p. 309
Dream Avenue	p. 310
Overheard in County Sligo	p. 310
Sadie and Maud	p. 311
from To Elsie	p. 312
American Sketches	p. 314
American Classic	p. 315
Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio	p. 316
The Idea of Ancestry	p. 317
from Paragraphs	p. 318
I, Too	p. 320
Mississippi	p. 320
from An Atlas of the Difficult World	p. 321
The Blood Is Justified	p. 322
The Path to the Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles	p. 324
The Dress	p. 325
Reality U.S.A.	p. 327
America	p. 330
Making America Strong	p. 331
"'Next to of course god america i'"	p. 332
The Disappearances	p. 332
They'll say, "She must be from another country"	p. 334
In my country	p. 336
Modern Secrets	p. 336
Emigrants	p. 337
from What the Light Teaches	p. 337
My Faithful Mother Tongue	p. 338
We Billion Cheered	p. 339
Waiting for the Barbarians	p. 340
Gare du Midi	p. 342
The Coming of the Plague	p. 342
War and peace
War Poetry	p. 345
Grass	p. 345
The fly	p. 346
Anthem for Doomed Youth	p. 347
For Wilfred Owen	p. 347
Everyone Sang	p. 348
Returning, we hear the Larks	p. 348
As the team's head brass	p. 349
Ceasefire	p. 350
The Bloomsday Murders, 16 June 1997	p. 351
from The T.E. Lawrence Poems	p. 352
Vergissmeinnicht	p. 354
September Song	p. 355
There is no greater crime than leaving	p. 355
September 1, 1939	p. 356
On the Anniversary of Her Grace	p. 359
Selective Service	p. 360
Cambodia	p. 360
Ode for the American Dead in Asia	p. 361
Facing It	p. 362
Phrase Book	p. 363
The Persian Version	p. 364
Every Day	p. 365
from Spain, take away this cup from me	p. 366
The End and the Beginning	p. 366
The People of the Other Village	p. 368
Disappearing acts
Rain--Birdoswald	p. 371
Bjorn Olinder's Pictures	p. 371
Now Light Congeals	p. 372
Psalm	p. 372
Someone	p. 373
Aubade	p. 374
"Death does not come from outside..."	p. 375
"Good creatures..."	p. 376
Thrall	p. 376
Bookends (I)	p. 377
For My Mother	p. 378
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night	p. 379
"Do not stand at my grave and weep"	p. 379
Funeral Blues	p. 380
Death of an Irishwoman	p. 381
Water-burn	p. 381
The dead	p. 382
Death's Secret	p. 382
"Pity the drunks"	p. 383
The Gas-poker	p. 383
On a Dark Night	p. 384
Four Years	p. 385
Poems	p. 386
A Last Marriage	p. 386
Curtains	p. 387
Metamorphosis	p. 388
Sorting Through	p. 389
This Is What I Wanted to Sign Off With	p. 389
Wake	p. 390
About Death	p. 390
The Vacuum	p. 391
Inside Our Dreams	p. 392
The Reassurance	p. 392
She	p. 392
A Glimpse of Starlings	p. 393
Dead Woman	p. 394
Yes	p. 395
Close	p. 395
Inscription	p. 396
"Buffalo Bill's"	p. 397
The Dead	p. 397
Proofs	p. 398
On Walking Backwards	p. 398
Cemetery Nights	p. 399
Father, Mother, Robert Henley who hanged himself in the ninth grade, et al	p. 400
Resurrection	p. 400
Eden Rock	p. 401
When I Died	p. 402
All Souls'	p. 402
from Lessons	p. 403
Where Souls Go	p. 405
The Wild Iris	p. 406
Ophelia's Confession	p. 407
Antarctica	p. 408
Why Brownlee Left	p. 408
Robinson	p. 409
Folderol	p. 410
Tracks	p. 410
Night and the House	p. 411
I Know a Man	p. 411
Distant howling	p. 412
Me, the Earth, the Universe
Homage to Isaac Newton	p. 414
New Gravity	p. 414
Morning	p. 414
Making for Planet Alice	p. 415
Brief reflection on accuracy	p. 416
Zoom!	p. 417
from Lightenings	p. 418
On the Uncountable Nature of Things	p. 418
The Sun Underfoot among the Sundews	p. 420
"I stretch my arms"	p. 421
A Downward Look	p. 421
I Am the Song	p. 422
from Games	p. 422
Earth	p. 423
Waking	p. 423
Places We Love	p. 424
Moorland	p. 424
Three Ways of Looking at God	p. 425
The Avatar	p. 426
Sacrament	p. 426
Journey of the Magi	p. 427
The Snow Man	p. 428
Sanctity	p. 428
Via Negativa	p. 429
To the One Upstairs	p. 429
Moment	p. 430
El Hombre	p. 430
Delay	p. 431
Summer farm	p. 431
Tinily a star goes down	p. 432
Star Whisper	p. 432
from Zero Gravity	p. 433
Rent	p. 434
Full Moon	p. 435
Preparation for the Big Emptiness	p. 435
The Shampoo	p. 436
Mountains	p. 437
The Other Side of the Mountain	p. 437
The art of poetry
from Songs from Below	p. 440
Ars Poetica	p. 441
The Beast in the Space	p. 442
An Exchange of Gifts	p. 443
Note to the reader: this is not a poem	p. 443
Meditation at Lagunitas	p. 444
"Once I got a postcard..."	p. 445
from March 1979	p. 445
Animal Languages	p. 446
The story of a story	p. 446
Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself	p. 447
Detail	p. 448
O	p. 448
Eating Poetry	p. 449
The Painter Dreaming in the Scholar's House	p. 450
Epilogue	p. 453
Oatmeal	p. 454
Consider the Grass Growing	p. 455
Note	p. 455
Postscript	p. 456
Late Fragment	p. 456
The Sound of Poetry	p. 458
Glossary	p. 464
Acknowledgments	p. 471
Index of writers	p. 481
Index of titles & first lines	p. 487
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.