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When the world was loveliness I was

A composer, Borodin, my left eye

Level with the floor beside toy men.

Wild work and havoc they made,

Being glad. I could draw a line

Would run straight through the minds of men,

Being a sociable angel,

Music before and after, blushing.

Heaven is a nonsense entirely sensible.

I was a child on the floor beside you,

Making music, becoming small in the rosy

Embrace of God’s best messenger.

I loved your havoc and your hair.

Source: Poetry (November 2012).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the November 2012 issue of Poetry magazine

• A Postmodern Two-Step
  by Reginald Dwayne Betts
• Pome
  by Elizabeth Spires
• The Magic Trick
  by Nicholas Friedman

• November 2012 Table of Contents
• Subscribe to Poetry magazine
• About Poetry magazine
• Buy This Issue

More about this poem

Biography

Born in the Bronx, Donald Revell received his PhD at SUNY Buffalo and is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, translations, and essays. Steeped in the work of Henry David Thoreau and William Carlos Williams, Revell’s poetry is “seriously Christian but not doctrinaire, mystical without setting intellect aside, angry over political matters without ever growing stale or shrill, and more often joyful than any other . . .

Continue reading this biography

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Poems by Donald Revell

• “Birds small enough...”
• “Some motionless conflict in the sky...”
• “Unreal precision of the houses...”
• Against Pluralism
• Death

• More poems by Donald Revell (14 poems)
  • Elegy a Little
  • Homage to John Frederick Peto
  • Last
  • My Trip
  • Odysseus Hears of the Death of Kalypso
  • The Children
  • The Northeast Corridor
  • Vietnam Epic Treatment
  • Warm Days in January

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Arts & Sciences, Music

POET’S REGION U.S., Southwestern

Poetic Terms Free Verse

If you disagree with this poem's categorization, make a suggestion.

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Related

Audio

• Poem of the Day: Death
• Poem of the Day: Elegy a Little
• Poem of the Day: An Instrument Also
• Poem of the Day: Odysseus Hears of the Death of Kalypso
• The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Our Birds, Our Selves
• Poem of the Day: Survey
• Poem of the Day: Vietnam Epic Treatment

Articles

• Donald Revell: “The Northeast Corridor” by Stephen Burt
• Eight Takes: Hamilton, Bierds, Jordan, Barbarese, Revell, Palmer, Espaillat, Hix by Dan Chiasson
• Four Takes by D. H. Tracy

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