Rust Belt Americana

Searching for Pittsburgh
Going there
To see if something comes next
Finding something
How to love the dead

A year later
Explicating the twilight
What is there to say?
A ghost sings, a door opens
The container for the thing contained

Older women
Carrying torches at noon
Tear it down

The white heart of God
Almost happy



From the title index of The Great Fires, Jack Gilbert (Alfred A Knopf, 2008). Submitted by Howie Good.

The Empty Bell

No spring this evening
It is indeed autumn that returns
Face diluted in water

The lights are all out
Nothing stays anymore
Not a footprint
Nothing but blue spots in the corner of a sheet
The color which night decomposes

Rise up carcass and walk



Index of first lines in Pierre Reverdy: Selected Poems, translated by Kenneth Rexroth (New Directions, 1969). Submitted by Howie Good.

I, Emily Dickinson

1
I am afraid to own a body
I am alive I guess
I am ashamed, I hide
I asked no other thing

I bet with every wind that blew
I breathed enough to take the trick
I bring an unaccustomed wine
I came to buy a smile today

I can wade grief
I cannot be ashamed
I cannot buy it, ‘tis not sold
I cannot dance upon my toes

I cannot live with you
I cannot meet the spring unmoved
I cannot see my soul but know ‘tis there
I cannot want it more

2
I can’t tell you but you feel it
I cautious scanned my little life
I could bring you jewels had I a mind to
I could die to know

I could not drink it, sweet
I could not prove the years had feet
I could suffice for him, I knew
I counted till they danced so

I cried at pity, not at pain
I cross till I am weary
I did not reach thee
I died for beauty, but was scarce

I dreaded that first robin so
I dwell in possibility
I envy seas whereon he rides
I fear a man of frugal speech

3
I felt a cleaving in my mind
I felt a funeral in my brain
I felt my life with both my hands
I fit for them

I found the words to every thought
I gained it so
I gave myself to him
I got so I could take his name

I groped for him before I knew
I had a daily bliss
I had a guinea gold
I had been hungry all the years

I had no cause to be awake
I had no time to hate
I had not minded walls
I had some things that I called mine

4
I had the glory – that will do
I have a bird in spring
I have a king who does not speak
I have never seen “Volcanoes”

I have no like but this
I haven’t told my garden yet
I heard a fly buzz when I died
I heard as if I had no ear

I held a jewel in my fingers
I hide myself within my flower
I keep my pledge
I knew that I had gained

I know a place where summer strives
I know lives, I could miss
I know of people in the grave
I know some lonely houses off the road

5
I know suspense – it steps so terse
I know that he exists
I know where wells grow, droughtless wells
I learned at least what home could be

I like a look of agony
I like to see it lap the miles
I live with him, I see his face
I lived on dread

I lost the world the other day
I made slow riches but my gain
I make his crescent fill or lack
I many times thought peace had come

I meant to find her when I came
I meant to have but modest needs
I measure every grief I meet
I met a king this afternoon

6
I never felt at home below
I never hear that one is dead
I never hear the word “escape”
I never lost as much but twice

I never saw a moor
I never told the buried gold
I noticed people disappeared
I often passed the village

I pay in satin cash
I play at riches to appease
I prayed at first a little girl
I read my sentence steadily

I reason earth is short
I reckon when I count at all
I robbed the woods
I rose because he sank

7
I saw no way – the heavens were stitched
I saw that the flake was on it
I saw the wind within her
I see thee better in the dark

I see thee clearer for the grave
I send two sunsets
I send you a decrepit flower
I shall keep singing

I shall know why, when time is over
I shall not murmur if at last
I should have been too glad, I see
I should not dare to be so sad

I should not dare to leave my friend
I showed her heights she never saw
I sing to use the waiting
I sometimes drop it, for a quick

8
I started early, took my dog
I stepped from plank to plank
I stole them from a bee
I sued the news, yet feared the news

I suppose the time will come
I taste a liquor never brewed
I tend my flowers for thee
I think I was enchanted

I think just how my shape will rise
I think that the root of the wind is water
I think the hemlock likes to stand
I think the longest hour of all

I think to live may be a bliss
I thought that nature was enough
I thought the train would never come
I tie my hat, I crease my shawl

9
I took my power in my hand
I took one draught of life
I tried to think a lonelier thing
“I want” – it pleaded all its life

I was a phoebe, nothing more
I was the slightest in the house
I watched her face to see which way
I watched the moon around the house

I went to heaven
I went to thank her
I worked for chaff and earning wheat
I would distil a cup

I would not paint a picture
I years had been from home



All the lines beginning with the first person pronoun 'I' from the Index of First Lines, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by Thomas H. Johnson (Little, Brown and Company, 1960). Submitted by J.R. Solonche.

Blue Sunday

When I look in the mirror
Who is there?

Shadow kisses, shadow love.
Time like glass.

Nobody but me
Can know the sorrow
That wrings me.

The lightning does not go out.

I wish I could be
The cherry
As spring comes on.



From the index of first lines in Kenneth Rexroth, New Poems (New Directions, 1974). Submitted by Howie Good.

Women

‘beautiful’ changing to ‘good’ after thirty
to be kept busy
capacity for sex
escaping from men
locking up; but who will guard the guardians?



Taken from the subheadings under "women" in the index of Michael Montaigne's The Essays: A Selection (Penguin: 1994), p445. Submitted by Jenny Williams.

Dry

domain-specific language (DSL), 367
"Don't repeat yourself" (DRY) principle, 383, 390
DoPasswordChange() method, 476
DoSomething action, 308

double curly braces ({{}}), 229
drop-down lists, 336-338
DRY ("Don't repeat yourself") principle, 383, 390
DSL (domain-specific language), 367

Duration parameter, 301
dynamic content, 547
dynamic output, 22
dynamically typed variable, 73

E
echoes back, 463



From the index of Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework by Steve Sanderson. Not the first time his book has featured. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.