Larry Eigner circa 1950
From the sustaining air
from the sustaining air
fresh air
There is the clarity of a shore
And shadow, mostly, brilliance
summer
the billows of August
When, wandering, I look from my page
I say nothing
when asked
I am, finally, an incompetent, after all
so the words go up
so the words go up
into thin air
parlor the speaking
room
birds pass the window
a plane lengthens through fog
or cloud bends away
the curves together
the phone the hallway
all my life
Old Man
two big pigeons on the new roof
below which he grew corn
ten years back, one year .
the wind like an ocean
the wind like an ocean
but sometimes the sun stills it
and the surface is solid
why shouldn't life pass as in a dream
or a dream itself, there are different degrees
or different dreams reality
at one with a dream
the naked sea
stinking
is fresh
in time,
(o shut your eyes against the wind
All Intents
once a man is born he has to die
and that is time, the
position of the moon
the earth is never still in one spot
or perhaps it is, it is
(part way
it is round
and we are always here
though every sound perhaps not
but here we are, we are
stand on one foot
stand on one foot
like a tree
the law
is
gulls change
the angle
air
pressing through leaf
you cannot mount
the green
sound of
small world of stars
A bird flies under
leaves close
in the heavy day-long rain
still keeping up
the roofs glistening
____________________
Selected Poems / Larry Eigner
edited by Samuel Charters & Andrea Wyatt
Oyez 1971
"Larry Eigner (1927–1996) wrote over three thousand poems on a manual Royal typewriter (a bar mitzvah gift) with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Disabled by a forceps injury at birth, Eigner lived with cerebral palsy his whole life; able to walk only with support or assistance, he made his way through the world in a wheelchair. Until his father died and his mother was too old to care for him, he lived at home in Swampscott, Massachusetts, writing many of his poems in the glassed-in front porch that served as his office. In 1978, Eigner relocated to Berkeley, California, at first living in a communal house for adults with disabilities and then residing with poet-friends, mainly Robert Grenier and Kathleen Frumkin, who also served as his caregivers. "
— George Hart
is fresh
in time,
(o shut your eyes against the wind
All Intents
once a man is born he has to die
and that is time, the
position of the moon
the earth is never still in one spot
or perhaps it is, it is
(part way
it is round
and we are always here
though every sound perhaps not
but here we are, we are
stand on one foot
stand on one foot
like a tree
the law
is
gulls change
the angle
air
pressing through leaf
you cannot mount
the green
sound of
small world of stars
A bird flies under
leaves close
in the heavy day-long rain
still keeping up
the roofs glistening
____________________
Selected Poems / Larry Eigner
edited by Samuel Charters & Andrea Wyatt
Oyez 1971
"Larry Eigner (1927–1996) wrote over three thousand poems on a manual Royal typewriter (a bar mitzvah gift) with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Disabled by a forceps injury at birth, Eigner lived with cerebral palsy his whole life; able to walk only with support or assistance, he made his way through the world in a wheelchair. Until his father died and his mother was too old to care for him, he lived at home in Swampscott, Massachusetts, writing many of his poems in the glassed-in front porch that served as his office. In 1978, Eigner relocated to Berkeley, California, at first living in a communal house for adults with disabilities and then residing with poet-friends, mainly Robert Grenier and Kathleen Frumkin, who also served as his caregivers. "
— George Hart
