Curriculum Vitae

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1. Curriculum Vitae 1992 1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea. 2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into Confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of Course I do not remember this. 3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The World I lived in had a soft […]...
2. Taedium Vitae To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear This paltry age’s gaudy livery, To let each base hand filch my treasury, To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair, And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom, – I swear I love it not! these things are less to me Than the thin foam that frets […]...
3. Ghosts in Love “Tell me, where do ghosts in love Find their bridal veils?” “If you and I were ghosts in love We’d climb the cliffs of Mystery, Above the sea of Wails. I’d trim your gray and streaming hair With veils of Fantasy From the tree of Memory. ‘Tis there the ghosts that fall in love Find […]...
4. Ghosts Some ghosts are women, Neither abstract nor pale, Their breasts as limp as killed fish. Not witches, but ghosts Who come, moving their useless arms Like forsaken servants. Not all ghosts are women, I have seen others; Fat, white-bellied men, Wearing their genitals like old rags. Not devils, but ghosts. This one thumps barefoot, lurching […]...
5. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
6. A Garden In Chicago In the mid-city, under an oiled sky, I lay in a garden of such dusky green It seemed the dregs of the imagination. Hedged round by elegant spears of iron fence My face became a moon to absent suns. A low heat beat upon my reading face; There rose no roses in that gritty place […]...
7. On Being Born The Same Exact Day Of The Same Exact Year As Boy George We must have clamored for the same mother, hurried for the same womb. I know it now as I read that my birthday is his. Since the first time I saw his picture, I sensed something- And with a fierce bonding and animosity Began following his career. Look where I am and look where he […]...
8. Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate: I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate. They are not long, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream. [The title […]...
9. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
10. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
11. Margaret Fuller Slack I would have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep-set eyes Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, […]...
12. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
13. Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face Be glad your nose is on your face, Not pasted on some other place, For if it were where it is not, You might dislike your nose a lot. Imagine if your precious nose Were sandwiched in between your toes, That clearly would not be a treat, For you’d be forced to smell your feet. […]...
14. The Father Of Toads A man had just delivered a toad from his wife’s armpit. He Held it by its legs and spanked it. Do you love it? said his wife. It’s our child, isn’t it? Does that mean you can’t love it? she said. It’s hard enough to love a toad, but when it turns out to be […]...
15. An Address to the Rev. George Gilfillan All hail to the Rev. George Gilfillan of Dundee, He is the greatest preacher I did ever hear or see. He is a man of genius bright, And in him his congregation does delight, Because they find him to be honest and plain, Affable in temper, and seldom known to complain. He preaches in a […]...
16. My Nose Is Growing Old Yup. A long lazy September look In the mirror Say it’s true. I’m 31 And my nose is growing Old. It starts about 1/2 An inch Below the bridge And strolls geriatrically Down For another inch or so: Stopping. Fortunately, the rest Of the nose is comparatively Young. I wonder if girls Will want me […]...
17. Adelaide Crapsey AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July, I read your heart in a book. And your mouth of blue pansy-I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered. And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held […]...
18. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
19. Chamfort THERE’S Chamfort. He’s a sample. Locked himself in his library with a gun, Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye. And this Chamfort knew how to write And thousands read his books on how to live, But he himself didn’t know How to die by force of his own hand see? They […]...
20. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
21. Halloween The butcher knife goes in, first, at the top And carves out the round stemmed lid, The hole of which allows the hand to go In to pull the gooey mess inside, out – The walls scooped clean with a spoon. A grim design decided on, that afternoon, The eyes are the first to go, […]...
22. Either if you are young and bright At one and twenty, go to a: If you are old and gray At one and sixty, see b: A) Scorn these lines, Forget the book Put it lofty Things that matter Are now and here: Pleasure and glory Indulge with time Wallow with energy B) Take down this […]...
23. Why Washington Retreated 1775 Said Congress to George Washington: “To set this country free, You’ll have to whip the Britishers And chase them o’er the sea.” “Oh, very well,” said Washington, “I’ll do the best I can. I’ll slam and bang those Britishers And whip them to a man.” 1777 Said Congress to George Washington: “The people all […]...
24. How Much More Blood? How much more blood Must the people suffer Before they come to a halt With this horror of power? How many more lives Do we have to proffer ’till cloyed they are forever With terror manufacture? (November 1998)...
25. Lobster For Lunch His face was like a lobster red, His legs were white as mayonnaise: “I’ve had a jolly lunch,” he said, That Englishman of pleasant ways. “Thy do us well at our hotel: In England food is dull these days.” “We had a big langouste for lunch. I almost ate the whole of it. And now […]...
26. The Long-Nosed Fair Once on a time I fair Dorinda kiss’d, Whose nose was too distinguish’d to be miss’d; My dear, says I, I fain would kiss you closer, But tho’ your lips say aye your nose says, no, Sir. The maid was equally to fun inclin’d, And plac’d her lovely lily-hand behind; Here, swain, she cry’d, may’st […]...
27. So Far and So Far, and on Toward the End SO far, and so far, and on toward the end, Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of me; But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity, Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired, (Did you think the sun was shining its brightest? No-it […]...
28. Alix THE MARE Alix breaks the world’s trotting record one day. I see her heels flash down the dust of an Illinois race track on a summer afternoon. I see the timekeepers put their heads together over stopwatches, and call to the grand stand a split second is clipped off the old world’s record and a […]...
29. Two Strangers Breakfast THE LAW says you and I belong to each other, George. The law says you are mine and I am yours, George. And there are a million miles of white snowstorms, a million furnaces of hell, Between the chair where you sit and the chair where I sit. The law says two strangers shall eat […]...
30. The Englishman St George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon He drank a pint of English ale Out of an English flagon. For though he fast right readily In hair-shirt or in mail, It isn’t safe to give him cakes Unless you give him ale. St George he was for England, And right […]...
31. Oh, Oh, You Will Be Sorry Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word! Give me back my book and take my kiss instead. Was it my enemy or my friend I heard, “What a big book for such a little head!” Come, I will show you now my newest hat, And you may watch me purse my mouth and […]...
32. High Conspiratorial Person OUT of the testimony of such reluctant lips, out of the oaths and mouths of such scrupulous liars, out of perjurers whose hands swore by God to the white sun before all men, Out of a rag saturated with smears and smuts gathered from the footbaths of kings and the loin cloths of whores, from […]...
33. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
34. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
35. The Seed-At-Zero The seed-at-zero shall not storm That town of ghosts, the trodden womb, With her rampart to his tapping, No god-in-hero tumble down Like a tower on the town Dumbly and divinely stumbling Over the manwaging line. The seed-at-zero shall not storm That town of ghosts, the manwaged tomb With her rampart to his tapping, No […]...
36. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
37. Ralph Rhodes All they said was true: I wrecked my father’s bank with my loans To dabble in wheat; but this was true I was buying wheat for him as well, Who couldn’t margin the deal in his name Because of his church relationship. And while George Reece was serving his term I chased the will-o’-the-wisp of […]...
38. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
39. 391. A Tippling Ballad-When Princes and Prelates, etc WHEN Princes and Prelates, And hot-headed zealots, A’ Europe had set in a low, a low, The poor man lies down, Nor envies a crown, And comforts himself as he dow, as he dow, And comforts himself as he dow. The black-headed eagle, As keen as a beagle, He hunted o’er height and o’er howe, […]...
40. Flash Crimson I SHALL cry God to give me a broken foot. I shall ask for a scar and a slashed nose. I shall take the last and the worst. I shall be eaten by gray creepers in a bunkhouse where no runners of the sun come and no dogs live. And yet-of all “and yets” this […]...