O-Jazz-O

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1. Bedtime Story The moon lies on the river Like a drop of oil. The children come to the banks to be healed Of their wounds and bruises. The fathers who gave them their wounds and bruises Come to be healed of their rage. The mothers grow lovely; their faces soften, The birds in their throats awake. They […]...
2. Jazz Chick Music from her breast, vibrating Soundseared into burnished velvet. Silent hips deceiving fools. Rivulets of trickling ecstacy From the alabaster pools of Jazz Where music cools hot souls. Eyes more articulately silent Than Medusa’s thousand tongues. A bridge of eyes, consenting smiles Reveal her presence singing Of cool remembrance, happy balls Wrapped in swinging Jazz […]...
3. Sweet Briars of the Stairways We are happy all the time Even when we fight: Sweet briars of the stairways, Gay fairies of the grime; We, who are playing to-night. “Our feet are in the gutters, Our eyes are sore with dust, But still our eyes are bright. The wide street roars and mutters – We know it works because […]...
4. Death Death is a road our dearest friends have gone; Why with such leaders, fear to say, “Lead on?” Its gate repels, lest it too soon be tried, But turns in balm on the immortal side. Mothers have passed it: fathers, children; men Whose like we look not to behold again; Women that smiled away their […]...
5. I Fellowed Sleep I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain, Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper’s eye, Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon. So, planning-heeled, I flew along my man And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky. I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather, Reaching a second ground […]...
6. Blacklisted WHY shall I keep the old name? What is a name anywhere anyway? A name is a cheap thing all fathers and mothers leave Each child: A job is a job and I want to live, so Why does God Almighty or anybody else care whether I take a new name to go by?...
7. Jazz Fantasia DRUM on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen. Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper. Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops, moan soft like […]...
8. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
9. Mothers Are a Special Gift Mothers are a special gift sent From God above, They bless us with their nurturing, And fill us with their love. They pick us up when we are down, And when we’re sad they know, They’re always there to lend a hand, And guide us as we go. And mothers are like special jewels That […]...
10. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
11. The Line-Gang Here come the line-gang pioneering by, They throw a forest down less cut than broken. They plant dead trees for living, and the dead They string together with a living thread. They string an instrument against the sky Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken Will run as hushed as when they were a thought […]...
12. Song Of The Orphan I am no one and never will be anyone, For I am far too small to claim to be; Not even later. Mothers and Fathers, Take pity on me. I fear it will not pay to raise me: I shall fall victim to the mower’s scythe. No one can find me useful now: I am […]...
13. The Sun kept setting setting still The Sun kept setting setting still No Hue of Afternoon Upon the Village I perceived From House to House ’twas Noon The Dusk kept dropping dropping still No Dew upon the Grass But only on my Forehead stopped And wandered in my Face My Feet kept drowsing drowsing still My fingers were awake Yet why […]...
14. THE CHEAT OF CUPID; OR, THE UNGENTLE GUEST One silent night of late, When every creature rested, Came one unto my gate, And knocking, me molested. Who’s that, said I, beats there, And troubles thus the sleepy? Cast off; said he, all fear, And let not locks thus keep ye. For I a boy am, who By moonless nights have swerved; And all […]...
15. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
16. The Curse Of Cromwell You ask what – I have found, and far and wide I go: Nothing but Cromwell’s house and Cromwell’s murderous crew, The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay, And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen, where are they? And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride – […]...
17. Of Modern Poetry The poem of the mind in the act of finding What will suffice. It has not always had To find: the scene was set; it repeated what Was in the script. Then the theatre was changed To something else. Its past was a souvenir. It has to be living, to learn the speech of the […]...
18. Come down, O Maid COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; And come, for Love […]...
19. " I'm A Jazz Singer, " She Replied He dug what she said: Bright jellies, smooth marmalade Spread on warm brown bread. “Jazz” from drowsy lips Orchids lift to honeybees Floating on long sips. “Jazz”: quick fingerpops Pancake on a griddle-top Of memories. Stop. “Jazz”: mysterious As nutmeg, missing fingers, Gold, Less serious. “Jazz”: cool bannister. Don’t need no stair. Ways to climb […]...
20. The Wander-Light And they heard the tent-poles clatter, And the fly in twain was torn – ‘Tis the soiled rag of a tatter Of the tent where I was born. And what matters it, I wonder? Brick or stone or calico? – Or a bush you were born under, When it happened long ago? And my beds […]...
21. Remember at seventeen Was i, So old So young. And It was there I first met war. I saw their broken eyes Those that returned From vietnam, A (so called) American war. They were the children I knew, Broken as toys Discarded into The lost echoes Of a history, Now unwritten In our schools. Sweet children […]...
22. Always Unsuitable She wore little teeth of pearls around her neck. They were grinning politely and evenly at me. Unsuitable they smirked. It is true I look a stuffed turkey in a suit. Breasts Too big for the silhouette. She knew At once that we had sex, lots of it As if I had strolled into her […]...
23. Hamlet Off-Stage: Hambeau Heartbroke Horny Ophelia claims we’re dead and gives me back All my Frank Zappa and the Mothers albums. I nearly claw out of my shell and say, “You can’t,” but for a moment I’ve nothing To quote. I’m rot, mortis of broken heart. Hog wash! Lovers don’t die of broken hearts. Lovebirds perish because of broken heads, […]...
24. Sonnet 43 – How do I love thee? Let me count the ways How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee […]...
25. 169. Address to Wm. Tytler, Esq., of Woodhouselee REVERED defender of beauteous Stuart, Of Stuart, a name once respected; A name, which to love was the mark of a true heart, But now ’tis despis’d and neglected. Tho’ something like moisture conglobes in my eye, Let no one misdeem me disloyal; A poor friendless wand’rer may well claim a sigh, Still more if […]...
26. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
27. Outcast For the dim regions whence my fathers came My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs. Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame; My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs. I would go back to darkness and to peace, But the great western world holds me in fee, And I may never hope for […]...
28. The Olive Garden (Rainer Maria Rilke) He went up under the gray leaves All gray and lost in the olive lands And laid his forehead, gray with dust, Deep in the dustiness of his hot hands. After everything this. And this was the end. Now I must go, as I am going blind. And why is it Thy […]...
29. The Fathers Our fathers all were poor, Poorer our fathers’ fathers; Beyond, we dare not look. We, the sons, keep store Of tarnished gold that gathers Around us from the night, Record it in this book That, when the line is drawn, Credit and creditor gone, Column and figure flown, Will open into light. Archaic fevers shake […]...
30. The Silent Melody “BRING me my broken harp,” he said; “We both are wrecks, but as ye will, Though all its ringing tones have fled, Their echoes linger round it still; It had some golden strings, I know, But that was long how long! ago. “I cannot see its tarnished gold, I cannot hear its vanished tone, Scarce […]...
31. Lost Star When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first Splendor, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang ‘Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!’ But one cried of a sudden -‘It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light And one of the […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
34. The Earth Falls Down If I could blame it all on the weather, The snow like the cadaver’s table, The trees turned into knitting needles, The ground as hard as a frozen haddock, The pond wearing its mustache of frost. If I could blame conditions on that, If I could blame the hearts of strangers Striding muffled down the […]...
35. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
36. I Am Not Yours I am not yours, not lost in you, Not lost, although I long to be Lost as a candle lit at noon, Lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still A spirit beautiful and bright, Yet I am I, who long to be Lost as a light is […]...
37. At the Vietnam War Memorial Black granite stretches its harsh, tapering wings Up to pedestrian-level grass But sucks me down, here, at the intersection of names. I forgive, I must, though I wish something Could heal this wound in the earth. Behold, all theorists, the price of theory: Extreme unction by napalm and blood, Vets shipped home whole or in […]...
38. At the sixty-ninth station (after hiroshige – stations of oi) Here at the sixty-ninth station Of the gregokaido road I have a sense of completion That is not completed yet The long journey to this moment Has many disparate paths Fragments of people within me Have stuttered their broken mantras What a bowl of uneasy pieces Litters the well […]...
39. Psalm 39 part 3 v.9-13 C. M. Sick-bed devotion. God of my life, look gently down, Behold the pains I feel; But I am dumb before thy throne, Nor dare dispute thy will. Diseases are thy servants, Lord, They come at thy command; I’ll not attempt a murm’ring word Against thy chast’ning hand. Yet I may plead with humble […]...
40. The Wooden Toy 1 The brightly-painted horse Had a boy’s face, And four small wheels Under his feet, Plus a long string To pull him by this way and that Across the floor, Should you care to. A string in-waiting That slipped away In many wiles From each and every try. 2 Knock and they’ll answer, Mother told […]...