Crapshooters

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1. Real Estate News ARMOUR AVENUE was the name of this street and door signs on empty houses read “The Silver Dollar,” “Swede Annie” and the Christian names of madams such as “Myrtle” and “Jenny.” Scrap iron, rags and bottles fill the front rooms hither and yon and signs in Yiddish say Abe Kaplan & Co. are running junk […]...
2. Let Love Go On LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone. Time runs with an ax and a hammer, time slides down the hallways with a pass-key and a master-key, and time gets by, time wins. Let the […]...
3. Thy Name My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I will declare thy name unto my brethren…. Psalm 102 OK. Let’s not call what ditched us God: Ghu, the root in Sanskrit, means not God, But only the calling thereupon. Let’s call God Fun. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word Was Fun. […]...
4. Song's Eternity What is song’s eternity? Come and see. Can it noise and bustle be? Come and see. Praises sung or praises said Can it be? Wait awhile and these are dead – Sigh, sigh; Be they high or lowly bred They die. What is song’s eternity? Come and see. Melodies of earth and sky, Here they […]...
5. What a weekend What a weekend, it certainly defied all the pundits’ trends, The ‘World Game’ French were trashed by Versace and petulance, The Wallabies by a graphic haka, while Wimbledon saw the Amazon’s Revenge and Switzerland’s answer was Roger Federer in eminence. It is now good news that the Socceroos are an ascending star, How far they […]...
6. During Wind And Rain They sing their dearest songs He, she, all of them yea, Treble and tenor and bass, And one to play; With the candles mooning each face…. Ah, no; the years O! How the sick leaves reel down in throngs! They clear the creeping moss Elders and juniors aye, Making the pathways neat And the garden […]...
7. Stars, Songs, Faces GATHER the stars if you wish it so. Gather the songs and keep them. Gather the faces of women. Gather for keeping years and years. And then… Loosen your hands, let go and say good-by. Let the stars and songs go. Let the faces and years go. Loosen your hands and say good-by....
8. The Red Son I LOVE your faces I saw the many years I drank your milk and filled my mouth With your home talk, slept in your house And was one of you. But a fire burns in my heart. Under the ribs where pulses thud And flitting between bones of skull Is the push, the endless mysterious […]...
9. Languages THERE are no handles upon a language Whereby men take hold of it And mark it with signs for its remembrance. It is a river, this language, Once in a thousand years Breaking a new course Changing its way to the ocean. It is mountain effluvia Moving to valleys And from nation to nation Crossing […]...
10. The Reckoning It’s fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant, With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want; To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass, Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass. It’s bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill, […]...
11. Come hither, child Come hither, child who gifted thee With power to touch that string so well? How darest thou rouse up thoughts in me, Thoughts that I would but cannot quell? Nay, chide not, lady; long ago I heard those notes in Ula’s hall, And had I known they’d waken woe I’d weep their music to recall. […]...
12. Sonnet VIII Oft as by chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw […]...
13. Souvenirs of Democracy THE business man, the acquirer vast, After assiduous years, surveying results, preparing for departure, Devises houses and lands to his children-bequeaths stocks, goods-funds for a school or hospital, Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems and gold; Parceling out with care-And then, to prevent all cavil, His name to his testament […]...
14. Music on Christmas Morning Music I love -­ but never strain Could kindle raptures so divine, So grief assuage, so conquer pain, And rouse this pensive heart of mine -­ As that we hear on Christmas morn, Upon the wintry breezes borne. Though Darkness still her empire keep, And hours must pass, ere morning break; From troubled dreams, or […]...
15. Music Swims Back To Me Wait Mister. Which way is home? They turned the light out And the dark is moving in the corner. There are no sign posts in this room, Four ladies, over eighty, In diapers every one of them. La la la, Oh music swims back to me And I can feel the tune they played The […]...
16. Grass PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is […]...
17. Autumn And Winter Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon Between two dates of death, while men were fain Yet of the living light that all too soon Three months bade wane. Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain, Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune That death smote silent when he […]...
18. 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 […]...
19. Anthem The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don’t dwell on what Has passed away Or what is yet to be. Ah the wars they will Be fought again The holy dove She will be caught again Bought and sold And bought again The dove is never free. […]...
20. One Way Of Love All June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves And strew them where Pauline may pass. She will not turn aside? Alas! Let them lie. Suppose they die? The chance was they might take her eye. II. How many a month I strove to suit These stubborn fingers […]...
21. Refrain Of all the songs which poets sing The ones which are most sweet Are those which at close intervals A low refrain repeat; Some tender word, some syllable, Over and over, ever and ever, While the song lasts, Altering never, Music if sung, music if said, Subtle like some golden thread A shuttle casts, In […]...
22. The Andante of Snakes They weave a slow andante as in sleep, Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep A treachery of silence; infinite Ancestral angers brood in these dull eyes Where the long-lineaged venom of the snake Meditates evil; woven intricacies Of Oriental arabesque awake, Unfold, expand, contract, and raise […]...
23. Early Nightingale When first we hear the shy-come nightingales, They seem to mutter o’er their songs in fear, And, climb we e’er so soft the spinney rails, All stops as if no bird was anywhere. The kindled bushes with the young leaves thin Let curious eyes to search a long way in, Until impatience cannot see or […]...
24. Who am I? My head knocks against the stars. My feet are on the hilltops. My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of Universal life. Down in the sounding foam of primal things I Reach my hands and play with pebbles of Destiny. I have been to hell and back many times. I know all about heaven, […]...
25. Sonnet 26 – I lived with visions for my company I lived with visions for my company Instead of men and women, years ago, And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know A sweeter music than they played to me. But soon their trailing purple was not free Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow, And I myself grew faint and blind […]...
26. A Nursery Darling A Mother’s breast: Safe refuge from her childish fears, From childish troubles, childish tears, Mists that enshroud her dawning years! See how in sleep she seems to sing A voiceless psalm an offering Raised, to the glory of her King In Love: for Love is Rest. A Darling’s kiss: Dearest of all the signs that […]...
27. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
28. Talking To Little Birdies Not a peep out of you now After the bedlam early this morning. Are you begging pardon of me Hidden up there among the leaves, Or are your brains momentarily overtaxed? You savvy a few things I don’t: The overlooked sunflower seed worth a holler; The traffic of cats in the yard; Strangers leaving the […]...
29. Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation How should the world be luckier if this house, Where passion and precision have been one Time out of mind, became too ruinous To breed the lidleSs eye that loves the sun? And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow Where wings have memory of wings, and all That comes of the best knit to […]...
30. On A Picture Screen Whence these twelve peaks of Wu-shan! Have they flown into the gorgeous screen From heaven’s one corner? Ah, those lonely pines murmuring in the wind! Those palaces of Yang-tai, hovering yonder- Oh, the melancholy of it!- Where the jeweled couch of the king With brocade covers is desolate,- His elfin maid voluptuously fair Still haunting […]...
31. Little Birds Little Birds are dining Warily and well, Hid in mossy cell: Hid, I say, by waiters Gorgeous in their gaiters – I’ve a Tale to tell. Little Birds are feeding Justices with jam, Rich in frizzled ham: Rich, I say, in oysters Haunting shady cloisters – That is what I am. Little Birds are teaching […]...
32. Hard Luck Ain’t no use as I can see In sittin’ underneath a tree An’ growlin’ that your luck is bad, An’ that your life is extry sad; Your life ain’t sadder than your neighbor’s Nor any harder are your labors; It rains on him the same as you, An’ he has work he hates to do; […]...
33. Implications of One Plus One Sometimes we collide, tectonic plates merging, Continents shoving, crumpling down into the molten Veins of fire deep in the earth and raising Tons of rock into jagged crests of Sierra. Sometimes your hands drift on me, milkweed’s Airy silk, wingtip’s feathery caresses, Our lips grazing, a drift of desires gathering Like fog over warm water, […]...
34. Music's Empire First was the world as one great cymbal made, Where jarring winds to infant Nature played. All music was a solitary sound, To hollow rocks and murm’ring fountains bound. Jubal first made the wilder notes agree; And Jubal tuned music’s Jubilee; He call’d the echoes from their sullen cell, And built the organ’s city where […]...
35. Sing Sing Music Was Given Sing sing Music was given To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving; Souls here, like planets in heaven, By harmony’s laws alone are kept moving. Beauty may boast of her eyes and her cheeks, But Love from the lips his true archery wings; And she, who but feathers the dart when she speaks, At […]...
36. Our March Beat the squares with the tramp of rebels! Higher, rangers of haughty heads! We’ll wash the world with a second deluge, Now’s the hour whose coming it dreads. Too slow, the wagon of years, The oxen of days – too glum. Our god is the god of speed, Our heart – our battle drum. Is […]...
37. Grace Before Song Lord God of heaven that with mercy dight Th’alternate prayer wheel of the night and light Eternal hath to thee, and in whose sight Our days as rain drops in the sea surge fall, As bright white drops upon a leaden sea Grant so my songs to this grey folk may be: As drops that […]...
38. Or from that Sea of Time 1 OR, from that Sea of Time, Spray, blown by the wind-a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells; (O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless! Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held, Murmurs and echoes still bring up-Eternity’s music, faint and far, Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica’s rim-strains for the […]...
39. The Amaranth Ah, in the night, all music haunts me here. . . . Is it for naught high Heaven cracks and yawns And the tremendous Amaranth descends Sweet with the glory of ten thousand dawns? Does it not mean my God would have me say: – “Whether you will or no, O city young, Heaven will […]...
40. The God Abandons Antony When suddenly, at midnight, you hear An invisible procession going by With exquisite music, voices, Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, Work gone wrong, your plans All proving deceptive don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, Say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool […]...