Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio

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1. Another Day having the low down blues and going Into a restraunt to eat. You sit at a table. The waitress smiles at you. She’s dumpy. her ass is too big. She radiates kindess and symphaty. Live with her 3 months and a man would no real agony. O. k., you’ll tip her 15 percent. You order […]...
2. I’m A Fool To Love You Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman, Some type of supernatural creature. My mother would tell you, if she could, About her life with my father, A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman. She would tell you about the choices A young black woman faces. Is falling in love with some man A […]...
3. Ohio I have questioned The loyalty Of rivers in winter, Their yearnings for oceans obstructed, Indecisive meandering Clogged by ice floes And winter drought. No Amazon or Nile Would endure this thickening Of their blood, lethargic existence Of shivering in the season, Or the final degradation Of coal barges, indifferently Scraping congealing skin. (2005)...
4. The Blues When the shoe strings break On both your shoes And you’re in a hurry- That’s the blues. When you go to buy a candy bar And you’ve lost the dime you had- Slipped through a hole in your pocket somewhere- That’s the blues, too, and bad!...
5. The Weary Blues Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway. . . He did a lazy sway. . . To the tune o’ those Weary […]...
6. Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry, Ohio In the Shreve High football stadium, I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville, And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood, And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel, Dreaming of heroes. All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home. Their women cluck like starved pullets, Dying for love. […]...
7. Oh! Weep for Those I. Oh! Weep for those that wept by Babel’s stream, Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream, Weep for the harp of Judah’s broken shell Mourn where their God that dwelt the Godless dwell! II. And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet? And when shall Zion’s songs agains seem sweet? And Judah’s melody […]...
8. Blue Winter Winter uses all the blues there are. One shade of blue for water, one for ice, Another blue for shadows over snow. The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice- Both different blues. And hills row after row Are colored blue according to how for. You know the bluejay’s double-blur device Shows best when there […]...
9. Strong Beer “What do you think The bravest drink Under the sky?” “Strong beer,” said I. “There’s a place for everything, Everything, anything, There’s a place for everything Where it ought to be: For a chicken, the hen’s wing; For poison, the bee’s sting; For almond-blossom, Spring; A beerhouse for me.” “There’s a prize for every one […]...
10. Halsted Street Car COME you, cartoonists, Hang on a strap with me here At seven o’clock in the morning On a Halsted street car. Take your pencils And draw these faces. Try with your pencils for these crooked faces, That pig-sticker in one corner his mouth That overall factory girl her loose cheeks. Find for your pencils A […]...
11. No Beer, No Work The shades of night was fallin’ slow As through New York a guy did go And nail on ev’ry barroom door A card that this here motter bore: “No beer, no work.” His brow was sad, his mouth was dry; It was the first day of July, And where, all parched and scorched it hung, […]...
12. Think Of It Not, Sweet One Think not of it, sweet one, so; – Give it not a tear; Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go Any – anywhere. Do not lool so sad, sweet one, – Sad and fadingly; Shed one drop then, – it is gone – O ’twas born to die! Still so pale? then, dearest, weep; Weep, […]...
13. Child of the Romans THE dago shovelman sits by the railroad track Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna. A train whirls by, and men and women at tables Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils, Eat steaks running with brown gravy, Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee. The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna, Washes […]...
14. Decadence Before the florid portico I watched the gamblers come and go, While by me on a bench there sat A female in a faded hat; A shabby, shrinking, crumpled creature, Of waxy casino-ward with eyes Of lost soul seeking paradise. Then from the Café de la Paix There shambled forth a waiter fellow, Clad dingily, […]...
15. My Land and I They have eaten their fill at your tables spread, Like friends since the land was won; And they rise with a cry of “Australia’s dead!” With the wheeze of “Australia’s done!” Oh, the theme is stale, but they tell the tale (How the weak old tale will keep!) Like the crows that croak on a […]...
16. Pink Champagne (for Digby Fairweather) Not blues in twelve But there is joy And pink champagne, The maker’s music Trading eights In syncopated synergy From Dixieland to Rock ‘n’ Roll, And here the cornet-master Leads in tones A trumpet cannot blow. The sidemen nod their harmonies, Engrossed; Their music coursing Through an energy of swing; Piano-player’s fingers Dancing round the […]...
17. PAULO POST FUTURI WEEP ye not, ye children dear, That as yet ye are unborn: For each sorrow and each tear Makes the father’s heart to mourn. Patient be a short time to it, Unproduced, and known to none; If your father cannot do it, By your mother ’twill be done. 1784....
18. All overgrown by cunning moss All overgrown by cunning moss, All interspersed with weed, The little cage of “Currer Bell” In quiet “Haworth” laid. Gathered from many wanderings Gethsemane can tell Thro’ what transporting anguish She reached the Asphodel! Soft falls the sounds of Eden Upon her puzzled ear Oh what an afternoon for Heaven, When “Bronte” entered there!...
19. Sonnet 122: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full charactered with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date even to eternity- Or at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to razed oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never […]...
20. Sonnet CXXII Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full character’d with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date, even to eternity; Or at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to razed oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never […]...
21. I'd Mourn the Hopes I’d mourn the hopes that leave me, If thy smiles had left me too; I’d weep when friends deceive me, If thou wert, like them, untrue. But while I’ve thee before me, With heart so warm and eyes so bright, No clouds can linger o’er me, That smile turns them all to light. ‘Tis not […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. Sonnet On The Death Of Mr Richard West In vain to me the smiling mornings shine, And redd’ning Phoebus lifts his golden fire: The birds in vain their amorous descant join; Or cheerful fields resume their green attire: These ears, alas! for other notes repine, A different object do these eyes require: My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; And in my […]...
25. Trojans Our efforts are those of the unfortunate; Our efforts are like those of the Trojans. Somewhat we succeed; somewhat We regain confidence; and we start To have courage and high hopes. But something always happens and stops us. Achilles in the trench before us Emerges and with loud cries terrifies us. Our efforts are like […]...
26. The Tragedy Oh, I never felt so wretched, and things never looked so blue Since the days I gulped the physic that my Granny used to brew; For a friend in whom I trusted, entering my room last night, Stole a bottleful of Heenzo from the desk whereon I write. I am certain sure he did it […]...
27. Psalm 9 part 2 v.12 C. M. The wisdom and equity of Providence. When the great Judge, supreme and just, Shall once inquire for blood, The humble souls that mourn in dust Shall find a faithful God. He from the dreadful gates of death Does his own children raise; In Zion’s gates, with cheerful breath, They sing their Father’s […]...
28. The Lawyers Know Too Much THE LAWYERS, Bob, know too much. They are chums of the books of old John Marshall. They know it all, what a dead hand wrote, A stiff dead hand and its knuckles crumbling, The bones of the fingers a thin white ash. The lawyers know a dead man’s thoughts too well. In the heels of […]...
29. I Heard You, Solemn-sweet Pipes of the Organ I HEARD you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass’d the church; Winds of autumn!-as I walk’d the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch’d sighs, up above, so mournful; I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera-I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing; … […]...
30. Dream Song 111: I miss him. When I get back to camp I miss him. When I get back to camp I’ll dig him up. Well, he can prop & watch, Can’t he, pink or blue, And I will talk to him. I miss him. Slams, Grand or any, aren’t for the tundra much. One face-card will do. It’s marvellous how four sit down—beyond My thought how […]...
31. Mutation They talk of short-lived pleasure be it so Pain dies as quickly; stern, hard-featured pain Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; And after dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace. Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, Makes the strong secret pangs of […]...
32. And Wilt Thou Weep When I Am Low? And wilt thou weep when I am low? Sweet lady! speak those words again: Yet if they grieve thee, say not so – I would not give that bosom pain. My heart is sad, my hopes are gone, My blood runs coldly through my breast; And when I perish, thou alone Wilt sigh above my […]...
33. Mater Dolorosa Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside, In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride, In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare, With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair? She is fairer of face than the daughters of […]...
34. The Liars (March, 1919)A LIAR goes in fine clothes. A liar goes in rags. A liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes. A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies. And the stonecutters earn a living-with lies-on the tombs of liars. Aliar looks ’em in […]...
35. The Men That Fought at Minden The men that fought at Minden, they was rookies in their time So was them that fought at Waterloo! All the ‘ole command, yuss, from Minden to Maiwand, They was once dam’ sweeps like you! Then do not be discouraged, ‘Eaven is your ‘elper, We’ll learn you not to forget; An’ you mustn’t swear an’ […]...
36. Having each of you as friends For more than 40 years we’ve been good friends, Since 1963 in fact, from college where we met (and managed there to build a strong quartet Of campus friendship which kept those years intact, Still yet as clear as yesterday). The musketeers were we, Four sons of Nereid, or perhaps Persephone, As different each from […]...
37. Graceland TOMB of a millionaire, A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen, Place of the dead where they spend every year The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars For upkeep and flowers To keep fresh the memory of the dead. The merchant prince gone to dust Commanded in his written will Over the signed name of his last testament […]...
38. Gangrene So often in the mid of night I wake me in my bed With utter panic of affright To find my feet are dead; And pace the floor to easy my pain And make them live again. The folks at home are so discreet; They see me walk and walk To keep the blood-flow in […]...
39. That Wind I Used to Hear it Swelling That wind I used to hear it swelling With joy divinely deep You might have seen my hot tears welling But rapture made me weep I used to love on winter nights To lie and dream alone Of all the hopes and real delights My early years had known And oh above the rest of […]...
40. Spring & Fall: To A Young Child Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By & by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you wíll weep & know […]...