The Dog of Art

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1. Forgiveness AT dusk the window panes grew grey; The wet world vanished in the gloom; The dim and silver end of day Scarce glimmered through the little room. And all my sins were told; I said Such things to her who knew not sin- The sharp ache throbbing in my head, The fever running high within. […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. Is It Possible Is it possible That so high debate, So sharp, so sore, and of such rate, Should end so soon and was begun so late? Is it possible? Is it possible So cruel intent, So hasty heat and so soon spent, From love to hate, and thence for to relent? Is it possible? Is it possible […]...
4. Dream Song 52: Silent Song Bright-eyed & bushy tailed woke not Henry up. Bright though upon his workshop shone a vise Central, moved in While he was doing time down hospital And growing wise. He gave it the worst look he had left. Alone. They all abandoned Henry—wonder! all, When most he—under the sun. That was all right. He can’t […]...
5. Toward The Space Age We must begin to catch hold of everything Around us, for nobody knows what we May need. We have to carry along The air, even; and the weight we once Thought a burden turns out to form The pulse of our life and the compass for our brain. Colors balance our fears, and existence Begins […]...
6. Winter Sleep When against earth a wooden heel Clicks as loud as stone on steel, When stone turns flour instead of flakes, And frost bakes clay as fire bakes, When the hard-bitten fields at last Crack like iron flawed in the cast, When the world is wicked and cross and old, I long to be quit of […]...
7. A Noon Song There are songs for the morning and songs for the night, For sunrise and sunset, the stars and the moon; But who will give praise to the fulness of light, And sing us a song of the glory of noon? Oh, the high noon, the clear noon, The noon with golden crest; When the blue […]...
8. There Was One There was one a-riding grand On a tall brown mare, And a fine gold band He brought me there. A little, gold band He held to me That would shine on a hand For the world to see. There was one a-walking swift To a little, new song, And a rose was the gift He […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. The Street Sounds to the Soldiers' Tread The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread, And out we troop to see: A single redcoat turns his head, He turns and looks at me. My man, from sky to sky’s so far, We never crossed before; Such leagues apart the world’s ends are, We’re like to meet no more; What thoughts at heart have […]...
11. Mr. Philosopher Old Mr. Philosopher Comes for Ben and Claire, An ugly man, a tall man, With bright-red hair. The books that he’s written No one can read. “In fifty years they’ll understand: Now there’s no need. “All that matters now Is getting the fun. Come along, Ben and Claire; Plenty to be done.” Then old Philosopher, […]...
12. A March Day in London The east wind blows in the street to-day; The sky is blue, yet the town looks grey. ‘Tis the wind of ice, the wind of fire, Of cold despair and of hot desire, Which chills the flesh to aches and pains, And sends a fever through all the veins. From end to end, with aimless […]...
13. The Valley of the Shadow of Death My soul is sad, and much dismay’d; See, Lord, what legions of my foes, With fierce Apollyon at their head, My heavenly pilgrimage oppose. See, from the ever-burning lake, How like a smoky cloud they rise! With horrid blasts my soul they shake, With storms of blasphemies and lies. Their fiery arrows reach the mark, […]...
14. Song The Spring will come when the year turns, As if no Winter had been, But what shall I do with a locked heart That lets no new year in? The birds will go when the Fall goes, The leaves will fade in the field, But what shall I do with an old love Will neither […]...
15. THE BLISS OF ABSENCE DRINK, oh youth, joy’s purest ray From thy loved one’s eyes all day, And her image paint at night! Better rule no lover knows, Yet true rapture greater grows, When far sever’d from her sight. Powers eternal, distance, time, Like the might of stars sublime, Gently rock the blood to rest, O’er my senses softness […]...
16. On Eastnor Knoll SILENT are the woods, and the dim green boughs are Hushed in the twilight: yonder, in the path through The apple orchard, is a tired plough-boy Calling the cows home. A bright white star blinks, the pale moon rounds, but Still the red, lurid wreckage of the sunset Smoulders in smoky fire, and burns on […]...
17. The Angel Food Dogs Leaping, leaping, leaping, Down line by line, Growling at the cadavers, Filling the holy jugs with their piss, Falling into windows and mauling the parents, But soft, kiss-soft, And sobbing sobbing Into their awful dog dish. No point? No twist for you In my white tunnel? Let me speak plainly, Let me whisper it from […]...
18. Françoise And The Fruit Farmer In town to sell his fruit, he saw her- Françoise in her summer slacks- Turning to him, coming back To feel the swelling plums, One held in each soft hand, breast-high, Above them her eyes enclosing him In quietness brushed up to colors, Urgings green, thrustings yellow. A vine-like touch, her promise seemed all profit, […]...
19. Stars (For the Rev. James J. Daly, S. J.) Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air, Are you errant strands of Lady Mary’s hair? As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through, Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too? Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes, Eyes of baby […]...
20. IN THE SMALL HOURS Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze, Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes, Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins Of marooned mariners, captives Of Circe’s sultry notes. The barman Dispenses igneous potions? Somnabulist, the band plays on. Cocktail mixer, silvery fish Dances for limpet clients. […]...
21. A Celebration of Charis: IV. Her Triumph See the chariot at hand here of Love, Wherein my lady rideth! Each that draws is a swan or a dove, And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty Unto her beauty; And enamour’d, do wish, so they might But enjoy such a sight, That they still were to run […]...
22. The Triumph SEE the Chariot at hand here of Love, Wherein my Lady rideth! Each that draws is a swan or a dove, And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty Unto her beauty; And enamour’d do wish, so they might But enjoy such a sight, That they still were to run […]...
23. The Taxi When I go away from you The world beats dead Like a slackened drum. I call out for you against the jutted stars And shout into the ridges of the wind. Streets coming fast, One after the other, Wedge you away from me, And the lamps of the city prick my eyes So that I […]...
24. Alzheimer's My grandmother’s teeth stare at her From a mason jar on the nightstand. The radio turns itself on, Sunlight crawls through the window, And she thinks she feels her bright blue eyes Rolling out her head. She’s certain her blood has turned to dirt, That beetles haunt the dark hollow of her bones. The clock […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Ancient History Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; ‘He was the grandest of them all was Cain! ‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire: ‘Swift as a stag: a stallion of […]...
27. To Thomas Butts TO my friend Butts I write My first vision of light, On the yellow sands sitting. The sun was emitting His glorious beams From Heaven’s high streams. Over sea, over land, My eyes did expand Into regions of air, Away from all care; Into regions of fire, Remote from desire; The light of the morning […]...
28. The Twilight Turns The twilight turns from amethyst To deep and deeper blue, The lamp fills with a pale green glow The trees of the avenue. The old piano plays an air, Sedate and slow and gay; She bends upon the yellow keys, Her head inclines this way. Shy thought and grave wide eyes and hands That wander […]...
29. A Welsh Testament All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter? I spoke a tongue that was passed on To me in the place I happened to be, A place huddled between grey walls Of cloud for at least half the year. My word for heaven was not yours. The word for hell had a sharp edge Put […]...
30. Looking, Walking, Being “The World is not something to Look at, it is something to be in.” Mark Rudman I look and look. Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, Sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever looking takes one. The eyes Dig and burrow into the world. They touch Fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor. World and the […]...
31. Over the Banisters Over the banisters bends a face, Daringly sweet and beguiling. Somebody stands in careless grace, And watches the picture, smiling. The light burns dim in the hall below, Nobody sees her standing, Saying good-night again, soft and slow, Half way up to the landing. Nobody only the eyes of brown, Tender and full of meaning, […]...
32. The Intruder My mother preferring the strange to the tame: Dove-note, bone marrow, deer dung, Frog’s belly distended with finny young, Leaf-mould wilderness, hare-bell, toadstool, Odd, small snakes loving through the leaves, Metallic beetles rambling over stones: all Wild and natural – flashed out her instinctive love, And quick, she Picked up the fluttering. bleeding bat the […]...
33. Killers I AM singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move: Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for shining teeth, Sharp eyes, hard legs, And a running of young warm blood in their wrists. And a red juice runs […]...
34. February: The Boy Breughel The birches stand in their beggar’s row: Each poor tree Has had its wrists nearly Torn from the clear sleeves of bone, These icy trees Are hanging by their thumbs Under a sun That will begin to heal them soon, Each will climb out Of its own blue, oval mouth; The river groans, Two birds […]...
35. A Day in Bed I wish I had not got a cold, The wind is big and wild, I wish that I was very old, Not just a little child. Somehow the day is very long Just keeping here, alone; I do not like the big wind’s song, He’s growling for a bone He’s like an awful dog we […]...
36. A Process In The Weather Of The Heart A process in the weather of the heart Turns damp to dry; the golden shot Storms in the freezing tomb. A weather in the quarter of the veins Turns night to day; blood in their suns Lights up the living worm. A process in the eye forwarns The bones of blindness; and the womb Drives […]...
37. Starling a starling sat on the roof (i don’t know how young) Croaking in an old man’s voice Cross with the dapper world After five minutes or so It flew away – its grouse over It was like its feathers Rough and unperturbed I don’t suppose it was educated The other birds ignored it It was […]...
38. Shearing at Castlereagh The bell is set a-ringing, and the engine gives a toot, There’s five-and-thirty shearers here a-shearing for the loot, So stir yourselves, you penners-up, and shove the sheep along The musterers are fetching them a hundred thousand strong And make your collie dogs speak up; what would the buyers say In London if the wool […]...
39. The Trapper's Christmas Eve It’s mighty lonesome-like and drear. Above the Wild the moon rides high, And shows up sharp and needle-clear The emptiness of earth and sky; No happy homes with love a-glow; No Santa Claus to make believe: Just snow and snow, and then more snow; It’s Christmas Eve, it’s Christmas Eve. And here am I where […]...
40. Travellers Whom We Met Another fork away ahead Exactly like the one behind And twists and turns to leave you dead As choices in your mind. We’ve travelled here before you know And had this conversation yet We learned a way to ask for more Than empty signposts that we met. Of travellers whom we met And journeys we […]...