MID-DECEMBER

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1. December 25 Christmas defeated Chanukah Once again last night By a margin of three billion dollars Or so, but every time I hear A Yiddish word like bupkes In a movie (L. A. Confidential) Or when Oleg Cassini in that new play Jackie Calls a garment a shmatta, it’s “good For the Jews,” as our parents used […]...
2. The House Of Hospitalities Here we broached the Christmas barrel, Pushed up the charred log-ends; Here we sang the Christmas carol, And called in friends. Time has tired me since we met here When the folk now dead were young, And the viands were outset here And quaint songs sung. And the worm has bored the viol That used […]...
3. Poets to Come POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for; But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, Arouse! Arouse-for you must justify me-you must answer. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance […]...
4. December 30 At 1:30 in the morning a fart Smells like a marriage between An avocado and a fish head. I have to get out of bed To write this down without My glasses on....
5. THE CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMAS DAY Kindle the Christmas brand, and then Till sunset let it burn; Which quench’d, then lay it up again, Till Christmas next return. Part must be kept, wherewith to teend The Christmas log next year; And where ’tis safely kept, the fiend Can do no mischief there....
6. TO LEEDS BIG ISSUE SELLERS When I come from the Smoke to visit my son on the ward I see you everywhere: by the station, by the neon sign of ‘Squares’ By every shopping mall. Leeds seems to have more of you than anywhere: How do you stand there for so many hours in freezing winds When most you solicit […]...
7. 1991-I The year begins with war. Our bombs fall day and night, Hour after hour, by death Abroad appeasing wrath, Folly, and greed at home. Upon our giddy tower We’d oversway the world. Our hate comes down to kill Those whom we do not see, For we have given up Our sight to those in power […]...
8. Vienna, December 1999 I watched The winter light die from the bridge, The sky a sinking empire’s battleship, Ice floes’ jagged edges Clink their cold toast To a stilled Danube. Johann Strauss Would have committed Himself to Wagnerian depression On a night just like this; Streetlights sputter Matchstick desperation Relinquishing desperate light, Shadow-glaciers crawl The alleys in deafness: […]...
9. Fable The mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel, And the former called the latter, “little prig”: Bun replied, You are doubtless very big, But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together To make up a year, And a sphere. And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I’m […]...
10. Wimborne minster though there’s not much faith left And very little snow This scene of wimborne minster Still makes its christmas show The building’s warm proportions Its sense of move-me-not Catches this winter pagan On a most forgiving spot Christmas itself unwinds Back to that moment when Mind first let a light in And darkness cried amen […]...
11. From The Short Story A Christmas Dream, And How It Came True From our happy home Through the world we roam One week in all the year, Making winter spring With the joy we bring For Christmas-tide is here. Now the eastern star Shines from afar To light the poorest home; Hearts warmer grow, Gifts freely flow, For Christmas-tide has come. Now gay trees rise Before young […]...
12. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
13. For the naming of tara december 4th 2005 for the naming of tara This bowl of joy That her fruits of earth She’ll well employ For the naming of tara This bunch of flowers That she bloom brightly Through her natural powers For tbe naming of tara This poem’s desire That (in a full life) She may kindly aspire For the naming of […]...
14. Wants Beyond all this, the wish to be alone: However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards However we follow the printed directions of sex However the family is photographed under the flag-staff – Beyond all this, the wish to be alone. Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs: Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, […]...
15. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking. He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark That he barks every time they leave the house. They must switch him on on their way out. The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking. I close all the windows in the house And put on a Beethoven symphony full […]...
16. The Gamblers Life’s a jail where men have common lot. Gaunt the one who has, and who has not. All our treasures neither less nor more, Bread alone comes thro’ the guarded door. Cards are foolish in this jail, I think, Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink. She, my lawless, sharp-tongued gypsy maid Will […]...
17. White Christmas My folks think I’m a serving maid Each time I visit home; They do not dream I ply a trade As old as Greece or Rome; For if they found I’d fouled their name And was not white as snow, I’m sure that they would die of shame. . . Please, God, they’ll never know. […]...
18. September 22 It’s the day of the ram And the head of the year Rosh Ha’Shanah at Services I sat next to Mel Torme who outshone All comers with his bar Mitzvah heroics while on My left is Barnett Newman Big talker whose favorite Subjects include the horses And the stock market he Knows the odds the […]...
19. 201. Birthday Ode for 31st December, 1787 AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams, Whom kingdoms on this day should hail; An inmate in the casual shed, On transient pity’s bounty fed, Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale! Beasts of the forest have their savage homes, But He, who should imperial purple wear, Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal […]...
20. A Christmas Carol Welcome, sweet Christmas, blest be the morn That Christ our Saviour was born! Earth’s Redeemer, to save us from all danger, And, as the Holy Record tells, born in a manger. Chorus Then ring, ring, Christmas bells, Till your sweet music o’er the kingdom swells, To warn the people to respect the morn That Christ […]...
21. The Gladness of Nature Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, When our mother Nature laughs around; When even the deep blue heavens look glad, And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground? There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, And the gossip of swallows through all the sky; The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his […]...
22. Ode Written On The First Of December Tho’ now no more the musing ear Delights to listen to the breeze That lingers o’er the green wood shade, I love thee Winter! well. Sweet are the harmonies of Spring, Sweet is the summer’s evening gale, Pleasant the autumnal winds that shake The many-colour’d grove. And pleasant to the sober’d soul The silence of […]...
23. Because the Bee may blameless hum Because the Bee may blameless hum For Thee a Bee do I become List even unto Me. Because the Flowers unafraid May lift a look on thine, a Maid Alway a Flower would be. Nor Robins, Robins need not hide When Thou upon their Crypts intrude So Wings bestow on Me Or Petals, or a […]...
24. Vitaп Lampada There’s a breathless hush in the Close to-night Ten to make and the match to win A bumping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play and the last man in. And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat, Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame, But his Captain’s hand on […]...
25. Song Of A Second April April this year, not otherwise Than April of a year ago, Is full of whispers, full of sighs, Of dazzling mud and dingy snow; Hepaticas that pleased you so Are here again, and butterflies. There rings a hammering all day, And shingles lie about the doors; In orchards near and far away The grey wood-pecker […]...
26. Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased) The lump of coal my parents teased I’d find in my Christmas stocking Turned out each year to be an orange, For I was their sunshine. Now I have one C. gave me, A dense node of sleeping fire. I keep it where I read and write. “You’re on chummy terms with dread,” It reminds […]...
27. When they come back if Blossoms do When they come back if Blossoms do I always feel a doubt If Blossoms can be born again When once the Art is out When they begin, if Robins may, I always had a fear I did not tell, it was their last Experiment Last Year, When it is May, if May return, Had nobody […]...
28. The Cuckoo No lyric line I ever penned The praise this parasitic bird; And what is more, I don’t intend To write a laudatory word, Since in my garden robins made A nest with eggs of dainty spot, And then a callous cuckoo laid A lone on on the lot. Of course the sillies hatched it out […]...
29. Dream Song 65: A freaking ankle crabbed his blissful trips A freaking ankle crabbed his blissful trips, This whiskey tastes like California But is Kentucky, Like Berkeley where he truly worked at it But nothing broke all night—no fires—one dawn, Crowding his luck, Flowed down along the cliffs to the Big Sur Where Henry Miller’s box is vomit-green And Henry bathed in sulphur Lovely, hot, […]...
30. December 14 This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere, The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, That never touch with inarticulate pang Those dying generations-at their song. The One remains, the many change and pass The expiring swan, and as he sings he dies. The earth, […]...
31. December 7 As I sit at my desk wishing I did not have to edit a book On poetry and painting a Subject that fascinates me Usually, but today is not as Usual, being today, white sky, Decent amount of sunlight, Forty one degrees in Central Park, And it makes sense to dream of Chicago, another big […]...
32. When Cold December WHEN cold December Froze to grisamber The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees Then fading slow And furred is the snow As the almond’s sweet husk And smelling like musk. The snow amygdaline Under the eglantine Where the bristling stars shine Like a gilt porcupine The snow confesses The little Princesses On their small chioppines […]...
33. Sicily, December 1908 O garden isle, beloved by Sun and Sea, Whose bluest billows kiss thy curving bays, Whose amorous light enfolds thee in warm rays That fill with fruit each dark-leaved orange-tree, What hidden hatred hath the Earth for thee? Behold, again, in these dark, dreadful days, She trembles with her wrath, and swiftly lays Thy beauty […]...
34. Holy Day Los Angeles hums A little tune Trucks down The coast road For Monday Market Packed with small faces Blinking in the dark. My mother dreams By the open window. On the drainboard The gray roast humps Untouched, the oven Bangs its iron jaws, But it’s over. Before her on the table Set for so many […]...
35. A Calendar of Sonnets: December The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes Of water ‘neath the summer sunshine gleamed: Far fairer than when placidly it streamed, The brook its frozen architecture makes, And under bridges white its swift way takes. Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed Might linger on the road; or one who deemed His […]...
36. In Drear-Nighted December In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime. In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollo’s summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They […]...
37. December, 1919 Last night I heard your voice, mother, The words you sang to me When I, a little barefoot boy, Knelt down against your knee. And tears gushed from my heart, mother, And passed beyond its wall, But though the fountain reached my throat The drops refused to fall. ‘Tis ten years since you died, mother, […]...
38. December Night The cold slope is standing in darkness But the south of the trees is dry to the touch The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers I came to watch these White plants older at night The oldest Come first to the ruins And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon The water […]...
39. Tom Beatty I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard, For I tried the rights of property, Although by lamp-light, for thirty years, In that poker room in the opera house. And I say to you that Life’s a gambler Head and shoulders above us all. No mayor alive can close the […]...
40. December At Yase You said, that October, In the tall dry grass by the orchard When you chose to be free, “Again someday, maybe ten years.” After college I saw you One time. You were strange, And I was obsessed with a plan. Now ten years and more have Gone by: I’ve always known where you were- I […]...