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1. Storm Windows People are putting up storm windows now, Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon, I saw storm windows lying on the ground, Frame-full of rain; through the water and glass I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream Away in lines like seaweed on […]...
2. Jug THE SHALE and water thrown together so-so first of all, Then a potter’s hand on the wheel and his fingers shaping the jug; out of the mud a mouth and a handle; Slimpsy, loose and ready to fall at a touch, fire plays on it, slow fire coaxing all the water out of the shale […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. Lambert Hutchins I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk: One, the house I built on the hill, With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate; The other, the lake-front in Chicago, Where the railroad keeps a switching yard, With whistling engines and crunching wheels, And smoke and soot thrown over the city, And the crash […]...
5. Uncommon common sense The other day I listened to a man on the radio Who made uncommon common sense, ‘specially since It was an interview on ABC’s noon talk-back show. He was a Professor, of what I hadn’t heard, But for once the words were plain and clear – the host, Bless the dear, didn’t interfere or ask […]...
6. Thirst My spirit wails for water, water now! My tongue is aching dry, my throat is hot For water, fresh rain shaken from a bough, Or dawn dews heavy in some leafy spot. My hungry body’s burning for a swim In sunlit water where the air is cool, As in Trout Valley where upon a limb […]...
7. LAMENT How I loathe this land of my exile, Concrete upon concrete, Steel upon steel, Glass upon glass In massed battalions And no way back. My mind moves to a far-off place To a hill-top where the wind is my succour, Its blow and howl and rage Over the springing turf and heather Calms as the […]...
8. Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket I am unjust, but I can strive for justice. My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness. I, the unloving, say life should be lovely. I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness. Man is a curious brute – he pets his fancies – Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury. So he will […]...
9. Solidarity Song Peoples of the world, together Join to serve the common cause! So it feeds us all for ever See to it that it’s now yours. Forward, without forgetting Where our strength can be seen now to be! When starving or when eating Forward, not forgetting Our solidarity! Black or white or brown or yellow Leave […]...
10. The Washing and Dressing Ah! why will my dear little girl be so cross, And cry, and look sulky, and pout? To lose her sweet smile is a terrible loss, I can’t even kiss her without. You say you don’t like to be wash’d and be dress’d, But would you not wish to be clean? Come, drive that long […]...
11. It seldom snowed – Part II It seldom snowed in Camp they said, on the mountains, yes, And in the Styx, aka zone six. That’s where we were afoot In alpine grass, garbed to test our winter skills, Tramp the craggy hills and camp a night or two, Spy a special site, an outing planned To ready us for troop command. […]...
12. The City Planners Cruising these residential Sunday Streets in dry August sunlight: What offends us is The sanities: The houses in pedantic rows, the planted Sanitary trees, assert Levelness of surface like a rebuke To the dent in our car door. No shouting here, or Shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt Than the rational whine of a power […]...
13. Typographical The Editor wrote his political screed In ink that was fainter and fainter; He rose to the call of his country’s need, And in spiderish characters wrote with speed, A column on “Cutting the Painter”. The “reader” sat in his high-backed chair, For literals he was a hunter; But he stared aghast at the column […]...
14. Making Love To Concrete An upright abutment in the mouth Of the Willis Avenue bridge A beige Honda leaps the divider Like a steel gazelle inescapable Sleek leather boots on the pavement Rat-a-tat-tat best intentions Going down for the third time Stuck in the particular You cannot make love to concrete If you care about being Non-essential wrong or […]...
15. Dream Song 10: There were strange gatherings. A vote would come There were strange gatherings. A vote would come That would be no vote. There would come a rope. Yes. There would come a rope. Men have their hats down. “Dancing in the Dark” Will see him up, car-radio-wise. So many, some Won’t find a rut to park. It is in the occasions, that—not the fathomless […]...
16. Essential Beauty In frames as large as rooms that face all ways And block the ends of streets with giant loaves, Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves Of how life should be. High above the gutter A silver knife sinks into golden butter, A […]...
17. 512. Song-Guid ale keeps the heart aboon Chorus-O gude ale comes and gude ale goes; Gude ale gars me sell my hose, Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon- Gude ale keeps my heart aboon! I HAD sax owsen in a pleugh, And they drew a’ weel eneugh: I sell’d them a’ just ane by ane- Gude ale keeps the heart aboon! […]...
18. For The Twentieth Century Bound, hungry to pluck again from the thousand Technologies of ecstasy Boundlessness, the world that at a drop of water Rises without boundaries, I push the PLAY button:- …Callas, Laurel & Hardy, Szigeti You are alive again,- The slow movement of K.218 Once again no longer Bland, merely pretty, nearly Banal, as it is In […]...
19. Gone Down To the voters of Glen Innes ’twas O’Sullivan that went, To secure the country vote for Mister Hay. So he told ’em what he’d borrowed, and he told ’em what he’d spent, Though extravagance had blown it all away. Said he, “Vote for Hay, my hearties, and wherever we may roam We will borrow, undismayed […]...
20. On Cheating The Fiddler “Then we will have tonight!” we said. “Tomorrow – may we not be dead?” The morrow touched our eyes, and found Us walking firm above the ground, Our pulses quick, our blood alight. Tomorrow’s gone – we’ll have tonight!...
21. "Tomorrow" whose location “Tomorrow” whose location The Wise deceives Though its hallucination Is last that leaves Tomorrow thou Retriever Of every tare Of Alibi art thou Or ownest where?...
22. The Shower we like to shower afterwards (I like the water hotter than she) And her face is always soft and peaceful And she’ll watch me first Spread the soap over my balls Lift the balls Squeeze them, Then wash the cock: “hey, this thing is still hard!” Then get all the hair down there,- The belly, […]...
23. Ophelia My locks are shorn for sorrow Of love which may not be; Tomorrow and tomorrow Are plotting cruelty. The winter wind tangles These ringlets half-grown, The sun sprays with spangles And rays like his own. Oh, quieter and colder Is the stream; he will wait; When my curls touch my shoulder He will comb them […]...
24. Divine Epigrams: On the Baptized Ethiopian To wash an Ethiope; He’s wash’d, his gloomy skin a peaceful shade, For his white soul is made; And now, I doubt not, the Eternal Dove A black-fac’d house will love....
25. Near Keokuk THIRTY-TWO Greeks are dipping their feet in a creek. Sloshing their bare feet in a cool flow of clear water. All one midsummer day ten hours the Greeks stand in leather shoes shoveling gravel. Now they hold their toes and ankles to the drift of running water. Then they go to the bunk cars and […]...
26. Wine and Water Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale, He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail, And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and fish he took was Whale, But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out […]...
27. Understand Old One What if you came back now To our new world, the city roaring There on the old peaceful camping place Of your red fires along the quiet water, How you would wonder At towering stone gunyas high in air Immense, incredible; Planes in the sky over, swarms of cars Like things frantic in flight....
28. The Summer I Was Sixteen The turquoise pool rose up to meet us, Its slide a silver afterthought down which We plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles. We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy. Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted Up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool Lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated, We […]...
29. The Price of Fame Do I really love you? So let me guess, you’ll think I’m easy prey If I say, okay I do – but it wont get in the way of my impending fame; I will be famous, be assured of that, and please to keep it hidden in Your fancy beggar’s hat. Be it fame or […]...
30. A few kind words A few kind words, what can be bought with that? In essence just a clique of tidy prose, A verb, a noun, perhaps an adjectival phrase Offered in the form of venal praise – and be surprised at what it buys. Like a fleeting smile it’s currency outweighs The simple form, a hint of urbane […]...
31. On Mistress Nicely, a Pattern for Housekeepers She was a woman peerless in her station, With household virtues wedded to her name; Spotless in linen, grass-bleached in her fame; And pure and clear-starched in her conversation; Thence in my Castle of Imagination She dwells for evermore, the dainty dame, To keep all airy draperies from shame And all dream furnitures in preservation: […]...
32. THE FAIRIES If ye will with Mab find grace, Set each platter in his place; Rake the fire up, and get Water in, ere sun be set. Wash your pails and cleanse your dairies, Sluts are loathsome to the fairies; Sweep your house; Who doth not so, Mab will pinch her by the toe....
33. Democracy Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right As the other fellow has To stand On my two feet And own the land. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom […]...
34. To One Hated Had it been when I came to the valley where the paths parted asunder, Chance had led my feet to the way of love, not hate, I might have cherished you well, have been to you fond and faithful, Great as my hatred is, so might my love have been great. Each cold word of […]...
35. Roads Go Ever On Roads go ever ever on, Over rock and under tree, By caves where never sun has shone, By streams that never find the sea; Over snow by winter sown, And through the merry flowers of June, Over grass and over stone, And under mountains in the moon. Roads go ever ever on, Under cloud and […]...
36. Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning There’s a breathless hush on the freeway tonight Beyond the ledges of concrete Restaurants fall into dreams With candlelight couples Lost Alexandria still burns In a billion lightbulbs Lives cross lives Idling at stoplights Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs ‘Souls eat souls in the general emptiness’ A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window A yogi […]...
37. Concerning Emperors I. GOD SEND THE REGICIDE Would that the lying rulers of the world Were brought to block for tyrannies abhorred. Would that the sword of Cromwell and the Lord, The sword of Joshua and Gideon, Hewed hip and thigh the hosts of Midian. God send that ironside ere tomorrow’s sun; Let Gabriel and Michael with […]...
38. Dream Song 102: The sunburnt terraces which swans make home The sunburnt terraces which swans make home With water purling, Macchu Pichu died Like Delphi long ago— A message to Justinian closing it out, The thousand years’ authority, although Tho’ never found exactly wrong Political patterns did indeed emerge; The Oracle was conservative, like Lippmann, Roared the winds on the height, The Shining Ones behind […]...
39. Security Tomorrow will have an island. Before night I always find it. Then on to the next island. These places hidden in the day separate And come forward if you beckon. But you have to know they are there before they exist. Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island. So far, I haven’t […]...
40. Whenever I Go There Whenever I go there everything is changed The stamps on the bandages the titles Of the professors of water The portrait of Glare the reasons for The white mourning In new rocks new insects are sitting With the lights off And once more I remember that the beginning Is broken No wonder the addresses are […]...