It seldom snowed – Part IV

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1. It seldom snowed – Part III It seldom snowed they said, and they were nearly right. In all of nine eventful Seasons crystal white on average graced the place just twice a year. A smaller Fall, an over-night preceded heavy snow. And heavy snow remained a week, Blocked drains and closed the Desert Road; but no complaints, our children Played in […]...
2. 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. […]...
3. It seldom snowed, they said – Part I It seldom snowed, they said, it might get cold but it won’t be snow; Well, one should guess the locals know the weather best and I was new, So when I left the warmth of the limited express and descended onto A dimly lit, deserted siding I was not impressed to find the ground at […]...
4. A Word made Flesh is seldom A Word made Flesh is seldom And tremblingly partook Nor then perhaps reported But have I not mistook Each one of us has tasted With ecstasies of stealth The very food debated To our specific strength A Word that breathes distinctly Has not the power to die Cohesive as the Spirit It may expire if […]...
5. The Quest High, hollowed in green Above the rocks of reason Lies the crater lake Whose ice the dreamer breaks To find a summer season. ‘He will plunge like a plummet down Far into hungry tides’ They cry, but as the sea Climbs to a lunar magnet So the dreamer pursues The lake where love resides....
6. The only Ghost I ever saw The only Ghost I ever saw Was dressed in Mechlin so He wore no sandal on his foot And stepped like flakes of snow His Gait was soundless, like the Bird But rapid like the Roe His fashions, quaint, Mosaic Or haply, Mistletoe His conversation seldom His laughter, like the Breeze That dies away in […]...
7. The power of the Lake The power of the Lake lingers still So many years beyond its fascination Ending; it was there in the beginning, An unveiling of towering sensitivities, A flowering of gentle obsession. The town that grew in the lee Of the Lake expressed the same Thoughts although hard head bastards Bartered and fought for land, Trying to […]...
8. To Friends At Home TO friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost The gracious old, the lovely young, to May The fair, December the beloved, These from my blue horizon and green isles, These from this pinnacle of distances I, The unforgetful, dedicate....
9. Very Seldom He’s an old man. Used up and bent, Crippled by time and indulgence, He slowly walks along the narrow street. But when he goes inside his house to hide The shambles of his old age, his mind turns To the share in youth that still belongs to him. His verse is now recited by young […]...
10. Exeat I remember the Roman Emperor, one of the cruellest of them, Who used to visit for pleasure his poor prisoners cramped in dungeons, So then they would beg him for death, and then he would say: Oh no, oh no, we are not yet friends enough. He meant they were not yet friends enough for […]...
11. To My Wife Choice of you shuts up that peacock-fan The future was, in which temptingly spread All that elaborative nature can. Matchless potential! but unlimited Only so long as I elected nothing; Simply to choose stopped all ways up but one, And sent the tease-birds from the bushes flapping. No future now. I and you now, alone. […]...
12. I've a Pain in my Head ‘I’ve a pain in my head’ Said the suffering Beckford; To her Doctor so dread. ‘Oh! what shall I take for’t?’ Said this Doctor so dread Whose name it was Newnham. ‘For this pain in your head Ah! What can you do Ma’am?’ Said Miss Beckford, ‘Suppose If you think there’s no risk, I take […]...
13. The Mountain And The Lake I know a mountain thrilling to the stars, Peerless and pure, and pinnacled with snow; Glimpsing the golden dawn o’er coral bars, Flaunting the vanisht sunset’s garnet glow; Proudly patrician, passionless, serene; Soaring in silvered steeps where cloud-surfs break; Virgin and vestal Oh, a very Queen! And at her feet there dreams a quiet lake. […]...
14. Aaron Holiness on the head, Light and perfection on the breast, Harmonious bells below, raising the dead To led them unto life and rest. Thus are true Aarons dressed. Profaneness in my head, Defects and darkness in my breast, A noise of passions ringing me for dead Unto a place where is no rest. Poor priest […]...
15. To risk your Liberty Called The Hon ‘Lizard Gizzard’ with aptness bearing fruit From his septic yellow face to his pinstripe business suit, Famous for avowals starting, “Government Approved, ‘and in relation to’…” delivered deadpan monotone, eyes A distant, washed-out hue – quartered in a trance. Never any chance of sparkling talk or winsome repartee From he, to ask […]...
16. Rangipo Desert Whangaehu waters, hot-spilled from the cauldron Of Crater Lake, swirling mud-green from the cup Between Tahurangi and Pyramid Peak, Sulphurous, sibilant among purer daughters Of the snow-line, Plunging eastwards down broken-faced ravines, Boiling between razor-edged ridges, Breasting a broken, blackened ghostscape To desert Rangipo. Where these waters slow their rush And ease the dragon’s fire […]...
17. The Civil War I am torn in two But I will conquer myself. I will dig up the pride. I will take scissors And cut out the beggar. I will take a crowbar And pry out the broken Pieces of God in me. Just like a jigsaw puzzle, I will put Him together again With the patience of […]...
18. 221. Song-The Bonie Lad that's Far Awa O HOW can I be blythe and glad, Or how can I gang brisk and braw, When the bonie lad that I lo’e best Is o’er the hills and far awa! It’s no the frosty winter wind, It’s no the driving drift and snaw; But aye the tear comes in my e’e, To think on […]...
19. After the parties let’s all go to the party friends Where left over bottles and stale fag-ends Are proudly on offer from the last time round And our hosts believe by a ritual sound Fine spirits will flow and new cellophane wrappers Will tingle the fingers of eligible clappers Let’s all ignite at the party friends And burn […]...
20. The way Hope builds his House The way Hope builds his House It is not with a sill Nor Rafter has that Edifice But only Pinnacle Abode in as supreme This superficies As if it were of Ledges smit Or mortised with the Laws...
21. Luna Lake Haiku New moon on the lake. Your voice and the nightingale Serenade springtime. Full moon on the lake. Your voice and the waterbirds Celebrate summer. Old moon on the lake. Owls hunting autumnal food – Your voice still singing....
22. Crater Face is what we called her. The story was That her father had thrown Drano at her Which was probably true, given the way she slouched Through fifth grade, afraid of the world, recess Especially. She had acne scars Before she had acne-poxs and dips And bright red patches. I don’t remember Any report in the […]...
23. To The Right Honourable The Lady Penelope Dowager Of The Late Vis-Count Bayning Great Lady, Humble partners of like griefe In bringing Comfort may deserve beliefe, Because they Feele and Feyne not: Thus we say Unto Ourselves, Lord Bayning, though away, Is still of Christ-Church; somewhat out of sight, As when he travel’d, or did bid good night, And was not seen long after; now he stands Remov’d […]...
24. Forgotten Language Once I spoke the language of the flowers, Once I understood each word the caterpillar said, Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly In my bed. Once I heard and answered all the questions Of the crickets, And joined the crying of each falling […]...
25. Volcanoes be in Sicily Volcanoes be in Sicily And South America I judge from my Geography Volcanos nearer here A Lava step at any time Am I inclined to climb A Crater I may contemplate Vesuvius at Home....
26. To Wang Lun I was about to sail away in a junk, When suddenly I heard The sound of stamping and singing on the bank- It was you and your friends come to bid me farewell. The Peach Flower Lake is a thousand fathoms deep, But it cannot compare, O Wang Lun, With the depth of your love […]...
27. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
28. The Waipakihi Access Road Fifteen they named it This anonymous road to the Waipakihi Where its brawling water becomes Tongariro. A moment’s journey across a horizon Anchored in haze-ridden Taupomoana Distanced, but jewelled in my thoughts. Ruapehu, sentinel, guides my track Between summer-melt waters Deep-rent in shear sided gullies To the beech-clad foothills of Kaimanawa. Tongariro, and […]...
29. Roger Heston Oh many times did Ernest Hyde and I Argue about the freedom of the will. My favorite metaphor was Prickett’s cow Roped out to grass, and free you know as far As the length of the rope. One day while arguing so, watching the cow Pull at the rope to get beyond the circle Which […]...
30. The Lake The yard half a yard, Half a lake blue as a corpse. The lake will tell things you long to hear: Get away from here. Three o’clock. Dry leaves rat-tat like maracas. Whisky-colored grass Breaks at every step and trees Are slowly realizing they are nude. How long will you stay? For the lake asks […]...
31. The Good, Great Man “How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains! It sounds like stories from the land of spirits If any man obtain that which he merits Or any merit that which he obtains.” Reply to the Above For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain! What would’st […]...
32. There was an old man of Thermopylж There was an old man of Thermopylж, Who never did anything properly; But they said, “If you choose, To boil eggs in your shoes, You shall never remain in Thermopylж.”...
33. Pedestrian ambitions My thoughts are like the boots randomly arrayed In the rack outside the window, some in pairs neatly Stacked, comfortably worn with a relaxed air of Confidence, some scattered in patterns of bizarre Relationships, one in Benson’s den under guard from Thought predators he fears plagiarized and stole Its partner’s soul. While I find it […]...
34. Adam Weirauch I was crushed between Altgeld and Armour. I lost many friends, much time and money Fighting for Altgeld whom Editor Whedon Denounced as the candidate of gamblers and anarchists. Then Armour started to ship dressed meat to Spoon River, Forcing me to shut down my slaughter-house, And my butcher shop went all to pieces. The […]...
35. A final journeying Steve is gone, I hardly can believe The man wont cry again, I cannot credit that His energy wont bloom And burst the candid pane That kept us so aware of just How much he really, really cared. I grieve for Bindi Sue And Robert who’ll despair, For Terri who has lost the man With […]...
36. My playmates The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool; It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill, And I hear the thrush’s evening song and the robin’s morning trill; So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know […]...
37. Fog Portrait RINGS of iron gray smoke; a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Funnels of an ocean liner negotiating a fog night; pouring a taffy mass down the wind; layers of soot on the top deck; a taffrail… and a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Cliffs challenge humped; sudden arcs form on a gull’s wing in the […]...
38. A Smuggler's Song If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the […]...
39. Beautiful City Beautiful city Beautiful city, the centre and crater of European confusion, O you with your passionate shriek for the rights of an equal Humanity, How often your Re-volution has proven but E-volution Roll’d again back on itself in the tides of a civic insanity!...
40. Lake Otamangakau I The roaring of Te Whaiau intake weir Intrudes as sleep eludes again To soar across the lake On white-tipped, swan-wide wings. A defiant wild cat’s call, a tuneless howl That crashes through these nylon walls Which stem the thrust of night, Comes taunting in and curdles dreams, Itching in the seams of somnolence. II […]...