Of Such Simplicity

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1. Simplicity What I seek far yet seldom find Is large simplicity of mind In fellow men; For I have sprouted from the sod, Like Bobbie Burns, my earthly god, From plough to pen. So I refuse my brain to vex With problems prosy and complex, Beyond my scope; To me simplicity is peace, So I persue […]...
2. To Simplicity [Inscribed to Lady Duncannon.] SWEET blushing Nymph, who loves to dwell In the dark forest’s silent gloom; Who smiles within the Hermit’s cell, And sighs upon the rustic’s tomb; Who, pitying, sees the busy throng, The slaves of fashion’s giddy sway; Who in a wild and artless song, Warbles the feath’ry hours away. Oft have […]...
3. Jessie of Gibraltar Our lives were founded on this rock, this Jessie of Gibraltar Whose unfailing love endured beyond her ample nursing, And we grew out of a rich and favoured childhood aware Her powers were real (we tested them enough to know their soundness) into Individual and relentlessly expanding worlds assured because she made it so. And […]...
4. On Turning Ten The whole idea of it makes me feel Like I’m coming down with something, Something worse than any stomach ache Or the headaches I get from reading in bad light A kind of measles of the spirit, A mumps of the psyche, A disfiguring chicken pox of the soul. You tell me it is too […]...
5. You Don't Believe You don’t believe I won’t attempt to make ye: You are asleep I won’t attempt to wake ye. Sleep on! sleep on! while in your pleasant dreams Of Reason you may drink of Life’s clear streams. Reason and Newton, they are quite two things; For so the swallow and the sparrow sings. Reason says ‘Miracle’: […]...
6. The peace of wild things When despair grows in me And I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the […]...
7. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
8. I'll have to change my mind I’ll have to change my mind on war, I need to take a break From structured thought; there’s more to peace – it dictates A longer oar to keep the calm than takes to make a little war. Our history as a people is a theatre of strife and where We celebrate the life of […]...
9. Olmecs rule The news is out, down Veracruz they found the evidence, Olmecs had the written word 400 years before Sumerians. A Chinese claim predates all that, but let it rest. Examine what it means to Mesoamericans! Okay, you Spanish thinking converts to the English tongue, Reflect a while, your reaching back predates the sum Of everything […]...
10. Ah, that Murphy girl Let’s talk about the weather then, Would that help you take your ease? Gossip is so rare from you The noise of falling leaves is louder than Your breathing; if breathing is whatever is Sustaining you. – Weather? Not at any cost, As old as I might seem I’m not yet dead, I haven’t lost […]...
11. That this should feel the need of Death That this should feel the need of Death The same as those that lived Is such a Feat of Irony As never was achieved Not satisfied to ape the Great In his simplicity The small must die, as well as He Oh the Audacity...
12. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
13. Let America Be America Again Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed Let it be that great strong land of love Where never […]...
14. A Sad State Of Freedom You waste the attention of your eyes, The glittering labour of your hands, And knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves Of which you’ll taste not a morsel; You are free to slave for others You are free to make the rich richer. The moment you’re born They plant around you Mills that grind […]...
15. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
16. Cotton and Corn Said Cotton to Corn, t’other day, As they met and exchang’d salute (Squire Corn in his carriage so gay, Poor Cotton, half famish’d on foot): “Great Squire, if it isn’t uncivil To hint at starvation before you, Look down on a poor hungry devil, And give him some bread, I implore you!” Quoth Corn, then, […]...
17. September, The First Day Of School I My child and I hold hands on the way to school, And when I leave him at the first-grade door He cries a little but is brave; he does Let go. My selfish tears remind me how I cried before that door a life ago. I may have had a hard time letting go. […]...
18. Theophilus By what serene malevolence of names Had you the gift of yours, Theophilus? Not even a smeared young Cyclops at his games Would have you long,-and you are one of us. Told of your deeds I shudder for your dream And they, no doubt, are few and innocent. Meanwhile, I marvel; for in you, it […]...
19. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
20. In soothing, sweetened words No, she said, I never knew it was your first. It doesn’t Matter anyway. I always had an inkling that we’d find A way. And then we did. I’m glad about it just for that. Whether it was good or bad, or would have happened Had we made a pact or that it should have […]...
21. The waters chased him as he fled The waters chased him as he fled, Not daring look behind A billow whispered in his Ear, “Come home with me, my friend My parlor is of shriven glass, My pantry has a fish For every palate in the Year” To this revolting bliss The object floating at his side Made no distinct reply....
22. Simplex Munditiis STILL to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder’d, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face That makes simplicity a grace; […]...
23. Song from The Silent Woman Still to be neat, still to be dressed, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; […]...
24. In the Country This life is sweetest; in this wood I hear no children cry for food; I see no woman, white with care; No man, with muscled wasting here. No doubt it is a selfish thing To fly from human suffering; No doubt he is a selfish man, Who shuns poor creatures, sad and wan. But ’tis […]...
25. Dockery And Son ‘Dockery was junior to you, Wasn’t he?’ said the Dean. ‘His son’s here now.’ Death-suited, visitant, I nod. ‘And do You keep in touch with-‘ Or remember how Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight We used to stand before that desk, to give ‘Our version’ of ‘these incidents last night’? I try the door of where […]...
26. Simple pleasures that you bring Do you mind if I write a few lines for you tonight? I’m fuelled for sure, perhaps a bit ebullient, (now there’s a rhyme that will be hard to find A word to suit!) I’ll try, but time will surely take A pensive break and provide a chance to make A consequence. Am I afraid […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Assurances I NEED no assurances-I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul; I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of-calm and actual faces; I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of […]...
29. The Riddle of the World Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; […]...
30. Ad Martialem GO(D) knows, my Martial, if we two could be To enjoy our days set wholly free; To the true life together bend our mind, And take a furlough from the falser kind. No rich saloon, nor palace of the great, Nor suit at law should trouble our estate; On no vainglorious statues should we look, […]...
31. Covering Two Years This nothingness that feeds upon itself: Pencils that turn to water in the hand, Parts of a sentence, hanging in the air, Thoughts breaking in the mind like glass, Blank sheets of paper that reflect the world Whitened the world that I was silenced by. There were two years of that. Slowly, Whatever splits, dissevers, […]...
32. A Parody on "A Psalm of Life&quot Life is real, life is earnest, And the shell is not its pen – “Egg thou art, and egg remainest” Was not spoken of the hen. Art is long and Time is fleeting, Be our bills then sharpened well, And not like muffled drums be beating On the inside of the shell. In the world’s […]...
33. THE DEATH OF ART “Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.” -critic Harold Bloom, who first called slam poetry “the death of art.” I am not a poet. I want to be rich and buy things for my family. Besides, I am sort of popular and can honestly say I’ve had a great […]...
34. Tools for life Has life ever dumped you in a heap? Perhaps you’ve found self belief so strongly Reinforcing that doubt never enters it, Nor divorces you from your own reality. While I admire conviction I see it an Affliction of the blessed, sign of the righteously Possessed and indeed, a decent place to serve A sentence for […]...
35. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
36. Benefit of doubt It’s a ruling from the field of pain (devoid of antique nave, A judgement process aptly named ‘benefit of doubt’); You’ve encountered it without veneer in waning times Where referees decline to rule on what is dreamed – where benefits per se are favoured the brave. I endeavoured to design a way to aid our […]...
37. Cristina I. She should never have looked at me If she meant I should not love her! There are plenty… men, you call such, I suppose… she may discover All her soul to, if she pleases, And yet leave much as she found them: But I’m not so, and she knew it When she fixed me, […]...
38. Dream Song 124: Behold I bring you tidings of great joy Behold I bring you tidings of great joy— Especially now that the snow & gale are still— For Henry is delivered. Not only is he delivered from the gale But he has a little one. He’s out of jail Also. It is a boy. Henry’s pleasure in this unusual event Reminds me of the extra […]...
39. Be Angry At San Pedro I say to my woman, “Jeffers was A great poet. think of a title Like Be Angry At The Sun. don’t you Realize how great that is? “you like that negative stuff.” she Says “positively,” I agree, finishing my Drink and pouring another. “in one of Jeffers’ poems, not the sun poem, This woman fucks […]...
40. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...