The Logic Of This State

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1. AN ODE TO MY JAILED FRIEND Unmasked – The spirits’ face is a black hole Swallowing the celestial beauty Of the stars. Caged – The sentinel is crouched Subsumed in seething pain Not pain but anger of being guiltless Yet ‘guilty’ for being in jail. The cell – No crime equals its greasy grey walls Thickly dark with no grills for […]...
2. Wonder is not precisely Knowing Wonder is not precisely Knowing And not precisely Knowing not A beautiful but bleak condition He has not lived who has not felt Suspense is his maturer Sister Whether Adult Delight is Pain Or of itself a new misgiving This is the Gnat that mangles men...
3. Modern Love XIX: No State Is Enviable No state is enviable. To the luck alone Of some few favoured men I would put claim. I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I […]...
4. Triple Feature Innocent decision: to enjoy. And the pathos Of hopefulness, of his solicitude: he in mended serape, She having plaited carefully Magenta ribbons into her hair, The baby a round half-hidden shape Slung in her rebozo, and the young son steadfastly Gripping a fold of her skirt, Pale and severe under a handed-down sombrero All regarding […]...
5. To The Right Honourable William, Earl Of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary Of The State For North-America HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn, Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn: The northern clime beneath her genial ray, Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway: Elate with hope her race no longer mourns, Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns, While in thine hand with pleasure we behold The silken reins, and Freedom’s charms […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. The World State Oh, how I love Humanity, With love so pure and pringlish, And how I hate the horrid French, Who never will be English! The International Idea, The largest and the clearest, Is welding all the nations now, Except the one that’s nearest. This compromise has long been known, This scheme of partial pardons, In ethical […]...
8. Church And State Here is fresh matter, poet, Matter for old age meet; Might of the Church and the State, Their mobs put under their feet. O but heart’s wine shall run pure, Mind’s bread grow sweet. That were a cowardly song, Wander in dreams no more; What if the Church and the State Are the mob that […]...
9. The Day that I was crowned The Day that I was crowned Was like the other Days Until the Coronation came And then ’twas Otherwise As Carbon in the Coal And Carbon in the Gem Are One and yet the former Were dull for Diadem I rose, and all was plain But when the Day declined Myself and It, in Majesty […]...
10. State's Attorney Fallas I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker, Smiter with whips and swords; I, hater of the breakers of the law; I, legalist, inexorable and bitter, Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden, Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes, And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow: Steel forceps fumbled by […]...
11. MEN MIND NO STATE IN SICKNESS That flow of gallants which approach To kiss thy hand from out the coach; That fleet of lackeys which do run Before thy swift postilion; Those strong-hoof’d mules, which we behold Rein’d in with purple, pearl, and gold, And shed with silver, prove to be The drawers of the axle-tree; Thy wife, thy children, and […]...
12. 410. Epigram-Kirk and State Excisemen YE men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering ‘Gainst poor Excisemen? Give the cause a hearing: What are your Landlord’s rent-rolls?-Taxing ledgers! What Premiers?-What ev’n Monarchs?-Mighty Gaugers! Nay, what are Priests? (those seeming godly wise-men,) What are they, pray, but Spiritual Excisemen!...
13. When All My Five And Country Senses See When all my five and country senses see, The fingers will forget green thumbs and mark How, through the halfmoon’s vegetable eye, Husk of young stars and handfull zodiac, Love in the frost is pared and wintered by, The whispering ears will watch love drummed away Down breeze and shell to a discordant beach, And, […]...
14. Afternoon Rain in State Street Cross-hatchings of rain against grey walls, Slant lines of black rain In front of the up and down, wet stone sides of buildings. Below, Greasy, shiny, black, horizontal, The street. And over it, umbrellas, Black polished dots Struck to white An instant, Stream in two flat lines Slipping past each other with the smoothness of […]...
15. Twenty Four Hour Embrace Awakening In the twenty four hour embrace of a few moments sleep, Where half a lifetime eludes dreams; And feeling you were cheated By too much gin and lack of sleep In these unconsummated fumblings. Reunions of this passion seem anomalous, Do we feed self-interests which destroy its mutuality? To cling together is a punishment […]...
16. The Onset Always the same, when on a fated night At last the gathered snow lets down as white As may be in dark woods, and with a song It shall not make again all winter long Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground, I almost stumble looking up and round, As one who overtaken by the […]...
17. Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered, As subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered. No, it was builded far from accident; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, […]...
18. Dream Song 57: In a state of chortle sin once he reflected In a state of chortle sin—once he reflected, Swilling tomato juice—live I, and did More than my thirstier years. To Hell then will it maul me? for good talk, And gripe of retail loss? I dare say not. I don’t thínk there’s that place Save sullen here, wherefrom she flies tonight Retrieving her whole body, […]...
19. Little World Children – are staring of eyes so frightful, Mischievous legs on a wooden floor, Children – is sun in the gloomy motives, Hypotheses’ of happy sciences world. Eternal disorder in the ring’s gold, Tender word’s whispers in semi-sleep, On the wall in a cozy child’s room, the dreaming Peaceful pictures of birds and sheep. Children […]...
20. Summer is shorter than any one Summer is shorter than any one Life is shorter than Summer Seventy Years is spent as quick As an only Dollar Sorrow now is polite and stays See how well we spurn him Equally to abhor Delight Equally retain him...
21. The Deer Lay Down Their Bones I followed the narrow cliffside trail half way up the mountain Above the deep river-canyon. There was a little cataract crossed the path, flinging itself Over tree roots and rocks, shaking the jeweled fern-fronds, bright bubbling water Pure from the mountain, but a bad smell came up. Wondering at it I clam- bered down the […]...
22. The Tourist From Syracuse One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a Hired assassin. John D. MacDonald You would not recognize me. Mine is the face which blooms in The dank mirrors of washrooms As you grope for the light switch. My eyes have the expression Of the cold eyes […]...
23. Fragment At last I entered a long dark gallery, Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side Were the bodies of men from far and wide Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead. “The sense of waiting here strikes strong; Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me; What are you waiting for so long? What is to happen?” […]...
24. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM A SWEET SICK YOUTH Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere, On this sick youth work your enchantments here! Bind up his senses with your numbers, so As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe. Fall gently, gently, and a-while him keep Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep: That done, then let him, dispossess’d […]...
25. I tie my Hat I crease my Shawl I tie my Hat I crease my Shawl Life’s little duties do precisely As the very least Were infinite to me I put new Blossoms in the Glass And throw the old away I push a petal from my gown That anchored there I weigh The time ’twill be till six o’clock I have so […]...
26. You Ask Me, Why, Tho' Ill at Ease You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas. It is the land that freemen till, That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will; A land of […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. What I see not, I better see What I see not, I better see Through Faith my Hazel Eye Has periods of shutting But, No lid has Memory For frequent, all my sense obscured I equally behold As someone held a light unto The Features so beloved – And I arise and in my Dream Do Thee distinguished Grace Till jealous Daylight […]...
29. Fitter to see Him, I may be Fitter to see Him, I may be For the long Hindrance Grace to Me With Summers, and with Winters, grow, Some passing Year A trait bestow To make Me fairest of the Earth The Waiting then will seem so worth I shall impute with half a pain The blame that I was chosen then Time […]...
30. Sonnet LVII SWeet warriour when shall I haue peace with you? High time it is, this warre now ended were: Which I no lenger can endure to sue, Ne your incessant battry more to beare: So weake my powres, so sore my wounds appeare, That wonder is how I should liue a iot, Seeing my hart through […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. Waiting For The Miracle (co-written by Sharon Robinson) Baby, I’ve been waiting, I’ve been waiting night and day. I didn’t see the time, I waited half my life away. There were lots of invitations And I know you sent me some, But I was waiting For the miracle, for the miracle to come. I know you really loved me. […]...
33. Four Things Four things a man must learn to do If he would make his record true: To think without confusion clearly; To love his fellow man sincerely; To act from honest motives purely; To trust in God and Heaven securely....
34. From the Roof This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers animal vines twisting over the line and Slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment In the gesticulations of shirtsleeves, I recall out of my joy a night of misery Walking in the dark and the wind over broken earth, Halfmade foundations and unfinished drainage trenches […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond So heavy Is the long-necked, long-bodied heron, Always it is a surprise When her smoke-colored wings Open And she turns From the thick water, From the black sticks Of the summer pond, And slowly Rises into the air And is gone. Then, not for the first or the last time, I take the deep breath […]...
37. Light is sufficient to itself Light is sufficient to itself If Others want to see It can be had on Window Panes Some Hours in the Day. But not for Compensation It holds as large a Glow To Squirrel in the Himmaleh Precisely, as to you....
38. Hymn 111 Salvation by grace. Titus 3:3-7. [Lord, we confess our num’rous faults, How great our guilt has been! Foolish and vain were all our thoughts, And all our lives were sin. But, O my soul! for ever praise, For ever love his name, Who turns thy feet from dangerous ways Of folly, sin, and shame.] [‘Tis […]...
39. That it will never come again That it will never come again Is what makes life so sweet. Believing what we don’t believe Does not exhilarate. That if it be, it be at best An ablative estate This instigates an appetite Precisely opposite....
40. Model For The Laureate On thrones from China to Peru All sorts of kings have sat That men and women of all sorts Proclaimed both good and great; And what’s the odds if such as these For reason of the State Should keep their lovers waiting, Keep their lovers waiting? Some boast of beggar-kings and kings Of rascals black […]...