A Mediocre Man

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1. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
2. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
3. Bank Robber I much admire, I must admit, The man who robs a Bank; It takes a lot of guts and grit, For lack of which I thank The gods: a chap ‘twould make of me You wouldn’t ask to tea. I do not mean a burglar cove Who climbs into a house, From room to room […]...
4. MACTAVISH I do not write for love of pelf, Nor lust for phantom fame; I do not rhyme to please myself, Nor yet to win acclaim: No, strange to say it is my plan, What gifts I have, to lavish Upon a simple working man MACTAVISH. For that’s the rather smeary name, Of dreary toil a […]...
5. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
6. Kin BROTHER, I am fire Surging under the ocean floor. I shall never meet you, brother Not for years, anyhow; Maybe thousands of years, brother. Then I will warm you, Hold you close, wrap you in circles, Use you and change you Maybe thousands of years, brother. Where the moon slants and wavers....
7. Ah! Yet Consider it Again! “Old things need not be therefore true,” O brother men, nor yet the new; Ah! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again! The souls of now two thousand years Have laid up here their toils and tears, And all the earnings of their pain, Ah, yet consider it again! We! what […]...
8. The Strangest Creature On Earth You’re like a scorpion, my brother, You live in cowardly darkness like a scorpion. You’re like a sparrow, my brother, Always in a sparrow’s flutter. You’re like a clam, my brother, Closed like a clam, content, And you’re frightening, my brother, like the mouth of an extinct volcano. Not one, not five Unfortunately, you number […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. Father My father knows the proper way The nation should be run; He tells us children every day Just what should now be done. He knows the way to fix the trusts, He has a simple plan; But if the furnace needs repairs, We have to hire a man. My father, in a day or two […]...
11. Familiarity Familiarity some claim Can breed contempt, So from it let it be your aim To be exempt. Let no one exercise his brawn To slap your back, Lest he forget your name is John, And call you Jack. To those who crash your private pew Be sour as krout; Don’t let them see the real […]...
12. Romulus and Remus Oh, little did the Wolf-Child care When first he planned his home, What City should arise and bear The weight and state of Rome. A shiftless, westward-wandering tramp, Checked by the Tiber flood, He reared a wall around his camp Of uninspired mud. But when his brother leaped the Wall And mocked its height and […]...
13. Resolutions Each New Year’s Eve I used to brood On my misdoings of the past, And vowed: “This year I’ll be so good – Well, haply better than the last.” My record of reforms I read To Mum who listened sweetly to it: “Why plan all this, my son?” she said; “Just do it.” Of her […]...
14. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
15. Little Brother Wars have been and wars will be Till the human race is run; Battles red by land and sea, Never peace beneath the sun. I am old and little care; I’ll be cold, my lips be dumb: Brother mine, beware, beware. . . Evil looms the wrath to come. Eastern skies are dark with strife, […]...
16. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
17. As plan for Noon and plan for Night As plan for Noon and plan for Night So differ Life and Death In positive Prospective The Foot upon the Earth At Distance, and Achievement, strains, The Foot upon the Grave Makes effort at conclusion Assisted faint of Love....
18. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
19. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
20. The Stretcher-Bearer My stretcher is one scarlet stain, And as I tries to scrape it clean, I tell you wot I’m sick with pain For all I’ve ‘eard, for all I’ve seen; Around me is the ‘ellish night, And as the war’s red rim I trace, I wonder if in ‘Eaven’s height, Our God don’t turn away […]...
21. My Brothers While I make rhymes my brother John Makes shiny shoes which dames try on, And finding to their fit and stance They buy and wear with elegance; But mine is quite another tale, For song there is no sale. My brother Tom a tailor shop Is owner of, and ladies stop To try the models […]...
22. MAHOMET'S SONG [This song was intended to be introduced in A dramatic poem entitled Mahomet, the plan of which was not carried Out by Goethe. He mentions that it was to have been sung by Ali Towards the end of the piece, in honor of his master, Mahomet, shortly Before his death, and when at the height […]...
23. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
24. Relax Do you recall that happy bike With bundles on our backs? How near to heaven it was like To blissfully relax! In cosy tavern of good cheer To doff our heavy packs, And with a mug of foamy beer Relax. Learn to relax: to clean the mind Of fear and doubt and care, And in […]...
25. Tim My brother Tim has children ten, While I have none. Maybe that’s why he’s toiling when To ease I’ve won. But though I would some of his brood Give hearth and care, I know that not a one he would Have heart to spare. ‘Tis children that have kept him poor; He’s clad them neat. […]...
26. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
27. Hostel Beach, Oneroa The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach, If the tide was out you’d reach a tiny bay beyond The cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete For blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood; A risky place to contemplate the games we planned, We […]...
28. To Catullus My brother, my Valerius, dearest head Of all whose crowning bay-leaves crown their mother Rome, in the notes first heard of thine I read My brother. No dust that death or time can strew may smother Love and the sense of kinship inly bred From loves and hates at one with one another. To thee […]...
29. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
30. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
31. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
32. Our Pote A pote is sure a goofy guy; He ain’t got guts like you or I To tell the score; He ain’t goy gumption ’nuff to know The game of life’s to get the dough, Then get some more. Take Brother Bill, he used to be The big shot of the family, The first at school; […]...
33. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
34. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
35. Mourning Alas my brother! the cry of the mourners of old That cried on each other, All crying aloud on the dead as the death-note rolled, Alas my brother! As flashes of dawn that mists from an east wind smother With fold upon fold, The past years gleam that linked us one with another. Time sunders […]...
36. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
37. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
38. Strip Teaser My precious grand-child, aged two, Is eager to unlace one shoe, And then the other; Her cotton socks she’ll deftly doff Despite the mild reproaches of Her mother. Around the house she loves to fare, And with her rosy tootsies bare, Pit-pat the floor; And though remonstrances we make She presently decides to take Off […]...
39. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
40. Sea Change I saw a Priest in beetle black Come to our golden beach, And I was taken sore aback Lest he should choose to preach And chide me for my only wear, A “Gee” string and a brassière. And then I saw him shyly doff And fold his grim soutane, And one by one his clothes […]...