First Impressions: Budapest 1992

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1. Bless 'em beggars, buskers, street vendors bless ’em beggars, buskers, street vendors Breastfeeding mothers, fathers weather- Beaten, misplaced babies, outofschoolboys&girls Enduring with furious fidelity Everyday musk of japanese/german carfumery Bless ’em by-products of national antigress Fretful souls on the brims of sanity&civility However they might have depreciated thin Our soles of mercy Each with a pair of nike shoes, before we […]...
2. Budapest Museum of Fine Arts a Memo from the Past This is to compliment those Who have made us petrified And conjured up evidence of our sufferings Into what they call a tourist’s attraction...
3. Editorial Impressions He seemed so certain ‘all was going well’, As he discussed the glorious time he’d had While visiting the trenches. ‘One can tell You’ve gathered big impressions!’ grinned the lad Who’d been severely wounded in the back In some wiped-out impossible Attack. ‘Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing A little book called Europe on […]...
4. The Hawk ‘Call down the hawk from the air; Let him be hooded or caged Till the yellow eye has grown mild, For larder and spit are bare, The old cook enraged, The scullion gone wild.’ ‘I will not be clapped in a hood, Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist, Now I have learnt to be […]...
5. Reuben Pantier Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted, Your love was not all in vain. I owe whatever I was in life To your hope that would not give me up, To your love that saw me still as good. Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story. I pass the effect of my […]...
6. An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father Both in their temporary failure. Our two voices met above The Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us. Neither of us wants the boy or […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Flight Of Stairs Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers Before they close them. They curiously investigate […]...
9. GANYMEDE How, in the light of morning, Round me thou glowest, Spring, thou beloved one! With thousand-varying loving bliss The sacred emotions Born of thy warmth eternal Press ‘gainst my bosom, Thou endlessly fair one! Could I but hold thee clasp’d Within mine arms! Ah! upon thy bosom Lay I, pining, And then thy flowers, thy […]...
10. The Wifebeater There will be mud on the carpet tonight And blood in the gravy as well. The wifebeater is out, The childbeater is out Eating soil and drinking bullets from a cup. He strides bback and forth In front of my study window Chewing little red pieces of my heart. His eyes flash like a birthday […]...
11. Twice Shy Her scarf a la Bardot, In suede flats for the walk, She came with me one evening For air and friendly talk. We crossed the quiet river, Took the embankment walk. Traffic holding its breath, Sky a tense diaphragm: Dusk hung like a backcloth That shook where a swan swam, Tremulous as a hawk Hanging […]...
12. A Little Litany When God turned back eternity and was young, Ancient of Days, grown little for your mirth (As under the low arch the land is bright) Peered through you, gate of heaven and saw the earth. Or shutting out his shining skies awhile Built you about him for a house of gold To see in pictured […]...
13. Wilderness THERE is a wolf in me… fangs pointed for tearing gashes… a red tongue for raw meat… and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fox in me… a silver-gray fox… I sniff and guess… I […]...
14. Under The Moon I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde, Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle, Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while; Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind; Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart: Land-under-Wave, where out of the […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
17. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
18. 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 […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. The Unknown Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown Who lies here with no stone to mark the place. As a boy reckless and wanton, Wandering with gun in hand through the forest Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield, I shot a hawk perched on the top Of a dead tree. He fell with […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. Autobiographical The lover in these poems Is me; The doctor, Love. He appears As husband, lover Analyst & muse, As father, son & maybe even God & surely death. All this is true. The man you turn to In the dark Is many men. This is an open secret Women share & yet agree to hide […]...
23. Servant Girl and Grocer's Boy Her lips’ remark was: “Oh, you kid!” Her soul spoke thus (I know it did): “O king of realms of endless joy, My own, my golden grocer’s boy, I am a princess forced to dwell Within a lonely kitchen cell, While you go dashing through the land With loveliness on every hand. Your whistle strikes […]...
24. 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....
25. On why it is necessary to talk kindly to frogs i met a frog in my garden today Lurking under a stone – it said There used to be a pond here I know i said i had to dig it up Pity said the frog and looked at me As if i was the thickest mortal A garden without water it croaked Is worse […]...
26. SYMBOLS PALM Sunday at the Vatican They celebrate with palms; With reverence bows each holy man, And chaunts the ancient psalms. Those very psalms are also sung With olive boughs in hand, While holly, mountain wilds among, In place of palms must stand: In fine, one seeks some twig that’s green, And takes a willow rod, […]...
27. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
28. Sestina Of The Tramp-Royal Speakin’ in general, I’ave tried ’em all The ‘appy roads that take you o’er the world. Speakin’ in general, I’ave found them good For such as cannot use one bed too long, But must get ‘ence, the same as I’ave done, An’ go observin’ matters till they die. What do it matter where or ‘ow […]...
29. 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...
30. Many workmen Many workmen Built a huge ball of masonry Upon a mountain-top. Then they went to the valley below, And turned to behold their work. “It is grand,” they said; They loved the thing. Of a sudden, it moved: It came upon them swiftly; It crushed them all to blood. But some had opportunity to squeal....
31. "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 […]...
32. The Atheist And The Acorn Methinks this World is oddly made, And ev’ry thing’s amiss, A dull presuming Atheist said, As stretch’d he lay beneath a Shade; And instanced in this: Behold, quoth he, that mighty thing, A Pumpkin, large and round, Is held but by a little String, Which upwards cannot make it spring, Or bear it from the […]...
33. The Black Hawk War of the Artists WRITTEN FOR LORADO TAFT’S STATUE OF BLACK HAWK AT OREGON, ILLINOIS To be given in the manner of the Indian Oration and the Indian War-Cry. Hawk of the Rocks, Yours is our cause to-day. Watching your foes Here in our war array, Young men we stand, Wolves of the West at bay. Power, power for […]...
34. NO FAULT IN WOMEN No fault in women, to refuse The offer which they most would chuse. No fault: in women, to confess How tedious they are in their dress; No fault in women, to lay on The tincture of vermilion; And there to give the cheek a dye Of white, where Nature doth deny. No fault in women, […]...
35. To His Mistress Objecting To Him Neither Toying Nor Talking You say I love not, ’cause I do not play Still with your curls, and kiss the time away. You blame me, too, because I can’t devise Some sport to please those babies in your eyes;- By love’s religion, I must here confess it, The most I love, when I the least express it. Small […]...
36. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
37. 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...
38. Hurt Hawks I The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder, The wing trails like a banner in defeat, No more to use the sky forever but live with famine And pain a few days: cat nor coyote Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons. He stands under […]...
39. At Cheyenne Young Lochinvar came in from the West, With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest; The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat, His No. Brogans were chuck full of feet, His girdle was horrent with pistols and things, And he flourished a handful of aces on kings. The fair Mariana sate […]...
40. The Interrogation Of The Man Of Many Hearts Who’s she, that one in your arms? She’s the one I carried my bones to And built a house that was just a cot And built a life that was over an hour And built a castle where no one lives And built, in the end, a song To go with the ceremony. Why have […]...