Poems

Leap Year

All the years of grown’n up, “leap year,”
Just meant an extra day of cold and grief.
In the gruesome days of February,
Before you could turn a calendar leaf.

For years I’ve always calculated,
Without that extra day in there.
By the time I turned eighty,
I’d be breathing younger air.

Saddled with all the daily ranch work,
I never bothered with the solar spin.
We just had our yearly chores,
That we’d do over and over again.

Back in the early days of grades,
Far out in a country school.
Our teacher taught us a little riddle,
That became a Golden Rule.

That we could use throughout our lives,
To remember each month’s days.
And recite it on command,
Even in our foggiest lackluster haze.

But I’ve always done things my way,
To keep track of days gone by.
They say dyslexics do that,
So here’s my version why.

Thirty days has September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty one,
Except “January,” that on certain long winters has “forty some.”

Fear

I fear the vast dimensions of eternity.
I fear the gap between the platform and the train.
I fear the onset of a murderous campaign.
I fear the palpitations caused by too much tea.

I fear the drawn pistol of a rapparee.
I fear the books will not survive the acid rain.
I fear the ruler and the blackboard and the cane.
I fear the Jabberwock, whatever it might be.

I fear the bad decisions of a referee.
I fear the only recourse is to plead insane.
I fear the implications of a lawyer’s fee.

I fear the gremlins that have colonized my brain.
I fear to read the small print of the guarantee.
And what else do I fear? Let me begin again.

Prayer for My Father as a Child

In the house where he sleeps
let my ears
be the leaves at the window.

Let the bulbs of the lamps
be my eyes
on the animal street.

Let the shadows that harbour
my unborn body
stir when harm is stirring.

I’ll sleep in the drawer
with the knives.
I’ll turn in the locks.

Ozymandias

In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,
“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,—
Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder — and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

Loneliness

Loneliness is a town
Where everyone else is dead.
The streets are clean,
The street markets empty,
Suddenly everything's in a true light
Through being deserted -- exactly
The way it was meant to be.
Loneliness is a city
Where it's always snowing
Prodigiously, and no footsteps ever
Profane the layered
Drift of the light.
And you alone, the unsleeping eye
Keeping an eye on the sleepers, you
See, comprehend, and can't have enough
Of a silence so pristine
Nobody fights there,
Nobody's lied to,
And even the tear in the eye
Of the abandoned animals
Is too pure to hurt.
On the border
Between suffering and death,
Loneliness is a happy town.

Fragment 147

someone will remember us
                 I say
                 even in another time

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

[The house was just twinkling in the moon light]

The house was just twinkling in the moon light,
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twinkling in the moon light,
Her hubby dear loves to cheer when he thinks
and he always thinks when he knows and he always
knows that his blessed baby wifey is all here and he
is all hers, and sticks to her like burrs, blessed baby

The Shortest Day

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Ghosts

Having survived the night of rhetoric and childhood
I'm left with the image of the three of us:
Mother, sister, daughter--an idea of progression--
An idea abandoned at varying distances.
The dream was the story of another way to live.
As the characters assumed uncontrolled postures
There you were among them, knowing what you wanted.

What if the night is a book you must dream
Someone else's dream over and over, each word
A syringe with the job of waking up
Some decreased part. Whose face is at the window?
An old white sheet with cut-out eyes
Held against a face you know, you remember
Someone smiling at you like that, a long time ago.

Once upon a midnight dreary, While I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious Volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, Suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, Rapping at my chamber door. "'T is some visitor," I muttered, "Tapping at my chamber door Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, It was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember Wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; Vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow Sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden Whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain Rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me,—filled me with fantastic Terrors, never felt before; So that now, to still the beating Of my heart, I stood repeating, " 'T is some visitor entreating Entrance at my chamber door Some late visitor entreating Entrance at my chamber door; This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; Hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly Your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, And so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, Tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"— Here I opened wide the door; Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, Long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals Ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, And the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken Was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo Murmured back the word, "Lenore!"— Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, All my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping Something louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely, that is Something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, And this mystery explore— Let my heart be still a moment And this mystery explore;— 'T is the wind and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, When, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven Of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; Not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, Perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas Just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling My sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum Of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, Thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven Wandering from the nightly shore,— Tell me what thy lordly name is On the night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marveled this ungainly Fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning— Little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing That no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing Bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured Bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely On that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in That one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then he uttered; Not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, As my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken By reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters Is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master Whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster Till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that Melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.' "

But the Raven still beguiling All my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in Front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking What this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, Gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, But no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now Burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, With my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining That the lamplight gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining With the lamplight gloating o'er She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, Perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim, whose footfalls Tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee— By these angels he hath sent thee Respite—respite and nepenthe[1] From thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, And forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!— Prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether Tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, On this desert land enchanted— On this home by Horror haunted— Tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?— Tell me—tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil,— Prophet still, if bird or devil!— By that heaven that bends above us,— By that God we both adore,— Tell this soul with sorrow laden If, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden Whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden Whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, Bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting— "Get thee back into the tempest And the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token Of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!— Quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and Take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, Still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas Just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming Of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight o'er him streaming Throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow That lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!

The Kraken

Deep beneath the foaming billows
Something suddenly amiss,
As a creature wakes from slumber
In the bottomless abyss.
And a panic fills the ocean,
Every fish and frenzied flea,

For the Kraken has awakened at the bottom of the seas.

It rises to the surface
With an overwhelming noise,
And it hunts for mighty vessels
Which it crushes and destroys.
Then it chokes a great leviathan
With one stupendous squeeze!

Oh, the Kraken has awakened at the bottom of the seas.

How it lashes, how it thrashes,
How it flashes, how it flails,
How it dwarfs the greatest fishes,
Even dwarfs the mighty Wales.
Nothing living in the ocean
Can enjoy a moment’s ease,

For the Kraken has awakened at the bottom of the seas.

INVITATION

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer ...
If you're a pretender, com sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!
Come in!

Heirloom

Sundown, the day nearly eaten away,

the Boxcar Willies peep. Their
inside-eyes push black and plump

against walls of pumpkin skin. I step
into dying backyard light. Both hands

steal into the swollen summer air,
a blind reach into a blaze of acid,

ghost bloom of nacre & breast.
One Atlantan Cherokee Purple,

two piddling Radiator Charlies
are Lena-Horne lured into the fingers

of my right hand. But I really do love you,
enters my ear like a nest of yellow jackets,

well wedged beneath a two-by-four.

But I really didn't think I would (ever leave),
stings before the ladder hits the ground.

I swat the familiar buzz away.
My good arm arcs and aims.

My elbow cranks a high, hard cradle
and draws a fire. The end of the day's

sweaty air stirs fast in a bowl, the coming
shadows, the very diamond match I need.

One by one, each Blind Willie
takes his turn Pollocking the back

fence, heart pine explodes gold-leafed in
red and brown-eyed ochre. There is practice

for everything in this life. This is how
you throw something perfectly good away.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Man's Short Life and Foolish Ambition

In gardens sweet each flower mark did I,
How they did spring, bud, blow, wither and die.

With that, contemplating of man's short stay,
Saw man like to those flowers pass away.

Yet built he houses, thick and strong and high,
As if he'd live to all Eternity.

Hoards up a mass of wealth, yet cannot fill
His empty mind, but covet will he still.

To gain or keep, such falsehood will he use!
Wrong, right or truth—no base ways will refuse.

I would not blame him could he death out keep,
Or ease his pains or be secure of sleep:

Or buy Heaven's mansions—like the gods become,
And with his gold rule stars and moon and sun:

Command the winds to blow, seas to obey,
Level their waves and make their breezes stay.

But he no power hath unless to die,
And care in life is only misery.

This care is but a word, an empty sound,
Wherein there is no soul nor substance found;

Yet as his heir he makes it to inherit,
And all he has he leaves unto this spirit.

To get this Child of Fame and this bare word,
He fears no dangers, neither fire nor sword:

All horrid pains and death he will endure,
Or any thing can he but fame procure.

O man, O man, what high ambition grows
Within his brain, and yet how low he goes!

To be contented only with a sound,
Wherein is neither peace nor life nor body found.

Pygmalion

One expects a certain raggedness—
cracked and broken, bleeding in bad weather—
but clay has kept them clean, unlined and supple,
brushing the dust from the sheet
on which he makes his petition
begging the goddess relieve him of  her blessing.
Cyprus sweats and sings through the window:
pigeons chasing boys who chased them,
women whispering the name he kisses
with a desiccating gesture: cool breath
through lips pursed like the papyrus
reed unrolled to hold the seething
sentiment she’s cozened. Her fault:
the suppurating star his cock
keeps seeking, the tumid tit that taunts
the tongue he tucks behind the teeth
he clenches. Her fault: the penetrating
scent staining his thumb’s
dumb hammer, witless peen he pressed
through beetled myrtle blossoms. He liked to feel
them give and pop, to watch
flame dissolve each busted cup,
kneeling in the temple as the priest
intoned the blessing. Mother of  Desire,
wheedling goddess: what prayer salves
the sucking wound, slips a man
free from fervid orbit of  the cunt’s
collapsing star? What he’d asked
was what he could constrain: an alabaster
virgin’s bashful glance, not this yielding
flesh flushed red with summer heat
and creased where she lay on a hem,
the line like the slip of his knife. Not the humid
breath that turns the chamber damp, the errant
hairs bristling her chin, her nipples
sprouting wire. Not the tongue
flopping boneless in the mouth
he had not carved. Something like a thought
unfurled behind her eyes, consciousness
bloomed like a dark drop of ink, then panic
when she had no words. What did she want
him to say. That when he was young
he saw a sparrow nicking fruit
and swallowing it whole? He still feels
the pit lodged in his throat, airless
terror swelled like a flag, still recoils
when hunger drives its chisel to the stone,
remembers tugging at his mother’s skirts
then the humming lump he found
buried in her thigh. By summer she was
ashes mixed with sand where girls
tiptoe to the cliffs above the sea
and giggling cast their votives to the surf,
dreaming the goddess will bless
their burgeoning desire. Bitter the furrowed
shell that sheathes the seed, the flesh
in which the germ is lodged, the small
machine from which a murderous
appetite unwinds. What the surgeon cut from her
had hair and half a crooked smile.
Teratoma it was called, monster-swelling.
Camphor calling forth the blood.
In the streets the children shriek
finders-keepers and the sound
from the next room is fingernails on slate:
she is learning how to say his name.

Narcissus And Echo

Shall the water not remember   Ember
my hand’s slow gesture, tracing about   of
its mirror my half-imaginary   airy
portrait? My only belonging   longing;
is my beauty, which I take   ache
away and then return, as love   of
of teasing playfully the one being   unbeing.
whose gratitude I treasure   Is your
moves me. I live apart   heart
from myself, yet cannot   not
live apart. In the water’s tone,   stone?
that brilliant silence, a flower   Hour,
whispers my name with such slight   light:
moment, it seems filament of air,   fare
the world become cloudswell.   well.

The Dawn

I would be as ignorant as the dawn,
That has looked down
On that old queen measuring a town
With the pin of a brooch,
Or on the withered men that saw
From their pedantic Babylon
The careless planets in their courses,
The stars fade out where the moon comes,
And took their tablets and made sums--
Yet did but look, rocking the glittering coach
Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses.
I would be--for no knowledge is worth a straw--
Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.

Par Rum Pum Pum Pum

The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master’s crib.
Isaiah 1:3

The erstwhile holy father in a book
on the infancy of Jesus, Christ the Lord,
debunked the angels we have heard on high
and banished beasts from the Nativity.
those manger scenes and creches notwithstanding,
those figurines of lowly animals,
their steamy exhalations warming the babe,
more myth, so says the pope, than scriptural.
My jack ass, Charles, has begun to mope
around the haggard, inconsolable
as that giant Canaanite and erstwhile saint
who shouldered Christ across the river once,
downsized, alas, to “Mister” Christopher,
by another pope, who some few years ago
consigned him to the hinterlands of faith.
As for Charles, my gelded, piebald ass,
who’s borne such burdens as were his to bear,
on Sundays carting Christians off to Mass
much as a forbearer bore Mary hence,
fat, gravid with God’s Lamb to Bethlehem,
the way lit by a guiding star’s bright light
now dimmed some by the magisterium.
The time I’ve spent with asses was well spent
and taught me reticence, humility,
and reverence for their meditative lives;
whereas my time with hierarchs has wrought
little but wariness at the ways of men
who claim to have such eminence and grace
and proud dominion over lesser beings
for whom the heart keeps time: par rum pum pum pum.

The Nightingale

The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,
Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making,
And mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth
What grief her breast oppresseth
For Tereus’ force on her chaste will prevailing.
O Philomela fair, O take some gladness,
That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth;
Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

Alas, she hath no other cause of anguish
But Tereus’ love, on her by strong hand wroken,
Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish;
Full womanlike complains her will was broken.
But I, who daily craving,
Cannot have to content me,
Have more cause to lament me,
Since wanting is more woe than too much having.
O Philomela fair, O take some gladness,
That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth;
Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
  If this be error, and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Death, be not proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

One Child Has Brown Eyes

One child has brown eyes, one has blue
One slanted, another rounded
One so nearsighted he squints internal
One had her extra epicanthic folds removed
One downcast, one couldn't be bothered
One roams the heavens for a perfect answer
One transfixed like a dead doe, a convex mirror
One shines double-edged like a poisoned dagger
Understand their vision, understand their blindness
Understand their vacuity, understand their mirth

Augustus

Jet pears hung squalidly against the drapes
and his fingertips glistened with frost.
The orange sun melted his nape.
In his drafty palace, there lived a statue
and over the palace Augustus sent his vines,
cerise cries in the white air.
Tender little shots rang out.

Waterfalls swelled and kissed before him,
knelt and screamed as crowns spun
through the night, the night of Augustus
which was like an army of marauders,
unceasing and full of insight,
the dashing snow! the pure! the fierce! the free!
and the waterfalls were still as flames.

The voice began, like so many daggers.
At first Augustus only felt them
as doves attempting to hide in his breast,
but soon they surrounded him completely
like a crown of screams, as clearly as sand
pouring through glass in the winter desert.
He was the metal of his crown at last.