ago in a forgotten land
there was a boy that dug the sand
who hoped to split earth like a knife
to reach the eastern sea of life

he toiled away for mindly things
and never wanted priceful rings
the grand bands grew, as he did too
while shade fell on the canned brook stew

at mattress bugs the teachers squinted
of rose and lime, their glasses glinted
they recognized by nose and ear
astute a student passèd here

but, tongue and teeth, head topped with heath
the singing sword had smith'd its sheath
and decked itself in a fanciful wreath

and down he went beneath the sand
and nevermore to surface land

as much as i want to rage out about dandelions
and how i can never seem to find one in teary-eyed dinge
i cannot forsake objectivity
Lord, Lord, what is the Word?
here i am wishing i was more well-read
here i am wishing i was more, or less dead

see this steady improvement
surpass surprising leaps
achieving quality in quantity

all things being equal
humanity doesn't know
what lies within or beyond

whoever sang the oldest song?
can man and woman get along?
has rightness left, is leftness wrong?

the Bornean native lives in peace
among the trees, he doesn't see
the alien ships approach his isle

there's power in the pocket wood
dimensions where there still is good
and safety in denial

Zdzislaw
born of silence
fielddweller
cutter violence

Popes weigh loomy on the chapel ground
By gardens delightful our ancestors found.
Brush thinned for us, yet the leaves of yore
We green lovers blissfully ignore,
Amazing our elders how such tyrants bore.

I'm half a man
And half a child
Half times tame
And half times wild

One half strong
And one half weak
One half bold
And one half meek

Friday: cold
Saturday: warm
Sunday: whole
Monday: torn

I know, I know
Like bull from calf
I must outgrow
My lesser half

all pictures of poets are gray
and cold like handled dusty brooms
like staves that wait at iron dooryards
to clean up attics of being-sold barns
and houses where children cry in their beds.

i put on gray some years ago
a volunteer of duty, not joy
i was the reluctant doorbelling boy
and rarely i roamed beyond it.

winter's messengers are legion crows
its implements: charcoal smoke and snow
winter and company built a monopoly
over the hemisphere whole; no man
gave them permission. God did.

summertime sometimes gives rust
often the sun shines on ashes and dust
but, on the far side of a mountain
one evergreen pine sprite fountain
in the heart of a Maine May
can fill up our lungs with day
and free us this moment from gray.

Need you not my life to hear:
I was born, now I am here.
If few words disinterest thee,
Cut the limb and leave the tree.

Will you jump to laugh and jeer
Something slim or slight or mere?
Tales without a finite end,
Records played out, year by year, is
All I have to offer, and to
You, who whistles troves of them,
Heaps of wool 'twould be to shear.
Why pay mind, when all I wrote were
Songs of a resolving note?

If but one would come sincere,
I would, glad, delight their ear.
I would start to weave a thread,
Then my life would seem less dead.
But, as prying faces peer,
Wherefore I remain austere.

So there's nothing more to see;
Birth and death defineth me.
I was born, now I am here:
Need you not the rest to hear.

Four enchanted rainbows
From earth's fair far corners
Surge west at red canyons,
Cris-crossing my heartstone.

One by one, each sect fades—
Blue, yellow, every shade—
Becoming one pure white.
The Sky Jeweler fuses
The flowing lava streams
(Decanted airs, sunbeams)
With cloudless glints of light.

O jovial Jeweler,
Take this magic mission:
Cast a precious diamond
From carbon flakes and coal;
Meld my multicolored heart
And make me truly whole.

oh speckled albatross
purveyor of stacked rocks
when you float
how a worthy note
issues from your auburn throat
golden's the cap
on your pope hat of brass

oh gallant albatross
eleven feet across
when you glide
how your wingside
sweeps beats with the swollen tide
proud is the wash
wind that keeps you aloft

I clung contemptuously
to summerborne auburn misgivings
I sung a tempt to you thusly
but truth overshadowed forgivings

the sun is orange
it blazes hot
but doesn't warm me

i am cold
i am blue
for you, for you

I live in a nation called America,
and, today, I am human.

Can ebon wings ever quell
The mockers' cry over hell?
The thunder of their wrath?
And starry things, other worlds,
The rent, sour universe,
Which seldom halts their path?

Take off your shoulder
Your rifle and mortar
The war is over!
The war is over!
Take off your shoulder
The banners and
Rockets and targes

We're stirring the best
Of a fine hurrah,
We fought till the last
And we won the war,
We're spirited now
To home on bonny barges!

The lanes of home
Will be all aglow
When we get home,
When we get home,
The lanes of home
Will be lined
With many people

The mothers and fathers,
The lasses and lads
Will shout for joy,
And dance and be glad,
While church bells ring
Returning in the steeple!

composition: epileptic epistle
philosophic peruvian piper
coronation: kibbutz tzitzimitl

head poundings
thick broom tidings
jovial jungles
standing atop
little dark city
white shoe brings
moon death to
vesuvian-whipped
crater polis.

ornate blue mosque
smoky jazz risque
enchanted beat desque
question i asque
drum soul mahogue
undercurrent analogue

heavenly signal
as his wife's car left
and the church pastress,
a lurch of sad grace
which struck a dead horse.
"don't go, please don't go!"
but the whip came to bone,
the horse wailed alone.

down demolish
smallish college
floorish, wallish:
allish fallish

them astonished
knowledge goneish
(near abolished)
us impov'rished

them admonish
gaulish polish
lawless snobbish
tarnish promise

go accomplish
modest homage:
solid, honest
amish cottage

but I won't cry
   because I'm a Gemini
and you won't say you're sorry
   because your sign is Taury!
I don't believe in signs
   but I've been grieving so…
look out brother Leo!

Trains arrive and trains depart
But none so jolting as my heart
Joy and sorrow, love and pain
Is how my station gets its name

coming from over the hillock
the pathway to solitude
the cabrestero singing, ahh…
his couplet in the morning dew

the moon searches for the shadow
the shadow the moon eludes
because that shade is hiding, ahh…
behind the early morning dew

cry no more, watercloud
silence, bitterness
as all milk gives cheese
so all grief is cured
butterfly, watercloud

the morning is making its bedding
over the palms and shoots
the cabrestero continues, ahh…
moaning out his mournful tune

… oh …

tomorrow
when I leave
who will remember me?
only the jar
for the water I drank
bright star, watercloud

in outer space, with no sun in sight,
i open my eyes. and yet more black
surrounds this craft alone, as if its
defiant lids were never unshut.

a glimpse: far-off needlepoints of light,
beyond the yawning gulf of pitch-black,
are born-dying drifts in sightless pits,
digesting in a bottomless gut.

the dark is a hardfind ember murmur
trapped and wrapped in cages with
pages of longing and wronging brought
to silence, to nothing by the deep, in
which we can see so far, and yet, no
thing we see is reachable.

daws cry on my roof,
viewing musty lights,
builded high on rocks.
seven towers sing
your old song, now gone:
this is not my fault.

asking opus surf-khan:
why no waves, no proof?
vanish, vanish, man:
daws cry on my roof.

tragic eastern pittance,
gas-wronged breath aloof.
banish, banish, man:
daws cry on my roof.

pigeon paper truths,
accusing hoodlack lights,
still nigh in vox.
earthly powers belt
some old hymn, now dim:
this is not my fault.

slow stiltdock
orange grain  s e a
fat boats chooglin

Spirit of Stillness,
i feel you in yon sunny room,
where life is all notebooks and slippers:
beauty isolates,
lagging alarms,
cute curled clutter.

Happy Prince Pillow,
i see you in the lava lamp,
you bubble like rabbits in hopping:
lo-fi fantasies,
twenty-first centuries,
worrygone purring.

let me have that future, just
once. i know you are in me,
and calmer and deeper than
some present identity.

Innersweet Comfort,
i know you want to save me yet,
together we'll wander naïvely:
ticket to air-japan,
youthbright aurora, and
peace never ending.

when floods rage in the summer breeze,
our springing is forgot;
and then there'd be no others, we've
already cast our lot.

I am the lion, the wolf, and the horse,
Rainbow and *** of gold, river and source.
I am a windstorm of passion and rain,
Thresher of tangleweed, drummer of pain.

Flocks of the autumn air dance on my wing,
Soldiers and statesmen both bow heads and sing,
Fireflies synchronize hearts to my beat,
Churchimes clap triumphal rings down the street.

I am an echo in dancehalls of old,
I am the fever that comes with the cold,
I am the soul of the goodness of Earth,
Guardian and blesser of every new birth.

I am the mother bird, high in her nest,
All of the creatures are under my breast.
I am the white dove that flies from the strife,
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

To the sole sea child
of the mother who willed,
whose wide basin womb
the impassioned waves filled
and sewed up a coat
for the soul of the earth,
to her newborn heir
and most reverant birth,
we shout, not in shame,
praising whom the sea breathed,
who clothed dry lands with rain
and gave life unto we.
   Now we vow, undeserving,
   our fidelity unswerving.

the snow is still here
trouble is the weather
we are all in pain

Upon these shores lie wrecks of then and gone,
When once an emperor ruled a land so rich.
The sea-hope of a nation under dawn
Beheld the continent of the western witch.
The sarsen of this land of gold was lost;
By tide, the blood-flagged vessels overturned.
Uneven marks from history's page were glossed,
And all the native flowerbeds were burned.

The hours are drawn and we afar will go
To cap the wanton willows by and by,
To eat and drink, and all that comes about,
That with a man there bays no evil eye.

That one in turn, with others for themselves,
Can hardly crest the stars as they may glow,
Can barely catch the rays of any beam,
Can scarcely fetch the moondust from the snow.

If left to me, I would not come there more,
When moon is red and shining on earth's green,
Unless at last the other suns must rout,
And fade away like me and not be seen.

Then both of us could touch the brink of fate,
And shout without a care the hour is late.

love,
I think we're both pretty into this stuff

love,
I think

The limpid river surprised the cat,
He buried his head in stiff bamboo shoots.
The sun was streaming in bright rises from west,
And the river swelled on him so.
But the wind blew and the breeze fell,
The current swept him off the ledge of cliffs.
He died under the leaves beside his tomb.
He died in the dark, under the mist that shivered,
     A lonely, lonely death.

Farewell to Benbecula!
Pennyland of the fords,
Dark island of my birth,
Dearly I hold
The days of old;
To you I'll never return.

The voice of our ancestors,
In their song of peace I hear—
I will go home from now on,
That day is near.

Farewell to Benbecula!
Pennyland of the fords,
Dark island of my birth,
Dearly I hold
The days of old;
To you I'll never return.

So goodbye,
And for the last time I'll stay
In these dark seas of ice.
I hold the hope of our last parting,
But no hope can ever reburn
What a sweet melody it was....

Farewell to Benbecula!
By river, by shore and by sand:
Pennyland of the fords,
Dark island of my birth,
Dearly I hold
The days of old;
To you I'll never return.

To mention is to men
A thing forbid by woe,
Though beauty seems to flirt
Like first November snow.

In golden coffins then,
They dye the draggled corse;
Their hearts so often hurt,
For silence they endorse.

The truth about her beam,
A daughter should not know:
That sedentary gleam
Sets hearts and eyes aglow.

More wondrous is the dream
Of special moments shared,
When under every seam
Lies beauty undeclared.

Be hush and still again,
And never let words course;
Keep failing tongues inert,
Lest meanings well turn worse.

And though she stands overt
With grace upon the low,
To mention is to men
A thing forbid by woe.

Gazing across verdant moss carpets
And hills cut gently by the rail bridge,
A traveler paints on a platform
Undisclosed, watching the bright cove fan,
Unscaleable, into fjorded mounts.
Brush bristles blot confident masses,
Humming while the thinner brush defines,
But how can they capture in one stroke
The place where foam-film ends abruptly
And gives way to stillwater mirrors?
Or that distant rim, broad and exposed,
Where sea and sky blend and lift islands,
And white clouds roll on forevermore?

So the eagle
bold commands the plain,
and the king of
the jungle is the lion,
but one King alone
can tell the moon to wane,
or send the tempest
winds to India flyin'.

Not for honor,
men have carved the badge
of the flaming
cross upon their shields,
but to strike and go
where God hath shown,
and die among the
favored in the fields.

in my crown dream
i am a captain
i sail the seas
from age to age

blindly i wait
for't all to happen
still i am just
an icthiophage

aftermorrow i can see my fate
to rot in a cell or burn at the stake
the fruits that i ate were paltry and poor
an' i won't grow above five-foot-four

i've been way out, way far
over the top and across the line
paris, dubrovnik, leningrad
drop the pictureframe and let us unwind

mother can you tell me
how am i to carry on?
life is a jungle
entangled as the amazon

living in a coma
sheltered thoughts and faltered dreams
life as a loner
ain't much use in questioning....

on top of old smokey
eagles fly up and sing me to sleep
on top of the beat, the world is complete
the fire dies down and dark jupiter frowns

singing way out, beyond the stars
reaching the limits of venus and mars
half-glazed, half-mad
trying is lying the dying i've had

Down in the valley of the fleeting stream,
Parched Syrian tongues are crying aloud,
Below, below, the sacred river
Where war took away my sweetheart.

She was bright, now she is blue,
Like the cataracts dividing the stream,
And the tearducts dividing my eyes,
Below, below, the sacred river
Where war took away my sweetheart,

Torn in our tumult
From the bleak parade,
Starve we all like her delicate face,
Now forever blemished.

Therefore let us dine on hardtack!
Suffer for the things of the marble world;
Fast along the toiling road,
To the land of reward, we go.

I compared her to a flower:
The fairest fragrance ever conceived;
To think her smile is a nest for ants,
Below, below, the sacred river
Where death took away my sweetheart.

Alone I sit, I weep,
        My face is clenched by nightingales;
A country stained by grief,
        At night, I hear their biting wails
From ill-wrought molten blades,
        Alike to man and woman;
How can I reason fate away
        By crying o'er her *****?

Change these feelings about me!
I am eager to see her again,
But I won't obey the winds
Above, above the sacred river—
As far as the fragrance is concerned.

No more mourning in silence!
Turn your plowshares into swords,
Let the weak say, "I am strong";
We may yet have the final word,
Before the vanguard departs this world.

Oureana, Queen of Granada,
Looks from her Moorish palace veranda,
Reclined in a den of lavish repose,
Sipping sweet milk from a porcelain bowl.
Draped in damask and easter green,
She watches the soldier ride below.

“Resist your whim, don’t look at him!”
Softly comes the desperate hum
Of a servant forgot and ignored.
“For you, this sin evokes the din
Of sieging torrents, wind and war…
I wish, my friend, you’d hear again
The crack of battle nevermore.”

Bold Captain Gray comes down
To islands warm,
Where tawny men are chattel;
Sees brightly Patrick Spens
Survive a storm,
And wants to win the battle!

But when the cannon
Shots roar all 'round them
And punch a hole in th' aft deck;
Laments that Spens was found
A man too "holey"
Murmur around the carrack!

What were his last words,
Tell them to me boys,
Or I'll get raw with fury!
For Patrick owed your
Weight in Spanish coin;
God stablished I his jury!

But when the men had
Still not loosed their lips,
E'en under pain or menace;
Says Gray, what senators
Be these lads who still
Possess no fear of penance?

Then comes the lookout boy
From up above,
Where long the mast had held him;
Says, Patrick Spens just
Gave me his last word;
See here, it's writ on vellum!

Then up the captain roars...
And makes to burn the stores...
For tricks the crew had played...
With rage, the captain said:
     Beehive the rightless dogs, to hell ‘em,
     Give me the answer scrawled on vellum!