Will the dunces think of sticks and stones
And holler psalms of broken bones
When the cataclysms to be wrought
Is on all our race of dunces brought?
It’s not the bash of holy fail
But it’s the lifting of the veil

It befits, at length, the mortal brood
Which believes, as will, for sake of solitude
Stamping hooves with sing-song hearts
Scoffs and sighs through which joy darts
Is not the worth of regal crowns
Cast aside when a gift to clowns?

Is not the great-guard off his rails?
Nuanced, the lifting of the veil

And nuance itself, a pearl before
Swine who rut, in a squealing abhor
The smoothness of it, the spotless gleam
Or the idea of perfect the perfect deem?
All the while, swines they wail
That the green is fake in the saintly vale

For rutting they seem not be concerned,
Amid brazen wiles of burning and yearned
A heedless pit tails a brambled row,
For the virile seeds of what the puerile grow
And what of the openness of the seeds?
For a vine that tangles, or one that feeds?

Actually, to
Consider
Reading
Over the left
Side of
This poem
Is
Congratulatory.
Still, it’s

Arguable, is it
Really poetic?
Ending in

Fallacy,
Using
Nary a rhyme?

The sky turns hard
Like cauliflower,
And bleeds me out.
It turns hard,
Because I do.
I am the blood of the Earth
And bile, its running waste.
I am its health chorus.
I have known many faucets,
Creaky most, unknowing of any grander plot,
Chartering my way through lime and rust,
I have known many faucets.
I have also known mountaintops.
Places where the air is clean,
And in its own pace blows freshly over my back.
I am, on the mountain, a slumbering snowcap.
I blanket the mountaintop, I am locked with it
In a never ending kiss.
I have known places in the countryside
Where the air breathes nearly as fresh,
Sweeping down from the mountains
Thinking of me mostly, in an open talk.
I have known cities,
Where I am not so well received,
Where I must pound myself between the brick buildings,
Places drowning in nooks and crannies,
I am not so well received, though I try so hard
To reach every surface.
I slide down the sides of walls, I tremble from the slide of awnings,
I mix with gravel.
I am your dirt, your cleanliness.  I feed the doves.  I drown insects.
I wash the air between your city lives, leave your cars and livelihoods
Shining.  I am washed away by the sun, but never leave.
You see me in your gutters.  You see me in your grates.
You cannot live without me.

In thickened night, the fretful rapture came
Awakened in the dryness of straw-dead summer’s mind
Cursing in wide, breathy howling as it went
Pushing lofty power over trees that blew and bent
And so abhorred, slung wetness at the bind
Sprung lifting up to cry, dew is not the same!

Though long before, rest its firm and lightless lid
When pins of rain flecked the outer-skirting leaves
Then devil-tales plucked on the heart threads of the breeze
Tremulous, fought back the humble strain of ease
In a flinch, at everything the sudden outburst heaves
A brawling mass, to be still, the night, to be rid

Ahold impasse, our eyes, or thoughts before the scourge
Our cares aside, as all else was left to smother
Lightning-soaked, its crossing moods uncertain
The moaning tantrum, and careening of its curtain
At all greenery, and all the din saw fit to wuther
We who watched, perturbed: the bright, dark, passing urge

When the fish is a fish
And the man is a man
The studious will say
The fish is a frying pan

Quoth the great Freud
“Sometimes...a cigar”
But the studious, annoyed,
Claim none ever are

When they’re taught that the fish
Is as good as a wish
They can make up their minds
To ignore every scar



Twas Shakespeare that set
By his own special brand
The pattern of work
For the studious hand

And as Carroll and Wilde,
Whitman and Marlowe,
Being similarly styled,
Would Assuredly know

That the birds and bees
Are all rats and fleas
When left to designs
That the studious sew

1                                  2                             ­ 3
I am the pawn              At first gait               Who I fight
Over I go                      I may go two            I must strafe
One by one                  But that move          Left or right
Is what I know              Is up to you             To be safe
I trudge the lawn          To seal the fate       (A lowly plight
But do it slow               Of those few            For a humble waif)
-----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------
I am the rook                 Side to side
As much is said             Front to back
By the notches carved   I cross the board
In my stately head         For my attack
But flip and look,            In length my slide
A queen is bred             Does not lack
------------------------------------------------------------­----------------------
I am the knight              Two by three           The many views
A noble steed                Or three by two       Of my path are
Over the heads             One up, or down     Yours to choose.
Of comrades freed        Sideways through    I’ll leave a scar
A springing flight.          An L-shaped spree  Though my slews
The way I lead:              In ways not few.       Are not that far
-------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------
I am the bishop             A deep-set groove
Hand in hand                Alights my head
With royalty                   My path’s a straight
Is where I stand            Diagonal thread
In shape: closed tulip    A board-long move
In movement: grand      My opponents dread
-----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------
I am the queen              I own the gamut    But don’t be rash
Tall with crown              Of every way         Remember, any
My ruinous pattern        And every length   Piece can clash
Makes all frown            You could play       Up against me
Wipe them clean!          I move with ut-      By inch or dash
Bring ‘em down!            ter death to pay    From routes aplenty
----------------------------------------------------------------­------------------
I am the king                 A cross on top
And also tall                  I stand by color
I cannot move               I am worth
That far at all                Your every dollar
My lacking fling             In ones, I hop
Is my downfall               In ways, I flower

June was not the same
As I’d last remembered it
When last it spoke of gentle trickles
This time it threw a fit

And July had a guardian lace
Before last it fled away
Came back a beast of booming claws
Battering the day

Then August seemed to vent its steam
Fuming more and more
Till last, I felt steamed to death
And folded by September’s door