Hush, lullay.

Your treasures all

Encrust with rust,

Your trinket pleasures fall

        To dust.



Beneath the sapphire arch,

Upon the grassy floor,

Is nothing more

        To hold,

And play is over-old.

Your eyes

        In sleepy fever gleam,

Their lids droop

        To their dream.

You wander late alone,

The flesh frets on the bone,

Your love fails in your breast,

Here is the pillow.

Rest.

The thirsty earth
Drinks up the rain,
Absorbing it before
It reaches the drain,

Thank you clouds
thank you rain,
Thank you dear God
again and again,

For every drop
That touches the ground
On every rooftop
All over town,

The sweet relief
From summer's heat,
Though short rested
None-the-less sweet!

For making gardens
And flowers grow,
For the cool air, that wasn't there,
Such a short while ago.


July 26 1966

The frost is always the whitest
On the corn-crib and the barn,
The house is always the quietest
When folks are asleep on the farm,

The locusts and crickets the chirpiest
Though they may not stay in tune,
The darkness is the nightiest
When there is no moon.

As the locusts sang in the twilight heat
The Sun no longer baked the city-street,
The lonely last was her to repeat.
August.

Her lonely soul ready to bare
Trying to hide her utter despair,
She wouldn't mind if there were someone to share,
August.

Seeing lovers in the park
Who would hold hands without a care,
She would cry inside, 'It just isn't fair."
In August.


May never comes too soon
June is the month to spoon
July just right for a honeymoon

But August?


July 16 1963

Did someone scatter cornflakes
All over the ground?
Or some kind of cereal
With a crunchy sound?

When walking on the grass
There's a snap, crackle, and pop,
The dry summer's drought
Just doesn't seem to stop.

Lawns all around
Look about the same,
All turning brown
While waiting for the rain.

August 21, 1993

She never had a diamond
To grace her small left hand,
No sapphires or anything
Except her plain gold band,

No sparkling jewels of any kind
No precious stones or pearls,
Although she had one ruby
Her fourth straight baby girl,

She must have wanted riches
For 'tis natural to prefer,
But she settled for her babies
Who were shining jewels to her,

The only carats
dad was able to buy
Were on the dinner table,

Food for three square meals as well
So her only rings were the dinner bell.

Where’s Madge then,
Madge and her men?
buried with
Alice in her hair,
(but if you ask the rain
he’ll not tell where.)

beauty makes terms
with time and his worms,
when loveliness
says sweetly Yes
to wind and cold;
and how much earth
is Madge worth?
Inquire of the flower that sways in the autumn
she will never guess.
but i know

my heart fell dead before.

whereas by dark really released,the modern
flame of her indomitable body
uses a careful fierceness.  Her lips study
my head gripping for a decision:burn
the terrific fingers which grapple and joke
on my passionate anatomy
oh yes!  Large legs pinch,toes choke—
hair-thin strands of magic agony
….by day this lady in her limousine

oozes in fashionable traffic,just
a halfsmile (for society’s sweet sake)
in the not too frail lips almost discussed;
between her and ourselves a nearly-opaque
perfume disinterestedly obscene.

of this wilting wall the colour drub
souring sunbeams,of a foetal fragrance
to rickety unclosed blinds inslants
peregrinate,a cigar-stub
disintegrates,above,underdrawers club
the faintly sweating air with pinkness,
one pale dog behind a slopcaked shrub
painstakingly utters a slippery mess,
a star sleepily,feebly,scratches the sore
of morning.  But i am interested more
intricately in the delicate scorn
with which in a putrid window every day
almost leans a lady whose still-born
smile involves the comedy of decay,

when the proficient poison of sure sleep
bereaves us of our slow tranquillities

and He without Whose favour nothing is
(being of men called Love)upward doth leap
from the mute hugeness of depriving deep

with thunder of those hungering wings of His,

into the lucent and large signories
—i shall not smile,beloved;i shall not weep:

when from the less-than-whiteness of thy face
(whose eyes inherit vacancy)will time
extract his inconsiderable doom,
when these thy lips beautifully embrace
nothing
          and when thy bashful hands assume

silence beyond the mystery of rhyme