The afternoon’s drippy and muddy,
And kids are kept out of Dad’s study.  
There’s nothing to do
But mope the day through
Or living-room rugby with Buddy.

King Agamemnon raised a wind
When the whole fleet had lain becalmed.  
He’d sacrificed, and hadn’t qualmed.  
From horror he could not rescind.  
His wife has taken the loss badly.  
Not even kings can lessen grief,
Or render the bereft relief.  
He’d give his life for hers, and gladly.  
And jealousy has made it worse.  
The girl is a much younger mate,
But looks and youth can’t replicate
A marriage sorrow can’t reverse.  
Any captive’s understandably
A little skittish at the first.  
They say she’s mad, that she’s been cursed
With visions of the things to be.  
Shamans love to peddle threats
And when the worst misfortune hits
They preen like fortune’s favorites.  
And they alone have no regrets.  
He had refused a wheedling fraud.  
And then a bunch of men got sick.  
Confronted by a lunatic,
He’d given in, resigned unawed.  
A warlord doesn’t quake from fear
Because a foreign princess whines.    
Him frightened by his concubines?
The girl’s annoying but sincere.

Life’s a very busy thing
And rushes by so fast,
And since inertia rules this world
It cannot help but last.  

Transactions plonk the daylight hours,
And revels blot the dark.
There is a grimy window near
That looks on a glum park.

Dour duty may seem cruel
To novices, but rasped
To callouses by some hair shirt,
Skin glories in its clasp.  

A rougher kiss is sweetest bliss
To scourged and toughened hides,
Until abraded to a scar
Where stunted dullness bides.

An ant will sit on a committee
That studies where in all the city
The children are most prone
To drop an ice cream cone.  
At tiny scales they’re not that gritty.

Loquacious people love to spill
Plump secrets they’re too vain to keep.  
To tell tremendous news can reap
Friends whom novelty alone can thrill.  
The truth is common property,
And independently abides,
While forgettings are all pseudocides,
And neglectful parents can’t agree.  
Whoever lies confers a gift
Devising falsehoods just for you.  
Facts thrive where thistles never grew.  
Don’t give what anyone can lift.  
In legend consumed bread regrows
To feed a nation from one loaf.  
Truths regenerate, so any oaf
Can pluck a common, banal rose.  
Truth-tellers safely can forget,
Because some checking resupplies.
Not so with lonely, fragile lies,
Whoever lies must ever fret.  
Glib, easy tongues who scatter facts
Have given every anyone
A tale regifted they’ve not spun.  
Lies are what imagining enacts.  
The stringent claim that facts are few
While falsehoods sprout in multitudes
But where the robust truth intrudes
Mendacity’s scorched residue.  
The truth is a replenished ore
Dug from an open, shallow mine.  
Lies are a moon-grown eglantine
Or stories from a private lore.  
Facts are devalued minted lead,
Coins of a debased currency,
But lies are golden filigree
Which melts wherever sunlight’s spread.

Too nimble for sluggards to swat
Flies will gambol when it gets hot.  
Don’t bother to flap.  
You’re too slow to slap
That buzzing, tormenting argonaut.

The ancients put tremendous matters
On oracles and auguries.  
When godhood speaks, the priest agrees.
Glib cunning fails when trouble batters.  
Calculations have a thousand ways
To err, while chance can cut the odds
To one in ten, or more if gods
Drop hints about our dossiers.  
Augurs read events to come
From entrails, bones, and scattered sticks.  
Their guesses are arithmetics
For problems reasoning can’t sum.

For ***** to bounce is very rude,
Unless they dropped.  Ascendancy
Is boldness we don’t like to see.    
And roundness really is quite lewd.  
For spheres, directions are the same,
And favoring the vertical
Is impudent in a mere ball.  
A proper toy should be more tame.

Black shadows are all sycophants
That mimic every shape.  
White shadows seal their bearers up,
And bury what they ape.  
Black shadows curl off thick sunlight,
And launch themselves from dust.  
White shadows flake from winter’s breath,
Congealed as vapor’s rust.      
In two dimensions, or in three,
Shade and snow are booleans,
Dark in intersection tracing truth.
And snow in difference.

A drunkard’s guzzled several days,
And staggering outside,  
Dull and disoriented, seeks,
But cannot find, a guide.  
The hour proclaimed is even six,
Twice daily otium.  
The arrow hangs at bottom rim
Like a dead pendulum.  
The birth and dying of the light
Are symmetry in dim.
The day is leaching into night,
Or morning’s failing him.

A widow from Wimberly whistles
And fills all her pillows with thistles.  
So nice on the cheek,
You’ll sleep for a week.  
When dozing on brambles and bristles.

Since a bitter beverage goes best
With sweeter courses, adding zest,
So many breakfast dishes
Considered most delicious
Are sugary bases syrup dressed.

The summer brings on buzzing flies.  
Those whirrings around ears and eyes
Strum lullabies that make
A sleeper **** awake
And aggravate miserable Julies.

He’s cruel and stupid, and ignores
His omened doom, pronounced, decreed,
And mine with his, no ranted screed.  
Though I must speak, I pray it bores.  
The direst warnings couldn’t save
My family, or those I loved.  
When prophecy failed, I should have shoved
Them from the palace to some cave.  
Now it’s too late to intervene,
And force can spare their murderer.  
I should prevent, but I’ll demur,
And perish too. I’m just sixteen.  
I’ve suffered, but don’t want to die,
Especially not matched with him.  
Even so, I’ll meet my downfall prim,
Trojan royalty too brave to cry.

Our undercroft had housed our dead
Unseen, in gloomy sepulture.  
But pagan chieftains much prefer
Barrows, where height can show instead.  
And the busier departments need
Those lowest levels for their work.
Glib passers-by avoid that murk,
And absent bosses don’t impede.      
Ensconsed where corpses decomposed,
Those in cubicles will thrive, unvexed,
And never taken from their desks,
They’ll finish the great work imposed.  
Interrers from a raucous age
Buried their kings and queens in mounds.
Since robbers filch, and greed abounds,
The wise entombed their heritage.  
Sarcophaguses, then the norm,  
Are too chilly for a comfy bed.  
The dawn should kiss those lids of lead,
To heat what blankets cannot warm.
Rather than burying in hills,
Top those barrows with their occupants.  
These somber monuments enhance
What would be dowdy domiciles.  
Coffins as cenotaphs and plaques,
Allow the dead to bask in sun,
And feel what veneration’s done.  
Hilltops make the best catafalques.

Badinage and Persiflage
Make such a merry pair,
Chatting and bantering all day.
No spiteful gossip there.  

Each goes without acquaintances.
Each has one single friend.  
As solitary sprites, they speak
Of words, without an end.

Clacking belongs to hollow shells,
And echoes stilled, and tongueless bells.
Toys are made flimsier than tools,
And sloth is banished from the schools.  
When clacking’s ceased, adults relax.  
Childhood is hardship and attacks.

What tempted me to join the queue?
It must be some great treat.  
Only delight could keep these souls
Shuffling on blistered feet.  
I turned a corner hours ago,
Quite perpendicular,
But as I count the corners off
I’ve tallied five so far.  
The walls are clean, but they’re not bright,
Scrubbed to sobriety.
I passed a blotch I’d seen before,
But it might lie to me.  
This line may loop into a square,
And no one’s first or last,
And all who’ve shuffled patiently
Are doomed to lose the past.
Did I ascend to this closed floor
By staircase or by lift?  
Outside must lie some wider world,
Denied a precious gift.    
The walls are bare of openings,
But we need only one.  
Quiet can’t be the sole reward
For everything we’ve done.

Some thieves have burgled every house;
The rich are sorrowing
At sacrilege and heirlooms lost,
Spoons, silks and sapphire rings.  
The poorer tenants mourn as well;
Their losses are their doom.  
Without the coin for food or rent,
Hunger and eviction loom.  
Just down the street, a misanthrope
Who lives in an old tub
Cackles at their lamentations,
And gives his hands a rub.  
He used to own a battered cup,
That and a bowl for alms,
But then he saw an urchin drink
Right out of his cupped palms.  
He learned that cups were luxury,
And threw the thing away.  
He’s happier in poverty,
And that’s just how he’ll stay.  
He boasts to passers-by he’s safe,
Since thieves can never steal
Knowledge or virtue from the good.
Wisdom alone is real.  
How better for that mendicant
If thieves could somehow take
Self-satisfaction from such prigs.
Oh mellow him for pity’s sake.

A farmer from Farmington sowed
His hectares with freckle of toad.  
When asked what would sprout
He hadn’t a doubt
Of harvesting doughnuts à la mode.

Our senses fashion effigies
Of a dead past, useless as guides
Where strict finality resides.  
Mute phantoms drowned in icy seas.  
But halved funereal diptychs show
Reflections of the things to be.  
The not yet displayed in symmetry,
A future mirrored long ago.

Some planets flatten at their rumps.
Some have grown a paunch, and not quite round,
They wander from their orbital bounds.
Ellipses bulge because of lumps.

Though cue-***** are glossy and smooth
The felt has been rough since my youth.
Some dimples assist
When fairways resist
But putting on tables is uncouth.

A huckster from Huxby displayed
His circus of fleas to any who paid.
A bug on a trapeze
Can soar with such ease
And for wages takes marmalade.

All gargoyles scowl. What is the matter?
These faces will not make things better.  
But gargoyles always scowl
Because their haunches howl,
And slipping off their ledge will shatter.

It’s lovely to live on a boat
So mobile a dwelling and remote,
But beaching in sand
To dock on dry land,
Is nicer than bobbing afloat.

In anti-intruder apprenticeships
The tiniest tiny canines yips
At any passing tread
Because it’s def con red.  
A zombie will flee from shih tzu nips.

Would pumpkins smile so very wide
If they knew on a porch outside
An exposed gourd soon rots
Or splatters parking spots?  
Their grins come from some defiant pride.

King David was a righteous king,
A shepherd loved by God,
And Joab did the ugly work
Without a single nod.  
A principal can stroll the halls,
Grandfatherly and kind.
His number two’s the children’s bane,  
Reviled in student mind.  
The highest of the high can shine,
All warmth and lenity,
Their trusted second is the sting.  
Cursed in synecdoche.  
Every Adama needs a Tigh,
All discipline and screeds,
Since troops can sooner love a chief
Untainted by cruel deeds.

According to astrology,
The stars arrange themselves to bind
The destinies of humankind
Born under their hegemony.  
What malice made those twinkling lights
****** my children, and yet spare
A father to forever bear
Grief that embitters, and ignites
A hatred for my very birth,  
And the cursed womb that gave me life.  
****** in this vale of loss and strife,
Pushed through that vile and ****** firth,
I live and suffer till I die.
Are the stars locked in crystal spheres
To trace their paths throughout the years,
Quite powerless to nullify,  
The ruin and the doom they chart?  
Or do they skip across the void,
Giddy, and cruel, and overjoyed
To wither a poor father’s heart?  
If they’re condemned to blight
The fate of any mortal born
Under their aegis, they must mourn
The sentences their glint must write.  
If merciful, those stars must share
The misery their shining brings,
And their own brittle glimmerings
Must lance their conscience with despair.  
Extinguishing those stars that ****
Unwillingly is clemency.
Annihilation sets them free.  
But if they’re vicious, it will thrill
My aching spirit to ***** out
Ill-omened and malignant stars,
Child-murderers, and the bêtes noires
Of fathers, even if devout.  
Such wicked lights disgrace the night,
So, emptied, let that banner shut.  
An expanse cleansed of glittery ****
Contracts so closely and so tight
No spirit banished from its rest
Can enter through that dismal gate,
Once happy, now disconsolate,
Dropped in a world they will detest.  
Into that gap, the day before
And the day afterward will close.  
So that cursed hour cannot expose
A naked child to famine, war,
Plague, and the agonies this world.
Inflicts upon the bad and good.  
If in the womb, I’d understood
The pain awaiting, I’d have curled
Up tighter and would lock my knees.
Shutting the door, I would return
To a green glade and gurgling bourn,
A haven from atrocities.

Two neighbors from Naseby compete
Whenever they pour some wet concrete
Whose sidewalk will dry
First, or is it a tie?  
Luxuriant lawns are also a feat.

One of their neighbors is afflicted
With a fell spirit, lost, and doomed
To roam alone among the tombs,
The spirit’s fierce, but some have tricked it.      
Citizens have bound the madman tight,
Caught him in fetters or in chains,
But strength no ligature contains
Breaks them like braided aconite.  
And after this, they let him be
Because his might has always snapped
Twine tying wrists, but flesh has trapped
Unspeakable malignancy.

Impatient, a lion will roar
And kitty’s meowing at the door,
Because paws are fumbling;
At doorknobs it’s grumbling.
Once launching a robin can soar.

When the nimble aphids are leaping
And squat caterpillars are creeping
They’re fleeing on before
The mower’s starting roar,
Like field-mice at the autumn reaping.

The ocean waves are murmuring,
And some who walk the shore
May pause to hear some wisdom there,
And linger more and more.  

The seas are older than the old,
And jealous of regret.
Their murmurs wash out memory,
And make a soul forget.

The strongest passions, joy and sorrow
Contract the feelings like a vice,
A solid block no word can slice,
As lead today, and lead tomorrow.
The thicker humors have congealed.
Water alone can spurt and run,
Too light to join that unison
When bliss and sadness have annealed.  
Though salted, tears can trickle down,
So fluid in comparison
To what calamity has stung.  
So grieve, repent, blame, weep, or clown,  
And breath is borrowed from the air,
And words but clipped and scripted breath.  
Can grief pronounce a shibboleth,
Or rapture limn what’s past compare?

The moon is grim and sly, and keeps
Pale secrets from her twin.  
She hides the darkest of her blushes
Behind a slivered grin.
Her greater, fertile, sister earth,
Greater in girth, not age,
Knows a pallid, pock-marked cheek
But not a shaded rage.  
A barren spinster, gray from birth,
Can scarcely bear to see
From callous sister such a show
Of broad fecundity.

While perusing pictures at the Louvre
A dragon felt dismayed and moved
At how often they portrayed
When Saint George cruelly slayed.  
If claws could clutch brushes they’d reprove.

Supine, roads sprawl so lazily
That they collapse to planes,
Not aiding stumbling travelers
As knotted sinews strain.

Desiccated youth has bones like cork,
So porous strong in cells.
Lost time perfuses emptiness.
And heavy dolor quells.

Words can wriggle through the cracks
Where grosser largeness blocks,
And even with no aperture
Huskless speech can seep through locks.

Postmodernists like Rohrschach blots
But painters prefer polka dots,  
But shaking paint just right
So dots stay round and tight
Is like tying needles in knots.

Perhaps it’s to exercise jaws
But a naughty porcupine gnaws
On handles of wood,
So salty and good,  
But they’d prefer popcorn to saws.

I always wanted to procrastinate,
But put if off and now it’s too late.
So if you want to laze
Don’t put up with delays.  
Today’s the day to vegetate.

The crystals groan, whenever crushed
Under a melting tread.
Snow faithfully fulfilled its oath,
And did just what it said.  

In recompense for stinging cold,
This mantle vowed to be
Finer than the finest of white sands
And never slippery.

The elevator’s sealed its lips.
It keeps its secrets well.
Inside might hunch a nameless face,
I really cannot tell.  
To stand, a pair, so silently,
Bound in an unvoiced pact,
Is sore and heavy awkwardness
Light coughing can’t redact.  
An almost empty iron box
Is crushing loneliness,
Better to take on dozens next,
Shame smothered in that press.  
Anonymity’s a heavy weight
To carry between two,  
But shrouded multitudes can share
Whatever burdens you.

Though shaving with soap is very cheap
The cuts can also run quite deep.  
Be careful round the lips.  
Or gout in scarlet drips.  
Perhaps gel’s price isn’t so steep.

A vegetable sufficiently boiled
And buttered and salted and oiled
Can taste just like meat
Off a parakeet
Or platypus flambéed then broiled.

This sleep has sunk to catacombs
Where dreams are dreaming of themselves,
And where they slump to deeper shelves
A dim and voiceless banshee roams.  
Interlopers jostle memory,
And pressing on his signet ring,
Take on the seal of realer things.  
Truth’s rejected for hyperbole.  
Delusions stack in strata, drowned,
Lives never lived, in parallel,
That puzzle sleepers who can’t tell
Where waking lies, so lies confound.