1

When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

2

O powerful, western, fallen star!
O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear’d! O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!

3

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle……and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.

4

In the swamp, in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary, the thrush,
The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat!
Death’s outlet song of life—(for well, dear brother, I know
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would’st surely die.)

5

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes, and through old woods, (where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris;)
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes—passing the endless grass;
Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprising;
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards;
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.

6

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop’d flags, with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves, as of crape-veil’d women, standing,
With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit—with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn;
With all the mournful voices of the dirges, pour’d around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—Where amid these you journey,
With the tolling, tolling bells’ perpetual clang;
Here! coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.

7

(Nor for you, for one, alone;
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring:
For fresh as the morning—thus would I carol a song for you, O sane and sacred death.

All over bouquets of roses,
O death! I cover you over with roses and early lilies;
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious, I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes;
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you, and the coffins all of you, O death.)

8

O western orb, sailing the heaven!
Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walk’d,
As we walk’d up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
As we walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night,
As you droop’d from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on;)
As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something, I know not what, kept me from sleep;)
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you went, how full you were of woe;
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cold transparent night,
As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb,
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

9

Sing on, there in the swamp!
O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes—I hear your call;
I hear—I come presently—I understand you;
But a moment I linger—for the lustrous star has detain’d me;
The star, my departing comrade, holds and detains me.

10

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be, for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds, blown from east and west,
Blown from the eastern sea, and blown from the western sea, till there on the prairies meeting:
These, and with these, and the breath of my chant,
I perfume the grave of him I love.

11

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air;
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific;
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there;
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows;
And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

12

Lo! body and soul! this land!
Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships;
The varied and ample land—the South and the North in the light—Ohio’s shores, and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies, cover’d with grass and corn.

Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty;
The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes;
The gentle, soft-born, measureless light;
The miracle, spreading, bathing all—the fulfill’d noon;
The coming eve, delicious—the welcome night, and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

13

Sing on! sing on, you gray-brown bird!
Sing from the swamps, the recesses—pour your chant from the bushes;
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on, dearest brother—warble your reedy song;
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid, and free, and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer!
You only I hear……yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;)
Yet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me.

14

Now while I sat in the day, and look’d forth,
In the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring, and the farmer preparing his crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds, and the storms;)
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides,—and I saw the ships how they sail’d,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages;
And the streets, how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo! then and there,
Falling upon them all, and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail;
And I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

15

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle, as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me;
The gray-brown bird I know, receiv’d us comrades three;
And he sang what seem’d the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held, as if by their hands, my comrades in the night;
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

DEATH CAROL.

16

Come, lovely and soothing Death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious;
And for love, sweet love—But praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.

Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?

Then I chant it for thee—I glorify thee above all;
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach, strong Deliveress!
When it is so—when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.

From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee—adornments and feastings for thee;
And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night, in silence, under many a star;
The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;
And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil’d Death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song!
Over the rising and sinking waves—over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide;
Over the dense-pack’d cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death!

17

To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume;
And I with my comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.

18

I saw askant the armies;
And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags;
Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierc’d with missiles, I saw them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and ******;
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men—I saw them;
I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war;
But I saw they were not as was thought;
They themselves were fully at rest—they suffer’d not;
The living remain’d and suffer’d—the mother suffer’d,
And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer’d,
And the armies that remain’d suffer’d.

19

Passing the visions, passing the night;
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands;
Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul,
(Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
Covering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,)
Passing, I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves;
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring,
I cease from my song for thee;
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night.

20

Yet each I keep, and all, retrievements out of the night;
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe,
With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odor;
With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep—for the dead I loved so well;
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands…and this for his dear sake;
Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.

Crispin as hermit, pure and capable,
Dwelt in the land. Perhaps if discontent
Had kept him still the pricking realist,
Choosing his element from droll confect
Of was and is and shall or ought to be,
Beyond Bordeaux, beyond Havana, far
Beyond carked Yucatan, he might have come
To colonize his polar planterdom
And jig his chits upon a cloudy knee.
But his emprize to that idea soon sped.
Crispin dwelt in the land and dwelling there
Slid from his continent by slow recess
To things within his actual eye, alert
To the difficulty of rebellious thought
When the sky is blue. The blue infected will.
It may be that the yarrow in his fields
Sealed pensive purple under its concern.
But day by day, now this thing and now that
Confined him, while it cosseted, condoned,
Little by little, as if the suzerain soil
Abashed him by carouse to humble yet
Attach. It seemed haphazard denouement.
He first, as realist, admitted that
Whoever hunts a matinal continent
May, after all, stop short before a plum
And be content and still be realist.
The words of things entangle and confuse.
The plum survives its poems. It may hang
In the sunshine placidly, colored by ground
Obliquities of those who pass beneath,
Harlequined and mazily dewed and mauved
In bloom. Yet it survives in its own form,
Beyond these changes, good, fat, guzzly fruit.
So Crispin hasped on the surviving form,
For him, of shall or ought to be in is.

Was he to bray this in profoundest brass
Arointing his dreams with fugal requiems?
Was he to company vastest things defunct
With a blubber of tom-toms harrowing the sky?
Scrawl a tragedian's testament? Prolong
His active force in an inactive dirge,
Which, let the tall musicians call and call,
Should merely call him dead? Pronounce amen
Through choirs infolded to the outmost clouds?
Because he built a cabin who once planned
Loquacious columns by the ructive sea?
Because he turned to salad-beds again?
Jovial Crispin, in calamitous crape?
Should he lay by the personal and make
Of his own fate an instance of all fate?
What is one man among so many men?
What are so many men in such a world?
Can one man think one thing and think it long?
Can one man be one thing and be it long?
The very man despising honest quilts
Lies quilted to his poll in his despite.
For realists, what is is what should be.
And so it came, his cabin shuffled up,
His trees were planted, his duenna brought
Her prismy blonde and clapped her in his hands,
The curtains flittered and the door was closed.
Crispin, magister of a single room,
Latched up the night. So deep a sound fell down
It was as if the solitude concealed
And covered him and his congenial sleep.
So deep a sound fell down it grew to be
A long soothsaying silence down and down.
The crickets beat their tambours in the wind,
Marching a motionless march, custodians.

In the presto of the morning, Crispin trod,
Each day, still curious, but in a round
Less prickly and much more condign than that
He once thought necessary. Like Candide,
Yeoman and grub, but with a fig in sight,
And cream for the fig and silver for the cream,
A blonde to tip the silver and to taste
The ***** gouts. Good star, how that to be
Annealed them in their cabin ribaldries!
Yet the quotidian saps philosophers
And men like Crispin like them in intent,
If not in will, to track the knaves of thought.
But the quotidian composed as his,
Of breakfast ribands, fruits laid in their leaves,
The tomtit and the cassia and the rose,
Although the rose was not the noble thorn
Of crinoline spread, but of a pining sweet,
Composed of evenings like cracked shutters flung
Upon the rumpling bottomness, and nights
In which those frail custodians watched,
Indifferent to the tepid summer cold,
While he poured out upon the lips of her
That lay beside him, the quotidian
Like this, saps like the sun, true fortuner.
For all it takes it gives a ****** return
Exchequering from piebald fiscs unkeyed.

When at first it happens I want none of it. I even say no. I discard the plane tickets, the train stamps, the envelopes of money into a safety deposit box some train station off The Embarcadero and just head East. It frightens me, I'm horrified. The potency is developing in my inner organs, I can't cough right, sleep right, I just suffer and complain. Instead of doing things differently, they've made it so you can soak right in. Just strand yourself on the side of the roadway and they've got rules for you too. The sounds are torturous, the rooms are empty, and the men grow complacent and empty. Nothing is as serious as this. Four years ago a car, three years ago a plane, now I just shuffle and complain. I search for a key to my happiness. I look for it in desktop monitors, caramel apple lollipops, new cashmere vanilla candles, consuming six or more bottles of water a day, E-Cigarettes even, even those, I use apple juice, lychee nectar, mango sorbet, and chocolate fudge sundaes. I'm 40 up on the 140 I went down with. All the miles I'd walked in a firm step, a fever, a bag full of cheap wine for a man that works the car park. 43rd between 8th and 9th. Every thing is bright lights and theater nights. More pacing, there is gum stuck to every square of sidewalk, men and women wheel around a block away selling discount drugs in the streets and outside the Subway on 44th, in the Chinese food mart on 7th. They blow blow blow in their little plastic straw tubes and for $12 a drop they ask you to reach your hands inside their pockets, "take what you like and leave the rest. No one remembers it like this, the girls laugh practically upside down, they wear sky-blue light dyed denim overalls, covering all the parts of their shoulders but exposing their ****, they have plastic bags in their boots, and cute bobby bobbing hair cuts like water crest shoots exploding in lime juice. They pace too, but their legs are shorter, their conversations longer, the horns in their heads grow slowly out from midnight. The devil put the hate on them too.

Even the children are bigoted in this bicentennial. The ******'s nook is no longer the sewing shop in the corner of the strip mall up by Deerbrook Mall. I haven't seen a fountain with change in it since the 80's. The newest thing I heard about imaginations are that, "They come out the first and last Wednesday of the month, you gotta check with Game Stop if you want to pre-order the right ones." I think we must be on number 18 by now. There were four of us riding shotgun in the boxcar up to the valley last month, now they don't even run the trains anymore. One third of everything left to go.

I'm growing quiet; if they can't tell it's not my job to teach them. If they can't spell, I ain't gotta word to word combat that's going to come down on 'em. My brain is so uptight I can't sleep before sundown or sunrise. I see legs and oil futures with every blink. I listen to the old phone messages constantly. I make up stories to go with the missed calls. Still I hope everything will work out okay, because nothing is as serious as this. It makes me sick. It makes the guy undo itself with a brass nail, the blood unclogged from the rash from last month, I find out I'm toxic to poisons, and then I'm told that they're a prescription for that too. It wasn't a ******* rumor. The time to back up or move is now. A idle figure in an orange shirt, a tapestry that moves with every hallucination, forty, fifty, sixty hours I've never slept. I may have been years. My stomach is rusting from water with nowhere to go. I feel sick. I feel woozy, but I don't believe in feelings. I sit upright because I'm uptight, I turn my head around and look over my shoulder. But I know that any friend that's worth looking at me wouldn't arouse my spirit at this hour. There is a net that they speak of when everything's gone. It's the madness that transforms nothingness when the devil's around. Whole empires are crashing. Whole bottom drawers of unworn clothing, tagged and abetted stuffed into black crape garbage bags and drove off into the moonlight. I'm sweating and soporific, living half by half two in and two out, if I had the chance I'd try to remember just which way I get out. When I check on the rumors, when I say my goodbye, I know that I'm the only one sitting in this room of cocksure spirit animals and half-plastic book casings, and that no one whispers and no one cries, not even the bereft can produce a lullaby. I am dying to figure out how to move voicemails from iPhones to iTunes, I googled it while sitting down in the city last night. Poor service. 10 months. Not even one blame the famous few.

After tired comes guilty, after guilty the shame, after that apathy, after that I'm awake. I've never been good at being better than me. But those voicemails, I want them somewhere permanently.

I gave away my heartbeats to a black dark night
sculpted a stone into a new heart
with each daily news break hanging from my dreams
like silk shrouds for all the dead of just one day on Earth
while the night unfolded her mystery
and my heartbeats were pulsars in a distance too great to travel
while my stone heart was stoic and hardened to grief
I make paper flowers , now, out of black crape, for all those about to enter the land of the dead.

There are colors yet unknown in my finite view of Earth , artistic wonders undiscovered , to this day quite alone .. Geometric shapes where Sweetgum trees silhouette the majestic Dawn .. Enchantment with every turn go I , to study my religion by day , collect my thoughts and observations by night .. To interplay among life undiscovered  , to revel someday in its happenstance ... The weathered profiles of a million botanicals unknown or forgotten . An ocean whose riddles remain unsolved , seventy percent of our precious world where exploration has barely scratched the surface .. Dark , rainy afternoons reconfigured with burst of light , the surface of oceans ever mysterious , highlighted by the Moon on hazy nights .. I flew over Moccasin Creek to sample fresh water and take in mountain greenery ..Walked the treetops of the Oconee Forest to witness the floor of the woodlands as a squirrel , crow or eagle ..Slithered along the Georgia clay like a Black Racer , cautiously studied each image before me with the curiosity of a Red fox .. Enthralled with the Savannah Dancers of Tybee Island , precious gulls , blue ***** and brown pelicans .. Welcome every change of season , Dark pine thickets tell of death and renewal ...

                                                          II­
Jagged , blue grass approaches , green straw tops , quiet
cinnamon needle oceans connected by silver streak spider webbing ..
Warm winds divide earthen cover , lifeless termite ridden forefathers lay in testament to bitter destruction ... Our Noon star nourishes bold , sylvan seedlings , beneath her languishing February predicament however ... Grassy field roads lay locked in period of service , daylight path corrections , marble land buoy sentries within thistle , dandelion and Sawgrass .. Gold , knee high cover caresses , reaching skyward beside the field road , lying forgotten , left to the mercy of kudzu , marble and granite .. Scrags reclaim rusted encroachments , tin in battle with the tepid wail of afternoon wind as stick pines mimic the Appalachians , gently roll toward the awaiting lavender blue horizon ... As pasture returns to woodlands , blanketed in hues of brown with forest echoes , carry whispered voices into tomorrow ... Lively crows live to tell their wintry tale , resting among scuttled pulp wood entanglements , to be born again , covered in the pity of lingering broom sage ...                                                              ­                                                  

                                                        III    ­                                                                 ­Across the edge of twilight where soft lavender hues lay at
rest atop her riparian horizon .. Dandelion blooms pepper the
red clay embankments , lone bucks survey brown fields of harvested
corn ..Mourning doves cry for the end of day , wild hogs lay tracks at the rivers edge . Toms sing of their loneliness  , persimmons lay bitter along country lanes , the meat of Chestnut not harvested , the final years of tall , stately Pecans go shamefully unnoticed .. Barbed wire divisions etch Winter burned pasture , Morgans and Appaloosas graze the fertile , ambrosial green narrows .. Manmade pools dot the Crescent lady , cattle ditches appear along creeks and rivers holding Rock bass , Shell ******* , Yellowbellies and Bluegills ferociously hunting the waters surface , Alligator Snappers and Mudcats work the turbulent bottoms ... Hayfields , peach and muscadine arbors flourish , boiled peanuts and sorghum syrup , collards and sweet potatoes ...Blackberry , grape , watermelon and okra ..Water oaks have taken command of the front yard ,  moss and honeysuckle line fence rows , flowing patches of wild grass and snake berry , rocks from Cotton Indian Creeks line hand built flower beds and walkways .. Rhode Island Reds , Buff Orpington's and White Leghorns work these plantations . Sassafras and dewberry , wild plum and rabbit tobaccos . Gardenia , Crape Myrtle , Magnolia , Pine and Chestnut trees  flourish to this day .. The Old Bridge behind Millers Mill still visible , what stories this elder pass could tell before the confluence of the Indian Creeks .. Crayfish , Bream , Largemouth bass , Crappie , Yellow perch and Flathead catfish ! The tale of the Crescent lady lives forever and ever ..

Acariasis
Crawls me due to this homeless feeling,
I seeketh flight, delight and meaning
To bench me and lay me down!

Acanaceous
Cuts polish me uninvitingly,
A blow of snot to every breeze
A town with no mi amour'!

Abundance
Where light meets the center road,
Two chalice's to meet one soul
An overspilling of madpoet syndrome!

Acatalectic,
An allowance from god to man,
A show of pictures and words with hands
A reality I seeketh,

Not a myth!!!

255

To die—takes just a little while—
They say it doesn’t hurt—
It’s only fainter—by degrees—
And then—it’s out of sight—

A darker Ribbon—for a Day—
A Crape upon the Hat—
And then the pretty sunshine comes—
And helps us to forget—

The absent—mystic—creature—
That but for love of us—
Had gone to sleep—that soundest time—
Without the weariness—

390

It’s coming—the postponeless Creature—
It gains the Block—and now—it gains the Door—
Chooses its latch, from all the other fastenings—
Enters—with a “You know Me—Sir”?

Simple Salute—and certain Recognition—
Bold—were it Enemy—Brief—were it friend—
Dresses each House in Crape, and Icicle—
And carries one—out of it—to God—

The Dogwoods bloom in the name of Nellie ..
Anointed with Spring flowers .. Gardenia , Sunflower and Crape Myrtle ..
Whispering hymns , tolling the farm bell , calling her children home ...

Tuesday is a 'Whisper shower' away
A night without fearsome lightning nor blustery winds
The entrancing song of tickled chimes from front porch swings
Harmonious pitter -patter of evening rains
The steady trickle of copper , gutter drains
Sweet , melodic call of Barn Owls o'er darkened fields
Gentle drops of healing water from Cottonwood , Magnolia and Crape Myrtle trees , splendiferous offerings courtesy of cumulonimbus progeny , eventide hail of Spring Killdeer , Mockingbird and Whippoorwill harmony

Spring.
Tulips bloom and our crape myrtle grows,
Along with our hope
For a more promising year

Summer.
Seizures rock our world.
Emanating like earthquakes
From the fault lines of her brain

Autumn.
Leaves shrivel and drop
Just like she does when she loses her balance,
And falls to the ground.

Winter.
Cold winds and dark thoughts give me dry skin.
A red rash that is a physical embodiment of the irritation
Seething beneath my pale complexion.

743

The Birds reported from the South—
A News express to Me—
A spicy Charge, My little Posts—
But I am deaf—Today—

The Flowers—appealed—a timid Throng—
I reinforced the Door—
Go blossom for the Bees—I said—
And trouble Me—no More—

The Summer Grace, for Notice strove—
Remote—Her best Array—
The Heart—to stimulate the Eye
Refused too utterly—

At length, a Mourner, like Myself,
She drew away austere—
Her frosts to ponder—then it was
I recollected Her—

She suffered Me, for I had mourned—
I offered Her no word—
My Witness—was the Crape I bore—
Her—Witness—was Her Dead—

Thenceforward—We—together dwelt—
I never questioned Her—
Our Contract
A Wiser Sympathy

Savannah is beautiful is she not,
With her lovely homestead lots?
Have you seen her in the spring?
She is the most charming thing.

Azaleas blooming everywhere,
Adorning parks and town squares:
Fuchsia, red, pink, and white.
Such a breathtaking sight.

Dogwoods scattered here and there,
Nestled among the trees.
Magnolia fragrance fills the air,
Borne by gentle breeze.

Wisteria lends a delicate touch.
The aged oak we love so much.
How charming, spirited and brisk;
So beautiful and picturesque.

Crape myrtle with a crimped look
Brightens lawns and scenic nooks.
The river with its gentle flow.
The beach where many love to go.

Juniper, cypress and cedar too,
Give contrast with their dark-green hue.
The sago palm in bold fanfare
Is seen almost everywhere.

Savannah is fortunate to be
Richly filled with history.
Beautiful art for all to see
Adorns the various galleries.

Fancy eating, southern style.
Down-home cooking worthwhile.
A little time is all it takes
To visit the restaurants and lakes.

Come see Savannah in the spring;
Enjoy the view that nature brings.
And may God's blessings ever be
Upon our city by the sea.

November Sun , refusing to reveal her loneliness , a cloudy piece of the world in tears this morning ..
A red tailed Hawk , grounded by rain just outside my window , a blue dragonfly sailing aimlessly across the meadow ..
The vigor and warmth of Summer , the candle of hope lighting the night has abated .. Tall Oaks , Magnolias and Crape Myrtles like lovers , stand naked , unashamed ..
My eyes have lost peripheral vision , anxiety taken command of my consciousness , rumors of intrigue whisper softly on warm southern winds .. The physical forces in mechanical motion , condemnation of my spirit at the hour of the eruption ..
My demon narcolepsy , a marionette of ploy and trickery for a student of hope standing dead on both feet ..
With a red heart on your sleeve , she wears a smile well , like many a familiar door , slipping quietly from within my grasp ...

Wake me when the Elephant Ears grow tall , when the first red rose comes to call , as the mesmerizing scent of Gardenia fills the air , when the Butterfly bushes receive their host in Spring ...
Come to my door when the Crape Myrtles stand glorious , as the Peach trees blossom , when songbirds of every shape and brilliant song prepare their nurseries , as the Pink Begonias undertake their beautiful Summer journey ....

Arched pillars covered in wild Ivy
Moonlight seeps in through the night's garden

I stand alone
I'm taking in the fresh air
Enjoying the elegant beauty of the night

I hear your deep voice
It's like silk caressing me
That's when I see you standing there

You smile
Your blue fire eyes start to dance
They're sparkling bright in the moonlight
Your wavy cold black hair shines
The way a raven’s feathers shine in the midst of the sun’s light

Your warm hands gently brush up against my iced skin
You reach for me
Your lips gently press in
I cannot resist
I give in
Then I'm kissed long and deep
My knees go weak
A kiss, like I've never been kissed
A kiss, which I've always missed

The wind's cool on my skin
Yet, you heat me within

Your fingertips begin to slip down my skin
Your lips begin to explore
They creep slowly down the crape of my neck
Then gently down my back

There's air everywhere
I try to take it in
Still, I cannot breath

Stuck in an intoxicating daydream
I let out a gasp
That's when my dress drops beneath me
You start to strum my skin
As though I'm merely your musical instrument

It's just you and me
There's no one near
If there were
We still wouldn't care
Caught up in our own ecstasy
Our dark shadows
Are casted upon the night's wall

This has to be everyone's fantasy
Dancing naked
The feel of real skin
The feel of heat so near
Two become one within
There's no thought of sin
Just when to begin
When to end
When to start all over again

4-29-2011 (Friday 1:17pm)
Lc

Turtles, crape myrtles
Tadpoles, baby frogs
Running feet, summer heat
Cicadas, crossing logs
Glancing back smiling
Forging on to explore
Oh, how i love
Little you, age four

I am so sad depress in i just cant take it anymour
im tired of being called names in being bullyed by outhers
im a real nice i just wish people could see that i am .
i love for what i fight for in i fight for what i love
in yes i might think im top crape yes i might have a moth
on me but its gives no one to treat me like i an nothing '
im a girl how only 13

Concoctions of morning Blackstrap Molasses , Apple blossom honey
Afternoon Sugar Cane treat Sundays
Catfish feeder pond thrills
Stirring Bobwhite Quail wood line hideaways
Plentiful , native green grass runways
Kerosene lanterns , john boats o'er -
Black Crappie midnight waters
A thousand new songs rippled the moonlight -
causeways
Lakes melting into night
The warm , thick air of first light
Mockingbird chirrup , Killdeer call
August morning star convocations of -
Crape Myrtle with butterfly epiphanies

At the collision of timothy and zoysia , where Crape Myrtles reveal their late morning luster , where luminosity and cloud continually sketch , color and reinvent open pastures , individuality forever fading , leaving sadness at the afternoon approach then gone
Hours without occupation , warmth and windsong  
Tethered , embittered and hidden*...

One of these days I'll become a Jay
I'll bathe in Port Lake everyday
I'll command the fencerow with early morning
original song
Feed on blackberries and pine nuts the whole
day long
I'll nap in Live Oaks whenever I wish
I'll turn Crape Myrtles into my evening niche* ...

Briar vines merely scratched the itch for more ,
porcelain fingers tattooed wine red
Morning rays become possessed , muting -
early day laughter and fervent desires
Humid air thickened with pine , wild grass ,
-fertile humus , clay and wisteria
Stirring the brown locust , bluebird , thrasher ,
Guinea wasp , blue skink , toad and cottontail
Three ripe berries in the jar , one for the forager ,
one for the eve , one for the morrow
Traipsing gravel byways to the music of the rattling corn , ****** broomsage and the iron harrow
A whitewashed homestead wrapped in oak ,
mulberry , sycamore and crape myrtle ,
Songbirds of every shape and melodious -
occupation , alert geese crying from the -
hedgerows , waves of sorghum dancing in the -
shaded meadows ...

I fear physical death because I may just go…
To the scorching yard of God’s enemies
Where I will be slave to diabolic royalties
Like an acolyte of Warcraft Undead who summon atrocities!
To the spiritual crematorium of demons who ****
Where I will be prisoner to a jail of no escape
Like Prometheus of Greek Myth as mournful as a crape!

-03/19/2015
(Dumarao)
*My Fear of Death Collection

Crazy/Sane

     I’d like to think I’m stable
If I am, I’ve gotta be on the edge
If you examine my mind, I think you’ll
Find you won’t have to dredge

For I’m sure it’s alive just beneath the
Surface, just milliliters from escape
So I warn you, be careful where you tread
For the outer layer is as thin as a crape

I’m trying desperately to hold it all
Together but it’s a shaky reality
If you listen to my words, they’re
Screaming like the wails of the Banshee

It’s not like I’m hearing voices
It’s more like an annoying itch
The best way I can describe it is,
It’s like a video game with a gli -gli-glitch

I know it’s just a matter of time
Before I lose myself inside my brain
The circuits are blowing, if you look
Closely you’ll see, I’m Crazy/Sane

Written By Charles Kean
Copyright © 06/24/2020
All rights reserved

Lucky rhodopsin
Here comes October
They didn't need to be fiery
It's a happy accident

Lactic acid--
For all the right reasons
Churning and burning
Through all four seasons.

Notice all our forms
Passing through
They're sure and they're sharp
And they all stand true

The sumac's proud cones
The retreating turtle
The dew on our shoes
And a nice crape myrtle

And if my hands get cold
I'll just warm them up
Thanks for the soup--
I'll put it
To good use!