By the forenoon
Lunch is gonna be soon !
My children, what would you like to eat ?
I thought, I cook some rice, accompanied with meat.
Ah, lets just enjoy the weather and go outside
Don't worry, it's winter, there is no bug to bite (you) !
Or my dearest children would you like to rest in my embrace ?
While my hands caress your backs in a gentle pace.
Wouldn't that be lovely ?

~ Umi

Filter the perfect shade of the forenoon sun,
Not too bright, not too dull.
For with ease and carefree thoughts,
You let the sunbeam-drizzling fairies play
As the beauty reflected in your retinas.

Capture this scenic view:
Where the burnt chestnut colored oaks
And mudstained sweetheart sundress of yours
Dance in three-four beats of waltz.
The Crayola strokes of the skies
And the watercolor streaks of daydreams and nightmares
Paint the canvas of your disquited thoughts.
This is the peripheral view from your suncrashed irises and corners,
This is your world.

Let your knees down to your sore feet
Be engulfed by the chasms of the bewildered grass,
As the smile makes it way to your plump spring lips;
Callused fingers from guitar strings
Twirl and twist the blades,
Cutting through flesh
And green and red and blue and yellow,
All sorts of color came spilling from your playful bruise.

From this panoramic view of yours
Of a wonder wonderland,
Where the ticks of clock
Follow the sunflower throughout time and forever,
This is the beauty of that stem:
A key to escapism
To a well-dreamt lovely world.

I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.

Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.

The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart..    .    .
        After the sunburn of the day
        handling a pitchfork at a hayrack,
        after the eggs and biscuit and coffee,
        the pearl-gray haystacks
        in the gloaming
        are cool prayers
        to the harvest hands.

In the city among the walls the overland passenger train is choked and the pistons hiss and the wheels curse.
On the prairie the overland flits on phantom wheels and the sky and the soil between them muffle the pistons and cheer the wheels..    .    .
I am here when the cities are gone.
I am here before the cities come.
I nourished the lonely men on horses.
I will keep the laughing men who ride iron.
I am dust of men.

The running water babbled to the deer, the cottontail, the gopher.
You came in wagons, making streets and schools,
Kin of the ax and rifle, kin of the plow and horse,
Singing Yankee Doodle, Old Dan Tucker, Turkey in the Straw,
You in the coonskin cap at a log house door hearing a lone wolf howl,
You at a sod house door reading the blizzards and chinooks let loose from Medicine Hat,
I am dust of your dust, as I am brother and mother
To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay,
The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago
Marching single file the timber and the plain.

I hold the dust of these amid changing stars.
I last while old wars are fought, while peace broods mother-like,
While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men.
I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days.
Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,
I who have seen the red births and the red deaths
Of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait.

Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?
Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?.    .    .
        Rivers cut a path on flat lands.
        The mountains stand up.
        The salt oceans press in
        And push on the coast lines.
        The sun, the wind, bring rain
        And I know what the rainbow writes across the east or west in a half-circle:
        A love-letter pledge to come again..    .    .
      Towns on the Soo Line,
      Towns on the Big Muddy,
      Laugh at each other for cubs
      And tease as children.

Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up..    .    .
Out of prairie-brown grass crossed with a streamer of wigwam smoke-out of a smoke pillar, a blue promise-out of wild ducks woven in greens and purples-
Here I saw a city rise and say to the peoples round world: Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.
Out of log houses and stumps-canoes stripped from tree-sides-flatboats coaxed with an ax from the timber claims-in the years when the red and the white men met-the houses and streets rose.

A thousand red men cried and went away to new places for corn and women: a million white men came and put up skyscrapers, threw out rails and wires, feelers to the salt sea: now the smokestacks bite the skyline with stub teeth.

In an early year the call of a wild duck woven in greens and purples: now the riveter's chatter, the police patrol, the song-whistle of the steamboat.

To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake.
I say to him: Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short..    .    .
What brothers these in the dark?
What eaves of skyscrapers against a smoke moon?
These chimneys shaking on the lumber shanties
When the coal boats plow by on the river-
The hunched shoulders of the grain elevators-
The flame sprockets of the sheet steel mills
And the men in the rolling mills with their shirts off
Playing their flesh arms against the twisting wrists of steel:
        what brothers these
        in the dark
        of a thousand years?.    .    .
A headlight searches a snowstorm.
A funnel of white light shoots from over the pilot of the Pioneer Limited crossing Wisconsin.

In the morning hours, in the dawn,
The sun puts out the stars of the sky
And the headlight of the Limited train.

The fireman waves his hand to a country school teacher on a bobsled.
A boy, yellow hair, red scarf and mittens, on the bobsled, in his lunch box a pork chop sandwich and a V of gooseberry pie.

The horses fathom a snow to their knees.
Snow hats are on the rolling prairie hills.
The Mississippi bluffs wear snow hats..    .    .
Keep your hogs on changing corn and mashes of grain,
    O farmerman.
    Cram their insides till they waddle on short legs
    Under the drums of bellies, hams of fat.
    **** your hogs with a knife slit under the ear.
    Hack them with cleavers.
    Hang them with hooks in the hind legs..    .    .
A wagonload of radishes on a summer morning.
Sprinkles of dew on the crimson-purple *****.
The farmer on the seat dangles the reins on the rumps of dapple-gray horses.
The farmer's daughter with a basket of eggs dreams of a new hat to wear to the county fair..    .    .
On the left-and right-hand side of the road,
        Marching corn-
I saw it knee high weeks ago-now it is head high-tassels of red silk creep at the ends of the ears..    .    .
I am the prairie, mother of men, waiting.
They are mine, the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market.
They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire..    .    .
The cornhuskers wear leather on their hands.
There is no let-up to the wind.
Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins.

Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the five-o'clock November sunset: falltime, leaves, bonfires, stubble, the old things go, and the earth is grizzled.
The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches-among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain-they keep old things that never grow old.

The frost loosens corn husks.
The Sun, the rain, the wind
        loosen corn husks.
The men and women are helpers.
They are all cornhuskers together.
I see them late in the western evening
        in a smoke-red dust..    .    .
The phantom of a yellow rooster flaunting a scarlet comb, on top of a dung pile crying hallelujah to the streaks of daylight,
The phantom of an old hunting dog nosing in the underbrush for muskrats, barking at a **** in a treetop at midnight, chewing a bone, chasing his tail round a corncrib,
The phantom of an old workhorse taking the steel point of a plow across a forty-acre field in spring, hitched to a harrow in summer, hitched to a wagon among cornshocks in fall,
These phantoms come into the talk and wonder of people on the front porch of a farmhouse late summer nights.
"The shapes that are gone are here," said an old man with a cob pipe in his teeth one night in Kansas with a hot wind on the alfalfa..    .    .
Look at six eggs
In a mockingbird's nest.

Listen to six mockingbirds
Flinging follies of O-be-joyful
Over the marshes and uplands.

Look at songs
Hidden in eggs..    .    .
When the morning sun is on the trumpet-vine blossoms, sing at the kitchen pans: Shout All Over God's Heaven.
When the rain slants on the potato hills and the sun plays a silver shaft on the last shower, sing to the bush at the backyard fence: Mighty Lak a Rose.
When the icy sleet pounds on the storm windows and the house lifts to a great breath, sing for the outside hills: The Ole Sheep Done Know the Road, the Young Lambs Must Find the Way..    .    .
Spring slips back with a girl face calling always: "Any new songs for me? Any new songs?"

O prairie girl, be lonely, singing, dreaming, waiting-your lover comes-your child comes-the years creep with toes of April rain on new-turned sod.
O prairie girl, whoever leaves you only crimson poppies to talk with, whoever puts a good-by kiss on your lips and never comes back-
There is a song deep as the falltime redhaws, long as the layer of black loam we go to, the shine of the morning star over the corn belt, the wave line of dawn up a wheat valley..    .    .
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water..    .    .
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
  a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
  only an ocean of to-morrows,
  a sky of to-morrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
  at sundown:
        To-morrow is a day.

THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess ... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ... I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting ... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun-I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring ... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ... before land was ... before the water went down ... before Noah ... before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me ... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and **** ... ready to sing and give milk ... waiting-I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes-And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart-and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where-For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and **** and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

The last forenoon

It was Sunday I was sitting peacefully at my desk
when an interior storm burst knocked off me off  my chair
I witnessed machine gun fire hitting a wall just above
my head I was covered in dust like powdered dandy
and I thought, here we go first torture then a bullet.
The put an oxygen over my face a wounded soldiers
going home after losing yet another battle.

I was born again and could remember the constant
battle the never ending war of my phobias,
Eight floors up, one lifetime is enough, but the soldier
could not break glass puny his hands weak his arms.
Yes I’m home but my smile is a Janus mask I cast no
Shadows on the wall like the living do.

1

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous’d words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man—yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

2

Once, Paumanok,
When the snows had melted—when the lilac-scent was in the air, and the Fifth-month grass was growing,
Up this sea-shore, in some briers,
Two guests from Alabama—two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs, spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand,
And every day the she-bird, crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.

3

Shine! shine! shine!
Pour down your warmth, great Sun!
While we bask—we two together.

Two together!
Winds blow South, or winds blow North,
Day come white, or night come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together.

4

Till of a sudden,
May-be ****’d, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest,
Nor return’d that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appear’d again.

And thenceforward, all summer, in the sound of the sea,
And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather,
Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird,
The solitary guest from Alabama.

5

Blow! blow! blow!
Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok’s shore!
I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.

6

Yes, when the stars glisten’d,
All night long, on the prong of a moss-scallop’d stake,
Down, almost amid the slapping waves,
Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears.

He call’d on his mate;
He pour’d forth the meanings which I, of all men, know.

Yes, my brother, I know;
The rest might not—but I have treasur’d every note;
For once, and more than once, dimly, down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen’d long and long.

Listen’d, to keep, to sing—now translating the notes,
Following you, my brother.

7

Soothe! soothe! soothe!
Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,
And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close,
But my love soothes not me, not me.

Low hangs the moon—it rose late;
O it is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love.

O madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land,
With love—with love.

O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers?
What is that little black thing I see there in the white?

Loud! loud! loud!
Loud I call to you, my love!

High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves;
Surely you must know who is here, is here;
You must know who I am, my love.

Low-hanging moon!
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
O it is the shape, the shape of my mate!
O moon, do not keep her from me any longer.

Land! land! O land!
Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again, if you only would;
For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.

O rising stars!
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.

O throat! O trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
Pierce the woods, the earth;
Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want.

Shake out, carols!
Solitary here—the night’s carols!
Carols of lonesome love! Death’s carols!
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
O, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea!
O reckless, despairing carols.

But soft! sink low;
Soft! let me just murmur;
And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea;
For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,
So faint—I must be still, be still to listen;
But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.

Hither, my love!
Here I am! Here!
With this just-sustain’d note I announce myself to you;
This gentle call is for you, my love, for you.

Do not be decoy’d elsewhere!
That is the whistle of the wind—it is not my voice;
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray;
Those are the shadows of leaves.

O darkness! O in vain!
O I am very sick and sorrowful.

O brown halo in the sky, near the moon, drooping upon the sea!
O troubled reflection in the sea!
O throat! O throbbing heart!
O all—and I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.

Yet I murmur, murmur on!
O murmurs—you yourselves make me continue to sing, I know not why.

O past! O life! O songs of joy!
In the air—in the woods—over fields;
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
But my love no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.

8

The aria sinking;
All else continuing—the stars shining,
The winds blowing—the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
On the sands of Paumanok’s shore, gray and rustling;
The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching;
The boy extatic—with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying,
The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,
The aria’s meaning, the ears, the Soul, swiftly depositing,
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,
The colloquy there—the trio—each uttering,
The undertone—the savage old mother, incessantly crying,
To the boy’s Soul’s questions sullenly timing—some drown’d secret hissing,
To the outsetting bard of love.

9

Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping,
Now I have heard you,
Now in a moment I know what I am for—I awake,
And already a thousand singers—a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me,
Never to die.

O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself—projecting me;
O solitary me, listening—nevermore shall I cease perpetuating you;
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there, in the night,
By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there arous’d—the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere;)
O if I am to have so much, let me have more!
O a word! O what is my destination? (I fear it is henceforth chaos;)
O how joys, dreads, convolutions, human shapes, and all shapes, spring as from graves around me!
O phantoms! you cover all the land and all the sea!
O I cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or frown upon me;
O vapor, a look, a word! O well-beloved!
O you dear women’s and men’s phantoms!

A word then, (for I will conquer it,)
The word final, superior to all,
Subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen;
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

10

Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before day-break,
Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word DEATH;
And again Death—ever Death, Death, Death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird, nor like my arous’d child’s heart,
But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears, and laving me softly all over,
Death, Death, Death, Death, Death.

Which I do not forget,
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,
With the thousand responsive songs, at random,
My own songs, awaked from that hour;
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song, and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
The sea whisper’d me.

You're afternoon, my love,
and I'm forenoon,
and the twix between
burrs our saddle.

Eros, on your high steed,
we beseech your Olympian authority
to make mutual our latitudes
so next when the clock strikes twelve
our eyes, yours and mine, my love
shall meet within that same hour,
and there we'll dine upon the other.

They reached the low lying city of Lacedaemon them where they
drove straight to the of abode Menelaus [and found him in his own
house, feasting with his many clansmen in honour of the wedding of his
son, and also of his daughter, whom he was marrying to the son of that
valiant warrior Achilles. He had given his consent and promised her to
him while he was still at Troy, and now the gods were bringing the
marriage about; so he was sending her with chariots and horses to
the city of the Myrmidons over whom Achilles’ son was reigning. For
his only son he had found a bride from Sparta, daughter of Alector.
This son, Megapenthes, was born to him of a bondwoman, for heaven
vouchsafed Helen no more children after she had borne Hermione, who
was fair as golden Venus herself.
  So the neighbours and kinsmen of Menelaus were feasting and making
merry in his house. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his
lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them
when the man struck up with his tune.]
  Telemachus and the son of Nestor stayed their horses at the gate,
whereon Eteoneus servant to Menelaus came out, and as soon as he saw
them ran hurrying back into the house to tell his Master. He went
close up to him and said, “Menelaus, there are some strangers come
here, two men, who look like sons of Jove. What are we to do? Shall we
take their horses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as
they best can?”
  Menelaus was very angry and said, “Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you
never used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their
horses out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have
supper; you and I have stayed often enough at other people’s houses
before we got back here, where heaven grant that we may rest in
peace henceforward.”
  So Eteoneus bustled back and bade other servants come with him. They
took their sweating hands from under the yoke, made them fast to the
mangers, and gave them a feed of oats and barley mixed. Then they
leaned the chariot against the end wall of the courtyard, and led
the way into the house. Telemachus and Pisistratus were astonished
when they saw it, for its splendour was as that of the sun and moon;
then, when they had admired everything to their heart’s content,
they went into the bath room and washed themselves.
  When the servants had washed them and anointed them with oil, they
brought them woollen cloaks and shirts, and the two took their seats
by the side of Menelaus. A maidservant brought them water in a
beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to
wash their hands; and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper
servant brought them bread, and offered them many good things of
what there was in the house, while the carver fetched them plates of
all manner of meats and set cups of gold by their side.
  Menelaus then greeted them saying, “Fall to, and welcome; when you
have done supper I shall ask who you are, for the lineage of such
men as you cannot have been lost. You must be descended from a line of
sceptre-bearing kings, for poor people do not have such sons as you
are.”
  On this he handed them a piece of fat roast ****, which had been set
near him as being a prime part, and they laid their hands on the
good things that were before them; as soon as they had had enough to
eat and drink, Telemachus said to the son of Nestor, with his head
so close that no one might hear, “Look, Pisistratus, man after my
own heart, see the gleam of bronze and gold—of amber, ivory, and
silver. Everything is so splendid that it is like seeing the palace of
Olympian Jove. I am lost in admiration.”
  Menelaus overheard him and said, “No one, my sons, can hold his
own with Jove, for his house and everything about him is immortal; but
among mortal men—well, there may be another who has as much wealth as
I have, or there may not; but at all events I have travelled much
and have undergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before
I could get home with my fleet. I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the
Egyptians; I went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the
Erembians, and to Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are
born, and the sheep lamb down three times a year. Every one in that
country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good
milk, for the ewes yield all the year round. But while I was
travelling and getting great riches among these people, my brother was
secretly and shockingly murdered through the perfidy of his wicked
wife, so that I have no pleasure in being lord of all this wealth.
Whoever your parents may be they must have told you about all this,
and of my heavy loss in the ruin of a stately mansion fully and
magnificently furnished. Would that I had only a third of what I now
have so that I had stayed at home, and all those were living who
perished on the plain of Troy, far from Argos. I of grieve, as I sit
here in my house, for one and all of them. At times I cry aloud for
sorrow, but presently I leave off again, for crying is cold comfort
and one soon tires of it. Yet grieve for these as I may, I do so for
one man more than for them all. I cannot even think of him without
loathing both food and sleep, so miserable does he make me, for no one
of all the Achaeans worked so hard or risked so much as he did. He
took nothing by it, and has left a legacy of sorrow to myself, for
he has been gone a long time, and we know not whether he is alive or
dead. His old father, his long-suffering wife Penelope, and his son
Telemachus, whom he left behind him an infant in arms, are plunged
in grief on his account.”
  Thus spoke Menelaus, and the heart of Telemachus yearned as he
bethought him of his father. Tears fell from his eyes as he heard
him thus mentioned, so that he held his cloak before his face with
both hands. When Menelaus saw this he doubted whether to let him
choose his own time for speaking, or to ask him at once and find
what it was all about.
  While he was thus in two minds Helen came down from her high vaulted
and perfumed room, looking as lovely as Diana herself. Adraste brought
her a seat, Alcippe a soft woollen rug while Phylo fetched her the
silver work-box which Alcandra wife of Polybus had given her.
Polybus lived in Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the
whole world; he gave Menelaus two baths, both of pure silver, two
tripods, and ten talents of gold; besides all this, his wife gave
Helen some beautiful presents, to wit, a golden distaff, and a
silver work-box that ran on wheels, with a gold band round the top
of it. Phylo now placed this by her side, full of fine spun yarn,
and a distaff charged with violet coloured wool was laid upon the
top of it. Then Helen took her seat, put her feet upon the
footstool, and began to question her husband.
  “Do we know, Menelaus,” said she, “the names of these strangers
who have come to visit us? Shall I guess right or wrong?-but I
cannot help saying what I think. Never yet have I seen either man or
woman so like somebody else (indeed when I look at him I hardly know
what to think) as this young man is like Telemachus, whom Ulysses left
as a baby behind him, when you Achaeans went to Troy with battle in
your hearts, on account of my most shameless self.”
  “My dear wife,” replied Menelaus, “I see the likeness just as you
do. His hands and feet are just like Ulysses’; so is his hair, with
the shape of his head and the expression of his eyes. Moreover, when I
was talking about Ulysses, and saying how much he had suffered on my
account, tears fell from his eyes, and he hid his face in his mantle.”
  Then Pisistratus said, “Menelaus, son of Atreus, you are right in
thinking that this young man is Telemachus, but he is very modest, and
is ashamed to come here and begin opening up discourse with one
whose conversation is so divinely interesting as your own. My
father, Nestor, sent me to escort him hither, for he wanted to know
whether you could give him any counsel or suggestion. A son has always
trouble at home when his father has gone away leaving him without
supporters; and this is how Telemachus is now placed, for his father
is absent, and there is no one among his own people to stand by him.”
  “Bless my heart,” replied Menelaus, “then I am receiving a visit
from the son of a very dear friend, who suffered much hardship for
my sake. I had always hoped to entertain him with most marked
distinction when heaven had granted us a safe return from beyond the
seas. I should have founded a city for him in Argos, and built him a
house. I should have made him leave Ithaca with his goods, his son,
and all his people, and should have sacked for them some one of the
neighbouring cities that are subject to me. We should thus have seen
one another continually, and nothing but death could have
interrupted so close and happy an *******. I suppose, however,
that heaven grudged us such great good fortune, for it has prevented
the poor fellow from ever getting home at all.”
  Thus did he speak, and his words set them all a weeping. Helen wept,
Telemachus wept, and so did Menelaus, nor could Pisistratus keep his
eyes from filling, when he remembered his dear brother Antilochus whom
the son of bright Dawn had killed. Thereon he said to Menelaus,
  “Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told
me you were a person of rare and excellent understanding. If, then, it
be possible, do as I would urge you. I am not fond of crying while I
am getting my supper. Morning will come in due course, and in the
forenoon I care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone.
This is all we can do for the poor things. We can only shave our heads
for them and wring the tears from our cheeks. I had a brother who died
at Troy; he was by no means the worst man there; you are sure to
have known him—his name was Antilochus; I never set eyes upon him
myself, but they say that he was singularly fleet of foot and in fight
valiant.”
  “Your discretion, my friend,” answered Menelaus, “is beyond your
years. It is plain you take after your father. One can soon see when a
man is son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regards wife and
offspring—and it has blessed Nestor from first to last all his
days, giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him
who are both we disposed and valiant. We will put an end therefore
to all this weeping, and attend to our supper again. Let water be
poured over our hands. Telemachus and I can talk with one another
fully in the morning.”
  On this Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their
hands and they laid their hands on the good things that were before
them.
  Then Jove’s daughter Helen bethought her of another matter. She
drugged the wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and
ill humour. Whoever drinks wine thus drugged cannot shed a single tear
all the rest of the day, not even though his father and mother both of
them drop down dead, or he sees a brother or a son hewn in pieces
before his very eyes. This drug, of such sovereign power and virtue,
had been given to Helen by Polydamna wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt,
where there grow all sorts of herbs, some good to put into the
mixing-bowl and others poisonous. Moreover, every one in the whole
country is a skilled physician, for they are of the race of Paeeon.
When Helen had put this drug in the bowl, and had told the servants to
serve the wine round, she said:
  “Menelaus, son of Atreus, and you my good friends, sons of
honourable men (which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of
good and evil, and can do what he chooses), feast here as you will,
and listen while I tell you a tale in season. I cannot indeed name
every single one of the exploits of Ulysses, but I can say what he did
when he was before Troy, and you Achaeans were in all sorts of
difficulties. He covered himself with wounds and bruises, dressed
himself all in rags, and entered the enemy’s city looking like a
menial or a beggar. and quite different from what he did when he was
among his own people. In this disguise he entered the city of Troy,
and no one said anything to him. I alone recognized him and began to
question him, but he was too cunning for me. When, however, I had
washed and anointed him and had given him clothes, and after I had
sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the Trojans till he had got
safely back to his own camp and to the ships, he told me all that
the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans and got much
information before he reached the Argive camp, for all which things
the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I was glad, for
my heart was beginning to oam after my home, and I was unhappy about
wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there, away from my
country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is indeed by no
means deficient either in person or understanding.”
  Then Menelaus said, “All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is
true. I have travelled much, and have had much to do with heroes,
but I have never seen such another man as Ulysses. What endurance too,
and what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the
bravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and
destruction upon the Trojans. At that moment you came up to us; some
god who wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and
you had Deiphobus with you. Three times did you go all round our
hiding place and pat it; you called our chiefs each by his own name,
and mimicked all our wives -Diomed, Ulysses, and I from our seats
inside heard what a noise you made. Diomed and I could not make up our
minds whether to spring out then and there, or to answer you from
inside, but Ulysses held us all in check, so we sat quite still, all
except Anticlus, who was beginning to answer you, when Ulysses clapped
his two brawny hands over his mouth, and kept them there. It was
this that saved us all, for he muzzled Anticlus till Minerva took
you away again.”
  “How sad,” exclaimed Telemachus, “that all this was of no avail to
save him, nor yet his own iron courage. But now, sir, be pleased to
send us all to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of
sleep.”
  On this Helen told the maid servants to set beds in the room that
was in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and
spread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests
to wear. So the maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds,
to which a man-servant presently conducted the strangers. Thus,
then, did Telemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt,
while the son of Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen by
his side.
  When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Menelaus
rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely
feet, girded his sword about his shoulders, and left his room
looking like an immortal god. Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he
said:
  “And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to
Lacedaemon? Are you on public or private business? Tell me all about
it.”
  “I have come, sir replied Telemachus, “to see if you can tell me
anything about my father. I am being eaten out of house and home; my
fair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who
keep killing great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of
paying their addresses to my mother. Therefore, I am suppliant at your
knees if haply you may tell me about my father’s melancholy end,
whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other
traveller; for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things
out of any pity for myself, but tell me in all plainness exactly
what you saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service
either by word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed by the
Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my favour and tell me truly all.”
  Menelaus on hearing this was very much shocked. “So,” he
exclaimed, “these cowards would usurp a brave man’s bed? A hind
might as well lay her new born you

Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
’Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.

There's Chamfort. He's a sample.
Locked himself in his library with a gun,
Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye.
And this Chamfort knew how to write
And thousands read his books on how to live,
But he himself didn't know
How to die by force of his own hand--see?
They found him a red pool on the carpet
Cool as an April forenoon,
Talking and talking gay maxims and grim epigrams.
Well, he wore bandages over his nose and right eye,
Drank coffee and chatted many years
With men and women who loved him
Because he laughed and daily dared Death:
"Come and take me."

She appears in the morning,
When nocturnal mists subdue,
In her beauty, without warning,
Freshly glinting on the dew.

Darkness falls beside her splendour,
Foulness dwindles from her charms.
Never heard a voice so tender,
Never held such gentle arms.

In her eyes - the chasms tremendous,
In her smile - a sea of flames.
Her complexion is stupendous,
She is known by many names.

Even though she's not enduring -
Lasting only till the dusk -
Her élan is so alluring
That she needn't wear a mask.

When she's gone with forenoon drizzle
I fall not into despair,
For, I know, the gods will chisel
Her afresh from morning air.

Plainly mode of rivulent beauty
We crave our day on shore of sea
Staring at the sun with pantheon pants
We swim on sand and bathe in air

Mudding a foothold our everjoy play
Our eyes smirked laughter of forenoon display
We build sandcastle we hope will last
The window pane bares the door way to our heart

For everything that bears fruit lives on earth
Simple drop of dew gives life to a plant
As depth expanse of childhood memories
Gong in silent echoing day i do recall

Our floral glory fragrance our love memories
As we vow together we shall live in this sandcastle
And buried our body in other to become an angel
As we transcend our soul into heaven's sandcastle

Written by
Martin Ijir

The forenoon Show
There is a ship anchored close to the shore
in the bay, I wonder what the cook is doing now
perhaps he is chopping onions for frying
with a bit of meat from lunch or maybe he is
                      washing pots and pans while the officers who have
nothing to do play cards in the mess hall.
The crew stand by the railing looking at the shore
and the bright light, eyeing at their watches
when is the cook ready to serve them some grub?
I turn my thought to Julia apparently she was not
funny enough, a day time hostess has to be relentlessly
hilarious, facile, pretty and dumb.
I wonder how long she will last before a burnout
there many young females dying to get the job.
Exposure, the name in coloured magazines, the interview
by a sycophantic journalist who let the object prattle one
about their childhood which was hard, interfered with
by an uncle, endless is the navel-gazing, but the question
how they got there so fast is not mentioned whatever it was
it has little to do with talent.

Sunday Forenoon

She is listening to the Catholic mass
On TV and I’m banned from the living room
She takes her religion serious
And will be spared of any sarcastic remarks
About how the Padres are dressed and me
Wondering aloud if they believe what
They say.
We are going out for lunch, the sermon has
Made her hungry and we will have chicken
Killed in Jesus’s name, fried to perfection.
Me! I prefer Portuguese bacalao burgers
Fried to perfection, with a salad and later
drive along the promenade people watching.

Child covered in
animated **** brought
up by the creators tongue,
buried down through growth
by hands that feed,
her self confidence
is a rose under
suffocating weeds,
crawling their way
up her arms,
misfortune is a
pernicious gift;
not being able to
choose family,
she’s owned at
seventeen,
striving for an
evergreen family tree,
but stuck under a willow,
with only a pillow
to gather rain,
her clean water
only comes from the pain
that the wind brings in,
blowing palms painting
imperfect skin,
she’s a tangible truth
but a verbal fiction,
telling stories of what
she wished happened,
but for now
she’s a
product of
forenoon resentment,
with endless time spent
under the willow tree
watching the leaves
trickle their way through
the sands of time,
until she turns eighteen,
counting sheep,
and at only seventeen
she's too sore to sleep

I can be an angel with my wings alight with fire
take flight and sing as part of one large
flaming choir, or I could be
the depths you want to see
as you look into the ocean,do
you want me to become
the fun in the fun house,the titmouse that makes you squeal,the breath on your lips that make you feel so very, very nice or the unaffordable price that I won't make you pay and
the heat of your day turned into the spice of my night
the shade on the lamp light or the shadow you find as you tune slowly in to what's going on in my mind?

Would it bother you to know that I'm as slow as a snail
would you sail as quickly to this dangerous shore
and be grounded,
though not wrecked as I want more and more of you? do
you think when you sink into sleep that the angel with the wings on fire is there just for the heavenly choir and not for you
did you never believe that your dreams would come true
and if they could would you be
as happy as me
when I'm watching you sleep as I stand guard and keep
the nightmares away?

Sail quickly into this bay
let us lay down and die while our cries fade away
making love in the forenoon
what a wonderful way
what a day to begin.

I am the slave of desire
take hold of my wings and put out this fire that drenches me,quench my thirst,burst me apart and then look into my heart and what do
you feel as I peel off my skin layer by layer
will you say a prayer as we enter?
The pupil and the mentor and which is which but one and the same and oh what lessons to make games from.

The bomb explodes
the fires die down
I open these eyes that have seen so much more than the breakfasts of dreams in a bowl,
upturned and empty on the cold bedroom floor
I want some law to be enacted that would stop these distractions that brings mornings to life and send eyes open wide, where once again I'm beside myself with the passion of loss.

As I burn so I learn and I feel the need to read between the lines, which are the scratches upon the faces from some other times
or lines of other rhymes we have read and lost or ****** away into the bottom drawer.
There has to be more than I see
more than me
more than we or what we become
more fun as we squeal and we feel what we are
something that lies somewhere behind the distance of the distant star
or another bar on the fruit machine
that bandit we see but have never seen
let me think on, and in dreams I'll belong
to the truth of the night
with fiery wings I'll take flight and we'll
start all over again.

Morning break
Given another day,
don't forsake,
take, and embrace,
the wonder at pace

© 2021 Carol Natasha Diviney

Lifelong friends shine like Blue Stars forever , regardless of stormy or fair weather , on a cotton blanket in Autumn tracing the celestial attractions with their fingers , interpreting one another's dreams with spontaneous laughter , pulling daisy petal wishes , constantly charging each others mettle , crossing slippery , uncertain streams then o'er the cold mountaintops of nightfall , sauntering the forenoon valley beside the dewberry bramble , perfectly together

A punctilious artistic muse in the guise of a butterfly  
Mirth and mystery at every perch , charged by
the 'vernal electricity of this earth' .. Traversing magnetic byways , filling migratory skies , retracing long held accustomed paths , challenging the predatory countryside ..
Color the remaining fragments of Springtime  
Filling the panoramic view of forenoon with multitude and wonder
Busy Monarch , winged pilgrim of the afternoon , intent for the
Summer grassland , fly by day into night on your scheduled journey southward old friend ...

In the forenoon,
we waited 'til two o clock
until the ship berthed at the dock
and we waited some more.

At three o clock, we
waited 'til four
and the waiting was done then
men home from the sea.

Mum cooked a meat pie
sprinkled with tears not
a dry eye
in the house.

Dad brought home some brandy for
mum, he
brought us kids candy and
all was fine and dandy, the
day that his ship docked.

I'm sure I looked a Falcon in the eye on Arabia Mountain ,
he danced the forenoon sky just for me , sang goodbye bound
for the tall trees and I thanked him very kindly as I basked in
supernatural sunlight on the granite , rocky face of Hereafter ..

SOUL OF THE AGE

Now, is the summer
of this. . .our content

made glorious
by love

the sunlight
kiss of leaves

yet through a glass
darkly

I am tolled by old
St. Saviour’s bell

back to
a December’d day

a Thames frozen
from Westminster to London Bridge

where Will
buries brother

young Edmund Shakespeare
on this the last day

of the year
1607.

I stand on the same
flagstones

as the King’s Men
gathered in black

rub shoulders with
Burbage

a Hamlet come
to life

a summer of tourists
walking through us

as the order
from the Book of the Dead

solemnly intoned

as his younger brother
is lowered

into an unmarked
grave.

Ferrymen call
from across the centuries

“Eastward **. . .
. . .Westward **!”

as Time slips
loose of its moorings

mastiffs strain
at the leash

await the bear
to be baited.

Methinks I see
the great Globe itself

flag unfurled
upon an horizon

“the forenoon knell
of the great bell”

as I return
to my self

and Shakespeare
stares at a wall

in Silver
Street.

It's that day again
punch in the data
to
pray again and hope
for a better result.

To consult with the mystics
or to
read hieroglyphics?

Making turmeric tea,
is there something of
India in me?
or do I just like making
turmeric tea?

Seven in the forenoon
and it's soon going to be eight,
afternoon it seems will have
to wait but not for long

out with the wine, the women and the song
and I want for the blessing, minus ten percent,
the church never meant me to have it all.

the dragons will fly through you
as they flew through me

Thor's lightning rods,
blue bolts in the
valleys of gods.

Myths of the mercantile
sirens that smile
beware
' there be dragons '

After the monsoon
prior to the forenoon on
the third day
and with the Angels
working on the Ark
I was
late as usual where fate as usual
played its hand.

But it was in limbo
between here and
a place I go to be alone ,
a place I am at home in
where I met the tsunami that
almost drowned me
and threw me up upon a shore
which wasn't on any map that I
had seen before.

Can you hear them roar?
waves that ferry dragons to
this shore where I'm sure that this
time I shall not escape,

fate as usual has plan B for me
I wake from slumber to see
the dream like any other dream
was just a dream
and for some time I shall
be free from the dragons that fly
through you into bolts of me
in the blue.

they came from the woods equipped with vindictive teeth
and they ripped my skin off and my internal organs
they scattered ubiquitously and left me for dead
but i am no mortal, i am a god of my own design,
and i will take my retribution on them from the woods.
i drag my body through the thorny bushes and sticks
and up the hills and down the valleys as mountains tremble
to the ground and fall as pebbles from the stormy sky
and my claws dig deeper into the soft belly of the earth
and she screams in agony at this **** of her soil.
i drink from the river and find shelter in a dead horse
and lay its still warm organs where my organs were before
and there i sleep until the sun appears and again i drag
this useless body as forenoon becomes afternoon becomes e’en.
a starry sky offers itself to me but i cannot navigate
with this pallid tepid light illuminating nothing of this environ,
so morning again i drag and i drag this sack of skin and bones
and my teeth chatter in the cold and my breath becomes angels
and they dance for my amusement as i continue up broken hills
and there before me is the city of a thousand lights
siren calling me towards her open arms and seedy *****
and i roll down this steep escarpment and paralyse my hands
as i grab these rocks so jagged like mica or quartz or flint
and now my hands are gashed wide open and blood
smears the path i took but that does not matter because
my enemy lies before me in this city of a thousand lights,
a city that refuses to sleep to man or beast or godlike dead.
i slide unseen into a school and wait in a closet until the morn
when all the children fresh from adventures as robin hood
and his merry men running wild and rampant in the woods,
who found me sleeping and with their army of vicious teeth,
they ripped my skin off and threw my internal organs away
and now i lie in wait for them so i can cut off their skins
and i can disperse their internal organs everywhere
because you don’t disturb the gentle slumber of a tired godman
and don’t expect the godthing not to succumb to blind rage,
so as i lie here and imagine all the horrible things i will do,
i cannot help but laugh a laugh of a beast on the cliffedge of death
but i will always get my requital and **** what needs to be killed.

A Day of Reckoning


Forenoon, it had been raining during the night
the wizened winter landscape was now green
and amongst olive trees long-legged sheep grazed;
their pastor and, on occasions, executioner, sat on
a boulder casting dreams into the future; man and
beast, rustic peace, pity I hadn’t a camera.

On my way to the village to buy the papers, a sheep
had been run over by a truck, with its stomach burst
open and its content glinting in the sun, it was still
alive. Ah, you dumb animal abandoned by everyone  
it looked at me without any hope of deliverance,
so I reversed my car and ran over its head.

As the skull was crushed its eyes popped out, landed
in the middle of the road that now had eyes to see
with, the shock of this made it shudder a long rent in
the asphalt ***** black tears trickled. Quickly  
I threw the eyes into the thicket which was instantly
transformed into a field of tinkling bluebells.

From nowhere a road gang of small, denim- clad men  
with big hats appeared, they were badly paid lived
on road kills. Expertly strewing soft sand on blood, filled
cracks with healing asphalt, and off they drove with
their dinner. Empty road it had no knowledge of what
had just occurred, it was up to me to remember.

SOUL OF THE AGE

Now, is the summer
of this. . .our content

made glorious
by love

the sunlight
kiss of leaves

yet through a glass
darkly

I am tolled by old
St. Saviour’s bell

back to
a December’d day

a Thames frozen
from Westminister to London Bridge

where Will
buries brother

young Edmund Shakespeare
on this the last day

of the year
1607.

I stand on the same
flagstones

as the King’s Men
gathered in black

rub shoulders with
Burbage

a Hamlet come
to life

a summer of tourists
walking through us

as the order
from the Book of the Dead

solemnly intoned

as his younger brother
is lowered

into an unmarked
grave.

Ferrymen call
from across the centuries

“Eastward **. . .
. . .Westward **!”

as Time slips
loose of its moorings

mastiffs strain
at the leash

await the bear
to be baited.

Methinks I see
the great Globe itself

flag unfurled
upon an horizon

“the forenoon knell
of the great bell”

as I return
to my self

and Shakespeare
stares at a wall

in Silver
Street.

SOUL OF THE AGE

Now, is the summer
of this. . .our content

made glorious
by love

the sunlight
kiss of leaves

yet through a glass
darkly

I am tolled by old
St. Saviour’s bell

back to
a December’d day

a Thames frozen
from Westminster to London Bridge

where Will
buries brother

young Edmund Shakespeare
on this the last day

of the year
1607.

I stand on the same
flagstones

as the King’s Men
gathered in black

rub shoulders with
Burbage

a Hamlet come
to life

a summer of tourists
walking through us

as the order
from the Book of the Dead

solemnly intoned

as his younger brother
is lowered

into an unmarked
grave.

Ferrymen call
from across the centuries

“Eastward **. . .
. . .Westward **!”

as Time slips
loose of its moorings

mastiffs strain
at the leash

await the bear
to be baited.

Methinks I see
the great Globe itself

flag unfurled
upon an horizon

“the forenoon knell
of the great bell”

as I return
to my self

and Shakespeare
stares at a wall

in Silver
Street.

SOUL OF THE AGE

Now, is the summer
of this. . .our content

made glorious
by love

the sunlight
kiss of leaves

yet through a glass
darkly

I am tolled by old
St. Saviour’s bell

back to
a December’d day

a Thames frozen
from Westminister to London Bridge

where Will
buries brother

young Edmund Shakespeare
on this the last day

of the year
1607.

I stand on the same
flagstones

as the King’s Men
gathered in black

rub shoulders with
Burbage

a Hamlet come
to life

a summer of tourists
walking through us

as the order
from the Book of the Dead

solemnly intoned

as his younger brother
is lowered

into an unmarked
grave.

Ferrymen call
from across the centuries

“Eastward **. . .
. . .Westward **!”

as Time slips
loose of its moorings

mastiffs strain
at the leash

await the bear
to be baited.

Methinks I see
the great Globe itself

flag unfurled
upon an horizon

“the forenoon knell
of the great bell”

as I return
to my self

and Shakespeare
stares at a wall

in Silver
Street.

Hold catches charity chastising morning
Forenoon sees sanctity assigning shame,
But no one caught evening whispering secrets
For that was midnight who shouldered the blame.
Shall she wear criticisms chill of morning?
Is she entitled as spokesman of throng?
Savouring rumours that snicker from new light
Or roaring, pedantically, dark dawns song.
Such is the chorusing catcall of caution
Such the disharmony ebbing from soul
Coughing suspicions embedded in discord
Entrusting it all to a miscreant’s fold.

M.
30 March 2020

The fear

Looking out, the day was dazzling with deep shadows
in the corners and under dead street lamps.
Reticent lips exploded gave birth to a scream which
Shattered the forenoon, only white heat remained.
Window glass dripped became petrified like
were fish eyes glared as the day was punished down an abyss.
Of black, shiny boots trampled all fragment.
But the fiend’s eye was forever glued to the inside
on my mind.

SOUL OF THE AGE

Now, is the summer
of this. . .our content

made glorious
by love

the sunlight
kiss of leaves

yet through a glass
darkly

I am tolled by old
St. Saviour’s bell

back to
a December’d day

a Thames frozen
from Westminster to London Bridge

where Will
buries brother

young Edmund Shakespeare
on this the last day

of the year
1607.

I stand on the same
flagstones

as the King’s Men
gathered in black

rub shoulders with
Burbage

a Hamlet come
to life

a summer of tourists
walking through us

as the order
from the Book of the Dead

solemnly intoned

as his younger brother
is lowered

into an unmarked
grave.

Ferrymen call
from across the centuries

“Eastward **. . .
. . .Westward **!”

as Time slips
loose of its moorings

mastiffs strain
at the leash

await the bear
to be baited.

Methinks I see
the great Globe itself

flag unfurled
upon an horizon

“the forenoon knell
of the great bell”

as I return
to my self

and Shakespeare
stares at a wall

in Silver
Street.

The virus

This forenoon
is like a new summer day
people smile
behind mask.
their eyes sparkle
like the worst is over.
Superman,
not the movie one,
is in hospital.
the hope is, up from
the sickbed
the Phoenix will fly
on fluttering wings of peace.
failing this
we put our hopes
in prayer
that he might not suffer.

The forenoon strolls


Dressed in a solid jacket the old man goes for his walk
First, he goes and buys a paper have coffee at a café
To read a bit, the woman at the newsagent smiles at
Calls him sir, her guard is down, the nice woman of fifty,
And can be her pleasant self and he falls in love.
He walks the grocery buys milk and eggs, the woman who
Also calls him sir, he loves her too.
He walks home, and his wife opens the door and, he loves her
More than before.
He sits on the sofa resting his legs and does as many old
Men do fall asleep.