Govan bar banter:

Awa' with ye fankle eejits
that blether to naw whit they dinnae naw
crabbit, drookit
moanin, drouthy
yer Havers-yins!
each unto their ane
an' aye bin.

Tell markers scoured
an' crowned with glee
"alas nae blessing naw
bolt of wisdom
will er'e to
strike thee -
tis poor soil
an' loads o toil
an' broken backs"
Ach awa with ye!

Fir me the skies
an' tracks o wilds
an' winds that curl yer lugs
Hielan mountains glory
summers toty story
an' bonny lassies dancing -
a gallus stoater!
that’s fir me.

Party racket
in Da’s laden jaiket
jangle change
fir a dram
an' enough tae get the Clockwork Orange hame -
times hae changed a wee bit no?

Seldom ventured
tis seldom gained
an' aw the while
the wee bairns wail
Still, life is yin
what yin makes of that
which drives the world
that breaks yer back

Remember love!
ma banters free to give
an' thats all the mare important when
it costs so much tae live.

It was, as the New York Times all but sniffed
(Even then, a haughty mix of bluenose and black ink)
Further proof the poor, misguided Upstate rubes
Were no more than ample fodder
For any tinhorn, two-bit confidence man to take for a ride.
Fair enough—it was, to the careful eye and unheated psyche
Clear as the azure blue sky that,
Despite the best efforts of acid wash and a year underground,
So obviously a statue as to be absolutely laughable,
And yet the vox populi came in waves,
Not only one-gallus farmers from the fields nearby,
But from the great cities near and far
(Chicago, Philadelphia, and, yes, even New York itself
To throw Hannum a quarter to view his gargantuan grotesquery
Just as described in Genesis itself, he noted solemnly
So many, indeed, that Barnum himself was divinely inspired
Not only to purloin the giant, but its prior owner’s epigram
As to the frequency of the manufacture
Of his too-credible customer base.
While there was (briefly, at least) some mystery surrounding
The origins of the brobdingnagian mass of stone,
It remained (to some, anyway) equally unfathomable
Why scores of folks would careen in unsteady coaches
The full length of the Catskill Turnpike,
With its questionable lodging and uneven roadworthiness,
Or patiently suffer the mosquito-laden flatboats of Clinton’s Ditch
All to spend the cash equivalent of two trips to the county fair
To see a perfectly good hootchie-kootchie show
Simply to gawk at an unevenly carved rock of questionable authenticity,
But that explained quite simply,
As the public always gets what the public wants.

If Memnon's mother mourned, Achilles's mother mourned,
and our sad fates can touch great goddesses,
then weep, and loose your hair in grief you never earned,
Elegy, now ah! too much like your name.
That bard whose work was yours, who gave you fame, Tibullus,
burns on the mounded pyre, a lifeless corpse.
See Venus's boy, bearing his quiver upside down;
his bow is broken and his torch is quenched;
look how he goes dejected: his wings trail on the ground;
he smites his naked breast with violent hand;
his tears dampen the curls that fall around his neck,
and heaving sobs keep breaking on his lips.
(Just so he went out, fair Iulus, from your house,
they say, at his brother Aeneas's funeral.)
No less was Venus stunned by her Tibullus's death
than when the fierce boar smote her lover's thigh.
They say we bards are sacred, favorites of the gods,
and even that there's something holy in us,
but that churl Death defiles every sacred thing:
his shadowy hand appropriates us all.
Was Orpheus saved by his father and mother, who were gods,
or by his songs that tamed the astonished beasts?
They say that that same father sang 'Linos! Ai, Linos! '
deep in the woods on his reluctant lyre.
And Homer, too, from whom, as from an endless fount,
bards' lips are moistened with the Muses' waters,
one last day pulled him under Avernus's murky wave:
his songs alone escaped the greedy pyre.
The work of bards endures: Troy's famous sufferings,
and the endless shroud, undone by nightly fraud.
So Nemesis and Delia: both their names will live,
the one his first, the one his latest love.
But what use now your rites? What use the Egyptian rattle?
What use, to have slept alone in an empty bed?
When harsh fate steals away the good (forgive my words!)
I almost want to believe there are no gods.
Live virtuous: you will die. Respect the gods: grim Death
will drag you from their altars to your grave.
Write glorious verse, and see! here Tibullus lies:
one small urn holds the dust of what he was.
Is it you the blazing pyre bears off, O sacred bard,
not dreading to be fed upon your breast?
Flames that dare so great a blasphemy would burn
the golden temples of the blessed gods!
She turned aside her gaze who rules Mt. Eryx's heights,
and some say she could not restrain her tears.
And yet it's better thus than if Phaeacia's land
had strewn mere dirt on your neglected grave.
Here, as you fled life, your mother closed your streaming
eyes, and brought her last gifts to your ashes.
Here your sister joined your mother in her grief
and came with loosened hair all disarrayed.
And with their kisses Nemesis and your first love
joined theirs, and did not leave your pyre forsaken,
and Delia, as she left, said, 'Happier far your love
for me: you lived, while I was still your flame.'
'Why, ' Nemesis replied, 'do you grieve for my loss?
Dying, he clutched me with his failing hand.'
If anything remains of us but name and shade,
Elysium's vale will be Tibullus's home,
and you will greet him, learned Catullus, ivy bound
on your young brow, with Calvus at your side,
and you (if it is false that you betrayed your friend)
Gallus, careless of your blood and soul.
These shades will be your comrades, if any shades there are:
you have joined the blessed, elegant Tibullus.
May your bones find repose within their sheltering urn,
and may earth not lie heavy on your ashes.

At four o'clock
in the gun-metal blue dark
we hear the first crow of the first ****

just below
the gun-metal blue window
and immediately there is an echo

off in the distance,
then one from the backyard fence,
then one, with horrible insistence,

grates like a wet match
from the broccoli patch,
flares,and all over town begins to catch.

Cries galore
come from the water-closet door,
from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor,

where in the blue blur
their rusting wives admire,
the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare

with stupid eyes
while from their beaks there rise
the uncontrolled, traditional cries.

Deep from protruding chests
in green-gold medals dressed,
planned to command and terrorize the rest,

the many wives
who lead hens' lives
of being courted and despised;

deep from raw throats
a senseless order floats
all over town.  A rooster gloats

over our beds
from rusty irons sheds
and fences made from old bedsteads,

over our churches
where the tin rooster perches,
over our little wooden northern houses,

making sallies
from all the muddy alleys,
marking out maps like Rand McNally's:

glass-headed pins,
oil-golds and copper greens,
anthracite blues, alizarins,

each one an active
displacement in perspective;
each screaming, "This is where I live!"

Each screaming
"Get up!  Stop dreaming!"
Roosters, what are you projecting?

You, whom the Greeks elected
to shoot at on a post, who struggled
when sacrificed, you whom they labeled

"Very combative..."
what right have you to give
commands and tell us how to live,

cry "Here!" and "Here!"
and wake us here where are
unwanted love, conceit and war?

The crown of red
set on your little head
is charged with all your fighting blood

Yes, that excrescence
makes a most virile presence,
plus all that ****** beauty of iridescence

Now in mid-air
by two they fight each other.
Down comes a first flame-feather,

and one is flying,
with raging heroism defying
even the sensation of dying.

And one has fallen
but still above the town
his torn-out, bloodied feathers drift down;

and what he sung
no matter.  He is flung
on the gray ash-heap, lies in dung

with his dead wives
with open, ****** eyes,
while those metallic feathers oxidize.


St. Peter's sin
was worse than that of Magdalen
whose sin was of the flesh alone;

of spirit, Peter's,
falling, beneath the flares,
among the "servants and officers."

Old holy sculpture
could set it all together
in one small scene, past and future:

Christ stands amazed,
Peter, ******* raised
to surprised lips, both as if dazed.

But in between
a little **** is seen
carved on a dim column in the travertine,

explained by gallus canit;
flet Petrus underneath it,
There is inescapable hope, the pivot;

yes, and there Peter's tears
run down our chanticleer's
sides and gem his spurs.

Tear-encrusted thick
as a medieval relic
he waits.  Poor Peter, heart-sick,

still cannot guess
those ****-a-doodles yet might bless,
his dreadful rooster come to mean forgiveness,

a new weathervane
on basilica and barn,
and that outside the Lateran

there would always be
a bronze **** on a porphyry
pillar so the people and the Pope might see

that event the Prince
of the Apostles long since
had been forgiven, and to convince

all the assembly
that "Deny deny deny"
is not all the roosters cry.

In the morning
a low light is floating
in the backyard, and gilding

from underneath
the broccoli, leaf by leaf;
how could the night have come to grief?

gilding the tiny
floating swallow's belly
and lines of pink cloud in the sky,

the day's preamble
like wandering lines in marble,
The ***** are now almost inaudible.

The sun climbs in,
following "to see the end,"
faithful as enemy, or friend.

Gallus Gallus Domesticus
Uncourageous Uncourageous Coward-"icus"
These are the people we believe to possess high ideals.

So elite and luxurious,
so stainless and luscious.
All dressed in designers
with adorners.

Boundless extravagance
inspite our disacceptance,
yet in the face of danger
they would be the first to disappear.
But then, who are we to judge others
when we would equally do the same.

Out here,
in this place,
Its everyman or woman
for himself or herself.
Its you and i, all by ourself.

By twist and ties from ages past,
We are but Union bound
Ruled from afar by silver spoons,
'til hope and freedom found,
A fire in the belly of daughters and sons
Made a home in faces awash in blue,
With roaring thunder in voices loud, proclaim;
A Scot! Proud, free, canny and true.

Past leaders, past has-beens, past moguls and crooks,
The passion spreads, face to face,
Tangible static in the Square tonight,
The cone standing tall in it's place.
The fire of the people out in the streets,
Casting eyes to freedom's distant shores,
Their message clear and printed in bold,
With every paper passed through street-lit doors.
'Saor Alba! 'Alba gu Bràth!'
The spirit of Scotia is free.
'Bairns not Bombs!' 'Seize it with both hands!', they cry,
This Aye vote is for you, and for me.

With faith, with courage, with braw, gallus grace,
This word will nae weesht, but spread,
Not if but when, not now but again,
Independence is ne'er 'put to bed'.

A ****** chicken somewhere on a mountain top
of Kauai,
               pecked at cashew nuts held in a hand,
then pecked at the arithmetic of the fingers,
pretending to play a game of:

    from the scenes of the wind that shakes
the barley, the gray man
                                                or that one episode
in the game of thrones: dark wings, dark words

those fingernail torture scenes...

or at least the fusion of a fake memory in part
(true in part relating to the cashews being fed)
and the the torture of listening

to khruangbin & leon bridges' - texas sun:
which is torture,
    just like listening to odetari's - i love you ***
is torture,

   a maasoo'Ki-Zee'ism    (wing wing)

just like this is torture, but so is scribbling
qualification prose for an NVQ in spectator safety;
custard blotches of semi-thinking

       like it is torture to read Olson's maximus poems
or Deleuze's and Guattari's anti-oedipus

- when torture is an uncomfortable pleasure,
even a difficult pleasure to understand,
when there's a sense - of colour

in translation

of light and when intellect is a phantom, isn't

- i'm almost teasing myself with the idea of
asking chatGPT to write me a fusion
of Celan, Cummings and Olson -
    that would be torture,
   so how would it look like?

it looks like this

/ in the expanse of night's quiet drift,
words emerge, like stars in blackness,
charles olson's breath in the cosmic rift,
e. e. *******'s verses, a gentle caress

and as the moon weeps, in solemn tone,
paul celan's echoes, a haunting cry,
together they dance, entwined, alone,
a fusion iof souls, in the poet's sky /

b'jeez'who's'who'who'ah'woo!    (ring ring)

salvation! (would) never hit the panic
button on the march of AI:
clearly a parody of intelligence -
an encyclopaedia on steroids! nothing more!

   cardinal soul in the pope's bog of god,
it was precisely sunny for an hour
before the mood of the sky changed into:
a ****** expression of a frigidity
   and nuisance, a teenage girl's
                       "resting ***** face":

if only some justice before the monstrous
composition: stretching my fingers and enforcing
my grasp of hands positioned for
a cascade of words, without looking at
the keyboard

         a heartless ******* i am not:
                one of those stercus accidit moments
alternatively called: in vivo res mortuus
                                in a living thing a dead thing -
an egg that becomes a scrambled ego
                  harsh criticism of the exoskeleton
where heart and brain are all one and the same mush

just like now, torture, a pleasant torture

   harpoopoo'on'pon'pomp'bluegluetruths'in'u'u'w

                  (last remaining exit, via phone-one-t'ism)

A is for Arne whose throat was impaled
B is for Barnaby, killed with a spell
C is for Caroline who was stuck in a mine
D is for Daffy, sliced into lines
E is for Enid who was locked in an armoire
F is for Flynn, eaten by a gargantuar
G is for Gallus who was thrown in the winter
H is for Hilde, died of an infected splinter
I is for Ingrid who ate a sack of bearings
J is for Jona whose attitude was daring
K is for Kleinn who stepped on a shard
L is for Lars whose intestines were barred
M is for Max who flew alone to the moon
N is for Nelkir whose execution was coming soon
O is for Oliver whose body was twisted to death
P is for Plinny, burned by a fire breath
Q is for Qiara who died of a nightmare
R is for Ralph, committed suicide in despair
S is for Stefan who was lost in a maze
T is for Torlief whose blood was traced
U is for Ulfric who was burned at the stake
V is for Vera, swallowed by a snake
W is for Walter who ate himself
X is for Xenya, cursed by an elf
Y is for Ysagmor who was buried alive
Z is for Zach who failed to survive

Au retour des beaux jours, dans ce vert floréal
Où meurent les Danton trahis par les Réal,
Quand l'étable s'agite au fond des métairies,
Quand l'eau vive au soleil se change en pierreries,
Quand la grisette assise, une aiguille à la main,
Soupire, et, de côté regardant le chemin,
Voudrait aller cueillir des fleurs au lieu de coudre,
Quand les nids font l'amour, quand le pommier se poudre
Pour le printemps ainsi qu'un marquis pour le bal,
Quand, par mai réveillés, Charles douze, Annibal,
Disent : c'est l'heure ! et font vers les sanglants tumultes
Rouler, l'un les canons, l'autre les catapultes ;
Moi, je crie : ô soleil ! salut ! parmi les fleurs
J'entends les gais pinsons et les merles siffleurs ;
L'arbre chante ; j'accours ; ô printemps ! on vit double
Gallus entraîne au bois Lycoris qui se trouble ;
Tout rayonne ; et le ciel, couvant l'homme enchanté,
N'est plus qu'un grand regard plein de sérénité !
Alors l'herbe m'invite et le pré me convie ;
Alors j'absous le sort, je pardonne à la vie,
Et je dis : Pourquoi faire autre chose qu'aimer ?
Je sens, comme au dehors, tout en moi s'animer,
Et je dis aux oiseaux : e Petits oiseaux, vous n'êtes
Que des chardonnerets et des bergeronnettes,
Vous ne me connaissez pas même, vous allez
Au hasard dans les champs, dans les bois, dans les blés,
Pêle-mêle, pluviers, grimpereaux, hochequeues,
Dressant vos huppes d'or, lissant vos plumes bleues
Vous êtes, quoique beaux, très bêtes ; votre loi,
C'est d'errer ; vous chantez en l'air sans savoir quoi
Eh bien, vous m'inondez d'émotions sacrées !
Et quand je vous entends sur les branches dorées,
Oiseaux, mon aile s'ouvre, et mon cœur rajeuni
Boit à l'amour sans fond et s'emplit d'infini ! »
Et je me laisse aller aux longues rêveries.
Ô feuilles d'arbre ! oubli ! bœufs mugissants ! prairies !
Mais dans ces moments-là, tu le sais, Juvénal,
Qu'il sorte par hasard de ma poche un journal,
Et que mon œil distrait, qui vers les cieux remonte,
Heurte l'un de ces noms qui veulent dire honte,
Alors toute l'horreur revient ; dans les bois verts
Némésis m'apparaît et me montre à travers
Les rameaux et les fleurs sa gorge de furie.

C'est que tu veux tout l'homme, ô devoir ! ô patrie !
C'est que lorsque ton flanc saigne, ô France, tu veux
Que l'angoisse nous tienne et dresse nos cheveux,
Que nous ne regardions plus autre chose au monde,
Et que notre œil, noyé dans la pitié profonde,
Cesse de voir les cieux pour ne voir que ton sang !

Et je me lève, et tout s'efface, et, frémissant,
Je n'ai plus sous les yeux qu'un peuple à la torture,
Crimes sans châtiment, griefs sans sépulture,
Les géants garrottés livrés aux avortons,
Femmes dans les cachots, enfants dans les pontons,
Bagnes, sénats, proscrits, cadavres, gémonies
Alors, foulant aux pieds toutes les fleurs ternies,
Je m'enfuis, et je dis à ce soleil si doux :
Je veux l'ombre ! et je crie aux oiseaux : taisez-vous !

Et je pleure ! et la strophe, éclose de ma bouche,
Bat mon front orageux de son aile farouche.

Ainsi pas de printemps ! ainsi pas de ciel bleu !
Ô bandits, et toi, fils d'Hortense de Saint-Leu,
Soyez maudits, d'abord d'être ce que vous êtes,
Et puis soyez maudits d'obséder les poètes !
Soyez maudits, Troplong, Fould, Magnan, Faustin deux,
De faire au penseur triste un cortège hideux,
De le suivre au désert, dans les champs, sous les ormes,
De mêler aux forêts vos figures difformes !
Soyez maudits, bourreaux qui lui masquez le jour,
D'emplir de haine un cœur qui déborde d'amour !

Jersey, le 28 mai 1853.

The glorious male Gallus gallus domesticus, more commonly known as the rooster, perches himself upon the post. His delicate feathers glimmer in the sunrise. He ***** his wings twice and rears back his head. His call clamors through the countryside, crying out to all creatures that morning has come.

Ô Virgile ! ô poète ! ô mon maître divin !
Viens, quittons cette ville au cri sinistre et vain,
Qui, géante, et jamais ne fermant la paupière,
Presse un flot écumant entre ses flancs de pierre,
Lutèce, si petite au temps de tes Césars,
Et qui jette aujourd'hui, cité pleine de chars,
Sous le nom éclatant dont le monde la nomme,
Plus de clarté qu'Athène et plus de bruit que Rome.

Pour toi qui dans les bois fais, comme l'eau des cieux,
Tomber de feuille en feuille un vers mystérieux,
Pour toi dont la pensée emplit ma rêverie,
J'ai trouvé, dans une ombre où rit l'herbe fleurie,
Entre Buc et Meudon, dans un profond oubli,
- Et quand je dis Meudon, suppose Tivoli !
J'ai trouvé, mon poète, une chaste vallée
A des coteaux charmants nonchalamment mêlée,
Retraite favorable à des amants cachés,
Faite de flots dormants et de rameaux penchés,
Où midi baigne en vain de ses rayons sans nombre
La grotte et la forêt, frais asiles de l'ombre !

Pour toi je l'ai cherchée, un matin, fier, joyeux,
Avec l'amour au coeur et l'aube dans les yeux ;
Pour toi je l'ai cherchée, accompagné de celle
Qui sait tous les secrets que mon âme recèle,
Et qui, seule avec moi sous les bois chevelus,
Serait ma Lycoris si j'étais ton Gallus.

Car elle a dans le coeur cette fleur large et pure,
L'amour mystérieux de l'antique nature !
Elle aime comme nous, maître, ces douces voix,
Ce bruit de nids joyeux qui sort des sombres bois,
Et, le soir, tout au fond de la vallée étroite,
Les coteaux renversés dans le lac qui miroite,
Et, quand le couchant morne a perdu sa rougeur,
Les marais irrités des pas du voyageur,
Et l'humble chaume, et l'antre obstrué d'herbe verte,
Et qui semble une bouche avec terreur ouverte,
Les eaux, les prés, les monts, les refuges charmants,
Et les grands horizons pleins de rayonnements !

Maître ! puisque voici la saison des pervenches,
Si tu veux, chaque nuit, en écartant les branches,
Sans éveiller d'échos à nos pas hasardeux,
Nous irons tous les trois, c'est-à-dire tous deux,
Dans ce vallon sauvage, et de la solitude,
Rêveurs, nous surprendrons la secrète attitude.
Dans la brune clairière où l'arbre au tronc noueux
Prend le soir un profil humain et monstrueux,
Nous laisserons fumer, à côté d'un cytise,
Quelque feu qui s'éteint sans pâtre qui l'attise,
Et, l'oreille tendue à leurs vagues chansons,
Dans l'ombre, au clair de lune, à travers les buissons,
Avides, nous pourrons voir à la dérobée
Les satyres dansants qu'imite Alphésibée.