The fairies break there dances
And leave the printed lawn,
And up from India glances
The silver sail of dawn

The candles burn their sockets
The blinds let through the day,
The young man feels his pockets
And wanders what's to pay

*A.Houseman

Bredon Hill

by A. E. Houseman

In summertime on Bredon
  The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
  In steeples far and near,
  A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
  My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
  And here the larks so high
  About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
  In valleys miles away;
'Come all to church, good people;
  Good people come and pray.'
  But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
  Among the springing thyme,
'Oh peal upon our wedding,
  And we will hear the chime,
  And come to church on time.'

But when the snows at Christmas
  On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
  And stole out unbeknown
  And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
  Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
  And so to church went she,
  And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon,
  And still the steeples hum,
'Come all to church, good people'--
  Oh, noisy bells be dumb;
  I hear you, I will come.

Give your neighbor all you can
Give sweat unto your boss
Give your troubles to the wind
With just one mighty toss
Give your kidneys to caffeine
A hundred years they'll go
Give Gene Simmons your big ****
And let your skinny show

Give your payments to the bank
To send your kids to college
Send 'em to a better school
To give their noodles knowledge
Give charity to old goodwill
To prove your heart is pure
Like Robin Hood take from the rich
And give it to the poor

Give tithes unto your preacher man
He'll get you through the Gate
Throw in a golden nugget
You may not have to wait
One last thing Mr. Houseman adds
Give carefully your hearts
Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But don't include your ****

Can you carve color like you crave attention,
My eyes are starving,
for a golden glimpsing,
Will we wander or will we surrender,
To the darkness,
Blinding our vision.

Will these wild white words
Garner redemption,
I'm just a poor boy,
from the home of the hits and,
Can we feel like we do on the streets of New Orleans,
Watch your glass and half your portion.

What in this white world changes?
Dust bowls now filled, aren't so dangerous,
But let's Forgo the colors and drink from loving cups,
Give your hugs to a stranger.

You see them oft this time of year
As earth turns dark and cold
Bugs dancing a frenetic pace

What drives them crazy? Is it fear
Of dying ‘fore they’re old
Being omega of their race?

When evening comes so fast and hard
When surface becomes too still
Sky purple/pink with blood

Are they like me once playing cards
Hoping time to ****
Houseman’s cow contented with its cud?

Rhymed to death before its time
By A.E.’s most depressing verse
Assuring though we die, that we die old

Why do we insist on rhyme
That life’s a blessing, death a curse-
A lie the the poets have forever told

So little bugs, please stop and listen
No need to be like Mirthridades
All one must do is to be still and know

Be still and let your cold death christen
Peace in Heaven and in Hades
You don’t have to go on with the show

It was the day before Christmas;
we met at a shopping mall.
Nineteen years since we last saw each other.
He was one of my best friends at college.
Mark and I reminisced about our
past escapades. I tried to talk about the now
and the future, but Mark just kept going
back to our memories.
The time when we were smashed,
and he smashed his brother's
car into a lamppost. The time I dared him
to make a move on the girl, and he made
out with her. The time when he ruled
the college campus.
He was voted as the President.
I tried again to find out what he’d been up to,
his dreams.
He told me how Mrs Houseman, our History teacher,
secretly fancied him.
I stopped asking and let him talk.
I figured that his past was much better than what he had now.

We’re in Paris, staying with my Grandmère (Grandmother) for a few days around Mother’s day.
Peter (my bf) is getting to know my Grandmère. They’ve started to relax and enjoy each other. This time, when they met, they hugged.
“You look great!” Peter said, “Have you had some work done?”
She made a face that acknowledged the absurd, and shook her head ‘no’.
“A rib removed?” He followed up.

Last night she told him a story about the strict and regimented world she’d grown up in.
When she was 8, she and her mom (‘GG’), had visited a friends' home for tea. Afterwards, GG asked her, “Did you see that?” In a horrified voice.
“What?” Young Grandmère had asked.
“When the houseman brought in that calling card?” GG asked, watching her daughter like she was taking a test.
Grandmère thought about it - but couldn’t find the fault, “What about it?” she’d finally asked.
“He just HANDED it to her - without a (silver) tray.” GG was scandalized at this debacle of civilized standards.

“That’s what WE were up against,” Grandmère said, “It was a strict and judgmental world.. back then.”
“But you were a strict-old-bird with my mom, right?” I asked (because I live to get a reaction from her).
“Oh, nothing like the OLD days,” she sighed, looking to heaven in reverie.
“Now YOU,” she said, (indicating me) like she was revealing some melodramatic truth, “get away with ******.”
“Yep,” I admitted, “That’s me - I’m guilty.” I shrugged.

Every June, there’s a grand masked ball at Versailles Palace and it’s AMAZING. Like the MET Gala, there are only some 400 tickets and those are instantly sold out. This year, my Grandmère has four extra - in an envelope.
“Give them to meeeeee!” I begged, shamelessly, stretching out a quivering arm, like a ****** in withdrawal. “We’ll see,” she said cruelly.
“If you do,” I bargained, “I’ll buy you some land in Camargue (an area of worthless swampland in southern France)."
When she didn’t give in immediately, I decided to try and keep her engaged with sparkling conversation.

“Ever noticed that the word ‘perfect’ has 7 letters?
So does meeeeee,” I said. “Coincidence? I think NOT”

My mind searched for leverage. Grandmère had taken Peter and I to a horse jumping competition earlier that day. I love the smells of horse, hay and leather - you know - all that - but I can barely ride. I continued to bargain.

“You know,” I began (like an actress on stage), in a shaky voice meant to convey extreme, past suffering, ”my parents never bought me a horse.”
It felt like there were tears in my eyes.
“Ok,” she said, boredly, tapping the envelope with ******* then sliding it, my way, across her desk.
I picked up the envelope - counting the tickets. Grandmère wasn’t above withholding one as a ‘business lesson.”

“Can I bring Peter, Lisa, and Dave?” I asked innocently. ‘Bring’s’ the magic word - what I’m asking is whether she’ll pay for everything (airfare, hotels, cash cards, designer costumes - maybe €60k in all).
She’s no fool, she’d offered those tickets knowing this - but it’s only polite to ask. (I could pay for it myself, dip-tha-fund as they say).
“Of course,” she said, offhandedly, “call François.” She’d moved on to the next thing on her desk.

François, a handsome, 27ish, perfectly tailored, hipster with straight blonde fringe-hair and a Sorbonne Université MBA, is one of my Grandmère’s conglomerate, executive-secretarial minions who’ll now coordinate all aspects of our travel and expenses.

I came around that desk and gave her a big hug, which she endured as she read something.
“You’re the Beatles,” I pronounced, before scurrying off to tell Peter.

songs for this:
Love Is Strange by Frenchy
Depression Royale by De-Phazz
Take Three by Club des Belugas
Inesaurible Tu by St. Project

A BIRD IN HAND  &  ‘CARPE DIEM’*
It has been wisely observed and said,
That a bird in hand is worth two in the
bush always.
Therefore, let us grab this day before it
begins to slip away my friends!

The Afghans are perhaps the only people
in the world who pray after their meal!
Since they are more concerned about the
outcome, -
Than the intentions the behind things!
Just as the proof of the pudding always
remains in its eating!

Now the Latin phrase ‘Carpe Diem’ meaning
‘seize the day’, - has been a popular theme of
English poetry even to this day!
It was first used by the Roman poet Horace in
his ‘Odes’ during 23 BC,
Which spoke of enjoying the day before it
ceases to exist!
This theme is also found in Shakespeare’s sonnets;
In Robert Herrick’s lines ‘To the Virgins to Make
Much of Time’; in Andrew Marvell’s seductive
lyric ‘To His Coy Mistress’; and also in poems of
AE Houseman, and Robert Frost, - among many
other poets.
Here are few lines from Andrew Marvell’s seductive
lyric - ‘To His Coy Mistress’:-

“But at my back I always hear
  Time’s wingéd chariot hurrying near:
  And yonder all before us lie
  Deserts of vast eternity.
  Thy beauty shall no more be found;            
  Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
  My echoing song: then worms shall try
  That long-preserved virginity!
  And your quaint honor turn to dust,
  And into ashes all my lust.                  
  The grave’s a fine and private place,
  But none, I think, do there embrace!”

Now I conclude with few lines from my
favorite Henry Wordsworth Longfellow’s
poem - ‘The Psalm of Life’:

“.…Trust no future however pleasant!
       Let the dead Past bury its dead!
       Act, act, in the living Present.
       Heart within, and God overhead!
       Lives of great men all remind us,
       We can make our lives sublime,
       And departing leave behind us,
       Footprints on the sands of time!…”
                                               -Raj Nandy, New Delhi.
                                                composed on 03 JULY 2020.

I got my hair cut Wednesday.
Lynne talked as she plied her trade.
A kitten was born on her doorstep-
Strange how the world is made.

Online Lynne read that mother cats
often give birth at your door.
Coincidences abounded.
Does death abound even more?

If mother cats know about doorsteps,
do they know which people to choose?
Is a cradle worth less than a manger?
To save your life must you lose?

Lynne wasn’t supposed to be there.
Her shop was closed that day
That’s a door she never uses.
What drew her so far astray?

Mother cat had chosen most wisely.
No doorstep was better than Lynne’s.
But can one this young survive?
Are babes blotched with original sins?

Extraordinary measures
for extraordinary things are required.
Lynne fed every fifteen minutes.
Loving never makes one tired.

Lynne spent forty eight hours
wrestling with God for this child.
Vets, internets and eye droppers
saved it from the law of the wild.

Hope is the name she gave her.
Hope is what saw her through.
Stronger hour by hour-
Death had been cheated anew.

Now she is sleeping so soundly
with covers snuggled up to her head.
Lynne looks and loves her fondly,
then sees that she is dead.

So I sit and hear this story.
Lynne brings Hope in her tiny box.
The sight of her rips my heart open
Like a raft ruined on ragged rocks.

She finished with my haircut
ignoring all my tears.
Today I sit and write this
with the help of a few beers.

How can this have happened
Is it part of the Master’s plan?
Malt much more than Milton
justifies God’s ways to man.

my apologies to A.E. Houseman and his poem “Terrence This is Stupid Stuff”

I am not sexually attracted
To the male body

But I notice I am deeply attracted
To the gay male mind or spirit:

A.E. Houseman
Dr. Thomas (my favorite teacher at JMU)
Richard Rodriguez
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Cardinal Newman
Ludwig Wittgenstein
George Santayana
Etc...

Having trouble sleeping
O  dark thirty
Cpl. David Markson
Patrick Air Force Base

Mrs. Dewey's class
A.E. Houseman
By profession a professor of Latin
Contraria Sunt Complementa

Volkswagen bug
Surf Ohio
The University of the South
**** voice, pretty face

All Walls Fall
Mr. Gregory Hines
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Homecoming gown magenta

                Say you, Say me