by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

        COR. AGRIPPA,
           Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare
The boy’s drowned body back to Grecian land,
And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair
And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand;
Some brought sweet spices from far Araby,
And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.

And when he neared his old Athenian home,
A mighty billow rose up suddenly
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam
Lay diapered in some strange fantasy,
And clasping him unto its glassy breast
Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest!

Now where Colonos leans unto the sea
There lies a long and level stretch of lawn;
The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee
For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun
Is not afraid, for never through the day
Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at play.

But often from the thorny labyrinth
And tangled branches of the circling wood
The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth
Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood
Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away,
Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first break of day

The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball
Along the reedy shore, and circumvent
Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal
For fear of bold Poseidon’s ravishment,
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

On this side and on that a rocky cave,
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,
As though it feared to be too soon forgot
By the green rush, its playfellow,—and yet, it is a spot

So small, that the inconstant butterfly
Could steal the hoarded money from each flower
Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy
Its over-greedy love,—within an hour
A sailor boy, were he but rude enow
To land and pluck a garland for his galley’s painted prow,

Would almost leave the little meadow bare,
For it knows nothing of great pageantry,
Only a few narcissi here and there
Stand separate in sweet austerity,
Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars,
And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars.

Hither the billow brought him, and was glad
Of such dear servitude, and where the land
Was ****** of all waters laid the lad
Upon the golden margent of the strand,
And like a lingering lover oft returned
To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned,

Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,
That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead,
Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost
Had withered up those lilies white and red
Which, while the boy would through the forest range,
Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter-change.

And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand,
Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied
The boy’s pale body stretched upon the sand,
And feared Poseidon’s treachery, and cried,
And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade
Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be
So dread a thing to feel a sea-god’s arms
Crushing her ******* in amorous tyranny,
And longed to listen to those subtle charms
Insidious lovers weave when they would win
Some fenced fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin

To yield her treasure unto one so fair,
And lay beside him, thirsty with love’s drouth,
Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair,
And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth
Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid
Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade,

Returned to fresh assault, and all day long
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,
And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy
Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,
Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine;

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,
But said, ‘He will awake, I know him well,
He will awake at evening when the sun
Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel;
This sleep is but a cruel treachery
To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea

Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line
Already a huge Triton blows his horn,
And weaves a garland from the crystalline
And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn
The emerald pillars of our bridal bed,
For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral crowned head,

We two will sit upon a throne of pearl,
And a blue wave will be our canopy,
And at our feet the water-snakes will curl
In all their amethystine panoply
Of diamonded mail, and we will mark
The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark,

Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold
Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep
His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep
Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks
Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous
flocks.

And tremulous opal-hued anemones
Will wave their purple fringes where we tread
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies
Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread
The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,
And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck.’

But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun
With gaudy pennon flying passed away
Into his brazen House, and one by one
The little yellow stars began to stray
Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed
She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to feed,

And cried, ‘Awake, already the pale moon
Washes the trees with silver, and the wave
Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave
The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,
And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky
grass.

Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,
For in yon stream there is a little reed
That often whispers how a lovely boy
Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done
Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun.

Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still
With great Apollo’s kisses, and the fir
Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill
Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher
Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen
The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar’s silvery sheen.

Even the jealous Naiads call me fair,
And every morn a young and ruddy swain
Woos me with apples and with locks of hair,
And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain
By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love;
But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove

With little crimson feet, which with its store
Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad
Had stolen from the lofty sycamore
At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had
Flown off in search of berried juniper
Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager

Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency
So constant as this simple shepherd-boy
For my poor lips, his joyous purity
And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy
A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;
For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss;

His argent forehead, like a rising moon
Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,
Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon
Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse
For Cytheraea, the first silky down
Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and
brown;

And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds
Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,
And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds
Is in his homestead for the thievish fly
To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead
Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

And yet I love him not; it was for thee
I kept my love; I knew that thou would’st come
To rid me of this pallid chastity,
Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam
Of all the wide AEgean, brightest star
Of ocean’s azure heavens where the mirrored planets are!

I knew that thou would’st come, for when at first
The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of spring
Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst
To myriad multitudinous blossoming
Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons
That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes’ rapturous
tunes

Startled the squirrel from its granary,
And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane,
Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy
Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein
Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood,
And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem’s maidenhood.

The trooping fawns at evening came and laid
Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs,
And on my topmost branch the blackbird made
A little nest of grasses for his spouse,
And now and then a twittering wren would light
On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such delight.

I was the Attic shepherd’s trysting place,
Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase
The timorous girl, till tired out with play
She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair,
And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful
snare.

Then come away unto my ambuscade
Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy
For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade
Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify
The dearest rites of love; there in the cool
And green recesses of its farthest depth there is pool,

The ouzel’s haunt, the wild bee’s pasturage,
For round its rim great creamy lilies float
Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage,
Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat
Steered by a dragon-fly,—be not afraid
To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place was made

For lovers such as we; the Cyprian Queen,
One arm around her boyish paramour,
Strays often there at eve, and I have seen
The moon strip off her misty vestiture
For young Endymion’s eyes; be not afraid,
The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade.

Nay if thou will’st, back to the beating brine,
Back to the boisterous billow let us go,
And walk all day beneath the hyaline
Huge vault of Neptune’s watery portico,
And watch the purple monsters of the deep
Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias leap.

For if my mistress find me lying here
She will not ruth or gentle pity show,
But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere
Relentless fingers string the cornel bow,
And draw the feathered notch against her breast,
And loose the arched cord; aye, even now upon the quest

I hear her hurrying feet,—awake, awake,
Thou laggard in love’s battle! once at least
Let me drink deep of passion’s wine, and slake
My parched being with the nectarous feast
Which even gods affect!  O come, Love, come,
Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.’

Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees
Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air
Grew conscious of a god, and the grey seas
Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare
Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed,
And like a flame a barbed reed flew whizzing down the glade.

And where the little flowers of her breast
Just brake into their milky blossoming,
This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest,
Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering,
And ploughed a ****** furrow with its dart,
And dug a long red road, and cleft with winged death her heart.

Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry
On the boy’s body fell the Dryad maid,
Sobbing for incomplete virginity,
And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,
And all the pain of things unsatisfied,
And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing
side.

Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan,
And very pitiful to see her die
Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known
The joy of passion, that dread mystery
Which not to know is not to live at all,
And yet to know is to be held in death’s most deadly thrall.

But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere,
Who with Adonis all night long had lain
Within some shepherd’s hut in Arcady,
On team of silver doves and gilded wain
Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar
From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,

And when low down she spied the hapless pair,
And heard the Oread’s faint despairing cry,
Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air
As though it were a viol, hastily
She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume,
And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous
doom.

For as a gardener turning back his head
To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows
With careless scythe too near some flower bed,
And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose,
And with the flower’s loosened loneliness
Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness

Driving his little flock along the mead
Treads down two daffodils, which side by aide
Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede
And made the gaudy moth forget its pride,
Treads down their brimming golden chalices
Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages;

Or as a schoolboy tired of his book
Flings himself down upon the reedy grass
And plucks two water-lilies from the brook,
And for a time forgets the hour glass,
Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way,
And lets the hot sun **** them, even go these lovers lay.

And Venus cried, ‘It is dread Artemis
Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,
Or else that mightier maid whose care it is
To guard her strong and stainless majesty
Upon the hill Athenian,—alas!
That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should
pass.’

So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl
In the great golden waggon tenderly
(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl
Just threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry
Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast
Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest)

And then each pigeon spread its milky van,
The bright car soared into the dawning sky,
And like a cloud the aerial caravan
Passed over the AEgean silently,
Till the faint air was troubled with the song
From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.

But when the doves had reached their wonted goal
Where the wide stair of orbed marble dips
Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul
Just shook the trembling petals of her lips
And passed into the void, and Venus knew
That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,

And bade her servants carve a cedar chest
With all the wonder of this history,
Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest
Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky
On the low hills of Paphos, and the Faun
Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.

Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere
The morning bee had stung the daffodil
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair
The waking stag had leapt across the rill
And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.

And when day brake, within that silver shrine
Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,
Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine
That she whose beauty made Death amorous
Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,
And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford.

she’s the girl who sets a room on fire with laughs or real flame,
         and she stands in that same flame; ranting about herself
         with blissful intention:
                        aries.
she’s the girl who mows the lawn all day to throw a memorable party
          on perfectly pitched grass; but then spends the entire party
          with that one guy on that one roof, just the two of them:
                        taurus.
she’s the girl who ***** you fiercest only to then display sudden and
          crippling bouts of madness; she’s one of a kind, or two of a kind,
          and she means some kind of love:
                        gemini.
she’s the girl who you fall for so easily, and she falls for you so easily,
          and everything is a dream; but a dream transforms, seasons transform,
          and the peopled cities with them:
                        cancer.
she’s the girl who steals the show every time, and she leans on you
          when  she’s tired and lonely; she reads science fiction books
          and tells you all the endings, strange planets fixtured in her dreams:
                        leo.
she’s the girl who thinks too much, drinks too much, and weighs you for all
           your words; but words are her demise as she digs her arms deeper
           into the dirt to catch that feeling:
                        virgo.
she’s the girl who piles a shrine of shiny occult objects and spools through
          men like shiny other objects; she has a beautiful heart, holy or not,
          but without a doubt, entirely stylish:
                        libra.
she’s the girl who doesn't believe a ******* thing you say but kisses you
          harder when you say it; she takes you up the hill to her folks
          and they sacrifice you for blood mana:
                        scorpio.
she’s the girl who knows you best and knows even better she’s far beyond
         the depths of your league; she has deafening dreams, with or without
         you in them; for ruins she will climb or create:
                        sagittarius.
she’s the girl who buys the popcorn and eats the popcorn and sulks on
         the couch while tonguing kernels out of her teeth; she will never
         truly love you, just the idea of you:
                        capricorn.
she’s the girl who saves your life with a tracheotomy when you nearly die
         on that plum street seed; she will leave you for a another man, a man
         with a good rifle and a warm little tent:
                        aquarius.
she’s the girl who sees synchronicity in all things, all life, all dreams
         and emanations; she will love you until the smell of mexico drags her
         away upon a neverending weekend:
                        pisces.

My neighbor mows his grass at night.
Back and forth he marches, pushing his mower in tight, tidy rows.
He has a lovely sprinkler system.  
It keeps his lawn green, and growing, year round.

Also, he decorates.
For fourth of July this year, he hung a light up American flag on his garage door.
He messed up a little, and it hung upside down.  
He never did fix it, but I'm pretty sure he's much more patriotic than I am, even so.  

In October, he hung a giant, painted jack o lantern on his fence, along with a black cat.
They looked nice, friendly even.
He took it down on October 30th, and he kept his porch light off on Halloween night.

I don't remember Thanksgiving, but I'm sure there was something,
A turkey, bales of hay, pumpkins.  
Probably, he wore a Pilgrim's hat to work every day.  
I would have liked to see that.

At Christmas time, there was a light up tree that he planted in his front lawn.
Also, reindeer, those white ones with lights that move their heads up and down.
Best of all, though, he had one of those leg lamps.  Like from that movie, 'The Christmas Story'?
And it was no scaled down version like you might find at Target, let me tell you.  
No, this leg belonged to a woman  five foot seven, at the very least.
I could see it shining from his living room window every single night for a month.

My neighbor mows his grass at night.
Or sometimes at five in the morning, if that is what works best for him that day.
Two or three times a week, I hear him out there mowing.
Yes, even in January.

His wife operates the blower.  
She blows the leaves that fall off my trees and drift into her yard.
She blows them into the middle of the street, then turns, and goes into her house.

Sometimes, the two of them will sit on a bench in their yard.
That bench faces my yard, my front door.
Whenever they sit out there, they look straight ahead while they are talking.  
It FEELS like they are talking about me.

Me, and all my fallen leaves from the Red Oak that have not yet made their way into their lawn.  
Me, and my Bermuda grass that hangs over the side of the curb, crispy and brown.
That grass scares them, threatening to creep across the road and into their own landscape.
Me, and my hooligan children who turn on the water hose in the summertime.
They just let it run while they play and laugh.  
Sometimes, they squirt the cars driving by.
This drives the neighbors bonkers.

I remember when we first moved in, they brought over a casserole, and introduced themselves.
I thought, 'Oh boy, they are gonna be tough.'
And they are.  They are.

Before she has her floor swept
  Or her dishes done,
Any day you’ll find her
  A-sunning in the sun!

It’s long after midnight
  Her key’s in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
  Till past ten o’clock!

She digs in her garden
  With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
  By the light of the moon.

She walks up the walk
  Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
  And pays you back cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow,
  And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
  And the Queen Anne’s lace!

§
Battle of New Britain

Lieutenant Jim G Paulos led elements
of G Company in a savage counterattack
that ousted the intruders supported
by Lieutenant James R Mallon’s improvised
platoon of H/11, which remained
to help man casualty-depleted line.

Improvise (OED):
One: to compose on spur
of the moment; to utter
or perform extempore

two: to bring about or get up
on the spur of the moment;
to provide for the occasion

Three: […] hence to do anything
On the spur of the moment

Improvised platoon
Df James R Mallon:

When most of your platoon
lies dead in the pumice sands
of the South Pacific-Japanese
bushido bullets tear flesh and spirit
out of the corporeal—husks of limp
limbs you fought to defend and they you
Japanese mortar fire, machine and small-gun fire
fifteen yards in advance of the wire
how do you bring about or get up
the courage to grab whoever—
the nearest marine
talk through ears drums burst by mortar succeeding shockwaves
forget for the time the men
you spent months training
sipping beers in Australia
laughing over bar stool drunken jokes
men you shared your dreams about after
away from the mosquitoes
away from the constant moisture
rain rain rain day and night
soaking through fatigues through skin through bone
never enough sun to dry out
air already saturated
sweat or seawater—it is all the same
now you must find new men—men you have seen,
but do not know the same as your own platoon
their life and yours in each others hands
alone in a group of stranger-brothers
always faithful
keep composure in the face
your buddy’s entrails pouring into the pumice sand
hence to do anything
on the spur kicked into your side
to block what no man should ever be asked to see
and do what you can in the moment
to save your division from enemy fire.

§
Cyclops Black Eyes

One summer e’ening drunk to hell
He stood there nearly lifeless
A gal sat in the corner
And it’s how are ye ma’am and what’s yer name
And would ye like a drink?
She looked at him, he at her
All she could do was accept one

And rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ she’ll go
Through his pair of blue eyes

She knew not the pumice beaches and streams
Sometimes walking sometime crawling
amongst blood and death ‘neath a screaming sky
Where Cyclops black eyes waited for him
Was it birds whistling in the trees?
Always the Cyclops black eyes waiting for them
So they give the wind a talkin’

And a rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ he’ll go
Away from those Cyclops black eyes

And the arms and legs of other men
Were scattered all around
Some cursed, some prayed, some prayed then cursed
Then prayed and bled some more
All he could see were Cyclops black eyes looking at him

No Cyclops black eyes waiting for her
And a rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ she’ll go
And never know what saw his pair of blue eyes

Could she forsee in that pair of blue eyes
Decades he’d spend drunk to hell?
Sometimes walking sometime crawling
Rovin’ and rovin’ away from those Cyclops black eyes

§
Colt 1911**

I was nineteen when I learned
my Dad his father’s Colt 1911 pistol

when Dad was young he
and his brother found
the gun—hidden in the rafters
of the cinderblock basement
their father built; magazine bullets and pistol
on one rafter—separate, except
the bullets lived in the magazine

my dad and uncle, like any
young boy, were fascinated
by the pistol; though too young
to feel and know the power
and danger in the cold blue metal

when their father and mother were
away—home alone they snuck
to the hand-laid basement
reached around the rafters
through years of dust and darkness
feeling for the colt and mag
scrape-click-pop—ca-chick
round in the chamber—“freeze!”

so played boyhood fantasies
cowboys & Indians
cops & robbers
with a lethal toy


so my dad kept it a secret
locked in a tarnished steel box
locked through the trigger guard
magazine separate
four silver, dimpled, bullets rolled round between
their queue and releaser

I was struck by the weight—heavier than I expected—I felt the years of use polished into the wood grips—thick hand grease sweat blood humidity sand saltwater gun oil mud tears life saved and taken.
At the bottom of the wood grips ticked notches deep in the grain—both sides—different numbers; “What are these?” I asked running my finger across the nocth-ticks feeling their depths their absence consciously carved with his next best tool—kabar: workhorse that can baton through five inch diameter logs, machete through two-finger branches, dig a hole to burrow while machinegun fire mows down jungle; easy to sharpen, keeps an edge; full tang to hammer temples or tent posts

“I don’t know; the only thing we have is the lore.”

fI counted seven
the number the magazine carries
eight total, if you have one in the chamber

You have to commit to fire
a 1911, the cliché: don’t pull
the trigger—squeeze
is how the 1911 fires—a button
fits the crotch of the thumb and index finger
opposite the trigger on the handle;
to unleash the hammer then
lead, squeeze the two—firm
tight at the target; no shot fired
by accident—no Marvins with the 1911.

He mows the lawn and scatters
The clippings on the ground
And I don't think  it matters
If they mess up all around.

For He is the Naked Groundsman
And He mows the lawns all bare
(But in the depths of winter
In His dead mum's underwear).

Amen.

Peering beyond the understory:
a Victorian *******
of square topiaries
white pavement
marbled fringe,
the visionary leaps
into the crisp chlorine
freezing in an iceblock
if she remains til she is grey.

But she crawls out
of this boxed madness,
emotional baggage
forcefully drilled into Her womb.
She emerges from a pond
in a wooded world remote
yet available to all who seek it.
An unsure path
to the cottage
where the witch works her wondrous magic
bringing birds and butterflies
to aid in potion incantations
She mows no lawns.
She knows the name of every leaf and berry.
She sows them in her sleep

On a cafeteria table,
in the middle of February,
the kind where it gets dark at 5pm,
sat eight minature figurines made of shells—
brown, speckled, like a calico cat
with googly eyes on the middle of their heads,
one business man with a black derby,
one with a pretty pink bow,
or even one with blue suspenders,
and all their chubby bellies
rounding out over their pants. The woman

with her iridescent nails, bony fingers,
the skin pressed thin against her knuckles,
lines them up in a perfect row, tilting
their heads into one another as if
they are having a tiny conversation
admist the numbers being called—
B14! She stamps in red. B14!
A man pushes a cart around the tables,
like one mows grass around graves,
with fifty cent candy bars and potato chips
on flimsy paper plates. He asks the woman
if she wants ice in her Pepsi, but she just blows
a long sigh of smoke and flicks the sparks
behind her back. He doesn’t ask her to pay.

G56! She touches the head of the figurine
with the mustache. G56! I’ve lost count
of how many numbers I’ve missed,
but then there’s you, your hand on my thigh,
creeping, your fingers pushing
my cotton skirt up, up, and up—
O74!
We play with acrylic chips instead of stampers.
We’d like to win the lottery tickets,
maybe cash them in at the gas station
after we drink a couple iced teas and snack
on Mentos cause we ran out of money
two bottles ago.

The figurine with the fishing pole has one pupil
that lies at the bottom of the eye,
lop-sided, and staring at me while I pretend
that I have G47! or pretend that this isn’t
the first time you’ve brought me here, G47!
instead of a real date. Or pretend
that I can’t hear the woman cough, and cough,
and cough as she switches stampers between every ten calls
or touch this figurine or move that one, just slightly,
this way or that or

N44! She doesn’t have it. N44!
I don’t have it.
Don’t worry, child, you’ll have it all someday,
she whispers, sideways from her mouth,
with your thumb making circles around my hipbones,
and the man pushing the cart, the squeak of the wheels
B7! But I don’t have it. B7! I don’t have it.
I don’t have it.

Always in the background
He doesn't think it's fair
No one really knows him
They don't know that he's there
But soon they will all know him
The world will know his name
He will share with them his message
They will remember that he came
At work he's just a number
They ignore him at school
Wearing plastic Buddy Holly glasses
But, not the kind that's cool
He's determined in his mission
They'll remember him for sure
Like those that went before him
He'll shake this place right to it's core
A shadow in his movements
No one really knows his face
Not many recognize him
By either name or face
But, once this day is over
The world will know his name
He'll make sure he ends up famous
The world will know he came
At work and school...invisible
Like a picture you don't see
But once he spreads his message
"They'll all remember me!"
Four months or so preparing
Making plans and making lists
All things are in order
There is nothing that he's missed
He heads to school that morning
Just a little after eight
He doesn't get there early
He plans on being late
He enters with two backpacks
Then he chains and locks the door
Before he sends his message
He chain locks five doors more
There's no one to disturb him
To distract him from his way
Today he'll become famous
Today will be his day
He heads into the mens room,
Leaves the empty backpack there
Now the doors are locked tight
The truth will come to bear
He opens up the other
And takes the contents out
Once he builds and loads these weapons
They will know what he's about
He heads up to the office
Takes his list out to be sure
Then he fires off the weapon
Blowing holes into the door
It's the first line of his message
"HI....it's me ...I'm Here!"
The staff just stand there startled
"It's okay...the end is near!"
He herds them down the hallway
Past the classes to the gym
Around the school the word is out
They will remember him
He opens up a classroom
Sprays his message there inside
They won't find out till later
From the burst....nine kids died
There's screaming in the hallway
Kids are running from the class
He turns and mows five more down
"They forgot their school hall pass!"
He gathered up three more here
Moved along and shot two more
Then he came up to a classroom
And he opened up the door
The students here were cowering
In the corner, by the wall
He was smiling at them sickly
He was having quite a ball
He went over to the window
Saw the cop cars all arrive
By the time that he was finished
They would not all leave alive
He knew kids would have cell phones
And they'd be phoning right away
They'd call the cops, their parents
But today, would be his day
His Buddy Holly glasses
looked askew upon his face
But he didn't care about them
And he put them back in place
He took them to the gym now
He'd already chained the doors
There would not be any windows
On his way he shot three more
News crews arrived directly
They already knew his name
They'd all tweaked on to his message
They didn't like his game
Phone calls from survivors
Told the police who he was
they didn't know his reason
They didn't know his cause
They went to his apartment
Found the note there on the wall
"Today, you'll know about me..
I'm gonna **** them all"
The SWAT team broke the first door down
And they went from room to room
They hurried out survivors
Past the ones who met their doom
Before they chose to venture
Down the hall into the gym
They had to find a method
To try and contact him
They knew that he had others
He could use as barricades
And they wanted them out safely
Before they tried a full out raid
So they called on one kids cell phone
Got him on the phone to tell
The reason for this slaughter
The reason for this hell
"No one here remembers me"
"I'm a zero, I do not count"
"Before the day is over"
"The numbers, they will mount"
"I'm a cipher in the background"
"I'm the one that no one sees"
"But before today is finished"
"You will remember me"
It was obvious to the SWAT team
He had chosen "Death by Cop"
As a way to spread his message
They would have to make him stop
They kept him on the phone to talk
While they worked in through the roof
He would find out from a snipers gun
His was not the only truth
A small hole in the ceiling
Gave the line of site required
And it only took five seconds
Before the snipers gun was fired
It hit him in the forehead
Threw him back against the wall
And as he slid down floorward
They burst in from the hall
That day he left his message
People would not forget his name
And it's ten years after
And they still all know his name
Outside there is no statue
They built a fountain there instead
On the floor in cobalt tile
Are the names of all the dead
His message reached the world that day
He murdered twenty two
They all know all about him
He got what he set out to do.
It's sad we know the shooters
Victims names to us are lost
So, please forget this young mans message
And remember what it cost.

Most days he mows
the immaculate lawn of his front yard,
sweeps the carport
and trims the hedges back to near buzz-cut.

Today he sank
to his knees, arthritic bones aching for
soft patch of earth
or lush grass on which to rest his grey head.

In the spring, buds
burst like silent fireworks near the road,
all his doing,
and the birds alight to watch him plant more.

I have watched for
a near lifetime his yard across the way
morph into Eden –
one handmade with weak limbs – and I know now

the cost of love
for things that cannot love you back. He is old,
with a question
mark for a spine. He sweats and bleeds for his home.

He has no job
but to nourish the Carolina clay,
into yielding
beauty that cannot love a single soul.

I was heading
out of town for a long time. I didn’t know
if he’d be there
once I got back. But, my intuition

whispered, yes. He
has no home but the earth. Even after
his silent death
he will still be watering the flowers

and the blossoms will not love him more,
but never less.

My mind mows through madness
It bitterly battled the baddest
Suddenly shifted through the sadness
Left longing for love lonely
My minds knows me
Better than friends that enlisted me to commit sins
Way back when
I popped bottles of gin
Stepping slipping as my mind spins
I was never really a drinker I like to pretend
Like imagine me chasing a rabbit
Patiently embracing the magic
After it like Alexis until it gets hit in traffic
Red blood white fur mixed its graphic
Guess its no wonderland for me
No running to a caterpillar  that smoke trees
No running into a cruel queen
I say off with her head
My mind is a guillotine
Sad sight when you see the truth shattered
Feed your brain cause yes the mind matters

Atop the frail ego she mounts her merciless machine gun with which she mows down any speckle of personality that dares flicker amongst her immediate surroundings, until only her presence alone can remain untarnished and unfettered by sadistic, sardonically summarized ridicule, luminous and majestically radiating with solitary supremacy. Oh, the splendorous grandeur of self-indicted superiority, the rush of power and authority from diminishing another's essence with ruthless categorical association, the incomparable ecstasy of using their own positive attributes as their rudimentary flaws. Viscerally volatile, the cocking of the mocking gun's hammer is to be recognized as the phrase "You're just trying to be__". This is critical, for all too well she knows to a certainty that at the most essential level, one is only simply trying to be. And when you attack a person's will to try, their will to be, then you are taking aim at the one vital aspect of their existence which they hold any discernible dominion over: their character. The slaying is heinous and orgasmically fulfilling, for how can the perennial, separatist worship of Self be indulged in among so many of these "others"? But oh how exhausting it must be, the perpetually cyclic nature of the task. How can she ***** a light that doesn't exude from a distant source, but is a brother beam of the source they share? How does she extinguish the reflection of a flame off the water? Like fireflies on summer nights they disappear only to reappear again, somewhere else, reminding her of the irrevocable, irreducible power of being born and reborn again in the new moment. The self-aware *******, audacious enough to love themselves. How much of it do they really think they can withstand?
Reload.

It takes a while
before it will be over
with room for someone else
For now it is too empty

where you have always been
People soon forget that
when we have a chat
and laugh at something small

Your mother is great
She does what she can do
so without a man
You know the drill

the neighbour mows the lawn
He's really old
time and again he asks
where you have gone

But if I had known it beforehand
I would just as well have been in love
just as well be that woman
still in love with you

Vines creep up the old church downtown.
No one goes there, and no one cares.
The city mows the very edge of the property,
and posts a sign saying,
“KEEP OUT, DANGEROUS!”
but only because they have to.
The kids mock the crumbling building,
as the foundation cracks,
the ceiling sags,
and water trickles in through the broken windows.

Everyone ignored the tragically beautiful building
until the day it collapsed.
With a groan,
the building hurtled thousands of miles an hour
in the opposite direction of the other buildings around town.
It’s neighbors cried,
as they mourned the building they did so little to help.
The town buzzed with the news for a few days,
and crews hauled away the wreckage.
And not too long after,
everyone forgot about the beautiful church downtown.

Now think of this, listener.
This building wasn’t a building at all,
but a young girl.
Who took her life,
because no one cared until it was
too late.

I pour the wine, while you raise your cup
until our bodies have had enough,
that our spirit’s twist, wrung out dry,
sexed and sated; shyly truth seeps outside
of careless vessels, free once more -
unable to collide, despite this ardor.

Our thoughts clashed clandestine,
while our demeanors docile.
Your scowl, the bone beneath a smile
our rose skin kisses, turning hostile.
The quaff of a tongue, the taunting touch.
Skin chenille, beneath blankets blush.

Suddenly sensitive to the sounds of dawn,
a trash truck groans, someone mows a lawn.
Last nights dream bent around a now that’s gone.
Time has stopped, but it still goes on and on.
I’m up, you’re naked;
Every morning maunders, over-medicated.

Every house a story, every window, perspective
my window is dark, theirs, a beverage,
to fill a voyeurs empty cup with scornful slake,
set to brew when strangers wake;
having gone to bed not knowing each other,
in the morning, woken as broken lovers.

It was a cloudy sky
Drizzle had just stopped softly
On this enchanting evening, I was lined lucky
As there was an ugly beggar who deserved care, swiftly

I stopped my car before that hotel
where sometime I used to visit for coffee
during my return from office, to home to dwell
Being pose area, side of it were shops selling toffee

I gone straight to that beggar
Enquired what he may desire to eat
He was holding one bit of an used cigar
Face to face, he was not willing to meet

I used to treat deserving beggar with food of his choice
Someone will ask for a particular dish
But this man didn't even raised his voice
Repeatedly I failed when I tried to ascertain his wish

Finally the shopkeeper guided and coded
saying he wanted only a matchbox to light his cigar
When I tried hard to get, every shopkeeper just eluded
As the increased anti-tobacco canvassing had worked clear

The beggar rejected money as well any dish
His world gets filled with just a matchbox
He stood firm and let me only to pish
As I too never keep such item in my toolbox

He loitered and left the place, helpless
Upset with this, I too lost my interest to eat
I also left without eating, as I became useless
Even in bed, with this thought, I felt my heartbeat

I get delighted to treat deserving beggars, stomachful
Or else with alms, to their handful
But above failure led me sorrowful
As I could not be fairly useful

It is the beggar who gives me a chance to serve
Of course, I had heartfully attempted and offered
Altogether, I sincerely strained everyone of my nerve
But he neither cared my efforts nor allowed to be adored

This miserable failure mows me miserably for the past two years
More so, whenever I used to cross that place every day
True to say, my eyes were about to cloud with tears!
What woes remain more for my heart to say?


Copyrights reserved

Pump them full
of lead in protest...
that's sure to
knock em dead.
Use all your ammunition,
leave em ****** read.

Be the Gatling that
mows em down,
the bullet lodged
inside their head,

Be black powder
burning imagery on
their minds unkind extinguishing the misery
that makes them lost
and blind

He wakes up at the crack of dawn,
Smokes a pack a day,
He likes a shot of whiskey; at the end of every day,
The sink is never washed the way I like,
My refrigerator has never been the same;
He forgets his coat on the floor,
He doesn't make seven figures a year,
I would love to say I adore him in every way,
But I don't think that every year when he forgets our anniversary,
Most would have parted ways,
But no, not me;
He does a lot wrong,
I'll never forget the day,
He asked my brother at Christmas dinner,
If he went either way,
But I love that man, with everything inside of me, that I won't deny.

I could never repay him for the right he does,
Although there's more wrongs
The way he holds me in bed,
The way he's the first to make coffee,
The way he puts my earrings away;
He hands me a ***** tonic,
He mows the lawn,
He kicks my tires,
Changes my oils at inconvenient times,
I know he lost his watch, I bought for his birthday,
But I could never repay the way he treats our son,
The way he tries to braid our daughter's hair,
The way after all these years he still whispers "I love you" in my ear,
I don't care if he could ignore every Valentines day,
I'll still love him for his rights.

Long ago burst in flames
Tortured for alleged blames
****** in pain 'the devil’s witch'
A folk in laughter at her final twitch.
Malicious with lacerating mows
Devoting themselves to diabolic vows.
A loving sacrifice of precious coal
For leaving a wound - tremendous -
In her immortal soul.

Shake; don't stir, run through the pattern,
I was always Jupiter but they all prefer Saturn,
it's got a ring while I'm all explosions,
that's just the thing with these silly emotions.
In outer space the stars are your only friend,
and you're feeling out of place but these days that seems like a trend.
When the moon seems too far away,
the sun will come soon but it will never stay.

Xannie's my favourite girl,
she's got me spinning in this crazy world,
so I add some blue to the swirl,
with the red it makes purple pearl.
My thoughts say "I don't want to live like this."
So I jot some shots to my list.
I can only dream of that peaceful bliss,
and the ancient years of which I miss.

Shake; don't stir, follow the lead,
you see flowers occur but I only see a ****,
toxic it grows until all it consumes,
everyday she mows but I think it needs fumes.
Down in the dirt where soil holds the leaves,
I buried the hurt but a heart still grieves,
and when the moon is covered with sheets of grey,
the sun will come soon but it will never stay.

Xannie's my favourite love,
she fits my heart tight like a glove,
and when it comes to push or shove,
she's all that I've been thinking of.
My thoughts say "I don't want to live like this."
"If this can even be considering living."
I'm waking up to a dark abyss,
it's taken all and now it's giving.

The thoughts in my head,
buried under the dirt,
those words left unsaid,
the ones that cause hurt.
But tomorrow might not come,
this whole thing could be done,
and I've bit my lip since I was young,
I'd hate to also bite my tongue.

Xannie's my favourite girl,
she's got me spinning in this hazy world,
warming my body until I curl,
now all routine is a deadly burl.
My thoughts say "I don't want to live like this."
"Maybe I don't even want to live at all."
Every single second I just reminisce
of the days before I hit that wall.

Who would've ever thought
that during those teenage years,
I believed each day I fought
against loneliness and my fears.
But youth was just a brawl
adulthood is a ****** war,
back then I really had it all
but resented that I didn't have more.
This realization has caused madness,
and irony has a thick glaze,
'cause the youth that I wasted in sadness
was really the "good ol' days."

i'd like you best wrapped up under the axles of my truck
but i'd rather not have to pay your brother to clean it up.
get the **** out of my home town
your driving the real estate value down.

in other words:
go back where you came from.

we don't
need that liberal faggy ****
i'm a man.
i'm a man.
i'm a man.

but i love the way my baby looks in that white summer dress caught around the warm summer air,
with flowers tangled up in her hair.
and the amber sun looks good in her eyes
i'm a man.

**** a ******, stab a ***
make my granddaddy proud.
love my baby, she's WASP like me
we're gunna start a family.
i **** her good, god gave me seed
you know i sow it as i please.
ultimately-
i'm good.

got a gun, bring it to school
always with me. i know i'm cool-
in case i need to get those sunni-shiite *****;  
shoot my teacher if i fail a test.

it's okay.i'm cowboy.
i'm good.

jesus loves me, he told me so.
******* Hey-Zeus, he mows my lawn.
-be ****** if i let them use the good bathroom  
it's all right they'll be deported soon.
and it's good.  

back in the city, jesus-  girls' ******* drop.
filthy ***** and cherries to pop.
but blondie looks good.

follow her home. i'm a really nice guy.
don't understand what made her cry.
just keep
*******
her anyways.

feminazi ******* wanna blame me
there just mad that they're ugly
jealous of my success
there all just ***** anyway.
*******.

and all those ***** livin' off the government's dime
handout *******. all of them should just die.
time to rise up
time to be
family man.
i.

oh, i'm a
good ol' boy,
i'm good.
(you know i'd **** you if i knew i could.)

but i love the way
my baby looks in that white summer dress caught up in the ******* air,
with flowers -like a promise- all in her hair.

I'm over you now!
though the thought of you still lingers
was it the lips or the smile or the touch of your fingers?
Am I too slow or is the world so cold
First, they sympathize, now they scold
Was it the lips or the smile or the alluring lies?
That doomed me staring into the ivory skies.

The pens still sway to you, and the inks' still flows
it rips me apart and my heart it mows.
yet they swing back to your alluring glow.
Was it the laugh or the gaze of those honeydew eyes
That doomed me staring into the ivory skies.

The man who hated summer
smoothes on sweet scented lotions;
his body glistens like a waxed table.

Jobless and listless, he soaks in
lemon yellow afternoons
and smiles at the irony;
the season he's never sought
is the only one he has.

Now he never reads a paper
or greets a neighbor
or mows the lawn.

Instead he simmers on a chaise lounge
in a nest of mosquitoes and heat,
his flesh taut like sutures,
his eyes drawn shut against the sun.

Darkening under a paper white sky,
he holds his breath
while the phone rings and rings and rings.

Open your ears to the dead beat,
Open your eyes affixed to the wall,
Open your mind to the ever-flowing ether,
Open your heart so one might hear the call.

To the wild, arcane, gilded centurions,
To the ambient, intangible outcomes,
Enfolded in the very fabric,
We trudge across, frolic and sway.

Almighty pendulum of surrender,
flickering on the lake beset before us,
A sea, an ocean, the vacuum of space.
Dark; the color that mows the harvest

One day this will all be forgotten
Not by you of course
You will take your pain to the grave
But whoever mows the cemetery
Will probably think you were loved

With its four-beat
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Continental rhythm
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It plows and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It pulls and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It plants and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It digs and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It mows and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It rakes and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It bales and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
A little oil, a little gas
Putt-putt, putt-putt
A sweet machine
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Upon the grass
Putt-putt, putt-putt
When all is done
Putt-putt, putt-putt
And all is said
Putt-putt, putt-putt
There’s nothing like
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Massey-Ferguson red
Putt-putt, putt-putt!

from 'twice a day' to 'take as needed' /and my hands start to shake/ I am not ready for this responsibility/ the only other option/ is to admit there is a sharp thing/ deep inside of me that I do not know/ how to throw away/ the poet on stage/ who is a full decade younger than me/ says he is too old to still be taking about blood/ about scars/ about the sharp thing inside of him that will not die/ not knowing how to say/something inside of me is breaking/ I think of the pills/deep in my bag/ the new safety blanket/ I think of wine/ how many glasses I need to drink/ before I stop recognizing my handwriting/ I think of his bad excuses/ how he didn’t want to be another target for my sad/ didn’t want to get any blood on his collar/ and trail me into his home/ all this responsibility/ that he is not ready for/ like a boy who mows down a fawn/ without the decency/ of hauling the body to the side of the road/who just keeps driving/ whistling into his wide open future

Every day begins the same, every week longs for the next to begin.
The tree outside my windows scrapes and tears, begging to come in from the cold world outside.
Neighborhood birds sing a song whose lyrics are a mystery to everyone except me.
My dog barks at the neighbor as he mows his lawn on a rainy Monday night.
Cats in the alley hiss and fight over some trivial thing.
The apartment above me seems to have a party going on, which makes no sense since it is in the middle of the week.
Opening my friend's cooler reveals the beers inside, all light brews, sadly.
Staring up into the stars above causes me to wonder if we truly are alone.
If the universe is infinite, filled with millions of stars, always expanding, never-ending, always shining, always destroying, always finding a way; then my does my heart feel empty today?
My mailbox is empty yet again, even Evelyn across the street got a letter from her son.
I light another cigarette, causing my dark jail cell to light up in a blaze.
"Get him out of there!" they laugh and scream.
But inside I burn, along with my dreams.

The wind, it blows
With great speed
It mows
Down houses and homes
To the degree,
unknown

Lives lost in its wake
Crumbled buildings,
Can wait
Lives lost, lives lost

Total destruction
Devastating
Flood waters
Not done taking

Floating cars
Shipwrecked boats
Start anew!
Heard someone shout

Memories and furniture
In the neighbors yard
Trees uprooted from the ground
No power near or far

These times when Mother Nature
Stirs up so many lives
We will rebuild ourselves
Its just a matter of time

Occasionally, I am besieged by the cruelty of humanity.
Burning blankets of pain and anger inflame and engulf me.

But with a crack of kindness my hope is restored.
I meet a decent person who helps me out
when I am in need.
I meet a friendly person
who calms me down when I am panicking.
I see my better self reflected in strangers.

Then a ****** mows down
a crowd of innocent bystanders
with a van and a bunch of guns
and I am right ******* back
to where I started from.