12/24/2016
to G.G.
"When the sons of Princeton
Gather anywhere,
There’s a place they think of,
Longing to be there.
It’s the one and only
University,
Situated and celebrated
In New Jersey
-Traditional Princetonian song, "Going Back to Nassau Hall"


You worried I
wouldn't contact you again
I laughed because it was funny.

I'd told you
my favorite beach boys song
was That's Not Me

He moves to the city and regrets it
I guess maybe the feeling of being in
over my head prevailed in my life.

Speaking of which–
we sat in the deserted
Prospect Garden

where Fitzgerald did once
And it was donated in 1879
people wrote of it:

"Its grounds, like eden"
I wondered if this was ephemeral
looked hard for the temptation.

I didn't see any fruit trees.
I stared straight ahead on the bench
into the piercing dark

English Yew
behind us
and the red gravel.

I said:
"I can't use thin spoons"
I didn't look at you when I did.

"When you say that,"
A pointedly deep breath
I turn to you.

You continue: "I feel like I love you."
I laughed, not because
it was funny

But I laughed in its simplest form-
Is it not an expression of human happiness?

You told me that you
didn't know why
I seemed to

Dislike the things
that made me great
I laughed because it was funny

And turned to kiss you
you were the first person to ever say
I was "absolutely" beautiful

What do you say to that? I
smiled and
tried to not look

At you in a way that
betrayed to you the feelings
I was trying so very hard to conceal–

they said this:
That I was starting to feel the affects
of a very deep fondness.

As time passes
my poetry, more
succinct.

i fear i am losing it
but does it
matter?

we'd talked about vanitas.
it was hard to say goodbye
and i

turned to you as you walked away
focused on the way you walk
watched you become smaller

and went out to the car.
in front of nassau hall
and i

thought of the next time.

Father, this year's jinx rides us apart
where you followed our mother to her cold slumber;
a second shock boiling its stone to your heart,
leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber
you from the residence you could not afford:
a gold key, your half of a woolen mill,
twenty suits from Dunne's, an English Ford,
the love and legal verbiage of another will,
boxes of pictures of people I do not know.
I touch their cardboard faces. They must go.

But the eyes, as thick as wood in this album,
hold me. I stop here, where a small boy
waits in a ruffled dress for someone to come ...
for this soldier who holds his bugle like a toy
or for this velvet lady who cannot smile.
Is this your father's father, this commodore
in a mailman suit? My father, time meanwhile
has made it unimportant who you are looking for.
I'll never know what these faces are all about.
I lock them into their book and throw them out.

This is the yellow scrapbook that you began
the year I was born; as crackling now and wrinkly
as tobacco leaves: clippings where Hoover outran
the Democrats, wiggling his dry finger at me
and Prohibition; news where the Hindenburg went
down and recent years where you went flush
on war. This year, solvent but sick, you meant
to marry that pretty widow in a one-month rush.
But before you had that second chance, I cried
on your fat shoulder. Three days later you died.

These are the snapshots of marriage, stopped in places.
Side by side at the rail toward Nassau now;
here, with the winner's cup at the speedboat races,
here, in tails at the Cotillion, you take a bow,
here, by our kennel of dogs with their pink eyes,
running like show-bred pigs in their chain-link pen;
here, at the horseshow where my sister wins a prize;
and here, standing like a duke among groups of men.
Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator,
my first lost keeper, to love or look at later.

I hold a five-year diary that my mother kept
for three years, telling all she does not say
of your alcoholic tendency. You overslept,
she writes. My God, father, each Christmas Day
with your blood, will I drink down your glass
of wine? The diary of your hurly-burly years
goes to my shelf to wait for my age to pass.
Only in this hoarded span will love persevere.
Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,
bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you.

the [ sight ] of a couple
here is the MAN
mid - 20ies
younger at a     push
c/h/e/c/k/e/d u n b u t t o n e d shirt
lARGe looks-em   pt   y rucksack
on his back
a sort of sil very-mist colour
and black skinny jeans
every1 seems to where
I’ll admit
I have a pair - pair
but they’re not wright
for my job
he (sees) me
Ilookawayquickly
but He knows eye saw Him
arms (((locked))) in a ring
a round the waist of a gir!
exhausted and eyes <shut>
flower-crown droop:ng
down her $four head
as she drops d ee per
into sl ee p
murmurs some-thing
just muFFled syLLables
probably went to a ‘gig’
music still rrumbling
as an     empty     stomach
in her ears
so maybe not a couple
friends more likely
a girl and guy hhuggingg
friendlee
friend ship
whatever it is
the train comes
screeeeches to astop
and within a minit
they are gOne
I am gOne
and yet #goingnowhere

We flew endlessly, miles above the surface, engines humming.
I looked down through a hole in the clouds; saw emerald fields
and a dirt road seldom traversed.  I found myself wondering if
someone looking up could see that hole I was looking through.
our eyes would meet in a nod of existential brotherhood, and
we would become eternally bonded as fellow humans.
I doubted it, though, for a slate of gray clouds loomed above yet.
Mother Nature saw it right to hide us in her own natural camouflage.
So we hung in limbo, between the layers of fog, neither here nor there.
I hate to fly, and my mind wandered to the worst-case scenario;
we'd fall down through the hole to smash upon the crops in a fiery heap.
Probably catastrophic engine failure.  Or perhaps swatted out of mid-air
by a petulant giant swinging a smoked turkey leg.  You know,
like the one's you can find at the county fair.  I gripped my wife's hand,
noticing how painfully sweaty mine was, wishing to be anywhere else.
But, in spite of a few bumps and the useless rise in my blood pressure,
the plane narrowly escaped catastrophic engine failure in that brief
moment.  I became excited for our impending arrival in Nassau.
The shining sun, blended drinks, fish fries; still assuming we got there
in one piece.  Drum beats from the Junkanoo tattooed through
my fingers quietly on the armrest.  We would dance deep into night,
then retire to the beach to laugh at old stories with new friends.
I'm sure if we were spotted from down below by all
the hard working humans, our freedom would be envied,
possibly even hated.  I became a young Marine Corporal once again,
standing guard on a frozen winter's night to protect the secrets
of that quiet hole in the clouds, my fellow passengers,
and even the mean old giant with turkey grease glistening on his lips.
It was my somber duty.

3/27/2016

teeter tottering on my penny loafers
down Nassau street,
I smelled a Newport and remembered
why it reminded me of the days full
of princetonian guile, that were no more

two years ago to the date,
I was meeting so many new people
finding out what it was like making a habit out of going downtown.
two years later I take the train
downtown

that is, in a different town.
My paltry self, forgettable as the days went on, fading quietly in my own personal, dark mess, crawled through alleyways and down stair cases and up them to rooftops.

Now my sense of self sits slobbering on a desk, the town feels surreal to me
I prefer New York of course.
I went to visit him, sat on that conjugal bed and traced ribcage,

Looked out the window
saw all of New York
the empire shining like a
big sparkly monster,

the staid windows that each held,
You know,
a different story,
or something.

The smell of hot trash- you know,
I miss that
I tell her
"Id spend a day in a landfill just to live
there."

As opposed to an hour on
the train tracks. well, at least it is
an hour.
I grab a hot chocolate just like the old days,

on Witherspoon,
and trace the route I took a year ago
down Stockton
when I went to pick you up
from the arriving section
of the station.

Now I'm hoping
I'll hobble over to depart
and you'll  walk a certain way
just in a different city
To penn station
two years or so from now, I suppose

"If I'm not dead by then," I laugh with her
I'll stay in New York for good- with you.
But I went from the permenant staid fixture on the Nassau sidewalk
to a typhoidic city rat in a year so who knows

I hope it does not happen again
for I didn't care much for Princeton
As opposed to sharing a pantry with
you
those tall grey monsters in the backdrop painting, in the Greek tragedy of life, our lives.

I am mostly brown or black or reddish
An amalgamation
So when the May- sun magnifies off my sweat-beaded skin
It just makes my cheek- bones a bit pink

There are only so many ways one can be reminded they are still living
There are only so many phrases to let the audience (reader) know that I am wilting

To look to the future is more than just waiting on something speculative
If it is not a wasteland it is something so vague and sleek and mod that a person like me falls right off
Drifting between the fruitless present

And you walking down Nassau Street. The trees were blooming. I followed and snapped pictures with a camera.
Your hair was long and you were taller than most everyone else.

Xtra Tuffs, forgotten. Ten mornings to go.
Let us start with ten miles to Ewan Bay.
Passing Granite Bay and rocks that crowd Junction Island,
seals furtively eye us, and orange-footed Oyster Catchers
stay grounded while gulls erupt into flight and frantic shrieks.

Zip, peal, zip: from dry suit to tent.
Storm teacher. We learn water below,
water above, water without, and water within.
At Bog Island, fingers are colorless, wrinkled fruit, and we
must think of wetness in layers.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Bog Island becomes a convalescent home, made of polyester tarp.
To stay warm, Yoga in the rain. Two are napping.
While we rest, beached ice become snarling growlers,
I see and listen in the quiet way.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Before crossing Jackpot Bay, we visit a waterfall.
While we lurch to avoid bear ****, dark blurs leap into vertical flows.
Tonight, we tuck our tents under a canopy
of alders against a rock wall, slicked with falling water.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Four days of dampness and heavy brows. The sky teases with streaks of blue
that enliven ice-green bergs. Suddenly, sun spills over clouds.
Wordless gasps and elation melt our moods.
Glacial air chases warm rocks. We race to dry our gear.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit. Again Island found, in Gaanaak Cove.
Blueberries drip from the bushes like the rain of the past four days.
Yellow arnica stand like sunflowers, and I feel her here.
The commuting breeze sounds like morning traffic on the Glenn.
Chenega, that achy glacier, growls like a distant tarmac.

This morning, rays of sunshine dance on my tent for a few seconds.
Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
We arrive to Nassau Fjord as unwelcome, party crashers
To hundreds of seals lounging on their icy chaises.
Don't Go, I think. We were uninvited.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Haibun, Didactic Cinquain, and Diamante:
These formulas are like the handrail method Jonathan teaches for reading a map.
Intentionally point off course to the stream that goes into the lake,
or veer to intersect the road to the parking lot.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
At Dual Head, the tide is a mirror to itself.
The echoing waves, equal and opposite to my breath.
I relish the watercolor and poetry on the beach under our
first and only setting and then rising sunshine.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Despite the small-craft advisory in Whittier yesterday,
We are delivered from the Sound on calm waters
​as we reunite with family and former self.
I believe I am more than I was.

3/15/2015

everywhere I roll
on the bed there's a
glass bottle waiting
to be crushed under weight
and bleed shards peppered with
red chrysanthemum petal

excuse everything I do with
"I was manic back then"
everything was beginning to get
tragic back then truthfully

first baby december days
and here we are in March
we haven't spoken in three months

and we will not forever.
I know when you say
Never Again you mean it because you had said to me earlier I Love You with the same vehement strength and I knew you meant that.

When I think of it,
butter knives pry my ribs open
the pain of the cut still hurting me

such a long time afterward and
nowadays I spend my days sitting on steps smoking a pack, kissing men trying to replicate something. And what?

it seems I am so detached from love, now I am trying to replicate me leaving a dorm room looking around hoping no one noticed

and sitting on a bench writhing because
I have so much to say and not one soul really truly wants to hear it, besides from men who've seen me naked and read my poems and

I only find that thoughts of dying,
not suicide of course just dying
are the only accustomed ones that I enjoy

I ***** onto the sidewalk
(hopefully my weaknesses my desolation right? Like the black humor of plague times)

blink my eyes
(Patients of severe depression are said to have melancholy, heavy grazing eyes. See Ian Curtis)

check my phone
(last call I made out was 8 hours
ago. no call back)

move toward nassau street now,
the long term suffering victim
of too much love,
and I can understand
why people **** themselves after

ten year long relationships.
however I am not so vexed,
just resentfully doleful and I

decide I shall blame tonight's
little dorm room nightstand on
sweet hypomania.

Nassau
Warm smiles under rusted hulls,
mailboats smoking,
lobster red cruise ship tourists,
back to the islands they go

Highborn Cay
White cloth walled gazebos,
bikinis and tan.
Loungers on pearl beaches,
lovers, the sea and sand

Compass Cay
A pirates place.
Rustic docks in crystal blue.
A meeting place, restless souls
Pathways and secrets on a tropical island.
Oh, frolicking sharks? In cuddle piles.

Staniel Cay
Rural and lovely,
Pink and blue shops, take your pick.
Haggling fishermen in front of a quaint little pub.  
far from home, further from troubles.
Locals tell me god blesses me a lot.
The church has the best plot of land.

Dr No the first entry
Showcased the talent of Sean Connery
Brilliant score by John Barry
Ursula Andress the first Bond Girl
Set the standards for those who coveted the role
Joseph Wiseman the title character
A legend from the New York theater
Unforgettable introduction scene at the casino
The title score would become the theme music
Never dated even today pure magic
Dr No recieved a yes from the audience

From Russia with love
People went to the cinemas like droves
Great villain in Robert Shaw
Remains one of the best performances in the series so far
Daniela Bianchi runner up in the Miss Universe contest
Followed Ursula in here hp footsteps and stood the test
Train journey from Istanbul to Belgrade
Remains in your memory forever
Title song by Matt Munroe
Melodious and fills your heart to the Core

Goldfinger the franchise became better
Gert Forbe a German actor
Portrayed the title character
Buying Gold and Destroying the world
Twin objectives planned by having Fort Knox bombed
Sean Connery drives the Aston Martin DB 5
Revolving number plates
And ejector seat designed
Honor Blackman as ** Galore
Glamour delivered more
Pilot in Goldfinger's fleet
Unaware of his sinister deeds
Joins forces with Connery
Everything ends happily
Title song by Shirley Bassy singing to the tunes of John Barry

Thunderball beat them all
In box office ticket sale
The gun barrel sequence
For the first time
Performed by Sean Connery himself
Loss of two nuclear warheads
Masterminded by Blofeld
Claudine Auger as Domino
More than just a cameo
Scenes shot underwater Technology testing new waters
Filmed in Nassau
Amongst other stunning locales
Sean Connery is Vintage
Adolfo Celi
Tested to replace Connery
Cast as Emile Largo
Gave the role a go


You only live twice
Heard it in Nancy Sinatras voice
Set in the far east
Found villains in the Japanese
Sean Connery thought this would suffice
Wanted to give up tole after five
Top actress of Japanese cinemas golden age
Akiko Wakabayashi
Got the chance to play
The role of the Bond Girl
A rare choice in Roald Dahl
As writer for this adventure
Cold war theme with Donald Pleasance playing Blofeld
Superpowers missiles gone missing
With both sides blaming
And Sean Connery saving

Diamonds are Forever
Brought back Sean Connery after a near disaster
Unheard of salary paid
To the Scottish National party donated
Jill St John joined hands
The thriller filmed in Vegas
Blofeld killed by Bond
Resurfaces after the misleading con
Diamonds smuggled
Not resurfaced
Found by Bond a plot
Involving Blofeld and weapon in space
Shirley Bassey renders the song With an original score by John Barry
Sean Connery final official outing as James Bond
A great swan song

2/17/2015

last Thursday, the snow came
down on Nassau street
and the ludlow alley
by the record shop

It came down in flurries
goosedown down on streets
where, in the spring,
students balance 12 packs

help us out!
And in the fall
they're not to be seen.

"Sir," I ask
stepping out from where
my friends drink flat whites
and chocolate lattes.

"Can I *** off you?"
i grab the Marlboro and walk away
It's funny how people suddenly
notice how cold it is outside

when you're out there alone.
"****, little lady
it is cold outside isn't it?"
and "aren't ya cold, girl?"

a David Bowie leaks out of the record
store when someone opens the door
to leave or go in ? I don't remember.

"yes, it is cold," I reply, ashing.
"aren't you outside too?"
"Well.." The men
have no business talking to me

of course.
"Do you have a ride home?"
"Goodbye," I twirl on the stomped cigarette

go back into the café
say hello to my friends
and watch the pedestrians

scurry out like weevils
in the goosedown, which
I can only see because of the
Orange lamplight.

2/3/2015

January 31 2015
"Look at this: the young girls giggle at nothing. The boys are after me. Nothing ever happens. They don't laugh hard and they don't yell. They don't get hurt or die and they don't laugh either." -Anais Nin

how many weeks are left in winter again?
the sun decided to come out today, did it not?
streaming half heartedly through the window slats of
the bathroom.

i am flicking the lighter sitting on a mattress
just going through the motions it's just standard procedure
saying to him "listen i'm probably going to write about this"

and thinking if i'm stupid enough, show him the finished product
anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law
lots of "nice kids" i spend time with i feel sort of inflicted on

or for?

staring at the ceiling and
"hey this feels like a Bukowski poem"
and then, trying in my best impersonation of the drunken Fritz:

"met this girl today/we sat on a mattress and smoked and- um,
we just met today, and um, you know."
then standing up afterwards

with the gross marlboro gold inbetween my mouth
don't worry, i won't smoke it inside.
throw my pack on the bed,

lots of nice kids i've written about
that are just that
and i frown at nassau hall coming up the

steps.

At the Nassau County Medical Center We nurses were put on alert;
A truck hit a small car on the L.I.E. leaving someone in a world of hurt.
Our “John Doe” was being air lifted and we heard the copter drone near.
One look at his face and I knew he was gone from this world of Love and Fear.
Yes, we all knew it was Harry from his unmistakable leonine mane;
The charts had him labeled as “John Doe” but we knew who it was just the same.
The doctors, like heroes, were fighting to bring Harry back from the grave
But his heart had been pierced by a sliver of glass; there was no way that he could be saved.
Had his heart failed him, there on the roadway, or had he been killed in the crash.
I couldn’t feel mad at the trucker who did what he could at the last.
We found a gold watch in his pocket. “Harry F. Chapin” engraved.
A man who had fought to save others but who himself could not save.

2/26/2017

Prince Street, NYC

the bright white heaven of a
terrace chair
you touched my shoulder, you thought

i cringed
a longer pause—— i didnt
i tried to freeze the spring

in its tracks and dead as a doorknob
stopped decomposed and quiet forever
the summer then swelled

to a crescendo
i sweated out what was left of my
humanity in battery park city

my art used to be found in suffering
and yet i wrote no poetry that week on
wall street

there is no nobility in this,
the suffering art
i mean.

Anne sexton: I never seemed to like the
spring for what it was but for what it could've been.

Princetonian fields, mausoleums
foreign to me, a brief reintroduction in
January only to be murdered again

How tragic, this
did the Witherspoon spring
the Nassau nights

mean nothing?
I revel in the past's
futility

1/17/2018

"the going into winter and never coming out."
-frank o'hara

the lights of nassau
***** and white
like raw pearl

shining down on my shoes
and
i, moldering and wicked,

sitting on bank steps.
you held your hand out for me
but i stood up by myself

this is how it happened
simply put, and no
metaphor.

you say to sit and talk
i know where talking is
red gravel i kick up like i had

before
and all i see in the cold and the dark:
your pupils, your hands

held out again
i would be dumb to take them
a month ago, dying for a lack of you

and now i try to catch time by its tail
but i can't
for time isn't an animal

it could have fooled me,
by the way it slinks and sidles
in the dark of the woods.

sitting in Anacostia,
on the phone with you,
dead roach on sidewalk

so long ago
back to reality:
you ask me if it's alright

and i say yes
i let anything happen to me
and everything happens to me.

i can not hold on to it
time is in the air
but what i can try to do is remember it.

*II*
my life is lived in the past
a life not worth living
a life not respected

there is nothing
i can do about this
i think, as i walk to my car.

Ahoy there, young lady
won't you join me in Nassau,
All hands hoay! my bride to be
in the land without a law

Blimey! you're my Bonny
be a Buccaneer by my side,
raise the Black jack high
steal the *****, ride the tide

Cockswain steer it right
from the Crow's nest spot our prey,
my Cutlass and my darling,
keep me alive through warring day

but these rivals are just as we!
Freebooters of the sea
They Fed the fish my crew
just as with me and my Bonny

Dead men tell no tales,
then how am I the talker?
my love for her prevails,
and i love from Davy Jones' Locker

I’m 32 feet in length
36 feet high
Been all around the world
Oh, the docks and sights I’ve seen
Enough to make me sigh
I knew the Sloop John B
We hung out in Nassau
Then we moseyed
To St. Barts, where many parties occurred
I like a choppy wind on glassy seas
With a group of sailors who know what their doin’
Don’t need any pleas
Had a woman fall overboard back in ‘21
That was a close one
Not at all fun
She got off at the next port
Fine by me, I’m a good sport

I’ve had seven skippers
They’ve all been pretty good
Mr. Bill is the latest
He does what he should
I’ve become a luxury cruise ship
That’s fine by me
As long as you keep me polished and clean
Call me the Seventh Sea

East bound
West bound
Brooklyn College was graduate school twice
All the promises you made and kept started there
Driving to JFK dreaming about the places we would travel to
Walking the World’s Fair grounds and gazing at the Unisphere
A memory from childhood
Before Disneyworld came to be

Hopefully more goals and promises to share and keep
More stamps on our passports
The Belt Parkway, the beginning of us
It is not the end
We just have to keep traveling on other highways
Somehow when we are on the Belt Parkway Nassau or Suffolk bound
It reminds me of how we began
September 14, 1979 introduced me to the best person that came into my life
1980 seems like yesterday but is part of us today and tomorrow

C@rainbowchaser2022

perhaps as much as the goldberg variation
    BWV 988 aria is some sort of cliche...
           and somehow... there aren't any tinges
of plagiarism in tchaikovsky's 1812 overture
plagiarisms of la marseillaise?
             well of course there would be tinges
of it: how did it manage to stay up
in classic.fm's hall of fame chart for several
years at no. 1 -
          does listening to it somehow imbue
more imagination than a tolstoy epic:
or one is more inclined to listen to the overture...
than read war and peace for
  15 minutes? if one is after a russian romance
theme:
prokofiev: alexander nevsky -
                                        battle of the ice...
the tchaikovsky answer to la marseillaise is...
sorry... where is the mass appeal?
                  it's like something penderecki would
compose for: an orchestra of pots and pans...
but that's just me...
and as for easter?
     "good news" is: i drank my way through
it... like a cobbler -
  having said the most obscene things on good friday:
apparently not necessary in the end -
the "problem" involved switching something
off... then switching something on...
never mind...
             easter... historically:
it must have happened sometime mid-august...
in that fateful year of circa 33a.d. -
   probably happened in mid-august...
while all life was apparently happening elsewhere:
it wasn't going to be a congregational
event to occupy a calendar year of:
let's say: a third of the globe...
                                 size or population...
if it's a celebration of "something" and it doesn't
have to come back to me:
kneeling and taking things: a little bit too
literally...
    i crucified winter on a friday...
              and lo and behold:
         the same annum winter to come by
december...
although: reborn... is it the third day...
from the day of the execution: to the hour...
does the resurrection come on a sunday or
on a monday?
     well... if you'd consider the sabbath...
   it doesn't happen... on the morning of waking up:
like a saturday...
         or a sunday...
and it ends upon going to bed...
  so if the crucifixion / sabbath... happened on...
the 6th hour of the afternoon:
or whatever time a crucifixion would
be most agonising and draw the most crowd
and would giving a wine soaked sponge
on the end of a lance up to that...
   crown of myrrh: why just call it "a crown of thorns"?
oh i'm pretty sure they'd dig up
all those gifts... the gold... with judas:
but seeing that they were needy times...
the rabbis didn't operate with the gold standard...
silver would have to suffice...
seems probably that the crown was crated
from myrrh:
and the frankinscenes?
  it wasn't just a crucifixion... was it?
by striping (slashing the bark) and
letting the exuded resin bleed out and harden -
eventually his body did transform
into carvings from both wood and of
various stones...
      over the matter of not celebrating easter
as a good catholic should:
because it is the tradition...
because "i am": but i am an atheist...
because your father is... because my mother
and my father and my grandmother was...
i was called irreverent...
   and from my own mother's mouth...
                            you're just an 'antichrist'...
but i do have these serious questions to ponder...
and i'm sure that to "spread the message"
i have to do it now...
because if it did happen mid-august at noon...
and even if it was a friday...
but to spread the message...
it has to happen so that...
                         i nail winter to the cross...
and three days later she comes back
              smelling of cherry tree blossoms!
i also have to stop drinking and writing...
and sitting up late...
and take great lessons in w.h. auden's words:
only the hitlers of humanity write
at night...
     no more antics with hopes of:
an easy 'abbit to be chased after with 'ookovski...
mind the B...
back to classical music...
         and more to the point...
national anthems...
sorry... what does the anthem: god save the queen
spring to mind?
contempt... irreverence...
the shortest anthem in all of history...
now... if you gave me...
   de Lisle's la marseillaise: it's an anthem you
want to sing! you want to sing it!
    now...
       whether it's john playford's
1728 'the new bath'
or it's edward nowell's 'delight'...
     hell: another suggestion...
    william of orange (the third):
        wilhelmus von nassau...
          as henry grattan flood suggested...
but of course... changing the words...
merry ol' england... merry ol' england...
   god given right to an eternal queen
and a people that will never
       fade with a whimper...
i dunno...
but anything beside that ghastly:
baroque burp and **** of an anthem...
or maybe not...
  but at least true feelings can be met
with an uninhibited pen and...
                  a matter of musical taste...
in the end.
                             at least... tchaikovsky's
1812 overture didn't make it to the number 1
place in the classic fm hall of fame chart...
and i crucified winter and out popped spring.

p.s. if you can sing auld lang syne...
come the end of the year...
i do admit: singing god save the queen
must sometimes feel like a funeral for the heart...
it's hardly the fife and drum;
but it could be!

getting higher than I wanted to
seeing spotlights when I look at you
Today isn't fair, it just isn't fair.
Burned to the bone like I'm working in Nassau
and I'm cold and alone,
dancing with all the lights off.
I'm sick and the day's delusions replay
and I can't remember the second half of today.
As I wander, I miss you - it's never been this bad -
even at sunset, no, it's never been this bad.
And what a privilege it is, to be lively and free,
[ where friends are falling like apples from a tree ]
where each complaint doesn't take them aback,
and a drunk rant makes the whole table laugh.
come to me, darling, for now I can speak!
a hello, I love you, we're sound off to sleep!
Please enter the night, together we'll become thieves.
We'll steal all the joy from this world,
and make our home where the bad people go.
Forever in misery, our eternity rest.
There's not a place in the world that can capture my heart so **** fast.