Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,
looking for friendship or an old love's sleeve
or writing letters to his children, lost,
and to his children's children, and to us.
What was his light? of lamp or moon or sun?
Say that it changed, for better or for worse,
sifted by leaves, sifted by snow; on mulberry silk
a slant of witch-light; on the pure text
a slant of genius; emptying mind and heart
for winecups and more winecups and more words.
What was his time? Say that it was a change,
but constant as a changing thing may be,
from chicory's moon-dark blue down the taut scale
to chicory's tenderest pink, in a pink field
such as imagination dreams of thought.
But of the heart beneath the winecup moon
the tears that fell beneath the winecup moon
for children lost, lost lovers, and lost friends,
what can we say but that it never ends?
Even for us it never ends, only begins.
Yet to spell down the poem on her page,
margining her phrases, parsing forth
the sevenfold prism of meaning, up the scale
from chicory pink to blue, is to assume
Li Po himself: as he before assumed
the poets and the sages who were his.
Like him, we too have eaten of the word:
with him are somewhere lost beyond the Gorge:
and write, in rain, a letter to lost children,
a letter long as time and brief as love.

II

And yet not love, not only love. Not caritas
or only that. Nor the pink chicory love,
deep as it may be, even to moon-dark blue,
in which the dragon of his meaning flew
for friends or children lost, or even
for the beloved horse, for Li Po's horse:
not these, in the self's circle so embraced:
too near, too dear, for pure assessment: no,
a letter crammed and creviced, crannied full,
storied and stored as the ripe honeycomb
with other faith than this. As of sole pride
and holy loneliness, the intrinsic face
worn by the always changing shape between
end and beginning, birth and death.
How moves that line of daring on the map?
Where was it yesterday, or where this morning
when thunder struck at seven, and in the bay
the meteor made its dive, and shed its wings,
and with them one more Icarus? Where struck
that lightning-stroke which in your sleep you saw
wrinkling across the eyelid? Somewhere else?
But somewhere else is always here and now.
Each moment crawls that lightning on your eyelid:
each moment you must die. It was a tree
that this time died for you: it was a rock
and with it all its local web of love:
a chimney, spilling down historic bricks:
perhaps a skyful of Ben Franklin's kites.
And with them, us. For we must hear and bear
the news from everywhere: the hourly news,
infinitesimal or vast, from everywhere.

III

Sole pride and loneliness: it is the state
the kingdom rather of all things: we hear
news of the heart in weather of the Bear,
slide down the rungs of Cassiopeia's Chair,
still on the nursery floor, the Milky Way;
and, if we question one, must question all.
What is this 'man'? How far from him is 'me'?
Who, in this conch-shell, locked the sound of sea?
We are the tree, yet sit beneath the tree,
among the leaves we are the hidden bird,
we are the singer and are what is heard.
What is this 'world'? Not Li Po's Gorge alone,
and yet, this too might be. 'The wind was high
north of the White King City, by the fields
of whistling barley under cuckoo sky,'
where, as the silkworm drew her silk, Li Po
spun out his thoughts of us. 'Endless as silk'
(he said) 'these poems for lost loves, and us,'
and, 'for the peachtree, blooming in the ditch.'
Here is the divine loneliness in which
we greet, only to doubt, a voice, a word,
the smoke of a sweetfern after frost, a face
touched, and loved, but still unknown, and then
a body, still mysterious in embrace.
Taste lost as touch is lost, only to leave
dust on the doorsill or an ink-stained sleeve:
and yet, for the inadmissible, to grieve.
Of leaf and love, at last, only to doubt:
from world within or world without, kept out.
  
IV

Caucus of robins on an alien shore
as of the **-** birds at Jewel Gate
southward bound and who knows where and never late
or lost in a roar at sea. Rovers of chaos
each one the 'Rover of Chao,' whose slight bones
shall put to shame the swords. We fly with these,
have always flown, and they
stay with us here, stand still and stay,
while, exiled in the Land of Pa, Li Po
still at the Wine Spring stoops to drink the moon.
And northward now, for fall gives way to spring,
from Sandy Hook and Kitty Hawk they wing,
and he remembers, with the pipes and flutes,
drunk with joy, bewildered by the chance
that brought a friend, and friendship, how, in vain,
he strove to speak, 'and in long sentences,' his pain.
Exiled are we. Were exiles born. The 'far away,'
language of desert, language of ocean, language of sky,
as of the unfathomable worlds that lie
between the apple and the eye,
these are the only words we learn to say.
Each morning we devour the unknown. Each day
we find, and take, and spill, or spend, or lose,
a sunflower splendor of which none knows the source.
This cornucopia of air! This very heaven
of simple day! We do not know, can never know,
the alphabet to find us entrance there.
So, in the street, we stand and stare,
to greet a friend, and shake his hand,
yet know him beyond knowledge, like ourselves;
ocean unknowable by unknowable sand.

V

The locust tree spills sequins of pale gold
in spiral nebulae, borne on the Invisible
earthward and deathward, but in change to find
the cycles to new birth, new life. Li Po
allowed his autumn thoughts like these to flow,
and, from the Gorge, sends word of Chouang's dream.
Did Chouang dream he was a butterfly?
Or did the butterfly dream Chouang? If so,
why then all things can change, and change again,
the sea to brook, the brook to sea, and we
from man to butterfly; and back to man.
This 'I,' this moving 'I,' this focal 'I,'
which changes, when it dreams the butterfly,
into the thing it dreams of; liquid eye
in which the thing takes shape, but from within
as well as from without: this liquid 'I':
how many guises, and disguises, this
nimblest of actors takes, how many names
puts on and off, the costumes worn but once,
the player queen, the lover, or the dunce,
hero or poet, father or friend,
suiting the eloquence to the moment's end;
childlike, or *******; the language of the kiss
sensual or simple; and the gestures, too,
as slight as that with which an empire falls,
or a great love's abjured; these feignings, sleights,
savants, or saints, or fly-by-nights,
the novice in her cell, or wearing tights
on the high wire above a hell of lights:
what's true in these, or false? which is the 'I'
of 'I's'? Is it the master of the cadence, who
transforms all things to a hoop of flame, where through
tigers of meaning leap? And are these true,
the language never old and never new,
such as the world wears on its wedding day,
the something borrowed with something chicory blue?
In every part we play, we play ourselves;
even the secret doubt to which we come
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing,
yes, even this, at last, if we should call
and dare to name it, we would find
the only voice that answers is our own.
We are once more defrauded by the mind.

Defrauded? No. It is the alchemy by which we grow.
It is the self becoming word, the word
becoming world. And with each part we play
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum.
Who knows but one day we shall find,
hidden in the prism at the rainbow's foot,
the square root of the eccentric absolute,
and the concentric absolute to come.

VI

The thousand eyes, the Argus 'I's' of love,
of these it was, in verse, that Li Po wove
the magic cloak for his last going forth,
into the Gorge for his adventure north.
What is not seen or said? The cloak of words
loves all, says all, sends back the word
whether from Green Spring, and the yellow bird
'that sings unceasing on the banks of Kiang,'
or 'from the Green Moss Path, that winds and winds,
nine turns for every hundred steps it winds,
up the Sword Parapet on the road to Shuh.'
'Dead pinetrees hang head-foremost from the cliff.
The cataract roars downward. Boulders fall
Splitting the echoes from the mountain wall.
No voice, save when the nameless birds complain,
in stunted trees, female echoing male;
or, in the moonlight, the lost cuckoo's cry,
piercing the traveller's heart. Wayfarer from afar,
why are you here? what brings you here? why here?'

VII

Why here. Nor can we say why here. The peachtree bough
scrapes on the wall at midnight, the west wind
sculptures the wall of fog that slides
seaward, over the Gulf Stream.
                                                       The rat
comes through the wainscot, brings to his larder
the twinned acorn and chestnut burr. Our sleep
lights for a moment into dream, the eyes
turn under eyelids for a scene, a scene,
o and the music, too, of landscape lost.
And yet, not lost. For here savannahs wave
cressets of pampas, and the kingfisher
binds all that gold with blue.
                                                  Why here? why here?
Why does the dream keep only this, just this C?
Yes, as the poem or the music do?

The timelessness of time takes form in rhyme:
the lotus and the locust tree rehearse
a four-form song, the quatrain of the year:
not in the clock's chime only do we hear
the passing of the Now into the past,
the passing into future of the Now:
hut in the alteration of the bough
time becomes visible, becomes audible,
becomes the poem and the music too:
time becomes still, time becomes time, in rhyme.
Thus, in the Court of Aloes, Lady Yang
called the musicians from the Pear Tree Garden,
called for Li Po, in order that the spring,
tree-peony spring, might so be made immortal.
Li Po, brought drunk to court, took up his brush,
but washed his face among the lilies first,
then wrote the song of Lady Flying Swallow:
which Hsuang Sung, the emperor, forthwith played,
moving quick fingers on a flute of jade.
Who will forget that afternoon? Still, still,
the singer holds his phrase, the rising moon
remains unrisen. Even the fountain's falling blade
hangs in the air unbroken, and says: Wait!

VIII

Text into text, text out of text. Pretext
for scholars or for scholiasts. The living word
springs from the dying, as leaves in spring
spring from dead leaves, our birth from death.
And all is text, is holy text. Sheepfold Hill
becomes its name for us, anti yet is still
unnamed, unnamable, a book of trees
before it was a book for men or sheep,
before it was a book for words. Words, words,
for it is scarlet now, and brown, and red,
and yellow where the birches have not shed,
where, in another week, the rocks will show.
And in this marriage of text and thing how can we know
where most the meaning lies? We climb the hill
through bullbriar thicket and the wild rose, climb
past poverty-grass and the sweet-scented bay
scaring the pheasant from his wall, but can we say
that it is only these, through these, we climb,
or through the words, the cadence, and the rhyme?
Chang Hsu, calligrapher of great renown,
needed to put but his three cupfuls down
to tip his brush with lightning. On the scroll,
wreaths of cloud rolled left and right, the sky
opened upon Forever. Which is which?
The poem? Or the peachtree in the ditch?
Or is all one? Yes, all is text, the immortal text,
Sheepfold Hill the poem, the poem Sheepfold Hill,
and we, Li Po, the man who sings, sings as he climbs,
transposing rhymes to rocks and rocks to rhymes.
The man who sings. What is this man who sings?
And finds this dedicated use for breath
for phrase and periphrase of praise between
the twin indignities of birth and death?
Li Yung, the master of the epitaph,
forgetting about meaning, who himself
had added 'meaning' to the book of >things,'
lies who knows where, himself sans epitaph,
his text, too, lost, forever lost ...
                                                         And yet, no,
text lost and poet lost, these only flow
into that other text that knows no year.
The peachtree in the poem is still here.
The song is in the peachtree and the ear.

IX

The winds of doctrine blow both ways at once.
The wetted finger feels the wind each way,
presaging plums from north, and snow from south.
The dust-wind whistles from the eastern sea
to dry the nectarine and parch the mouth.
The west wind from the desert wreathes the rain
too late to fill our wells, but soon enough,
the four-day rain that bears the leaves away.
Song with the wind will change, but is still song
and pierces to the rightness in the wrong
or makes the wrong a rightness, a delight.
Where are the eager guests that yesterday
thronged at the gate? Like leaves, they could not stay,
the winds of doctrine blew their minds away,
and we shall have no loving-cup tonight.
No loving-cup: for not ourselves are here
to entertain us in that outer year,
where, so they say, we see the Greater Earth.
The winds of doctrine blow our minds away,
and we are absent till another birth.

X

Beyond the Sugar Loaf, in the far wood,
under the four-day rain, gunshot is heard
and with the falling leaf the falling bird
flutters her crimson at the huntsman's foot.
Life looks down at death, death looks up at life,
the eyes exchange the secret under rain,
rain all the way from heaven: and all three
know and are known, share and are shared, a silent
moment of union and communion.
Have we come
this way before, and at some other time?
Is it the Wind Wheel Circle we have come?
We know the eye of death, and in it too
the eye of god, that closes as in sleep,
giving its light, giving its life, away:
clouding itself as consciousness from pain,
clouding itself, and then, the shutter shut.
And will this eye of god awake again?
Or is this what he loses, loses once,
but always loses, and forever lost?
It is the always and unredeemable cost
of his invention, his fatigue. The eye
closes, and no other takes its place.
It is the end of god, each time, each time.

Yet, though the leaves must fall, the galaxies
rattle, detach, and fall, each to his own
perplexed and individual death, Lady Yang
gone with the inkberry's vermilion stalk,
the peony face behind a fan of frost,
the blue-moon eyebrow behind a fan of rain,
beyond recall by any alchemist
or incantation from the Book of Change:
unresumable, as, on Sheepfold Hill,
the fir cone of a thousand years ago:
still, in the loving, and the saying so,
as when we name the hill, and, with the name,
bestow an essence, and a meaning, too:
do we endow them with our lives?
They move
into another orbit: into a time
not theirs: and we become the bell to speak
this time: as we become new eyes
with which they see, the voice
in which they find duration, short or long,
the chthonic and hermetic song.
Beyond Sheepfold Hill,
gunshot again, the bird flies forth to meet
predestined death, to look with conscious sight
into the eye of light
the light unflinching that understands and loves.
And Sheepfold Hill accepts them, and is still.

XI

The landscape and the language are the same.
And we ourselves are language and are land,
together grew with Sheepfold Hill, rock, and hand,
and mind, all taking substance in a thought
wrought out of mystery: birdflight and air
predestined from the first to be a pair:
as, in the atom, the living rhyme
invented her divisions, which in time,
and in the terms of time, would make and break
the text, the texture, and then all remake.
This powerful mind that can by thinking take
the order of the world and all remake,
w

No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us’d,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam’d. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death’s harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous’d;
Or Neptune’s ire, or Juno’s, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea’s son:                        

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor’d,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas’d me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem’d chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign’d; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon’d shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall’d feast
Serv’d up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem.  Me, of these
Nor skill’d nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress’d; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
“twixt day and night, and now from end to end
Night’s hemisphere had veil’d the horizon round:
When satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv’d
In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man’s destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned
From compassing the earth; cautious of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
He circled; four times crossed the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse
From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way.  There was a place,
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,
Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise,
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life:
In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought
Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land,
From Eden over Pontus and the pool
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctick; and in length,
West from Orontes to the ocean barred
At Darien ; thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed
With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Considered every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found
The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake
Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety
Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed,
Doubt might beget of diabolick power
Active within, beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief
His bursting passion into plaints thus poured.
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred
For what God, after better, worse would build?
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence!  As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou,
Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man.
With what delight could I have walked thee round,
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
Now land, now sea and shores with forest crowned,
Rocks, dens, and caves!  But I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries: all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven’s Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: He, to be avenged,
And to repair his numbers thus impaired,
Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or, to spite us more,
Determined to advance into our room
A creature formed of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from so base original,
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,
He effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat,
Him lord pronounced; and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel-wings,
And flaming ministers to watch and tend
Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
O foul descent! that I, who erst contended
With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast; and, mixed with ******* slime,
This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of Deity aspired!
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to?  Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soared; obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things.  Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low-creeping, he held on
His midnight-search, where soonest he might find
The serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
His head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:
Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
Nor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb,
Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
The Devil entered; and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired
With act intelligential; but his sleep
Disturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn.
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe,
From the Earth’s great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
And joined their vocal worship to the quire
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
Then commune, how that day they best may ply
Their growing work: for much their work out-grew
The hands’ dispatch of two gardening so wide,
And Eve first to her husband thus began.
Adam, well may we labour still to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
Our pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labour grows,
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild.  Thou therefore now advise,
Or bear what to my mind first thoughts present:
Let us divide our labours; thou, where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
The woodbine round this arbour, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb; while I,
In yonder spring of roses intermixed
With myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
For, while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on; which intermits
Our day’s work, brought to little, though begun
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned?
To whom mild answer Adam thus returned.
Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond
Compare above all living creatures dear!
Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed,
How we might best fulfil the work which here
God hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass
Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study houshold good,
And good works in her husband to promote.
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
Labour, as to debar us when we need
Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,
Food of the mind, or this sweet *******
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow,
To brute denied, and are of love the food;
Love, not the lowest end of human life.
For not to irksome toil, but to delight,
He made us, and delight to reason joined.
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Assist us; But, if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield:
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
But other doubt possesses me, lest harm
Befall thee severed from me; for thou knowest
What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
Envying our happiness, and of his own
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand
Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find
His wish and best advantage, us asunder;
Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need:
Whether his first design be to withdraw
Our fealty from God, or to disturb
Conjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss
Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.
To whom the ****** majesty of Eve,
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
With sweet austere composure thus replied.
Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth’s Lord!
That such an enemy we have, who seeks
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn,
And from the parting Angel over-heard,
As in a shady nook I stood behind,
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers.
But, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
To God or thee, because we have a foe
May tempt it, I expected not to hear.
His violence thou fearest not, being such
As we, not capable of death or pain,
Can either not receive, or can repel.
His fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers
Thy equal fear, that my firm faith and love
Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced;
Thoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast,
Adam, mis-thought of her to thee so dear?
To whom with healing words Adam replied.
Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!
For such thou art; from sin and blame entire:
Not diffident of thee do I dissuade
Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid
The attempt itself, intended by our foe.
For he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
The tempted with dishonour foul; supposed
Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
Against temptation: Thou thyself with scorn
And anger wouldst resent the offered wrong,
Though ineffectual found: misdeem not then,
If such affront I labour to avert
From thee alone, which on us both at once
The enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;
Or daring, first on me the assault shall light.
Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn;
Subtle he needs must be, who could ******
Angels; nor think superfluous other’s aid.
I, from the influence of thy looks, receive
Access in every virtue; in thy sight
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on,
Shame to be overcome or over-reached,
Would utmost vigour raise, and raised unite.
Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
When I am present, and thy trial choose
With me, best witness of thy virtue tried?
So spake domestick Adam in his care
And matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought
Less attributed to her faith sincere,
Thus her reply with accent sweet renewed.
If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe,
Subtle or violent, we not endued
Single with like defence, wherever met;
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
But harm precedes not sin: only our foe,
Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
Of our integrity: his foul esteem
Sticks no dishonour on our front, but turns
Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
By us? who rather double honour gain
From his surmise proved false; find peace within,
Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
Alone, without exteriour help sustained?
Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
As not secure to single or combined.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.
To whom thus Adam fervently replied.
O Woman, best are all things as the will
Of God ordained them: His creating hand
Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less Man,
Or aught that might his happy state secure,
Secure from outward force; within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his power:
Against his will he can receive no harm.
But God left free the will; for what obeys
Reason, is free; and Reason he made right,
But bid her well be ware, and still *****;
Lest, by some fair-appearing good surprised,
She dictate false; and mis-inform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid.
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,
That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;
Since Reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborned,
And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
Were better, and most likely if from me
Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought.
Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve
First thy obedience; the other who can know,
Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
But, if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
Go; for thy stay, not fre

hours drip slowly
onto a taunting empty page
the soul’s depictions brushed simply

a palette of whispered words
dry as if it were thoughts painted
onto a tightly stretched canvas

it's been said so many times before
                   similes,...
     form clots at the tip of the quill
                    words,...
finally surrendering to gravity’s flow
as the ink scribes the paltry ruminations;
flooding the same stifled notions
another way into another moment

metaphorical sleights of hand
incarnate onto the absolving
       sheet of parchment;
traces of past now’s ensconced
       in considered words

        miles of silent reverie,
                     spun,...
        like a spider reprocessing,
        carefully savoring
        each fine silk thread of web,

        spinning the womb of time...

© H.A.  Rivers 2012 … All Rights Reserved

Her terrace was the sand
And the palms and the twilight.

She made of the motions of her wrist
The grandiose gestures
Of her thought.

The rumpling of the plumes
Of this creature of the evening
Came to be sleights of sails
Over the sea.

And thus she roamed
In the roamings of her fan,
Partaking of the sea,
And of the evening,
As they flowed around
And uttered their subsiding sound.

Evening cleats The Bay,

As cavalcades of passive argon, sulphur on
the ogham slicks,
to treacle ways toward the seeding
cooling of the hours,...

The sleights of crimson, fringe
the bruising cower of the West, to
brightly die behind the leathered hill.

From a wrist of tallowed amethyst,
a Tiercel purls a last ellipse, and in
his sinking helix ships, the Sommes
of curdled estuaries, to brood
the closing Mill....

I want to hit
a walk off
home run.  
I want to strike
down any chance
you had
of winning with
my utterly
deadly arching
swing.
I want to throw
the perfect game.
I want everyone of my
lies
sleights
to burn right by you.  
I want to see
you go down
swinging.
I want to hit
for the cycle.
I want to single
double triple
home run my way
back to the
hidden places
you and I once called
home.

In an effort to preserve a solitary strand of consciousness laced with conscientiousness that I can only describe as the lingering remnants of hope within me, I'd like to take the time to catalogue this lonely thought amidst an overwhelming, unwanted, and relentless cacophony.

Sometimes, even within the most ludicrous events or wanderings of the mind we can find a moment of gratitude or humble ourselves to then change our perspective
-however briefly.

Think about how tirelessly a phone speaker or any electronic device for that matter works to provide as a source of consistent entertainment, comfort, and support (depending on how you utilize your devices). Yet the minute it breaks or fails, we viciously attack it for having failed us; chastising, deploring, and implementing our derogatory sleights once it deviated outside of its expectancy. Negating the circumstances previous in which it has been right there to provide what we desired or needed in real time.

The same thing can be applied to how we treat each other. It is vital to remember if we feel that someone has failed us to simultaneously recall how many times they have been there when we needed them. And most importantly forgive them the faults of their human condition while gaining the ability to recognize those very faults within ourselves. Approach with understanding, share wisdom, and spread compassion as you tread. Even if the circumstances do not fall in kind with you. The reason behind your pain, confusion, and suffering is so that you'll know when the good times come. "What you are, I once was. What I am, so you will become."

Feeling of being lifted running through my legs,
Train on bridge looks the only way it can:
Like suspended seconds holding for unison
Above a hundred feet of air ending in water.

Lights with on stuck switches twitch,
People watch as I look out the window nervously,
Sleights of hand go noticed
And hiding is never as easy as not being seen.

Lifting feeling rises to my sides while still struck
To think that this is all somewhere,
To someone,
Right?

Is nowhere ever just that cut clean?

Even with train on ground I feel left there.
Shoulders tensed, eyes cautiously cast down;
I am waiting, waiting, waiting.

Peaceful and Quiet A sheer delight!
It’s so peaceful and quiet here
at Sleights in Yorkshire,
I’m winding down like a clockwork orange as it peals away the stress of life!
A visit to the coast is nice
Just to see the sea swish swash up the rocks and onto the beach,
And the air is fresh and clean!
The sound and the smell of the sea to me is a treat to the senses!
And back at Sleights the steam train passes and peeps as it goes!
The beautiful big old trees, elm ash, birch and oak stand proud in the grounds tall and poised!
The plants and flowers are so pretty and bright they smell so beautiful especially at night!
The atmosphere here is surely heaven!
A sumptuous place even better than Devon!

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
— Federico Garcia Lorca, “City That Does Not Sleep”


Sporting white top hats, the Sierra Nevada mountains
**** up against the new dawn's Andalusian sky, casting
craggy shadows across the quiet calles of Grenada.
Restlessly, the darkened city churns in its sleep.

Federico Garcia Lorca strums his yellow guitar,
tuning it to a cante jondos, a deep song of duende,
dark heart of flamenco and the bullfight and his own
fatalistic poems: moans of his inexorable execution

at Franco's hellish hands. Fascism fears the poet,
the ferocious oracle of duende, who rips out the
roots of authority, the dark clods of captivity, who
vows to dive underground, digesting bitter earth

like bullets from the firing squad. They shout, Victoria!
as Garcia Lorca's listless body slides along the bloodied wall.
Duende, he once told a lecture hall, haunts death's house.
It will not appear until it spies that fiercely angled roof.

                                        * * *

In the branches of the laurel tree
I saw two dark doves
— Federico Garcia Lorca, “Of the Dark Doves”


His mother bellows on the spirit's wind, over the hobbled
heads of the dead, in search of an inexpressible "new,"
the endless baptism of freshly created things, as Garcia Lorca
loved to lecture. Ending and refrain burn blood like glass.

Few mourners cast a spell over the public patrons gnawing
on his books, seeking some taste of destiny, identity, some
word of the eternal voice of Spain. I am no Spaniard, yet
I claim to be a poet. Garcia Lorca gifts me with his song.

Its maudlin melody marches up my spine, scorches
my eyes, which smolder under the noonday sun, spewing
ashes to ashes, igniting dust to dust. The dark memory
of the buried ruins of saddened Spain steadily seeps

through wilted wreaths tossed at Franco's feet. No
offering for the conqueror, they exude a sickly odor
of offal, of ordinary flesh rotting on shattered ribs.
Gunshot mixes with marrow, smoke fumigates the poem.

                                        * * *

No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.
— Federico Garcia Lorca, “City That Does Not Sleep”


No one is sleeping, yet the world will not awaken.
The slain poet merits no notice. We bow our
heads in humiliation at the philistine ways
of savage, civilized societies. All cultural wealth

but poetry suffocates in its bed. Duende sends Garcia
Lorca’s poems soaring above feeling and desire,
above the consecration of form. How many enjambments
mire in dark waters? How many stanzas lay bricks

of marble and salt? Garcia Lorca sings of hemlock and
demons, of Socrates and Descartes. But the profane
choruses of drunken sailors shatter any hope for his
new poetic style. They reject all the sweet geometry

that maps the darkened heart of southern Spain, where
Moors and Gypsies set up camp, pulling sleights of hand
on gullible gamblers, assured that Andalusia knows no
other artifice than the machine-gun-fire flights of flamenco.

                                        * * *

In the branches of the laurel tree
I saw two naked doves
One was the other
and both were none
— Federico Garcia Lorca, “Of the Dark Doves”


Garcia Lorca lies on the floor to fence with the phantoms
of his future. His black boots shine in the saddened sun.
The fattened face of Franco appears: an anxious cry for
more water, for dousing naked doves in duende’s black pool.

Writers live and die like newly created roses. Aromas
rise from vast yearnings, inured to the penance of suffering.
Above duende's golden serpent, a crooked soldier salutes
the fruit of Fascism. Dawn's lemons dangle at the edge of time.

Only 19 years embody Garcia Lorca's high-strung calling.
An awkward teen at his writing desk, he scribbles notes
about his mellifluous malaise. Modernismo flourishes in the
shadow songs of caves. Dark doves coo. Duende never lies.

His mother wails, wrapped in her mantilla of Spanish black. Head
thrown back, heels clicking hard, she swirls against the fiery flanks
of flamenco. Prancing like an epic stallion, she nudges her anguished
son: asleep, asleep. Today, duende has entered the dark house of death.

When all is said and done
And I'm tucked into the blanket fort alone
I think of you

And I think if only I could write
The perfect love poem
The most perfect love poem
Then finally
I could reach you

Maybe
If I learned to write
I could show you how
I see you
And how everything about you is
Beautiful

Things are so hard right now

I

t r y


t  o



g   i   v  e





y    o    u






s      p      a      c      e





But

I

miss

you

...

Today I fell asleep dreaming of you
And
Then
****. 11:30
And I
Rushed rushed rushed rushed rushed
Nearly falling down
To get to
my phone
To get back
to
you

And my heart
Sank when I
I saw that
you were
crying
alone
;_;

You thought I didn't care
You thought I was punishing you
You thought I was teaching you a lesson
You thought I was like all the others that hurt you

But did you know how I cradled my phone all day?
Hoping against hope you might ask me to go to you?

Did you know how many times I looked at your pictures?
And fantasized about sitting outside your door just in case you woke up and missed me?

How my heart
And my lips
And my tears
Lingered on the last happy emoji you sent?

Did you know it was at 3:57pm on Friday and that it looked like this?
[emoji][emoji]

Did you know how many times I thought of you while you were sleeping?
How much I wanted to hold you in my arms
and breathe with you quietly
so you would know you were loved?

Did you know how devastating it was
To wake
And find I'd
disappointed, hurt
and lost more of your trust
while I wasn't even conscious?

These walls...
The emotional ones
The lock on your front gate
The force field around your room
This distance between us
The imagined sleights
The miles
They are
not us

We are us
When we're together
When we intertwine our fingers
When we share silly stories
When we play and laugh
When we sing...
When we live
and grow
and learn
together

I
haven't
seen
you
for
four
days
now.

They've been so empty without you
Every day without you is the
loneliest

But I hold myself at night
And cry my tears
put on a smile
so you'll think
that I'm okay
Because
If you think
I'm sad there
might be
more
walls

or

m o r e

d  i   s   t   a   n   c   e

and

I'm


dying



watching  




y o u





s  l  i  p






a    w    a    y   .    .    .

It's the small acts of magic
like the floating bar napkin

the dime for every quarter
or the clean separation

of two straws
tangled as lovers

matched
somewhere south of heaven

these little sleights of hand
turning heads everyday

and changing minds
forever

Listen
Technicolor dream screen
Conditioned glob of a thing,

Synchronicity / listen / close
                                                 Electric sanity

All a pulse a puzzle
Abuzz in wandering  wonder
(In the brain)

Explosive rain / pains:
Alight
Each breaking bone
Thunder loud
Razor-heat bullet hole

You are mind
Always a flight
Even in respites' malingering
Wight
Ghosts
Living machinations
                            Of physical information
Kept / Wept
Even in plundering / times

Deformity

It is difficult to hear you
In the dark vale / veil shrouds
Truth...

Listen to all the pandering /
Crimes :
Symptomatic cacophony
Like pixelatious chaos
Snow of black & white

Void of hi-def depth
Just a box of a skull / **** tube / (blight)

Still flesh heavy
In the silt of reality's sleights

Conditioned for numb
To naught care / less aware
Chewing gum

As the wilderness from without
Floods
Cantankerous / gelatinous
Countries of grey
Matter
Overwhelming mind

Rather than mind over
                                Thought to spontaneous
Flame
Create universe
In your vox cave

So listen closer now
Such multitudes of crave
Life,ride focus to rife clarity
Imagination & knowledge - just the same
As sane and
Obtuse / for Over- use /
Voracity...


I am you
And you are I

I am the fire
Magic in the eye

If we are one
And one are we
Shed light in this space
Mountain / that is mine

Seeing is knowing
Stay true to thine
                     For you are mind
Technicolor wisdom now

Awake

No longer dead or blind /
Listen, no word need spat
This is the beginning of all that

We are infinite

Music
I hear You at last...

No enemy minds
Listen.

In the middle of it all, linoleum and cleaners
I find the shelves of candles and pry off their lids
Just to find out what scents they hid.
No noise, no racket, and nothing meaner.

The balsam fir in craters of wax
A chirstmas tree hunt and sugarsnackes
Recollect times to play and relax
Late December days and skies overcast
The carrides back smelled of this.

Of the wild rose, all pink and flush
Our faces betrayed us after stealing a kiss
And stealing away hidden with a wild blush
When asked just where we were.

I’d say the black bamboo
Where the growing pains began
I remembered what I never wanted to know
Smelling her sweat on my hands.

After every cupcake and fall harvest
We felt torn in two
Amidst the parents and summer’s zest
Everything I wanted couldn’t possibly be true,

The strawberries, the honeybees
Clean linen on a quick, tense rainstorm
I fell to my knees,
Afraid that my passions would
Take on another form.

Far too wild and winterborn,
You have your sleights in sympathy
And obtain what may decorate your court
I amuse you with love: an elegy.

But, the heart is no traitor, not to any court
And says I’m no citizen of your lovely heart
I’m a smiling nomad that goes in due time
And, love, we can trade castles
Since you’re no citizen of mine.

Again, the scents linger with no flame to their wick
Closed were their lids to choke out the burn
Cool were the insides, like ash in an urn
A single spark dazzles but goes out too quick
Each smell left unfamiliar may not have you
It’s not you and me, but me and you and you and you.

Michael Wigglesworth (1631–1705)

STILL was the night, serene and bright,
  When all men sleeping lay;
Calm was the season, and carnal reason
  Thought so ’t would last for aye.
Soul, take thine ease, let sorrow cease,         5
  Much good thou hast in store:
This was their song, their cups among,
  The evening before.

Wallowing in all kind of sin,
  Vile wretches lay secure:         10
The best of men had scarcely then
  Their lamps kept in good ure.
Virgins unwise, who through disguise
  Amongst the best were number’d,
Had clos’d their eyes; yea, and the wise         15
  Through sloth and frailty slumber’d.

Like as of gold, when men grow bold
  God’s threat’nings to contemn,
Who stop their ear, and would not hear;
  When mercy warned them:         20
But took their course, without remorse,
  Till God began to pour
Destruction the world upon
  In a tempestuous shower.

They put away the evil day,         25
  And drown’d their care and fears,
Till drown’d were they, and swept away
  By vengeance unawares:
So at the last, whilst men sleep fast
  In their security,         30
Surpris’d they are in such a snare
  As cometh suddenly.

For at midnight break forth a light,
  Which turn’d the night to day,
And speedily an hideous cry         35
  Did all the world dismay.
Sinners awake, their hearts do ache,
  Trembling their ***** surpriseth;
Amaz’d with fear, by what they hear,
  Each one of them ariseth.         40

They rush from beds with giddy heads,
  And to their windows run,
Viewing this light, which shines more bright
  Than doth the noonday sun.
Straightway appears (they see ’t with tears,)         45
  The Son of God most dread;
Who with his train comes on amain
  To judge both quick and dead.

Before his face the heavens gave place,
  And skies are rent asunder,         50
With mighty voice, and hideous noise,
  More terrible than thunder.
His brightness damps heaven’s glorious lamps,
  And makes them hide their heads,
As if afraid and quite dismay’d,         55
  They quit their wonted steads.

Ye sons of men that durst contemn
  The threat’nings of God’s word,
How cheer you now? your hearts I trow,
  Are thrill’d as with a sword.         60
Now atheist blind, whose brutish mind
  A God could never see,
Dost thou perceive, dost now believe
  That Christ thy judge shalt be?

Stout courages, (whose hardiness         65
  Could death and hell outface,)
Are you as bold now you behold
  Your judge draw near apace?
They cry, “no, no: alas! and wo!
  Our courage is all gone:         70
Our hardiness (fool hardiness)
  Hath us undone, undone.”

No heart so bold, but now grows cold
  And almost dead with fear:
No eye so dry, but now can cry,         75
  And pour out many a tear.
Earth’s potentates and powerful states,
  Captains and men of might,
Are quite abash’d, their courage dash’d
  At this most dreadful sight.         80

Mean men lament, great men do rent
  Their robes, and tear their hair:
They do not spare their flesh to tear
  Through horrible despair.
All kindreds wail: all hearts do fail:         85
  Horror the world doth fill
With weeping eyes, and loud outcries,
  Yet knows not *******.

Some hide themselves in caves and delves
  In places under ground:         90
Some rashly leap into the deep,
  To ’scape by being drown’d:
Some to the rocks (O senseless blocks!)
  And woody mountains run,
That there they might this fearful sight,         95
  And dreaded presence shun.

In vain do they to mountains say,
  Fall on us and us hide
From judge’s ire, more hot than fire,
  For who may it abide?         100
No hiding place can from his face,
  Sinners at all conceal,
Whose flaming eye hid things doth spy,
  And darkest things reveal.

Then were brought in, and charg’d with sin.         105
  Another company,
Who by petition obtain’d permission,
  To make apology:
They argued, “We were misled,
  As is well known to thee,         110
By their example, that had more ample
  Abilities than we:

Such as profess’d they did detest
  And hate each wicked way:
Whose seeming grace whilst we did trace,         115
  Our souls were led astray.
When men of parts, learning and arts.
  Professing piety,
Did thus and thus, it seem’d to us
  We might take liberty.         120

The judge replies, “I gave you eyes,
  And light to see your way,
Which had you lov’d, and well improv’d,
  You had not gone astray.
My word was pure, the rule was sure,         125
  Why did you it forsake,
Or thereon trample, and men’s example,
  Your directory make?

This you well knew, that God is true,
  And that most men are liars,         130
In word professing holiness,
  In deed thereof deniers.
O simple fools! that having rules
  Your lives to regulate,
Would them refuse, and rather choose         135
  Vile men to imitate.”

“But Lord,” say they, “we went astray,
  And did more wickedly,
By means of those whom thou hast chose
  Salvation heirs to be.”         140
To whom the judge; “what you allege,
  Doth nothing help the case;
But makes appear how vile you were,
  And rendereth you more base.

You understood that what was good         145
  Was to be followed,
And that you ought that which was naught
  To have relinquished.
Contrary ways, it was your guise,
  Only to imitate         150
Good men’s defects, and their neglects
  That were regenerate.

But to express their holiness,
  Or imitate their grace,
You little car’d, nor once prepar’d         155
  Your hearts to seek my face.
They did repent, and truly rent
  Their hearts for all known sin:
You did offend, but not amend,
  To follow them therein.”         160

“We had thy word,” say some, “O Lord,
  But wiser men than we
Could never yet interpret it,
  But always disagree.
How could we fools be led by rules,         165
  So far beyond our ken,
Which to explain did so much pain,
  And puzzle wisest men.”

“Was all my word abstruse and hard?”
  The judge then answered:         170
“It did contain much truth so plain,
  You might have run and read.
But what was hard you never car’d
  To know nor studied.
And things that were most plain and clear         175
  You never practised.

The mystery of piety
  God unto babes reveals;
When to the wise he it denies,
  And from the world conceals.         180
If to fulfil God’s holy will
  Had seemed good to you
You would have sought light as you ought,
  And done the good you knew.”

Then at the bar arraigned are         185
  An impudenter sort,
Who to evade the guilt that’s laid
  Upon them thus retort;
“How could we cease thus to transgress?
  How could we hell avoid,         190
Whom God’s decree shut out from thee,
  And sign’d to be destroy’d?

Whom God ordains to endless pains,
  By law unalterable,
Repentance true, obedience new,         195
  To save such are unable:
Sorrow for sin, no good can win,
  To such as are rejected:
Nor can they grieve, nor yet believe,
  That never were elected.         200

Of man’s fall’n race who can true grace
  Or holiness obtain?
Who can convert or change his heart,
  If God withhold the same?
Had we applied ourselves and tried         205
  As much as who did most
God’s love to gain, our busy pain
  And labor had been lost.

Christ readily makes this reply;
  “I **** you not because         210
You are rejected or not elected,
  But you have broke my laws:
It is but vain your wits to strain
  The end and means to sever:
Men fondly seek to part or break         215
  What God hath link’d together.

Whom God will save such will he have
  The means of life to use:
Whom he ’ll pass by, shall choose to die,
  And ways of life refuse.         220
He that foresees, and foredecrees,
  In wisdom order’d has,
That man’s free will electing ill,
  Shall bring his will to pass.

High God’s decree, as it is free,         225
  So doth it none compel
Against their will to good or ill,
  It forceth none to hell.
They have their wish whose souls perish
  With torments in hell fire,         230
Who rather chose their souls to lose,
  Than leave a loose desire.

Then to the bar, all they drew near
  Who died in infancy,
And never had or good or bad         235
  Effected personally,
But from the womb unto the tomb
  Were straightway carried,
(Or at the last ere they transgress’d)
  Who thus began to plead:         240

“If for our own transgression,
  Or disobedience,
We here did stand at thy left hand,
  Just were the recompense:
But Adam’s guilt our souls hath spilt,         245
  His fault is charged on us;
And that alone hath overthrown,
  And utterly undone us.

Not we, but he ate of the tree,
  Whose fruit was interdicted:         250
Yet on us all of his sad fall,
  The punishment ’s inflicted.
How could we sin that had not been,
  Or how is his sin our
Without consent, which to prevent,         255
  We never had a power?

O great Creator, why was our nature
  Depraved and forlorn?
Why so defil’d, and made so vild
  Whilst we were yet unborn?         260
If it be just and needs we must
  Transgressors reckon’d be,
Thy mercy, Lord, to us afford,
  Which sinners hath set free.

Behold we see Adam set free,         265
  And sav’d from his trespass,
Whose sinful fall hath split us all,
  And brought us to this pass.
Canst thou deny us once to try,
  Or grace to us to tender,         270
When he finds grace before thy face,
  That was the chief offender?”

Then answered the judge most dread,
  “God doth such doom forbid,
That men should die eternally         275
  For what they never did.
But what you call old Adam’s fall,
  And only his trespass,
You call amiss to call it his,
  Both his and yours it was.         280

He was design’d of all mankind
  To be a public head,
A common root, whence all should shoot,
  And stood in all their stead.
He stood and fell, did ill or well,         285
  Not for himself alone,
But for you all, who now his fall
  And trespass would disown.

If he had stood, then all his brood
  Had been established         290
In God’s true love never to move,
  Nor once awry to tread:
Then all his race, my Father’s grace,
  Should have enjoy’d for ever,
And wicked sprites by subtle sleights         295
  Could then have harmed never.

Would you have griev’d to have receiv’d
  Through Adam so much good,
And had been your for evermore,
  If he at first had stood?         300
Would you have said, ‘we ne’er obey’d,
  Nor did thy laws regard;
It ill befits with benefits,
  Us, Lord, so to reward.’

Since then to share in his welfare,         305
  You could have been content,
You may with reason share in his treason,
  And in the punishment.
Hence you were born in state forlorn,
  With nature so deprav’d:         310
Death was your due, because that you
  Had thus yourselves behav’d.

You think, ‘if we had been as he,
  Whom God did so betrust,
We to our cost would ne’er have lost         315
  All for a paltry lust.’
Had you been made in Adam’s stead,
  You would like things have wrought,
And so into the selfsame wo,
  Yourselves and yours have brought.         320

I may deny you once to try,
  Or grace to you to tender,
Though he finds grace before my face,
  Who was the chief offender:
Else should my grace cease to be grace;         325
  For it should not be free,
If to release whom I should please,
  I have no liberty.

If upon one what’s due to none
  I frankly shall bestow,         330
And on the rest shall not think best,
  Compassion’s skirts to throw,
Whom injure I? will you envy,
  And grudge at others’ weal?
Or me accuse, who do refuse         335
  Yourselves to help and heal.

Am I alone for what’s my own,
  No master or no Lord?
O if I am, how can you claim
  What I to some afford?         340
Will you demand grace at my hand,
  And challenge what is mine?
Will you teach me whom to set free,
  And thus my grace confine?

You sinners are, and such a share         345
  As sinners may expect,
Such you shall have; for I do save
  None but my own elect.
Yet to compare your sin with their
  Who liv’d a longer time,         350
I do confess yours is much less,
  Though every sin’s a crime.

A crime it is, therefore in bliss
  You may not hope to dwell
But unto you I shall allow         355
  The easiest room in hell.”
The glorious king thus answering,
  They cease, and plead no longer:
Their consciences must needs confess
  His reasons are the stronger.         360

Thus all men’s pleas the judge with ease
  Doth answer and confute.
Until that all, both great and small,
  Are silenced and mute.
Vain hopes are crop’d, all mouths are stop’d,         365
  Sinners have nought to say,
But that ’tis just, and equal most
  They should be ****’d for aye.

Now what remains, but that to pains
  And everlasting smart,         370
Christ should condemn the sons of men,
  Which is their just desert;
Oh rueful plights of sinful wights!
  Oh wretches all forlorn:
’T had happy been they ne’er had seen         375
  The sun, or not been born.

The saints behold with courage bold,
  And thankful wonderment,
To see all those that were their foes
  Thus sent to punishment:         380
Then do they sing unto their king
  A song of endless praise:
They praise his name and do proclaim
  That just are all his ways.

Thus with great joy and melody         385
  To heaven they all ascend,
Him there to praise with sweetest lays,
  And hymns that never end.
Where with long rest they shall be blest,
  And nought shall them annoy:         390
Where they shall see as seen they be,
  And whom they love enjoy.

Return to argumentative days
Of hating your own luminous reflections
For late at night is the time
You make love to the invisible
People leave you alone
And you write songs about nothingness
Empty handed prisms
Collapsing Human Shells
Represent the fallacies of generations
We are at the bottom of a well
We are disembodied teenagers
Whose anguish is never enough
We feel the suffering
Of those more unfortunate than us
We steal the suffering of anyone we meet
Robin hood has left the forest
And roams among the urban streets
I have no clue what i’d do without you
The floods of our father’s time
Have not yet fulfilled their purpose
For they can only serve to
Moisten our dusty old souls
Tangled thoughts and taste buds
Come and breach your questions
Upon these tender lips
I seek to find your meaning
In subtleties and twists
There are no tricks or sleights of hand
That can grasp you upon your hips
But if i’m ever quick enough darling
You won’t have a chance
And i’ll just stand here laughing
While you undress and take your bath

O Vincent
Great poesie through dotted skies
And o'er flooded eyes
Of softest loneliness

Take my desert tongue
And immerse it, from chamber to tip
Let it burst onto crazy lip
The loose chimes of loving

And if all patterns take me
To the whims of quiet sleights
I will not flail against that night
For any place is rightly dipped in beauty

Should I find myself forlorn
In the heights o'er skipping valleys
Or the depths of sodden alleys
I will accept it in your breath

I hear it's going to snow tonight,
& untamed words run through my skin,
but I don't think I'll write -

snow may smear to tussled white,
but we're such fools for indoor sins
that if it's going to snow tonight

we'll stay in, turn low the light
until the walls are dim and thin...
I don't think I'll write

or hew you little metered sleights
of hand, more smoke than djinn -
No, if it's going to snow tonight,

sun sluiced away in spite,
sky low and gray and blank as tin,
then I don't think I'll write:

these crawling words are feeling trite
& the bedsheets gather in a grin.  
It's going to snow tonight,
but I don't think I'll write.

a top hat in an empty freezer.

thumb size magnets of vintage Xmas

lights, shifting around like a ouija board.

one dimensional warp sleights of color,

motioning.

placing blind eyes to motion without

color, lit irrespectively by contrast--

or current.

battering ram frost, whose heavy

breathing leaves the freezer door open.

The words said behind closed doors
full of venom that's deplored
by those who stand outside
fully ignorant of the lies

the scope of truth is absent
from declarations stammered forth
for an audience of the few
just as eager to abuse

full of desires for vengeance
against false sleights never felt
imaginations are enough
even while the world is calm

still the patsies are arrayed
to the applause of the crowd
each with blood on their hands
or the need to have the same

curtains drawn against the world
a retreat to solitude
solidarity of falsehoods
embellished with certitude

so say the pundits from on high
cloaked with dogma most abhor
please look away lest the facts
confuse glamour’s jealous lie.

© 2019. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20190523.