Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
  This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
  Sick of the city, wanting the sea;

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
  Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
  Of the big surf that breaks all day.

Always before about my dooryard,
  Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
  Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;

Always I climbed the wave at morning,
  Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
  Stricken with noise, confused with light.

If I could hear the green piles groaning
  Under the windy wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
  And the black sticks that fence the weirs,

If I could see the weedy mussels
  Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
  Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,

Feel once again the shanty straining
  Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
  Dread the bell in the fog outside,—

I should be happy,—that was happy
  All day long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to hold and handle
  Shells and anchors and ships again!

I should be happy, that am happy
  Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
  I have a need of water near.

They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people

On a movie-screen.  They
Are unreal, we say:

It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we

Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round

Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice

Under the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battle

They found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come, later,

Into our bad dreams, their menace
Not guns, not abuses,

But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea-ridded donkey skins,

Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they wore

The insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat.  But so thin,

So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims

In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could

Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it

Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared

The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate

Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline

Of the world comes clear and fills with color.
They persist in the sunlit room: the wallpaper

Frieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,

Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!

We own no wilderness rich and deep enough
For stronghold against their stiff

Battalions.  See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good browns

If the thin people simply stand in the forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp's nest

And grayer; not even moving their bones.

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses -  he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.

There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up —
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.

And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast;
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony — three parts thoroughbred at least —
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry — just the sort that won't say die —
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.

But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop  - lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you."
So he waited sad and wistful — only Clancy stood his friend —
"I think we ought to let him come," he said;
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred."

"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."

So he went; they found the horses by the big mimosa clump,
They raced away towards the mountain's brow,
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills."

So Clancy rode to wheel them — he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stockhorse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.

Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Were mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the other side."

When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull  -
It well might make the boldest hold their breath;
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.

He sent the flint-stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timbers in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat —
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.

He was right among the horses as they climbed the farther hill
And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely; he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges - but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.

And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.

And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the Overflow the reed -beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word today,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.

There's an ancient, ancient garden that I see sometimes in dreams,      
   Where the very Maytime sunlight plays and glows with spectral gleams;  
   Where the gaudy-tinted blossoms seem to wither into grey,              
   And the crumbling walls and pillars waken thoughts of yesterday.        
   There are vines in nooks and crannies, and there's moss about the pool,
   And the tangled weedy thicket chokes the arbour dark and cool:          
   In the silent sunken pathways springs a herbage sparse and spare,      
   Where the musty scent of dead things dulls the fragrance of the air.    
   There is not a living creature in the lonely space arouna,              
   And the hedge~encompass'd d quiet never echoes to a sound.              
   As I walk, and wait, and listen, I will often seek to find              
   When it was I knew that garden in an age long left behind;              
   I will oft conjure a vision of a day that is no more,                  
   As I gaze upon the grey, grey scenes I feel I knew before.              
   Then a sadness settles o'er me, and a tremor seems to start -          
   For I know the flow'rs are shrivell'd hopes - the garden is my heart.

Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock

That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road----

Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.

To W. R. B.

And so, to you, who always were
Perseus, D'Artagnan, Lancelot
To me, I give these weedy rhymes
In memory of earlier times.
Now all those careless days are not.
Of all my heroes, you endure.

Words are such silly things! too rough,
Too smooth, they boil up or congeal,
And neither of us likes emotion --
But I can't measure my devotion!
And you know how I really feel --
And we're together. There, enough . . .

Goldbrown upon the sated flood
The rockvine clusters lift and sway;
Vast wings above the lambent waters brood
Of sullen day.

A waste of waters ruthlessly
Sways and uplifts its weedy mane
Where brooding day stares down upon the sea
In dull disdain.

Uplift and sway, O golden vine,
Your clustered fruits to love's full flood,
Lambent and vast and ruthless as is thine
Incertitude!

Into a place far away but too familiar,
I push open the rusty purple gates,
Inhale a lungful of the province air,
Kick away blue pebbles on the dusty ground,
And then
Mano my lolo, my tito
Beso my lola, my tita
And give my cousins a nudge on the arm,
A pinch on the cheeks.

I squeeze between four people
In a rickety wooden bench and
Pass around plate after heavy plate.
I fill my banana leaf
With spaghetti too soft too sweet,
Almost like pudding,
With crispy chicken dripping with oil.
I wash it off with a cool glass of gulaman,
Chewy beads and gems in sugary water.

Fathers talk about basketball, boxing, billiards;
Mothers browse through photo albums and magazines;
While we children argue about Superman or Batman.
Our laughter fills the humid air
And goes up, up, up to the ears of the neighbors.

In celebration of the time we have together
And a nice sunny day
We devour our meals
And go ahead and
Climb trees and
Get our faces sticky with sweet fruits,
Lick chocolate ice popsicles,
Chase each other in the weedy playground,
Bike around town,
Pick colorful flowers,
Wrestle with each other,
Play badminton on a windy day,
Scare around chickens and guinea pigs,
And play patintero under the dull orange street lamps.

We nervously creep inside the back door,
All sweaty, bearing bruises and scratches
But still with wide smiles on our faces.
All is futile though.
An angry grandmother awaits,
Scolding us for
Coming home past sunset.

More and more stars glitter the sky
As the night gets deeper and deeper.
The gentle evening breeze whistles a note
As it enters through the window.
The karaoke blasts grating voices
Interrupted by hearty laughter.
Playing cards and corn chips litter the table.
We children exchange jokes and ghost stories.

And then,
We bid our goodbyes,
Sharing hugs and kisses
Stained with discontent and sadness.
Our hearts about to burst
In excitement for the next
Reunion.

A tomboy, naturally barefoot, gingerly walks the white painted line because the asphalt is just too burning hot.  Scrubby tufts of weedy grass are welcome respites on the way, briefly cooling her steps even if they are stickery.  The ***** soles of her now calloused feet were intentionally toughened just before school got out, with mincing steps across the roughest gravel she could find.  Her mother accommodates her preference, leaving a pan of water outside for her to scrub her feet before going in.  Even then, a black path has gradually appeared leading from the front door in the old orangish carpet.  Two months of summer barefoot every day when she had the choice. Keyed roller skates clamped onto last year’s school shoes were the exception.  She can flat out run anywhere.
  
This particular expedition began like every other thing they did, which was anything to fend off boredom.  She had been sitting on a cement step shaded by an open carport, just three oil-stained parking stalls for three small apartments on the tired poor side of town.  There is a little more dirt on the street here, and grass is a little neglected.  Just like the children, but these kids prefer that anyway.  Two scruffy friends stomp on aluminum cans, brothers sporting matching buzz cuts and cut-off shorts.  They are flattening them for the recycling money by the pound, so the carport smells vaguely of stale beer.  Another boy attempts to shoot a wandering fly with a home-made rubber band gun; rings cut from a bicycle tube made the best ammo.  “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  Thwack…  The only requisite for friendship here is vicinity, yet it is still true.  The idea of choosing friends is about as odd as the concept that one could chose where one lives... Strengths and shortcomings are completely accepted because it is just what it is.  

Their amazing three-story tree fort with a side look-out had been heartlessly taken down by the disgruntled property owner last week.  Two months of accumulating pilfered and scrap two-by-fours, nails, and even a stack of plywood (gasp!) from area construction sites had yielded supplies for a growing fort.  A gang-plank style entry had crossed the ditch to the first level.  Nailed ladder steps to the second offered a little more vertigo and a prime spot to hurl acorns.  Another ladder up led up to the third floor retreat, with a couch-like seating area and shoulder high walls.  A breeze reached the leaves up there.   The next tree over was the look-out, with nothing but ladder steps all the way up to where the view opened up out of the ravine.  When the wind blew, it gave merciless lessons in facing any fear of heights.  But now that was all over, discovered gone overnight.

Someone says again, “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  “ 7-11? ”  Good enough, so they head out.   Distance measures time.  Ten minutes is the end of the street past the cracked basketball court in the church parking lot.  Fifteen minutes and the lawns end at the edge of the sub-division.  Half-built homes rising from bare dirt and scattered foundations could offer treasures of construction scraps, (where she suspects the stack of plywood came from.) but they keep walking.  Twenty minutes is where industry has scraped away nature, and railroad tracks form an elevated levee.  But time is meaningless if there’s a wealth of it, so there’s no going further until an informal ritual is completed.  Wordlessly they each dig around their pockets searching for equal amounts of pennies.  Each of them carefully arrange them lined up on the rounded-surface rail, and they settle in for the wait.  It could be five minutes or it could be thirty.  They all understand it’s a crap-shoot of patience waiting for the next train. It’s an unspoken test; quitting too early means losing your coins to the one who stays, so that’s not an option.

Heat presses down and the breezeless air smells like telephone-pole creosote.  She sits in a dusty patch of shade found next to an overgrown ****.  She knows it tastes like licorice and breaks off a stem to chew, but doesn’t know what it is.  The boys throw rocks randomly until she finally stands up to join in, tempted by the challenge of flight and distance.  Then she stands in the center of the tracks, looking one way then the other, searching for the first random distant glimmer of the engine’s light at the horizon.   A flash, so she places her ear to the metal Indian-style, and the imminent approach is confirmed.  She calls out, “its here!” and double checks her pennies’ alignment.  Heads up or tails, but always aligned so the building might be stretched tall or wide, or Lincoln’s face made broad or thin.  That happened only rarely, since it could only be rolled by one wheel then bounced off.  If it stuck longer, the next wheels would surely smash it into a thin, elliptical, smooth misshapen disc of shiny copper.  Its only value becomes validation of a hint of delinquency, Destroying-Government-Property.  Once she splurged with a quarter, which became smashed to just a gleaming silver, bent wafer discolored at the edge.  Curiosity wasn’t worth 25 cents again though, so she had only one of those in her collection.

The approaching engine silently builds impending size and power, so she dashes back down the rocky embankment to safety because after all, she is not a fool, tempting fate with stupid danger. She knows a couple of those fools, but she finds no thrill from that and is not impressed by them either.  Suddenly the train is here, generating astounding noise and wind, occasional wheels screaming protest on their axels.  She intently watches exactly where she placed her coins, hoping to see the moment they fly off the rails that are rhythmically bending under the weight rolling by.  It becomes another game of patience, with such a long line of cars, and she gives up counting them at 80-ish.  Then suddenly it is done and quickly the noise recedes back to heat and cicadas.  The rails are hot.  Diligently they search for the shiny wafers.  Slowly pacing each wood beam, they could have landed in the gravel, or pressed against the rail, or even lodged straight up against the square black wood yards down the tracks.  They find most of them, give up on the rest, then continue on.

She has thirty cents and at last they reach the afternoon’s destination.  7-11’s parking lot becomes a genuine game of “Lava”, burning blacktop encourages leaps from cooler white lines, to painted tire stops, to grass island oasis, then three hot steps across black lava to the sidewalk, and automatic doors swoosh open to air conditioning.  She rarely has enough money for a coke icey; she is here for the bottom shelf candy, a couple pennies or a nickel each.  Off flavors but sweet enough.  She remembered when her older brother was passing out lunchbags of candy to the neighborhood kids for free, practically littering the cul-de-sac.  She had wondered where he got enough money for all that popularity, or could he have saved that much from trick-or-treat? She wondered until he got busted shoplifting at the grocery store.  The security guard decreed that he was never allowed in there again, forever, and the disgrace of sitting on the curb waiting for the mortified ride home was enough to keep him from doing it again.

Today she picks out a few root beer barrels, some Tootsie-rolls (the smaller ones for two cents, not the large ones that divide into cubes) a candy necklace and tiny wax coke bottles, and of course a freeze-pop.   Sitting on the curb, she bites off small pieces of the freeze pop, careful not to get tooth-freeze or brain-freeze, until the last melty chunk is squeezed out the top of the thin plastic tube.

“What do you want to do now?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

Cockcrow harbour:
the gulls whining like tethered dogs
about rooftops
paliophobic cars and
grounded vessels..
Look:
on the hoary horizon
a glaucous strip
beguils
with backwater.
Not putting on a show
the frigid sea benumbed..
Easily,
with a tail of emerald jelly
skim a vanishing lane off that
lustrous sheet
and watch
the trailblazing mainland
scuttle.

Now,
Only scattered dreaming is possible.

In it's bachelor pad,
cradling over crinkles,
away from the meretriciosness
of validating the real by sharing it,
THE WIND
blusters off any veneer.
Here,
stale but spry,
fare your way around the inoffensive isle
to it's most shyest of harbours:
a mouth full of silver
saving it's breath.
The windows facing the sea
seem
black & white,
their wooden frames hooked to the wind,
the splattered gulls meow
your name
in a way
that's
personal.
Of course comes to mind.
The pines
are demanding a visit,
They're whispering
so you can hear them,
each as different as every snore,
these pines know
how to grow in the sand
and still reach for
the Nimbostratus with heads in unison.
The spaces
between their trunks illuminating
the blazing needles
raining down
painting the ground
familiar
to your lover's
skin texture:
Feel her closeness
from jilted borderwatchtowers
as she speads her mire
like no one's watching:
weedy and sugared
with bellflowers,
the waves in her shallow armpit
billeting a pair of white swans:
demurely they float
sometimes as pillows and sometimes
as question marks..
Go ask the seasoned locals,
they say the bones she parked
when she let her ice sheet melt
are portals
to her noble underbelly.

Hidden in the woods
reminiscent of your heart,
the red
tank-sized stone
is sealed,
but what the lighting reach cannot
the rain shall sluice apart
dumbly.
And though her hair has
come to be
the moss
black and hoarse
as sailor's beard,
there is still time.
The void says
her noisy neighbour is nothing
to die for.
The theadbear car with absent doors
incites
to drive her
in reverse gear
to the first few
days of holidays:
her golden locks a-blaze,
her arm around your
hind-sighted doppelganger.

I shall never get you put together entirely,
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.
Mule-bray, pig-grunt and ***** cackles
Proceed from your great lips.
It's worse than a barnyard.

Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.

Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of Lysol
I crawl like an ant in mourning
Over the weedy acres of your brow
To mend the immense skull-plates and clear
The bald, white tumuli of your eyes.

A blue sky out of the Oresteia
Arches above us. O father, all by yourself
You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum.
I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.
Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered

In their old anarchy to the horizon-line.
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
Nights, I squat in the cornucopia
Of your left ear, out of the wind,

Counting the red stars and those of plum-color.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing.

A lowly hill which overlooks a flat,
  Half sea, half country side;
  A flat-shored sea of low-voiced creeping tide
Over a chalky, weedy mat.

A hill of hillocks, flowery and kept green
  Round Crosses raised for hope,
  With many-tinted sunsets where the *****
Faces the lingering western sheen.

A lowly hope, a height that is but low,
  While Time sets solemnly,
  While the tide rises of Eternity,
Silent and neither swift nor slow.

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat *****;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and *****-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

--To C. M.


Fountains that frisk and sprinkle
The moss they overspill;
Pools that the breezes crinkle;
The wheel beside the mill,
With its wet, weedy frill;
Wind-shadows in the wheat;
A water-cart in the street;
The fringe of foam that girds
An islet's ferneries;
A green sky's minor thirds--
To live, I think of these!

Of ice and glass the ******,
Pellucid, silver-shrill;
Peaches without a wrinkle;
Cherries and snow at will,
From china bowls that fill
The senses with a sweet
Incuriousness of heat;
A melon's dripping sherds;
Cream-clotted strawberries;
Dusk dairies set with curds--
To live, I think of these!

Vale-lily and periwinkle;
Wet stone-crop on the sill;
The look of leaves a-twinkle
With windlets clear and still;
The feel of a forest rill
That wimples fresh and fleet
About one's naked feet;
The muzzles of drinking herds;
Lush flags and bulrushes;
The chirp of rain-bound birds--
To live, I think of these!

Envoy

Dark aisles, new packs of cards,
Mermaidens' tails, cool swards,
Dawn dews and starlit seas,
White marbles, whiter words--
To live, I think of these!

I

I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,
Where the car stalls,
Churning in a snowdrift
Until the headlights darken.

II

At the field's end, in the corner missed by the mower,
Where the turf drops off into a grass-hidden culvert,
Haunt of the cat-bird, nesting-place of the field-mouse,
Not too far away from the ever-changing flower-dump,
Among the tin cans, tires, rusted pipes, broken machinery, --
One learned of the eternal;
And in the shrunken face of a dead rat, eaten by rain and ground-beetles
(I found in lying among the rubble of an old coal bin)
And the tom-cat, caught near the pheasant-run,
Its entrails strewn over the half-grown flowers,
Blasted to death by the night watchman.

I suffered for young birds, for young rabbits caught in the mower,
My grief was not excessive.
For to come upon warblers in early May
Was to forget time and death:
How they filled the oriole's elm, a twittering restless cloud, all one morning,
And I watched and watched till my eyes blurred from the bird shapes, --
Cape May, Blackburnian, Cerulean, --
Moving, elusive as fish, fearless,
Hanging, bunched like young fruit, bending the end branches,
Still for a moment,
Then pitching away in half-flight,
Lighter than finches,
While the wrens bickered and sang in the half-green hedgerows,
And the flicker drummed from his dead tree in the chicken-yard.

-- Or to lie naked in sand,
In the silted shallows of a slow river,
******* a shell,
Thinking:
Once I was something like this, mindless,
Or perhaps with another mind, less peculiar;
Or to sink down to the hips in a mossy quagmire;
Or, with skinny knees, to sit astride a wet log,
Believing:
I'll return again,
As a snake or a raucous bird,
Or, with luck, as a lion.

I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.

III

The river turns on itself,
The tree retreats into its own shadow.
I feel a weightless change, a moving forward
As of water quickening before a narrowing channel
When banks converge, and the wide river whitens;
Or when two rivers combine, the blue glacial torrent
And the yellowish-green from the mountainy upland, --
At first a swift rippling between rocks,
Then a long running over flat stones
Before descending to the alluvial plane,
To the clay banks, and the wild grapes hanging from the elmtrees.
The slightly trembling water
Dropping a fine yellow silt where the sun stays;
And the ***** bask near the edge,
The weedy edge, alive with small snakes and bloodsuckers, --
I have come to a still, but not a deep center,
A point outside the glittering current;
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
My mind moves in more than one place,
In a country half-land, half-water.

I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What I love is near at hand,
Always, in earth and air.

IV

The lost self changes,
Turning toward the sea,
A sea-shape turning around, --
An old man with his feet before the fire,
In robes of green, in garments of adieu.
A man faced with his own immensity
Wakes all the waves, all their loose wandering fire.
The murmur of the absolute, the why
Of being born falls on his naked ears.
His spirit moves like monumental wind
That gentles on a sunny blue plateau.
He is the end of things, the final man.

All finite things reveal infinitude:
The mountain with its singular bright shade
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
Odor of basswood on a mountain-*****,
A scent beloved of bees;
Silence of water above a sunken tree :
The pure serene of memory in one man, --
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding around the waters of the world.

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just "on spec", addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow".

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, ***** city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless ***** of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal —
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".

Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.
A time of drought had ****** the weedy pool
And baked the channels; birds had done with song.
Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,
Or willow-music blown across the water
Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.

Uneasy was the man who wandered, brooding,
His face a little whiter than the dusk.
A drone of sultry wings flicker'd in his head.
The end of sunset burning thro' the boughs
Died in a smear of red; exhausted hours
Cumber'd, and ugly sorrows hemmed him in.

He thought: 'Somewhere there's thunder,' as he strove
To shake off dread; he dared not look behind him,
But stood, the sweat of horror on his face.
He blunder'd down a path, trampling on thistles,
In sudden race to leave the ghostly trees.
And: 'Soon I'll be in open fields,' he thought,
And half remembered starlight on the meadows,
Scent of mown grass and voices of tired men,
Fading along the field-paths; home and sleep
And cool-swept upland spaces, whispering leaves,
And far off the long churring night-jar's note.

But something in the wood, trying to daunt him,
Led him confused in circles through the thicket.
He was forgetting his old wretched folly,
And freedom was his need; his throat was choking.
Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs,
And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps.
Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!'
Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom,
Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns,
He peers around with peering, frantic eyes.
An evil creature in the twilight looping,
Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off,
He screeched in terror, and straightway something clambered
Heavily from an oak, and dropped, bent double,
To shamble at him zigzag, squat and *******.
Headlong he charges down the wood, and falls
With roaring brain--agony--the snap't spark--
And blots of green and purple in his eyes.
Then the slow fingers groping on his neck,
And at his heart the strangling clasp of death.

What could be worse
Than a garden
Full of gnomes and trolls?
Is it:
Lawn jockeys and yardells;
Chuck adjusting his carb every Sunday afternoon;
Bathtub ****** Marys beseaching us to love;
Metal flowers on outside garage walls;
Fish ponds with gills in the filter;
Red gravel flowerbeds with little white fences;
Cosmetic door knockers;
Swimming pools without diving boards;
Mirrors on fences;
Burning ******* in fire pits;
Backyard landfills;
Icicle lights;
Weedy neighbours and an east wind;
The screech of tires;
The thump of metal;
The sound of screaming;
The absence?

Yeah. Plenty could be worse.

This is a tale featuring the great superhero, SNOGGO

  That ******* dangerous horrific and scary beast would not terrify me.  Who was I?  Some little stupid ******* weedy spastic?  No, I was the great fearless SNOGGO!  Yes! Yes! Yes! I was the magnificent SNOGGO who had faced (without flinching much) so many humunguously terrifying events! So I picked up the mighty hammer and struck out fearlessly: *'Wham! Thump! Crash! Boom!' I gave the terrfying monster a ******* great bashing.

  I was enraged yet not terrified more than was absolutely necessary. Did you erroneously imagine I was just some little weedy wimp afraid of attacking a terrible adversary without a platoon of Hummers (whatever they may ******* be) full of mercenaries recruited from the slum trailer parks of Hades?  'Take that you stupid evil cunty ideologue!' I yelled, 'Take that! And that! ******* take that!'

  My God, I bashed that vile and 100% hideous creature ******* senseless. I was so ******* brave, just as brave as the worthless ***** who will soon be called heroic US veterans killing innocent Arabs left, right and centre throughout the entire ******* Middle East to please their Zionist taskmasters, God ****** them. I was incandescent.  I was SUPER-******* SNOGGO! I would triumph over adversity in the name of ******* freedom's ******* bell! Ding-****!

  As so it came to pass that, finally after a tremendous struggle in which I nearly lost a fingernail, the immature pink dwarf hamster lay lifeless before me, squashed into a puddle reminiscent of a flattened dead hairy ripe tomato. 'Bring it on, you ****** *****,' I bravely thought as I ****** my comrade's flaccid **** eagerly as we cowered manfully in a burnt-out mosque, preparing ourselves bravely for a spot of rendition among the local orphans.

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 12, 2014)


Can poetry survive? Can we survive as poets?
There are more poets than tigers or black rhinos.
There are more readers of verse than Leatherback Turtles
or all of the Yangtze Finless Porpoise.

Grand Theft Auto, Strive-and-Thrive books,
Brave-New-World movie rentals—
they may have taken over living room pleasures.
But now with our tweets and submittables,

our bad poems travel fast.
The wires and workshops are still full of weedy thinkers
and word-tinkers. Maybe the distribution will change
and who makes the money, like the printing press

set the monks to the curb. The medium was always unstable.
As soon as an invention is born, it begins to die.
Don’t put all your eggs in one anthology.
Speaking of which, we’re not as big as a chicken-

processing lobby, nor our players as emboldened
as enthusiasts visiting Comic-Con. But we’re full of deviance
and underground custom, perfectly respectable as a cult:
religious, novel, obsessively durable.

Unexpected rain falls softly
on the arid ground I walk
glistening in the shadows
of the twisted weedy stalk.
Clouds drifted like a shroud
somber, gray and creeping
like wandering ghosts in fog
silent -   wispy -   weeping.
The coolness of the morning
embraced my face with pleasure
it kissed my cheek and brow
like a momentary treasure.
How sweet the breath of life
in 45 minutes of walking
no traffic and no noise at all
nothing marred by talking.
Unexpected rain fell softly
tickled my nose round every bend
as I left the trail of cottonwood trees
and finished at its end.

On the wind of January
  Down flits the snow,
Travelling from the frozen North
  As cold as it can blow.
Poor robin redbreast,
  Look where he comes;
Let him in to feel your fire,
  And toss him of your crumbs.

On the wind in February
  Snow-flakes float still,
Half inclined to turn to rain,
  Nipping, dripping, chill.
Then the thaws swell the streams,
  And swollen rivers swell the sea:--
If the winter ever ends
  How pleasant it will be.

In the wind of windy March
  The catkins drop down,
Curly, caterpillar-like,
  Curious green and brown.
With concourse of nest-building birds
  And leaf-buds by the way,
We begin to think of flowers
  And life and nuts some day.

With the gusts of April
  Rich fruit-tree blossoms fall,
On the hedged-in orchard-green,
  From the southern wall.
Apple-trees and pear-trees
  Shed petals white or pink,
Plum-trees and peach-trees;
  While sharp showers sink and sink.

Little brings the May breeze
  Beside pure scent of flowers,
While all things wax and nothing wanes
  In lengthening daylight hours.
Across the hyacinth beds
  The wind lags warm and sweet,
Across the hawthorn tops,
  Across the blades of wheat.

In the wind of sunny June
  Thrives the red rose crop,
Every day fresh blossoms blow
  While the first leaves drop;
White rose and yellow rose
  And moss-rose choice to find,
And the cottage cabbage-rose
  Not one whit behind.

On the blast of scorched July
  Drives the pelting hail,
From thunderous lightning-clouds, that blot
  Blue heaven grown lurid-pale.
Weedy waves are tossed ashore,
  Sea-things strange to sight
Gasp upon the barren shore
  And fade away in light.

In the parching August wind,
  Cornfields bow the head,
Sheltered in round valley depths,
  On low hills outspread.
Early leaves drop loitering down
  Weightless on the breeze,
First-fruits of the year's decay
  From the withering trees.

In brisk wind of September
  The heavy-headed fruits
Shake upon their bending boughs
  And drop from the shoots;
Some glow golden in the sun,
  Some show green and streaked
Some set forth a purple bloom,
  Some blush rosy-cheeked.

In strong blast of October
  At the equinox,
Stirred up in his hollow bed
  Broad ocean rocks;
Plunge the ships on his *****,
  Leaps and plunges the foam,--
It's O for mothers' sons at sea,
  That they were safe at home!

In slack wind of November
  The fog forms and shifts;
All the world comes out again
  When the fog lifts.
Loosened from their sapless twigs
  Leaves drop with every gust;
Drifting, rustling, out of sight
  In the damp or dust.

Last of all, December,
  The year's sands nearly run,
Speeds on the shortest day,
  Curtails the sun;
With its bleak raw wind
  Lays the last leaves low,
Brings back the nightly frosts,
  Brings back the snow.

Farewell to the bushy clump close to the river
And the flags where the butter-bump hides in forever;
Farewell to the weedy nook, hemmed in by waters;
Farewell to the miller’s brook and his three bonny daughters;
Farewell to them all while in prison I lie—
In the prison a thrall sees naught but the sky.

Shut out are the green fields and birds in the bushes;
In the prison yard nothing builds, blackbirds or thrushes.
Farewell to the old mill and dash of waters,
To the miller and, dearer still, to his three bonny daughters.

In the nook, the larger burdock grows near the green willow;
In the flood, round the moor-**** dashes under the billow;
To the old mill farewell, to the lock, pens, and waters,
To the miller himsel’, and his three bonny daughters.

We were green and chaotic,
then.
Everything was foolish and heartful and marvelous,
the anarchic knot of your shoelaces,
the weedy attempt to stifle your wild laugh.
I would learn you again
and again.
I smile and it is crooked and joyful,
and you will never be able to unknow it.
Today we are older
and every bit as reckless.
Eld could drink our blood and grow young again.
We keep saying yes.
There are some things
we say only in the dark.
And it’s not about nervousness,
good god,
its for the thrill of it.
It seems impossible to exist in only this space.
I don’t know who I am when I am not looking at you.
I don’t know how to be that person again.
I will always love a wild thing.

I know what I'm capable of.

Gone is the long, long winter night;
  Look, my beloved one!
How glorious, through his depths of light,
  Rolls the majestic sun!
The willows, waked from winter's death,
Give out a fragrance like thy breath--
  The summer is begun!

Ay, 'tis the long bright summer day:
  Hark, to that mighty crash!
The loosened ice-ridge breaks away--
  The smitten waters flash.
Seaward the glittering mountain rides,
While, down its green translucent sides,
  The foamy torrents dash.

See, love, my boat is moored for thee,
  By ocean's weedy floor--
The petrel does not skim the sea
  More swiftly than my oar.
We'll go, where, on the rocky isles,
Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles
  Beside the pebbly shore.

Or, bide thou where the poppy blows,
  With wind-flowers frail and fair,
While I, upon his isle of snows,
  Seek and defy the bear.
Fierce though he be, and huge of frame,
This arm his savage strength shall tame,
  And drag him from his lair.

When crimson sky and flamy cloud
  Bespeak the summer o'er,
And the dead valleys wear a shroud
  Of snows that melt no more,
I'll build of ice thy winter home,
With glistening walls and glassy dome,
  And spread with skins the floor.

The white fox by thy couch shall play;
  And, from the frozen skies,
The meteors of a mimic day
  Shall flash upon thine eyes.
And I--for such thy vow--meanwhile
Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile,
  Till that long midnight flies.

Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
    Thy solitary way?

    Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
    Thy figure floats along.

    Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
    On the chafed ocean-side?

    There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--
The desert and illimitable air--
    Lone wandering, but not lost.

    All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
    Though the dark night is near.

    And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
    Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

    Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
    And shall not soon depart.

    He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
    Will lead my steps aright.

Restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows.
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
What did I know about drowning or being drowned?
Sorrow is my own yard,
And in short, I was afraid.
My life will shut very beautifully, suddenly
When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt and the heroine has studied her face and it’s defects
Who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks,
Who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessively,
Who jumped off the Brooklyn bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten.

I used to pray to recover you
Who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard, wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts
Who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation.

Your most frail gesture are things which enclose me.

At twenty I tried to die.
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
Watching the others go about their days, likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming.
How do they do it, the ones who make love without love

Such games they’d play
and it all mattered

not a fig
the bedroom romps

the bed making
just so to survive

the latest fashion
in the art

of making love
and she saying

let’s try this
and him saying

if you like
and the handcuffs

and the little
weedy whip

and the nakedness
and oh

she’d say
let’s pretend that I’m

the naughty one
and you’re

the master
and he kept

a straight face
as best he could

and not let her see
he saw through

the ****** games
and that time

she’d had him
tied to the bed

and they heard
her parents’ car

in the drive
and how she fumbled

to untie the twine
and he wanting to die

and him naked
as the day he was born

and the key
in the lock downstairs

and her fingers fumbling
and he saying

covering with hairy hands
his manhood pride

where can I hide?
and she finally untying

took off the twine
and he leaping from bed

put on his clothes
and so did she

and she whispering warnings
and pulling on her dress

his tee shirt
hanging out

her hair in a mess
and her mother calling

are you up there Chloe?
and he thinking

of the weedy whip
and unmade bed

and love making mess
and Chloe shouting out

yes mother
yes yes yes.

I am still
in the cocoon of your
tall grass
and my fingernails stopped growing
after I chewed them off too many times
my dress keeps getting shorter
and sometimes the clouds peek at my *******

the wind has just picked up
I’m not sure if there’s a storm
because I am
face down

I heard lightning
but felt no thunder
the grass grew tall above me
taller than previous years
and though this might be a scary sight
I love those weedy willows

I once had a dream,
of perfection,
a world in which I wasn't belittled,
where I was the pinnacle of evolution,
I wanted to show people a world where anything is possible,
if you put the effort in you can get it back out,
I wanted people to remember my story,
how a nervous weedy boy,
became a monster,
But little did I know if you damage yourself to change,
It will bite you in the ***,
give me a C,
I'll give you an A,
give me a motive,
I'll find a way,
give me a wish to change,
I'll give you,
potential infertility,
other neglect,
and anguish.

What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend’s god-daughter?

And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?

You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave’s weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother’s web,

But there comes to birth no common spawn
From the love of a priest for a leprechaun,
And you never have seen and you never will see
Such things as the things that swaddled me!

After all’s said and after all’s done,
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?

In through the bushes, on any foggy day,
My Da would come a-swishing of the drops away,
With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,
A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.

And there sit my Ma, her knees beneath her chin,
A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in,
And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying
That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!

He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,
He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,
He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,
And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil!

Oh, the things I haven’t seen and the things I haven’t known,
What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,
And yanked both ways by my mother and my father,
With a “Which would you better?” and a “Which would you rather?”

With him for a sire and her for a dam,
What should I be but just what I am?

It's September; cold in the copses,
Feverish in the kitchen.
The sink clinks and exorcises
The china like an Italian sonata.
My lips merge into ether
At the sky, a periwinkle parallax
With the pork lard carbon monoxide
Clouds, at drive with suicide.  
My Buddha hisses at the window,
Ripping the tentacles off weedy carrots.

The knives are clever & precise
Hiding in their handled shoals
Like luminescent Jackanapes
Out for the thrill of the ****;
The **** of the stake of steak,
A 'Cow'ardly act.
I wrap the red & dead
Into a Beef Wellington.
It is not pretty at all;
But neither am I.

I'll drink tea to keep my peace,
Swallow my spirituality like a pain killer.
The teabag sags its straggled string,
Scolding me.
The pillbox is dead on the edge
Of the ornamented kitchen sill
A lot like me; sullen and teasing.
I wanted to roast my head like a potato
If the pudding *** over boiled,
A cauldron of sugar and cream
Fattening me ugly and crazy.


The weather is miserable; I mustn't lie,
It's enough to make any young woman want to die.
Stirring my thoughts with the dishes,
Trashing potato peels like my wishes.
And the stacks and stacks of ****-me pills
Surround like troops in their barricade cupboards.
I have no allies,
Everyone is asleep;
I curl up like a fat snail and weep
Blackening the words of the miracle-working Priest.

In my dream,
I was accosted by sugar ants
in the sandbox,
near the honeysuckle
and curled parsley
behind the house.  
I was trying to eat the little ants
but was called in
for cheese and baloney.  

When I came in,
hopping in worn-out slippers,
the glass door slid into the kitchen
with plasterboard walls
and beige ceramic tile.  
There was a black spider
perched on the ceiling
with bright yellow knees.

Those years ago
I drew with sidewalk chalk,
made myself mazes
on the sloping driveway
too steep for basketball.
Cicadas dragged in heat
on waves, droning.
One landed on me -  
a yell caught in my throat -
but I made myself look at it
and be still, shaking.

Back then I had an old cape
& a homemade bow-and-arrow.
I’d sally forth
into the backyard, barefoot,
jumping over prickly mulch,
brushing my shins
against clouds of low love-in-a-mist
with its threaded leaves
& shy blue-white flowers.

Sometimes my sister
was back there too, tanning,
or Mom carving
little men out of cherry,
but more often I was all alone
in that wilderness
in moccasins & living
off wood sorrel,
the brighter clover, lemony.

Or in rain
I listened to my brother
play piano if he was home,
maybe Bags and Trane,
and I’d dance between shadows,
the underworld of the patches
of carpet in the light.  

Later - a little older -
I recognized that home
is more a time than a place,
and understood I would miss it
years before it was gone

so around nine years old
I went through every foot
of that high-ceilinged house,
that weedy backyard,

and made a solemn farewell
to everything in advance
trying hard to be ready
long before the time came to leave.

Turns out the King of the Projects
couldn’t even tie his shoes.
Couldn’t draw or make love.
Hell could barely even read
and definitely didn’t know how to sing the blues.

Turns out the King got his crown
after two and half games of basketball
on the weedy court at sundown
the day before his tenth birthday.

Turns out the King was the roughest,
toughest, scabbiest fourth grader
in the whole **** grade, raised
from good Somalian stock and
willing to sucker punch kids
darker than he.

Turns out the 4 ft 5 King of the Projects
stood mighty tall over the
class pet ferret, ephemeral
creature of habit,
watched the
rodent with eyes peeled as if the two
shared the same beating
heart boombox.

As it turns out,
every day at noon we had music
but the drums were always
taken by the King who
pounded a steady beat to the
shake shake shake of
the music teacher's 'script
of benzos, eyes still glued
to the ferret, seeking a ritualized dance.

Turns out the class pet escaped last week.

Turns out the King stopped coming too.

Shame really. As the teacher, I felt I had
to have something to say to him.

Turns out I was just as scared as he.

Dost thou idly ask to hear
  At what gentle seasons
Nymphs relent, when lovers near
  Press the tenderest reasons?
Ah, they give their faith too oft
  To the careless wooer;
Maidens' hearts are always soft:
  Would that men's were truer!

Woo the fair one, when around
  Early birds are singing;
When, o'er all the fragrant ground.
  Early herbs are springing:
When the brookside, bank, and grove,
  All with blossoms laden,
Shine with beauty, breathe of love,--
  Woo the timid maiden.

Woo her when, with rosy blush,
  Summer eve is sinking;
When, on rills that softly gush,
  Stars are softly winking;
When, through boughs that knit the bower,
  Moonlight gleams are stealing;
Woo her, till the gentle hour
  Wake a gentler feeling.

Woo her, when autumnal dyes
  Tinge the woody mountain;
When the dropping foliage lies
  In the weedy fountain;
Let the scene, that tells how fast
  Youth is passing over,
Warn her, ere her bloom is past,
  To secure her lover.

Woo her, when the north winds call
  At the lattice nightly;
When, within the cheerful hall,
  Blaze the ****** brightly;
While the wintry tempest round
  Sweeps the landscape hoary,
Sweeter in her ear shall sound
  Love's delightful story.