See, Winter comes to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad, with all his rising train— Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme, These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms! Congenial horrors, hail! With frequent foot, Pleas’d have I, in my cheerful morn of life, When nurs’d by careless solitude I liv’d And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, Pleas’d have I wander’d through your rough domain; Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure; Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst; Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew’d In the grim evening-sky. Thus pass’d the time, Till through the lucid chambers of the south
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can’t stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don’t feel good don’t bother me. I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind. America when will you be angelic?
Thus every Creature, and of every Kind, The secret Joys of sweet Coition find: Not only Man’s Imperial Race; but they That wing the liquid Air, or swim the Sea, Or haunt the Desert, rush into the flame: For Love is Lord of all; and is in all the same. ’Tis with this rage, the Mother Lion stung, Scours o’re the Plain; regardless of her young:
Ugliest little boy that everyone ever saw. That is what everyone said.
Even to his mother it was apparent— when the blue-aproned nurse came into the northeast end of the maternity ward bearing his squeals and plump bottom looped up in a scant receiving blanket,
In one corner of the ward somebody was eating a raw chicken. The cheerful nurses did not see. With the tube down my throat I could not tell them. Nor did they notice the horror show on the TV set suspended over my windowless bed. The screen was dead
In a lightning bolt of memory, I see our statue of Buddha (a wedding gift from Uncle Gene) which always sat on top of the speaker cabinet. When a visitor asked, “So, does Buddha like jazz?” you said, “I hope so. He’s been getting it up the ass for a long time.”
There is something in the sound of drum and fife
That stirs all the savage instincts into life.
In the old times of peace we went our ways,
Through proper days
Of little joys and tasks. Lonely at times,
When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,
Telling to all the world some maid was wife—
But taking patiently our part in life
Oh! yet one smile, tho' dark may lower Around thee clouds of woe and ill, Let me yet feel that I have power, Mid Fate's bleak storms, to soothe thee still.
Tho' sadness be upon thy brow, Yet let it turn, dear love, to me, I cannot bear that thou should'st know Sorrow I do not share with thee.
Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant. Lean back, and get some minutes' peace; Let your head lean Back to the shoulder with its fleece Of locks, Faustine.
We aged a hundred years and this descended In just one hour, as at a stroke. The summer had been brief and now was ended; The body of the ploughed plains lay in smoke.
The hushed road burst in colors then, a soaring Lament rose, ringing silver like a bell. And so I covered up my face, imploring God to destroy me before battle fell.
And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures. —KORAN In Heaven a spirit doth dwell “Whose heart-strings are a lute”;
217 Ambition was my idol, which was broken Before the shrines of Sorrow and of Pleasure; And the two last have left me many a token O'er which reflection may be made at leisure: Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken, 'Time is, Time was, Time's past', a chymic treasure Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes— My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.
Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard unlocked, the wind roaring and whimpering in the rooms rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds that thwack like rubber bands in an open palm.
Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love. And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said: When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs; Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs, Et quand Octobre souffle, émondeur des vieux arbres, Son vent mélancolique àl'entour de leurs marbres, Certe, ils doivent trouver les vivants bien ingrats.
Les Fleurs du Mal. I Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
1 The white butterfly in the park is being read by many. I love that cabbage-moth as if it were a fluttering corner of truth itself!
At dawn the running crowds set our quiet planet in motion. Then the park fills with people. To each one, eight faces polished like jade, for all situations, to avoid making mistakes. To each one, there's also the invisible face reflecting "something you don't talk about." Something that appears in tired moments and is as rank as a gulp of viper schnapps with its long scaly aftertaste.
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