

The Aim Is Song

———————

Listen—How It Ought to Go

Selected Poems

David Madison

Contents

The Aim Was Song by Robert Frost

Taking Aim

1. A Bridge Too Far

2. A Dressing: The Rooster

3. A New Year's Dream

4. Bennie Jew

5. Bloodless Coup

6. By Their Fruits

7. Canvas by Degas

8. Carbine Copies

9. Cottontop

10. Curiosity

11. Fences

12. High Class

13. If the Five Senses Fell in the Forest

14. In Every Weigh

15. Leopards in the Snow

16. Lester and the Lake

17. Mad Dogs of Sisar

18. Mayan Mystery

19. MH370

20. Might As Well Die

Vachel Lindsay

Hart Crane

Sara Teasdale

Virginia Woolf

Sylvia Plath

Anne Sexton

John Berryman

21. New Year's Day

22. No. 1

23. Off the Boat

24. Prima Donna with Child

25. Rabbit Stew

26. Secondhand

27. Selvin's Money Pit

28. Shallot

29. The Art of Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin

30. The Brotherhood

31. The Death of Goddern Noetry

32. The Deerfield Convention

33. The Greatest Story Ever Told

34. The Highway Is My Home

35. The Jackass

36. The Legend of the RAFFAB FAB FOOSBOP

37. The Literary Light Economist

38. the low bridge

39. The Villain Nell

Author

Copyright

The Aim Was Song

by Robert Frost

Before man came to blow it right

The wind once blew itself untaught,

And did its loudest day and night

In any rough place where it caught.

Man came to tell it what was wrong:

It hadn't found the place to blow;

It blew too hard—the aim was song.

And listen—how it ought to go!

He took a little in his mouth,

And held it long enough for north

To be converted into south,

And then by measure blew it forth.

By measure. It was word and note,

The wind the wind had meant to be—

A little through the lips and throat.

The aim was song—the wind could see.

Taking Aim

Before man heard the wind he thought

that he could sing, now soft, now strong,

now proud—more, being so self-taught—

of knowing all there was of song.

Then blew the wind, Man, what is wrong

is there are airs you just don't know.

There's more—oh, so much more to song.

Man, listen—how you ought to blow.

The wind blew sweet and sad and strong,

so like a love song, then let slip

a lover's sigh, The aim is song.

—Man, you are shooting from the hip.

Man saw, through tears, moved to rejoice.

So blowing, he could truly claim

to "singer," and he raised his voice

up to his shoulder, and took aim.

So moved, I have taken aim, in this volume, at thirty-nine disparate subjects, and endeavored to put them into song. But of course merely taking aim is no guarantee of bringing the quarry down. Many factors come into play, not least of which is hand shake; especially considering that no few were not the species of quarry that readily yield their lives up to being put into song, any more than pigs do to being put into sausage. Among these are:

the embalming of President Abraham Lincoln, and of the embalmer's increasingly frantic attempts with makeup to keep the Great Emancipator, his lips contorted into a slight smile, free of the ever mounting look of death throughout his agonizingly slow three-week funeral train home to Springfield, Illinois [photo of Lincoln lying in state];

the Death Zone discovery of the frozen body of British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory, one-third eaten by ravening goraks, 75 years after he was lost in 1924 along with climbing partner Andrew "Sandy" Irvine attempting to be the first to climb Mt. Everest [photo of Mallory as he was found];

the uniquely creative suicides of seven death-wish poets: Vachel Lindsay, Hart Crane, Sara Teasdale, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and John Berryman;

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth, along with 239 passengers and crew, somewhere in the deep, frigid forlornness of the southern Indian Ocean;

to name but four. Could I bring any one of them down, let alone thirty-nine? So it's not hard to see that I would be subject to hand shake, often uncontrollably. How could my hand not shake at such a daunting undertaking? And this is before even factoring in distance. Often, even peering through the high-powered scope, I was so far from my quarry, not only in space but in time (in the case of Lincoln, thousands of miles and fourteen score and fourteen years ago), that I despaired of coming within a country mile. Then, of course, I hardly knew where to begin making allowance for wind shear, not just of one wind, but an incalculable number—from all directions and of all strengths—over so much space and time. Finally, there was the bore of my fowling piece. To me they were all riveting narratives, and I couldn't see how any one of them had any bore at all; but there is no accounting for the interest and the attention span of readers. This alone was so calculated to put me off my aim that I couldn't see how my once trusty fowling piece would not be perceived, to derisive laughter, as my ever dependable fouling piece. And did I mention that these typical quarry were just four of thirty-nine? So you can see I was in a tight place.

So, lover of song, in the final analysis, if, in poring upon this unlikely songbook, it should be your kind opinion that, against all odds, I have successfully brought down a quarry or two, you might as metaphorically give my hand a shake—but the shortest one possible, mind you, for still I have in sight some trophy beasts that I have designs on bringing down, to be stuffed and mounted alike, and that it would be such a shame to miss. Chief among these are the killings of Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in graphic narrative verse; songs so sweet that everywhere they would be acclaimed poetry in emotion. So please keep the handshakes short.

1

A Bridge Too Far

2

A Dressing: The Rooster

O creature most obnoxious, foul,

a curse on He who gave you vowel,

to grate my nerves that I'm an owl

who cannot sleep.

"On he who keeps you [my avowal]

I'll vengeance heap!"

Most impudent, rebellious cock,

you think I need your zealous squawk

to rouse me like some hellish clock

and break my ease?

I daily dream to give a flock

mine enemies!

Around his dungyard, fie! you peck,

and, horny now, leap on her neck,

to sate your virile self most wreck

your careworn mate.

I would a mute—and sterile—chick

be just your fate!

Your comb you strut in fair fowl weather,

to think you've such a pretty feather

—go preen in Hell, in fiery tether

arch and yell!

and haunt His cockamamie heather,

there to dwell.

But mind your cheek clears not the fence,

that keeps me here, and keeps you hence.

You'll find a spare benevolence

to gobble here.

Your master, for your accidents,

shed woeful tear.

Fie! thirteen times now have you loosed;

one rhyme be beggar's bread to boost

your vanity atop the roost

of neighborhood.

And with each, cocksure, smartly spruced

your feathers good.

For this you are a sheltered pet;

give dung to fools for all you've et

—and never a thought to pay the debt

for bell and board.

And look a hen now to beget

to swell your horde.

You, Chanticleer, must surely laugh

in pulling off your cunning gaff:

that Man should toil on your behalf

—and reap such woe!

To buy you wheat—and eat your chaff.

You can but crow.

3

A New Year's Dream

Late New Year's Eve, in fitful pains,

I fell into a dream

whilst mincemeat tarts surfed through my veins

on crests of white-whipt cream.

Dear God!—of all the things to float

(oh, fearful sight to me!),

a spectre rowed a gravy boat

upon a gravey sea.

Two drumstick-arms, to blood in debt,

beat out a reckless time;

and how that wretch did row—and sweat!—

to ferry through the chyme.

The sea's face bubbled rendered oil

(so ghostly blue and green!).

No witch-stirred cauldron once did boil

with such a ghastly sheen.

How rowed that wretch, and moaned—and sweat!—

beneath no chastening moon;

how sickening oft the foul sea wet

each oar-locked gravy spoon.

And—oh, alack!—the void was black,

as black as black could be;

yet horrid-luminous were the . . . things

did float upon that sea!

And on and on the spectre came;

anon he drew apace;

he turned—I knew the spectre's name!—

God save me!—knew . . . my face!

And, oh, alack! my sky was black,

as black as black could be;

and horrid-luminous was the wrack

did float upon that sea!

And, like the wretch, I knew them—all!

had loved them all so late!

All they that were (now bitterest gall)

up-lusted from my plate!:

plump candied yams, blood pickled beets;

sweet ham sliced warm and thick;

rich gravies smothering steaming meats

—dear God! my soul was sick!

A flood of pies unmeet did rise,

and surge about my bark,

so reeking, all, of sour demise

—I dashed them from the ark.

Just then the ghastly, gravey sea,

inflamed with gastric juice,

revolted up, and heaved up me,

and all life's hells broke loose!

Uprose the hellish steaming bog,

as if to Heaven's gate!

then down did sink (could Hell more stink?)

I swooned to contemplate.

How high it rose, how deep it fell,

how oft, I fathomed not.

Dear God! if not some nightmare-spell,

all sense was cannon-shot!

Uplashed the storm—how was I stung!

with hot and bilious hail,

that all eve long cold-passed my tongue

as egg-nogs, wine, and ale!

—as I did ail to ride that swell,

pray, how shall I invoke?

with what archfiendish decibel

those hideous bowels bespoke!

Then, all at once, the sea convulsed

(dear God!) I, sea, and boat,

fast up did rush as if expulsed

right up the Devil's throat!

The boat, the sea, and I—all Hell,

in one Satanic roar,

Shot stinking up, and reeking fell,

upon a . . . moonlit shore.

Oh, sure, it's sure! no silver moon

did ever shine so fair

upon a more God-blest lagoon,

nor ever knelt in prayer

more chastened wretch, for all his ills,

beneath such lunar light;

nor flowed such tears, in joyous rills,

beneath such orb of night.

Dear Lord . . . the lake! my heart did ache;

I wept, for days of yore.

What wretch's tides bade me forsake

this dear, this civil shore?

Anon, Fear's wave swept over me

and I grew wondrous cold!

so ghoulish was the fantasy

before me did unfold!

The gravy boat stood—end for end

—and floated in the air!

In homage to this mystic trend,

so, too, my whitened hair!

The boat, it grew, and loomed into

a hooded wraith (so dark),

no leap of faith could once construe

it gravy's erstwhile bark.

Up-clutched, the wraith, a gravy spoon

(oh, how that spoon did writhe!)

as turned it then, beneath the moon,

into a . . . bloody scythe!

How blanched my skin as Hell's own troll

the second oar/spoon claimed,

which crashed to earth—a blood-writ scroll—

so heavily was it named!

Espying me, he rasping-spake,

full ill I caught his breath;

yet iller grew for his name's sake:

(God save me!) I knew . . . Death!

"They're coming, now, the blue and grey,

yea, I can smell their fear!

They're marching on this cold, young day,

the dawning of the year.

They're coming, now, with musket bored,

and whetted bayonet;

with which their flesh will soon be gored,

their brother's blood be let.

"They're coming, now, in dead of night,

with cold, long sabres drawn;

they're marching, now, in dreadful fright,

that, like, they'll fall upon.

They're coming, now, with cannon-fare,

fear twists their mouths awry

(some sagely keep their powder there,

and never kept more dry).

"They're coming, fast, from Gettysburg,

from Shiloh, and Bull Run;

they're marching, quick, from Vicksburg

neath the Mississippi sun;

they're coming, under U.S. Grant,

they're marching, under Lee;

they're champing, under Lincoln's cant,

to vanquish slavery.

"They're coming, wet, from Charleston,

on the Carolina shore;

from Shenandoah, Richmond,

and Savannah, by the score.

They're coming, under Sherman's gaze,

and under his command;

they're marching over mountain ways,

and over sacred land.

"They're coming, now, with dying breath,

to rot upon thy shore;

they're marching, to relive the death,

they wrought so long before.

Wretch, smell! the powder—feel! (Death cuts)

—oh, hear! the cannons roar.

See! brothers—spilling brothers' guts—

upon thy 'civil' shore!

"They're coming, n—" to damn his quote,

in anguish, I did cry;

great volumes leapt into my throat;

all that choked out was..."Why?"

"Thou foolish wretch, unto thy death

thou hold unto this dream:

that Goodness, Truth, and Freedom's breath

shall ever rise—like cream.

The United States of A—" but no more;

a cannon drowned the rest.

"The United States of A—" with a roar,

the ball ripped through his chest!

I chattered "M-M-Mary, full of grace!"

my blood froze, pole to pole;

from where I knelt the moon's cold face

shone through that ragged hole!

"They're coming, now, in marching might,

unto thy 'civil' shore;

to fight the great uncivil fight,

the Great Uncivil War.

They're coming, now, from south and north,

great ranks of blue and grey,

to march with Death . . . I must go forth;

I must, to guide their way."

Two hacked-off limbs the wraith then tossed

into his holey chest,

then hid the whole with shrouding cloths

to 'heal' his ravaged breast!

Dear Christ! it was a knavery

what Death did with war's bane;

in fear, and mirth, I howled to see

that even Death was vain!

He, clutching gruesome gory scythe,

raised up his bloody scroll:

"I go, now, to collect my tithe;

from each I'll wrest one soul!

Fain would I take thee with me, wretch,

but we shall talk again;

for one day soon, your soul, I'll fetch;

'til then, wretch, dream . . . in pain

"—Yea, thou, wretch, who do ever prate

of the miracle of birth,

as if, of all things on thy plate,

'tis dearest on the earth;

despite that there is one more chaste

than drawing thy first breath,

which thou shalt know when soon thou taste

the miracle of death.

"And when cease mountains standing still,

march, all, into the sea;

when desert-fishes through each gill

breathe sand's aridity;

when brothers no more brothers kill,

I, Death, shall christen thee

'The United States of Amiracle!' "

And that was all Death spoke.

His tone was so empirical,

I trembled; and awoke.

4

Bennie Jew

"He's a powerful thirst does our own Bennie Jew

—five times to the well now has he been today.

The task is completed, his work is through;

what more is his business there now, I say."

"We've elected him president year after year.

Why does he thirst so, our dear Bennie Jew?

Our water is pure—oh! our water is clear,

but he drinks—Eau! he drinks as no wise man would do."

"It's true. I've too seen our dear 'Goldfish' there,

laughing and splashing—and guzzling it too!

He'd run and he'd leap and he'd arc through the air.

No jewfish could dive like our own Bennie Jew!"

They spoke in the church house, the shareholders all,

with sweetness or bile—depending which ear.

Some voices spoke out to resound through the hall;

some voices spoke inward that no one may hear.

A leader! A leader! again we'll install.

A leader—to guide us—throughout the new year!

They spoke not of Peter, and not of St. Paul.

They spoke of naught else but our own Bennie dear.

"Never once has he been to the Orient far,

our yellow-skinned Bennie, our squinty-eyed Jew.

I fear much his smallness, his grin lies ajar.

He thirsts, yes, he thirsts—but he hungers now too!"

"Good men and good ladies, from morn until eve,

who would have worked as our Bennie has done?

If our well deep had claimed him, who of you would grieve?

I say this unbiased, though he is my son."

"From dawn until dusk he rules, it is true,

but I ask you sincerely, whose interests come first?

Our little 'Napoleon Dandy' Ben Jew,

for power, for wealth—for our water!—does thirst."

" 'Like a horse you are Bennie [I gave him the chaff].

Given your head you would drink till you die.

You must be a draught horse (his wife hid a laugh).

—One day you will wake up—and quaff our well dry!' "

"Figures don't tell tales—someone has lied!

How much of our money poured into his well?

Oh, why did he dig it so deep—and so wide?

To get him to China—or us all to Hell?"

"Some thirty Mercedes has Bennie 'Benz' Jew.

They purr and they gleam . . . then they die and they rust.

But thirty's a number for Bennie won't do,

so he thirsts and he schemes—for another he must!

"What did our 'Hero' Jew do in the war?

Was he thirsting for water up there in the clouds?

Did he spy on—turn us in—true to the Corps?

How earned he those medals of which he's so proud?"

"No barnstorming fool was our Bennie 'Ace' Jew;

flying strictly by code, no chances he took.

Our great Captain Jew flew a B-52!

Bombed little Jap ants while astride his rule book!"

"He built me a house—such a house it was too!

More solid than good sense or safety required.

And when it was finished, my dear Bennie Jew

was more thirsty than ever good reason desired.

Such thirsting I've not seen in all of my life

—Oh, where does it go to!—oh, what can I do!

He no longer perspires (I should know, I'm his wife).

I fear—Lord, I fear—for my dear Bennie Jew!"

(Backslapping, gladhanding, enters J. Bennie,

licking his lips as never more dry).

"Our well is the finest, the finest of many,

divinest of any yo—our money could buy.

The shaft goes so deep it is worth every penny,

and never—no, never—could it ever go dry.

The day that it should is the day that your Bennie,

the day (God forbid!) that your Bennie should die."

A hush now descended and silenced the throng,

more silent and deep than an old wishing well.

Then Bennie Jew, knowing the mood was all wrong,

wished rightly to know what he could not foretell.

Having cast an opinion, now each cast a vote;

oh, much more than feelings that night were exposed.

When the ballots were counted each fastened his coat,

the townsfolk adjourned, and the meeting was closed.

President Bennie, pale, clearing his throat,

made a motion official which went unopposed:

he stepped down...Mrs. Jew in her diary wrote:

"Our own...God, my own Bennie Jew's been . . . deposed!"

Dryer than dry was our Bennie that night;

higher his cry than the coyote's howl;

fitful his sleep in the warm, full-moon's light;

haunted his dreams by the chill-hooting owl:

"The money! my...what? An underground stream?

Gone?...Oh!...not there?...not down in the deep?"

"Wake up! my own Bennie—it's just a bad dream!

Hush Lamb, my innocent. Go back to sleep."

He drank in the darkness, his mouth going dry.

How much more water? How much would it take?

"Water! more water!—or else I shall die!"

But no sea or ocean could, Bennie Jew, slake.

Up now and parched was our Bennie 'Lamb,' pacing,

his yellow feet kneading the bedchamber floor.

Gone?... a stream?—his fevered mind racing.

In an instant, a heartbeat, he dashed out the door.

Such a powerful thirst had our Bennie that night!

So strong that he ran without reason or shoe.

He thrashed through the fields and the woods as in flight,

his mistress to meet there, his dear Waterloo.

Up to the wellhead in the moonlight,

diving headfirst he gasped, gone his yellow-faced hue:

not a splash as his ashen face fell deep from sight.

The well had run dry for our dear Bennie Jew.

5

Abraham Lincoln lying in state.

Bloodless Coup

The blood that moved the axe that split the rails,

in all its redness moved the man to love,

speak movingly of slaves and their travails,

and state, the union must be saved above

all things ("A house divided cannot stand"),

to fight the bloodiest uncivil storm

to make it one emancipated land,

move all at Gettysburg—that blood was warm.

But his was cold that sent the bullet through

his brain, to lodge aback of his left eye

that wouldn't see the gray nor yet the blue,

to make the new dawn dark enough to die.

The hole was stopped, the bleeding; none could doubt

it wasn't stopped. Like murder, blood will out.

None knew that more than the embalmer; he'd

refined his art on blood-strewn battlefields,

where he soon caused the warm dead more to bleed

(the killing fields would have their rightful yields):

that blood that for their right cause ran so hot

it moved them there; that blood that was so dear

to life, and, in the face of death, was not

so hot for all its running cold with fear.

But now the fight was over, and they would

go home again to loved ones; they had spilled

enough blood. Leave them some, for all the good

such dear lifeblood would do them, being killed.

No, he would spill it all. Let none remain.

That blood cannot go home with them again.

And now their fallen leader would go home,

the "Land of Lincoln," Springfield, Illinois.

White marble'd cover him (if only loam

might, he so loved the scented earth, a boy).

His steps four years before had borne him to

the White House, which had aged him visibly.

And now the smaller white house, mourners knew,

would age him far more—for eternity.

His journey would be long and sad and slow,

and millions would look last along the way.

Embalmer, he'd be judged by Lincoln's show

the more they passed him with each passing day.

He'd saved the union he so well had served,

and, like it, he must be so well preserved.

The enemy was time. Embalming must

begin at once if he was to prevent

the fallen's dust returning unto dust,

with all the scent of disembodiment.

He lay the body face up; then his hands

massaged the muscles vigorously to

work rigor mortis out of stiffened strands,

and break up blood clots. Let the blood flow through.

But, O My Captain! now your heart lies still

and cold that moved such warmth of blood before.

The nation's hearts in union feel the chill

that it won't move your passioned blood the more.

Your once and goodly offices of heart

must be performed by the embalmer's art.

He opened up the jugular (left) vein,

incised the right femoral artery.

The blood that split the rails was moved to drain

out, spilt through jugular as soon as he

began to pump embalming fluid through

the artery (enough pure arsenic,

it would have killed both armies, gray and blue).

Three gallons swelled the vessels out blood thick.

He made a cut above the navel, stuck

A trocar in, and punctured all about;

then stuck a tube in and began to suck

the organs', gut's, intestines' contents out.

The gas and all pumped out was not a sin

to three more jugs of arsenic pumped in.

He placed an eye cup over each gray eye

to hide the sinking caused by death, then closed

and glued the eyelids shut to hide the lie,

and set the mouth with slightest smile, and posed

his features to appear at peace. His art

no less at makeup, all would come to see

warm-blooded Lincoln, not set to depart,

but waken and anew set all slaves free.

Dead four days now, the Great Emancipator

lay in state within the East Room, then

the Capitol Rotunda, home awaiter,

three days more, most patient of all men,

the hallowed White House his, the hallowed Dome;

but now the rail splitter would go home.

Dark-garlanded, the "Lincoln Special" left

the station bound for Springfield, Illinois

with fifteen score of seven-day bereft,

and Lincoln's disinterred, young "Willie" boy.

Abe's larger-than-life likeness on the prow,

the mournful train would fain take back the route

he'd taken there to joyous cheering. Now

the faces meeting him were graven, mute.

Full eighty score and fifty miles to go,

with long stops on the way to lie in state,

the thirteen-day, funereally slow

pace made last-lookers long anticipate

uneasily: Just what state will I see?

How unlike will his long-dead likeness be?

By noon he lay in state in Baltimore;

that night he lay in Harrisburg, PA.

Some lightener was needed to restore

his color when, by evening the next day,

he bloodless lay in Independence Hall

in Philadelphia, the next day too,

when getting Lincoln's color right was all

the fraught embalmer, all his art, could do.

Next morning New York City mourners were

distressed with Lincoln's worsening complexion.

Nine days more till Springfield shall inter

him, each one yet more proof against correction,

the embalmer agonized aghast,

the more that Lincoln wasn't color fast.

Time dragged a night and day in Albany;

crawled yet one more of each in Buffalo,

each spoiling hour a seemed eternity

to sweating makeup artist. Cleveland, OH

dear God! for fifteen hours Lincoln lay

out in its all too open public square,

awash, to the embalmer's great dismay,

in oxygen-rich, decomposing air.

At last the slow train left at midnight for

Columbus, OH where Lincoln kept his date

to lie in—how the mournful eyes were sore

to see—his one-day-more degrading state.

How long the night to Indianapolis,

IN light of failing flesh-tone artifice.

An unrelenting heavy rain fell through

the day, the night, and on into the morrow.

Atmosphere dark gray, the rain was blue;

that falling in the Statehouse, rain of sorrow.

Midnight come, the slow train headed north

till morning stopped it for a large committee

of Chicago's windy to come forth

to blow him right into the Windy City.

All the atmospherics added to

Time's ravages but speeded up the rate

of color degradation viewers knew

belied a flesh tone, lying so in state,

for which, in their distress, they had no heart,

he, the embalmer, no restoring art.

O God, the grand parade down Michigan,

then Lake Street to the Court House Square was slow,

and morning heating with the rising sun

the more, the color would begin to flow.

Inside the Court House, all the afternoon

he laid it on. The show went on at six,

and through the night and all next day. Come moon,

now bound for Springfield, he was in a fix

of Lincoln that would end with morning glow.

But his own fix, he knew, would outlast night

for two more days till the entombment show

—and Lincoln's color every hour less right!

He sweated. Though he'd caught no cold-night chill,

he knew that he'd arrive in Springfield, IL.

He was on seeing Lincoln's color (peach

it wasn't) in the Hall where seven late

years since he'd spake his House Divided Speech,

where now he lay so silently in state.

The rouge chalk and the amber couldn't hide

the ravages of being three weeks dead;

and no embalmer's fleshly art applied

could hide his having been completely bled.

The line stretched out of sight, and at the rate

Of 7,000 every hour they passed,

and gazed a moment on his sorry state,

not more (they couldn't), even though their last.

They mourned in passing through the somber night;

the doors then closed with Springfield's morning light.

Thank God! sighed the embalmer. He prepared

the body one last time, and wiped his brow,

the day now blazing hot, no longer scared,

the coffin sealed. It doesn't matter now.

The hearse, embossed with silver, crystal, gold,

was drawn by six black horses, Lincoln's horse,

Old Bob, in mourning blanket, unconsoled

to follow riderless in its slow course.

Yet nothing would have led him to believe

they wouldn't turn in at the Lincoln home,

where mourners sensed Old Bob was moved to grieve,

to catch the dear scent of familiar loam

of many years, in passing their abode

to enter on the cemetery road.

Mourners thronged the hillside in the sun

above, behind the stone receiving tomb,

a nation's veneration so hard won,

its measure being it would not inhume

His hallowed flesh in decomposing humus;

Dust of his must not return to dust

(as ours must in that earth that shall entomb us),

but be ever held dear in our trust.

They laid him on the marble slab. One spoke

so movingly the funeral oration,

all knew in their hearts it must invoke

what Abe then had: the nation's veneration.

Gates of iron, wooden doors made fast,

the greatest funeral was done at last.

Epilogue:

A score and sixteen years went by the while

the Lincoln Tomb was built, rebuilt anew;

attempt was foiled to rob the sacred pile

of its more sacred dust, for ransom, too.

As he was moved in life to free the slaves,

so was he moved in glory, many times,

each time to the most cryptic of all graves,

intent to foil the gravest of all crimes.

At last his final resting crypt was done.

He'd lie in state ten feet beneath the floor,

A skeleton inside a skeleton

Of steel encased in concrete evermore.

But first the rumors had to be disspelled,

that robbers had succeeded unbeheld.

A score and three bore witness when the lid

was prized up, and an acrid, choking smell

arose, to morbid fear of flesh long hid,

if aught remained they knew—and it was well:

His face, now bronze, still bore the Lincoln mole

upon the gaunt cheek, bore upon the chin

the Lincoln beard; the raw-boned flesh yet whole

his blood and soul once warmly harbored in,

unmoldering. Yet now a yellow mold

besmirched his suit, the Union flag upon

his chest had rotted, whence all could behold,

preserved, his hands his gloves had rotted on.

Had the embalmer only seen his state

so kept he should have wept. But he was late.

They looked their last and sealed the lid once more,

and eased the coffin down into the crypt

of steel in concrete; men began to pour

More concrete over steel, and he was R.I.P.ed

so movingly anew, to be moved not

the more, in the most robberproof of cages;

Nor would decomposing humus rot

his dust that now belonged to all the ages.

Dust that had, in life, so loved the soil

it moved him to see one land under God,

a free land, lifeless dust now for his toil,

not to be born anew up through the sod,

but lie, the Great Emancipator, he,

in bondage to us ever, never free.

The Father of American Embalming,

Thomas Holmes, was not ambivalent:

He claimed there was no danger of them bombing,

Blowing up the coffin being sent

a long way home from battle, which he proved

on Lincoln's friend, the war's first casualty,

Then on Abe's own dear Willie, Lincoln moved

to see them mummified so bloodlessly.

No less touched, in his will and testament,

Holmes touched upon his own embalming. He

(he couldn't have been less ambivalent)

as good as wrote in stone, I shouldn't be.

And carved in stone it was upon his plot.

And all assumed quite rightly he was not.

6

By Their Fruits

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

—Matthew 7:20

I have my trident to pierce the savage heart.

And I, love's triumph to soothe the savaged part.

I wield the threat of eternal strife.

I yield the promise of eternal life.

In my hottest hellfires, fat sinners I'll render!

Forgiveness requires but that sinners surrender.

The Hounds of Hell shall set their ears ringing.

Drowned by the voices of Heaven's choir singing.

My tail shall whiplash the sinners bone deep!

My tale of each gash shall make sinners weep.

I'll give them Hell's stings and the shackles of night.

All shall have wings and the freedom of flight.

My horns shall painfully pierce sinners' skins.

My thorns shall mercifully touch on their sins.

My fires are all of the third degree.

My passion burns with but one decree.

My hatred shall make damnéd souls burn in Hell.

My love shall make them burn brightly as well.

A ring of hot coals shall encircle the dead.

A bright ringing halo shall girdle each head.

It is worse than a death to talk thus with thee!

Then live, my son, and walk thus with me.

Must you sully with love everything that I say?

My child, I know of no other way.

7

Canvas by Degas

The drought hit all the coconut palms hard:

their feet in sand, the water drained away

so fast it caught them, open-palmed, off guard,

as in a ring they stood, more parched each day;

till one went wholly limp, went down, its trunk

laid out as on a canvas by Degas,

the portrait of a pugilist punch drunk,

the knockout from Palmaceae-class jaw.

Then came the savior rain, its corner man,

who threw in its face cool, reviving eau

and got it on its feet, where it began,

now drunk anew, still reeling from the blow

that rendered it palooka of the bunch,

to shake its sullen head, A lucky punch.

8

Carbine Copies

There's nothing like a Columbine to spawn

a copykink, some nut who couldn't think

to take an M16 and get it on,

but one with a like mad, psychotic kink

must put the notion in his head as soon

as he would put a bullet in his brain,

the model of a psychopathic loon.

And soon we get the breaking news: "AGAIN!"

Demented/diabolical/deranged,

now any copykink who would be one

is 3D good to go, the times so changed;

soon in his hand a 3D-printed gun.

"This kinko, too," come news, the shop makes clear,

"got all his 3D carbine copies here."

9

Cottontop

"Get off the road, you old cottontop!"

I heard the young man say,

as he sped on by my Gramps and me

in his young and reckless way.

I said, "Grampa, what's a 'cottontop'?

Is it something that you wear?"

He laughed and ran his fingers through

his snow-white, thinning hair.

"No-o, 'cottontop' is just a name

that young folks use in vain,

to old folks, when they get impatient,

take 'em for a pain.

But I take it pos'tive, son, you see,

it shows I'm not a flop:

I've cottoned on to the game of life,

and I've come out—on top!

"Yeah, I'm proud to be a cottontop,

turn my hearin' aid up for Boston Pops,

dance to Lawrence Welk, trot the Lindy Hop

on a plastic hip or two.

Yeah, I'm proud to be a cottontop,

like my dear but not forgotten pop.

Why, with store-bought chops 'n' optiks,

heck, there's lots that folks can do!

"Yep, I'm glad to be a cottontop,

takin' guided tours to exotic spots;

maybe hobnob among them Hottentots

before my life is through.

Yeah, I'd rather be a cottontop

than be starin' up at a coffintop,

'cause it's cold and dark—and there ain't a lot

that a body there can do!

"And now, son, it's your turn to live

—so take all that life will durn well give!

For there ain't but one alternative,

and the optin's very few.

Soon you'll be a young buck in your prime,

just tuck away the odd thin dime;

and with luck, and lots o' time, you'll be

a cottontop too."

Grampa's wisdom sort of tuckered him,

and he gave a little sigh;

he'd hum a bit, then look at me,

and warmly wink his eye. . . .

"Looks like there's trouble up ahead, son,

down by Potter's Brook."

"Gramps . . . it's an accident!" I gasped,

and I couldn't help but look

at the badly busted railing

on the bridge above the bar,

then the awful-twisted wreckage

of the young man's souped-up car.

"I sure do hope he makes it, son,

I hope that he pulls through."

"Yeah! with luck," I said, "—he'll live

to be a cottontop too!"

Although so very long ago,

this memory is as clear

as if Gramps were beside me now,

still singing in my ear:

"Yeah, I'm proud to be a cottontop,

turn my hearing aid up for Boston Pops,

dance to Lawrence Welk, trot the Lindy Hop

on a plastic hip 'r two.

Yeah, I'm proud to be a cottontop,

like my dear but not forgotten pop.

Why, with store-bought chops 'n' optiks,

heck, there's lots that folks can do. . . ."

Now when grandson Bobby hears me sing,

it's Grampa's voice comes through:

"Why, with luck, and lots o' time—you'll be

a cottontop too!"

10

Curiosity

Curiosity. It's the most curious word:

it begins and ends with a Why?

And I don't know but you might've heard

it caused some cat to die.

And I'll tell you how it happened, see

(if you'll keep it under your hat);

how that oddity, Curiosity,

got the best of an old Tomcat.

It was late one night by the light of the moon

whilst our Tom was out Tomcattin',

and his poor old head was all in a swoon

from all of the spittin' and spattin'.

So he paused to leave his scent on a tree,

and a-gather his Tomcat wits,

then go on layin' claim to his Tom territ'ry,

when—there Curiosity sits!

Well, ROW-W-W-W-W! and F-F-F-F-FT! our Tomcat spat

in a cataballistical snit.

He saw plain as night this was some strange cat

—and our Tom warn't for sufferin' it!

'Cause this trespassin' puss, this no-account stray,

was smack in our Tom's purrlews,

yet, in his defense, had nothin' to say

—which no tomcat could excuse.

Yes, how in the world was our Tom s'posed to get

his back up all feline and proper,

when this bounder keeps mum so's to aid and abet

Tom's umbrage to come a right cropper.

But lucky for him (our Tom, that is)

he had nocturne-infernal cat sight,

which allowed him to see enough insults to frizz

up his hair plus his dander all night.

Now this here one commenced with a swell-headed 'C'

—and wound up with a smug 'tail' at that;

which in Tom's books made Curiosity

nothin' less than your typical cat.

What's more, in betwixt of its fat head and tail,

its remains was all cocky aplomb,

and where Tom came from them three, without fail,

meant that cat was your typical tom.

And there he sat—in our Tom's purrlews!—

though its bounds was plum ripe with Tom's scent,

which in any tom's books was grounds to accuse

any cat he was impurrtinent.

So our Tom closed in with the cat's-meow march

with its catalogue feline flair:

his best side affront, his back in an arch,

his hair stuck up high in the air.

And the glare, oh, yes, the fixed tomcattin' glare,

and the hair-raisin' catamount howl;

it's the tom way to get in the face, fair and square,

of another, fair weather or foul.

"I'll know his business right quick," thought our Tom.

"I'll be right! in his face, by and by;

and won't I just send him where he's coming from

—won't I make his mangy fur fly!"

So closer, now closer stole forward our Tom

(was there ever a stolethier cat?);

yet the closer he got the more silent and calm

that blamed Curiosity sat.

"He's counterf-f-f-ft! sure," our Tom thought hisself;

"This feline's none too bonyfied.

I swear some felonious moonlightin' elf

has built this here cat—on the side!

"Why, I'm lookin' him smack in his fraudy-cat flanks

—and there's things there that just don't belong

in a cat—danged if he ain't the victim of pranks!

Why, he's plain put together all wrong!

Either that, I swear—if I'm wrong, strike me dead—

or he's sportin' no ounce of cat pride;

'cause in spite that he's got him a really swelled head,

he's comportin' his face—on his side."

So he bristled up to Curiosity's face

—and he looked him plum square in the 'i's,

and, the two bein', both of 'em, lower in case,

he was miffed by their offputtin' size.

"And what kind of a cat has an os for a nose,

and not n—e more with which to sniff;

Lord knows it's a counter-f-f-f-ft!, counter-cat pose,

and puts my proper nose in a tiff.

"But what gets my feline goat is this 'cat'

has that city-bred letter-box smell;

So's I've come to believin', have I, for all that,

that I'm neath Curiosity's spell.

And I'm tempted to high-tail it on out o' here,

and leave Curiosity—flat;

but I don't know the why? of this tom—it ain't clear—

and, confound it," spat Tom, "I'm a cat.

"Why don't this here blamed Curiosity speak?

Why don't his cold face even move?

Why must he go put an old Tom in a pique

who's got no more—not nothin'—to prove?"

So he backed hisself off three paces or four,

and he sat hisself down on the ground.

and he scratched his old head in three places or more,

but each one left him just as dumbfound.

"Well, now I'll be danged!" he said confoundedly,

as he squinted, then closed, one eye.

"Tell me, how can a cat that begins with a 'C'

in additions commence with a Why?

Now I reckon I've seen every pedibreed cat,

and each one of them made themselves heard.

Could it be this here purrless, unparleyin' chat

is that non-chattin' breed called a 'word'?"

So he looked this word up from bottom to crown,

like up at a plump canary,

But nary once looked (to his feline renown)

it up in a plump dictionary.

Pooh! come down to diction there's nary a cat

that'll stick his proud nose in a book;

why, your average tom—you'd be lucky at that—

if he gave its blamed cover a look.

No, your typical tom wouldn't never, not him,

stoop so dadblamed liter'lly low.

Why, I reckon he'd just as soon jump in and swim

round a tubful of melt ice and snow!

And speakin' of round, just like a true cat,

our Tom went to roundin' right there:

He went round, and he found Curiosity . . . flat,

so's it bristled each tomcattin' hair.

If he circumdescribed that "wordy" cat once

he went round him a hundred or more;

and found him, each time, no less of a dunce

than the round of that weird cat before.

And each time Tom did, Curiosity he

showed nary a feline surprise;

only sat still and watched—just as dumb as could be—

with his two little mute dotted 'i's.

You'd've thought that the face of our old Tomcat

had a lookin' glass now in its place,

'cause, you see, Curiosity—plain, wide, and flat—

was written all over his face!

And what you could read, all over that puss,

in the face of our old Tomcat,

was "Now how can a puss be such a danged wuss

as to be so infernally flat?

"How could any flat cat, with a flatter meow,

not be hopelessly all out of tune?

How could any unflattering cat—tell me how!—

ever yowl such a face to the moon?

It's a blamed curiosity, that's for sure,

no conunderum I know's outshone it.

It gets curious, sir, and more curious, sir,

the more I put my mind upon it."

Well, he minded it so much, our Tom, that it put

all his cat dander in such a flap,

that he mistook his worst for his best pussyfoot

—and walked right by his midnight catnap!

And so, tuckered, he laid his old body down so's,

his one eye half-cocked, he would see

Curiosity shatter Tom's napping repose

if he moved the dadblamedest degree.

Now I s'pose forty winks or a little shut-eye

might serve a man for his nightcap,

but it don't hold no shakes for to revitalfy

as does but your shortest catnap.

Well, our Tom he awoke in the blink of an eye,

and it served him as well and as deep

as any fagged man, in his like by and by,

who'd sawed off ten hours of sleep.

And there in the moonlight, as when he lay down

to catch his cat-tonical 'z,'

our Tom saw that brazenly improper noun,

Curiosity—fresh as could be!

Then his yellow eyes lit up—as round as all that—

"Oh, I SEE!"—he was moved to expound;

and what he said next (well, at least for a cat)

was really quite feline profound:

"Oh, I C . . . u—r—iosity.

Well, I'm an old Tomcat.

Yes, the pun's a blamed atrocity,

but I've said it—and that's that!

Now I know who, where, when, and what you are,

but not why—but I will know, no doubt.

It may kill me but I'll be dadblamed, near and far,

if I don't, 'fore I die, parse you out."

So he looked Curiosity square in the 'i's

so's to let him know he'd darn soon teach

"His Impurrt'nence" a lesson by breaking him down

into all his fool parts of non-speech.

But as much as each tomcattin' trick was tried,

all meant to bring things to a closure,

that fool Curiosity kept all his pride

—and each danged bit of feline composure!

"He just sits there, still, in his cold letter box

—all designed for my parsin' defeat;

it's as if he just knows, without that he talks,

that he's sat in the catword seat."

And it so vexed our Tom, that he plum didn't know

quite where to head in at him next;

much as if his old status weren't quite up to quo

—and some moonlightin' curse had him hexed!

"Why can't I get so much as one measly claw

beneath Curiosity's skin?

It's as if there is some kind of infernal law

keepin' his parts from unparsellin'!"

Quite beside himself now, our Tom would've cursed

his most colorful scurrility.

Oh, he would've, he swore, but the truth is he durst

not besides such sublime company.

So, as much as it galled him he choked down his bile,

and kept the whole works neath his choler;

bottled up his disgruntlements inside the while

though out loud they was itchin' to holler.

Ohhh, and it cost him dear—and he knew it, did Tom,

keepin' all them cat ferments inside:

wearin' down self-respect, burnin' up his aplomb,

and a-eatin' huge holes in his pride.

Yet he kept on, our Tom, in his stubborn travail

to parse Curiosity out,

from the Why? of his swelled head to that of his tail

—till he'd nothing, not no more, to doubt.

And he would've, too—but what threw Tom askew

were those two dotted 'i's—in his side.

Well, that plum beat all!—what else could he do?

Our Tom simply curled up . . . and died.

It's been many a year since our Tom up and tried

to parse out that cat short of arson;

and they say that he might well have saved his fool hide

if he'd only just called in a parson.

No, a preacher, a pastor, not even a priest

could have done it, and said, "There you are, son."

This hindsight is clear: he'd not be deceased

if our Tom had just called in a parson.

Who's seen a cat knows the first thing about cats

is they're stubborner than twenty mules;

and the second thing is (keep it under your hats)

the first is all one of its rules.

Why, before a cat ever would swallow its pride,

and call someone else in on the case,

it might hope the spare eight of its lives up and died

so's but one had to live in disgrace.

Yet they say Curiosity plum killed that cat

just by fixin' our Tom with two 'i's,

Well, that's dead wrong, 'cause you and I both know that

he fixed our Tom with his two Why?s

Yet Tom hisself was it, as we have both seen,

who wound our Tom up in his fix:

it was all his fool parsin' of what lay between

Curiosity and the deep six.

So he sits, Curiosity, still, and just stares

with his two little mute dotted 'i's,

as one vexed cat after another one dares

to parse him out . . . and dies.

And our Tom might've known he would get hisself killed

tryin' to parse Curiosity flat.

The country was too long and too deep instilled

in him—Tom warn't no 'sity'-bred cat.

Yet, if Curiosity does kill a cat

(folks say it as if it's a fact),

Satisfaction's proverbally bound, tit for tat,

to bring that dead cat right on back.

Well, if Satisfaction could do it (he cain't

—and I guess we got good proof of that!)

why, I reckon he'd choose to bring back the first saint

'fore he would an old Tomcat.

11

Fences

Now, boys, you might think a fence can't talk

but I know some what can;

and I specs that some's 'bout ev'ry one

what was ever built by a man.

And it don't hardly matter how they's made,

or what they's all made from;

or whether they's coolin' their heels in the shade,

or baskin' their heads in the sun.

I'm a-tellin' you, boys, that fences can talk

—and I aim to prove they can.

Boys, I reckon if we was to take us a walk,

we'd see they's all made to a plan.

Yes, and man was the bird what come up with the scheme

in all his confounded pretense;

since he seen Mother Nature, in her wildest dream,

hadn't once thought to build her a fence.

Well, you could say that mountins is fences, I guess

—but I guess that you'd be dead wrong;

'cause even a fool would have to confess

that a mountain just seems to belong.

And the same things is true o' rivers and streams,

and forests of mighty tall trees;

'cause the waters is there to reflect on their dreams,

and the forests to tickle the breeze.

Oh, but ev'ry last one o' them mountins so tall

just invite you to climb to their top;

yes, and ev'ry last one o' earth's fountins and all

welcome you to drink their ev'ry drop.

And each fragranty forest, so deep, cool, and green,

and silent, as God ever made,

just seems to whisper, Come in, if you're keen,

and rest your poor bones in the shade.

So man takes some rocks from these old mountinsides,

and some lime, and some sand from the earth;

then he throws 'em together with water, besides,

'cause a stone wall is somethin's got worth!

Or he hews down the forest, and heaves up the ground,

to get him some ir'n and some wood;

then he builds him a fence and he puts it right 'round

himself, then he says, That's good!

But a fence in life's scen'ry just seems out o' place,

whether they's seen by sun or moonlight;

and it don't matter how long you look at their face,

there's just somethin' about 'em ain't right.

'Cause although their egregients is natural and all,

—it ain't natural to see 'em that way;

and, as scen'ry, I reckon the fence and the wall

is both failures—by night or by day.

But Man seems to like the dern things well enough,

though they's homely and cold to the touch;

and they's rude, and unfriendly—and talk kind o' tough—

and the things that they say is too much!

Yes, and it's man what teaches 'em all o' these traits,

and I'll tell you—it gives you a shock,

the first time you get close to one o' their gates

—and you find out real quick they can talk.

Yep, no matter if they's made of brick, stone, or wood;

even ir'n, or bones, or glass;

there ain't not a one but talks real good

—'cause they's all in the talkin' class.

And not just our own dear native tongue;

there's some what can talk real Greek,

and ev'ry lingo that man's ever sung,

'cause it's man what has taught 'em to speak.

Now, boys, you might think I've been drinkin';

still, I ain't tetched a drop all day

—and it's mornin'—and I can plum hear you thinkin':

Well, you old fool, what DO fences say!

Well, I specs now if you'd've just let my tongue go,

by 'n' by I'd've gotten to that;

I was takin' my cap off—just so's you'd know—

that I ain't talkin' right through my hat.

Now, there's some can speak Russky, some Spic, some Chinee,

and there's some what speak old Arabeek;

and there's some can speak Wop, that there Argentine-y,

some as talk shop in kwaint Mozambeek.

They might jabber or drawl (though they can't so much sing);

they might chatter or prattle or shout;

but they's all of a mind to say one main thing

to something or somebody:—KEEP OUT!

Well, now that's what they say on their cold outer side

when you's out there, and lookin' on in;

and ain't nothin' a poor stranger's strange face can hide

—'cause they see right off you ain't kin.

But if you's on their selfish insides lookin' out,

and you's kin, then they shout in your ear;

and I reckon they say things 'bout shellfish, no doubt,

but the main thing they say is:—STAY HERE!

But if you's on their cold inner side—and you's strange,

then they mutter and shudder and grieve;

then they say lots o' things a do-gooder might change,

but the main thing is:—WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE?

Now, there's fences, I'll own, you can see right through,

whose insides you can read like a book;

still, they watch you like hawks, then they's jeerin' at you:

—YOU DON'T FOOL ME—I KNOW YOU'RE A CROOK!

But the most of 'ems got their covers shut tight,

and, to make sure that nothin' gets took,

they shout out:—WE'RE KEEPING OUR THINGS OUT OF SIGHT

—SO DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO LOOK!

Boys, I've been all over this wide old world,

and I've peered into each nayborhood;

and I've heard ev'ry strange ailin' tongue unfurled,

—and, I guess, learned 'em all purty good.

Leastways well enough so's, it now comes to mind,

I could tell within each country's mile,

whether them ferin word's finer points was designed

to make my ears red, or me smile.

And what they told me was:—EVERY FENCE UNDER THE SUN

IS FOR SOMEONE'S OR SOMETHING'S DEFENSE.

AND THE BEST ONE, they said—YES, THE VERY BEST ONE

IS A COLD, RUDE, AND VULGAR OFFENSE!

You could tell by the tone o' their voices, right quick

they believed ev'ry cuss word they said.

AND WHAT'S MORE—WE SWEAR BY OUR CHOICES, WE STICK

—AND WE'LL SWEAR BY THEM TILL YOU ARE DEAD!

Well, I've traipsed 'round these whole seven cont'nents; I've

even sailed on the boundin' main;

and I reckon as long as my spirit's alive,

you can hang me if I don't again!

And I specs I've seen ev'ry dang kind of a fence

—and been slandered by each one and all;

but the one what cost me the hardest expense

to my ears, was the Chinee's Great Wall. . . .

And I walked ev'ry inch o' that sucker—yes all

of its fool fifteen hunderd long miles.

Once or twice there I thought I might tucker, and fall

I was so wore out lookin' for smiles.

I looked on the south side in Chinee;

then the north side in Mongoly-ya.

They was both twice as cold as Reginee,

and no trace of a magnolia.

How many! How many! I pondered in pain,

as I trudged 'top them frost-bitten stones.

And all I could hear was the Wall's chill refrain:

—WE LIE UPON THOUSANDS OF BONES!

But the greatest number I gave to my doubt

—so often it made my head spin:

was them stones tryin' to keep all us cauc-asians out;

or them desol-asians all in?

Boys, I reckon if you was to follow your nose,

and you followed it day after day;

you'd soon see that fences is just like crows:

ain't one's got a good word to say.

'cause they's birds of a feather in spirit:

they's both nega-tiff as you can get.

Just look at 'em sideways—you'll hear it;

and damn soon—and loud—you can bet!

I've been swore at real good in Swearhealy;

I've been cussed out right nasty in Welsh;

I've been scolded in hot Pakistany;

an' them Dutch ones—they was somethin' else!

I've been damned to Hell in Icelandik;

I've been blasted in hot Bengalese;

I've been shot up with oaths in old Slavik

—and them oaths wasn't shootin' the breeze!

Now, you heard me say fences can talk real good;

what I meant was they talk really bad:

so's their nasty intentions ain't misunderstood

for the good ones they ain't never had.

Well, I've seen me some long, long fences,

and I've followed 'em right to their end;

Yep, I've seen 'em all, but I ain't heard a one

that said, HOWDY!—COME ON IN OLD FRIEND!

Boys, if I ever get me a small piece o' land

I'll just sit there, and I'll let it be;

'cause I reckon that God's got it pretty well planned,

and He don't need no fool help from me.

So, I'll sit there, and I'll let it whisper and sing;

let the four seasons touch me, then go;

whilst I just let them softly suggest ev'ry thing

their sweet natures jist feel I should know.

Yep, I reckon I'll jist stick to mountins and streams,

and forests and rivers, I guess;

'cause I figure these four can incompass my dreams

well enough for the good Lord to bless;

since they won't try to keep this old carcass out,

or imprison this fool hide within;

and they won't make these weary feet walk roundabout,

or question my soul's orygin.

No, they won't try to keep this here free spirit out,

or hogtie my wild heart within:

when I get to their wide-open spaces, no doubt

they'll say: Howdy, old friend—come on in!

12

High Class

It pains me to admit it:

I no sooner see "high class"

than I philosophize—

half fool, half empty.

Marijuana eases pain,

but smoke the stuff? I'll pass.

I'm of that drinking class,

half fool, half hemp tea.

13

If the Five Senses Fell in the Forest

A tree fell in the forest one fall day

the fell wind blew, and I was far away

(it never falls when I'm near; it just doesn't);

and I will long lament it (since I wasn't

—and I didn't want to be—so near it):

I did not have sense enough to hear it.

I saw, at great remove, a large, black bear,

but I did not lament I wasn't there,

up close and personal, where I could see

in its eye how much it resented me

so close, and I do not regret too much it:

I did not have sense enough to touch it.

I came across a hive of killer bees,

and felt no little tremor in the knees

for what they'd do if I should strive to get

their honey, and I can't say I regret

it much that, in my strong desire to haste it,

I did not have sense enough to taste it.

I spied wildflowers midst the tangled woods,

and much desired a bouquet of these goods.

How lovely they looked midst the dark green vines

of poison oak that blisteringly maligns

the skin, and I'll lament for weeks (sobeit)

I did not have sense enough to see it.

I much surprised a skunk upon the trail,

at which the little creature raised its tail,

its back to me, and hastened to upbraid me,

making a big stink of it, and sprayed me

head to toe. How I regret to tell it:

I've not sense enough, now, to not smell it.

I wish to God that I'd had a sixth sense

through which I'd have avoided recompense

for my not sensing all the other five,

and through which we perceive that we're alive.

But, dear God, what's the sense? Should I achieve it,

I'd not have enough sense to perceive it.
14

In Every Weigh

A belly laugh scorns diet's play

to melt the belly's fat away.

Before you leap, though, in the fray

warm up with something light and gay:

First, try a giggle on for size

(a snicker, now, might jiggle thighs:

we doctors think this is not wise

—a snigger we would not advise).

Now, start a chuckle in your craw,

and roll it up and round your jaw

until it forms a grand guffaw

and soars out in a loud Heehaw!

Make merry! now, I would implore;

get down and rollick on the floor.

Let laughter out—oh, let it roar!—

till mirth pours out of every pore.

Do as I do and as I say:

resolve to belly-laugh each day.

You'll see that jelly melt away,

and notice it in every weigh.

15

British climbers George Leigh Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine leave

Camp 4 on June 6, 1924, determined to be first to climb Mount Everest.

Leopards in the Snow

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high. . . . Close to the

western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard.

No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.

—Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro

On June 8, 1924 a sudden clearing of

the sky revealed the whole long northeast ridge in silhouette:

the Pinnacles; the Three Steps; and, a leap for man above,

the final summit pyramid—Mount Everest—unmet.

Two black specks were seen moving upward "with alacrity";

below, then soon atop the Second Step, against the sky,

they climbed toward the final snow pitch. George Leigh Mallory

and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine would make history or die.

Then they were lost in clouds, enshrouded, lost in mystery.

They never came back down, nor were their frozen bodies found.

But had they "knocked the bastard off" near thirty years before

Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, unrenowned?

In 1933 one British expedition more

found Irvine's ice axe on the northeast ridge. A fatal fall

in going up on oxygen (when hard to see the feet)?

or blinded by the darkness coming down? a sudden squall?

by summit fever, when it's harder yet to see defeat?

and, roped together, had both answered gravity's dread call?

In 1975 a Chinese climber said he saw,

not far from Camp 6 in the death zone, an "old English dead,"

a hole pecked in his cheek by hungry goraks, second maw

that you could put your fingers in. And when he touched, he said,

the clothes they fell apart. The next day he was swept away,

killed, by an avalanche, without disclosing where he'd seen

the body, gape-mouthed, face up. And so once again it lay

lost, somewhere down below the spot where his ice axe had been

discovered on the ridgeline nine years post his dying day.

In 1997 Jochen Hemmleb was obsessed:

"Forget the ice axe fall line. Find the Chinese Camp 6 site.

He's somewhere near it." Midst his room of all things Everest,

he pored on Chinese Camp 6 photos in a camp-fix light

with other Camp 6 photos whose positions were well known,

comparing geologic features, lining them up on

more photos of the ridge, took bearings of each featured zone,

and fixed the Chinese Camp 6 site, then twenty-two years gone,

upon a rock rib splitting the snow terrace, fixed in stone.

"Find Irvine, find the small Vest Pocket Kodak camera he

was carrying. If they were first the film will hold the view

—as shall the world—of each one standing, looking breathlessly,

with nothing else on earth above them; backdrop Makalu."

On May 1, 1999, a five-of-thin-hope team

spread out, their eyes spread thinner than the air, to realize

the student of geology's more hopelessly thin dream:

find Irvine, lost three-quarters of a century, the prize

his camera, more, its thinner film—at Earth's death-zone extreme.

Midst patches of pure white, a glimpse of off-white caught an eye;

it wasn't snow; it wasn't phyllite, schist; it wasn't right

in all the bleakness of the frigid slope; it didn't fly,

as, with a slip, life surely does from such a death-zone height.

It drew him just as surely as the pull of gravity

pulls bodies to the Rongbuk Glacier plus-a-mile below.

He radioed, "Let's meet down here for Snickers and some tea,"

the galvanizing code that let the other searchers know

he'd found him—Irvine—lost with Mallory in mystery.

Dave Hahn, Tap Richards, Andy Politz, and Jake Norton soon

Joined Conrad Anker, reverently gathering around

the climber from an age long gone the not-as-pale full moon

had pulled its pull so strongly on a thousand times. Profound!

Face down and facing uphill, arms stretched overhead, his hands

so eloquently gloveless, fingers clawing at the ice,

spoke more than words could speak about the will-to-live's commands,

not yielding in the face of death to pay the falling's price,

which, even forced to pay, more frozen in its will, withstands.

The body of George Leigh Mallory as discovered on Mt. Everest.

The woefully thin wool, silk, cotton clothing was in tatters,

baring skin and muscles wholly dumb to feel their lack,

as they were dumb to modesty and loss of heat (life) matters,

yet as dumb to feel the sun on buttocks, legs, and back.

The goraks hadn't left him unpredated. So illumed,

his armor all in shivers left him nakedly exposed

to all their lusting ravenings; his flesh so uninhumed

by schist or phyllite left it unashamedly disclosed;

and, peck by peck, their cold, voracious appetites consumed

the flesh of his right leg and buttock; colder yet, bereft

him wholly of his viscera; and, feeling themselves done

with sating their rapaciously high appetency, left

the rest of his hard-frozen flesh as dumb to feel the sun,

though shining on it coldly 27,000 times;

once for each labored, hard-won foot of altitude they'd reached,

through cloud, through the most clearly unforgiving of all climes;

touched down on him so touchingly that day by day it bleached

him closer yet to snow white, whitest of white paradigms.

The cold had frozen him to seeming stone; he looked to be

a marble statue frozen to the icy slope, a broken

statue: right leg fractured sharply forward (pain to see)

above the hobnailed boot, the suffering so plainly spoken,

angled so. They felt it, for his broken elbow; for

the ribcage, crushed, the sudden rope-jerk snap of each rib bone;

for searing rope burn to his waist; for griefs to vital core,

felt yet more sharply seeing Norton scratch out on a stone

slab Andrew Irvine: 1902–1924.

"It isn't him," said Andy Politz suddenly. All eyes

looked at the body, then at him as if he weren't all there.

"Oh, I think so," said Anker, as if keen to personize

the sanctified remains as Irvine, younger of the pair,

as frozen hard in time as he was frozen hard in scree,

900 feet below the spot his notched ice axe was found.

And so it must be Irvine, Politz ceded, had to be,

the frayed and broken rope around the broken body wound,

though Richards found a collar labeled "G. Leigh Mallory."

They looked at one another dumbly. Then one voiced aloud

what all were thinking, "Why was Irvine wearing George's shirt?"

Tap Richards found the name twice more, and, like a thundercloud,

broke, "Wait—this is George Mallory!" Dave Hahn began to blurt

out, "Oh, my God—it's George!" as Politz gave way in the knees,

and had to sit, struck further why he'd said, "It isn't him":

the body lay face down, the face unseen. Yet the Chinese

said he was on his back, a hole pecked in his cheek, and grim.

The body frozen in the scree face down was Mallory's,

"Sir Galahad," who'd climb Mt. Everest, the Holy Grail,

"Because it's there," unconquered, cold; for mythic lack of fear

so well and justly dubbed: in knightly quest he didn't fail,

as Galahad did not, to touch the Grail, to disappear,

with dear Ruth's melting likeness next his heart, which he'd avowed

to leave upon its pinnacle, the top of all the world

(she pinnacle of his), that it might see, and be as proud

to hold her likeness to itself as love all round it swirled,

and feel, as he, to be so top-of-all-the-world endowed.

Her likeness next his heart yet would be proof he didn't scale

Earth's highest summit; were it not (a heartache) it would mean

that he, with Irvine or alone, had touched the Holy Grail,

then disappeared, like Galahad, to not the more be seen.

Alone, he would have taken Irvine's camera to record

the touching—and it would be if, at last, the world should see

he'd drawn from out his stone will—and, with all his might, he soared;

as was King Arthur touched to see, in like knight-errantry,

Sir Galahad, from out the stone, draw Arthur's mighty sword.

They took positions round him and with taut nerves chipped away

the ice that held him fast, as icy death, that they might free

him from the one, with ever tauter nerves, for who were they

to chip away at legend, climbing's greatest mystery?

No sculptor could have been as self-taut with a masterpiece

a chip away. What if he broke in pieces right before

their eyes? What if his head should break off, roll, and never cease

to fall six thousand feet—this on their own heads evermore—

for one fell stroke, as fell the marbled glory that was Greece?

The ice that held him yielded, slowly, chip by careful chip.

Five never spent three oxygen-lean hours so breathlessly.

Each erred on caution's tremulous side lest a chipping slip

send shock waves through him breaking mythic chunks of marble free.

Relief in waves, to free him wholly from his resting place,

surged through them. Oh, but surely they'd been turned, as well, to stone

to quell the all-too-human urge to pore upon the face

of Gallantry; yet out of deep respect they left him prone,

his face pressed to the mountain's in their lasting love embrace.

His fur-lined leather helmet of an age when valor shone

was not the plumed, bright-metal headdress of Sir Galahad

of old, yet it bespoke so clearly of an age long gone,

when valiant knight was deemed (and still was) chivalrously clad.

His suit of armor, rags, yet saved his mythic gallantry,

his legendary doughtiness to go beyond the pale,

from felling blows to his renown to seek, to climb, to see

what none before had ever seen, to touch the Holy Grail;

a suit that held within its tattered folds great mystery.

All breaths held, Norton raised a shoulder, reached beneath and found

around the neck a pouch with "something hard, metallic." Blood

leapt through their veins, their pulses raced as hearts were moved to pound.

The camera! and all five exhaled emotions in a flood.

No, just a tin of "Savoury Meat Lozenges" by "Brand

& Co."; but they weren't crushed by their own self-deceit;

no, here was else to solve the mystery an instant scanned:

his custom brass altimeter to 30,000 feet.

No, turned face up it mocked them with its missing glass and hand.

A still-white envelope addressed to "George Leigh Mallory,

Tibet," and postmarked "London, March 1, 1924,"

script sharp and clear though aged three-quarters of a century,

debouched its letter, not as clearly perfect; only more.

His felt-for pockets yielded staples crucial to a life

high in the death zone: tent pegs; goggles; sunscreen for the face;

tin can for melting snow; small scissors; antler-handled knife;

webbed spring-clip straps to hold the oxygen mask tight in place;

"Swan Vestas" matches (good) for heat so crucial to a wife;

a heat they'd never give him more, long frozen in his rest;

heat Ruth would never feel the more, though so close to his heart.

Cold fingers probed the folds about the ever-frozen breast,

and found a trove of cloth of which it seemed a crucial part.

Within, enfolded carefully, as loving folk will do

with treasured things, were letters. Poignant with its irony

was brother Trafford's homely news, "Both children had the flu

about a fortnight after I did. . . . All the family

can hardly wait for the historic news. Good luck to you."

Ruth's likeness wasn't found close to his heart, or anywhere.

He'd reached the summit, then, Sir Galahad!—in highest snow

enshrined her there. Yet absence wasn't proof he'd left it there,

and proof was needed for a first-to-summit overthrow.

Nor yet around the knight in fallen armor did the scree

give proof of other than a cold, hard cover for his head.

"We are not worthy of this, burying George Mallory.

We do this out of our respect for this man," Politz said,

"whom we have so disturbed. I'd like to say Psalm 103:

"The Lord is full of mercy and compassion. He is slow

to anger; nor, in his abundant goodness, quick to blame

our failings. As a father's tender to his children, so

the Lord is tender to his own that fear. He knows our frame,

remembering that we are made of barefoot dust, wherefore

to dust we must return. The days of man are as the grass.

As flourishes a flower of the field that lives to pour

its sweetness forth, the chill wind passes over it its pass,

and it is gone. The place thereof knows not of it the more."

"We found it hard to leave him. We were comfortable with George,

there, even in death. He was so impressive to be with,"

Jake Norton later said, "as if his spirit would disgorge

what he could not, so frozen in his gallantry, in myth."

But they were of the living, and no longer could they stay

within the death zone short of being of it; while they'd breath

they must go back down to the living realm, and life obey.

As valiant knight upon his mount holds sway to conquer death,

so must they hold to life to mount their search another day.

Mt. Everest, the northeast ridge on the left.

Twelve miles below in Base Camp Jochen Hemmleb could but wait

behind his telescope with bated breath and listen to

the awful silence on the radio, and consternate,

to see five specks descending with their own scoped overview.

He lost their sight but not their thought, and in the fading light

his agony increased to feel it make its summit bid

each moment, he convinced, It's touched the Holy Grail of height,

yet climbed. . . . When last he felt, It's reached the summit pyramid,

Dave Hahn's voice broke the silence of the radio, the night

from Camp 5: "It was Conrad with the big day. Jochen you

are going to be a happy man." No, happiest, in tears

to hear the silence broken and the voice of Hahn come through

with confirmation he'd been hoping for all day—for years.

Outside the tent he dropped upon his knees before her rife

with goodness, Chomolungma (Mother Goddess of the Earth).

O Blessed Mountain! all of the anxiety and strife

released in one exultant cry of joy, like that of birth,

she gave him echoed back. The greatest moment of his life.

The five descended from Camp 5 next morning back to Base,

walked into the main tent and zipped it closed (let none else see),

and handed Eric Simonson a smile he put in place

to hold the letter penned long since to "George Leigh Mallory."

The expedition leader held the smile and passed it round

with each "new" artefact pulled out, by purest alchemy,

from "Irvine's" frozen pockets high up on the killing ground,

young Hemmleb yet more saucer-eyed than Simonson to see,

astounded, it was Mallory—Sir Galahad—they'd found.

Then Irvine's there yet on his back, a hole pecked in his cheek,

just as the Chinese found him! Ten eyes couldn't all be blind.

They'd find him, find the camera that's so long held such mystique:

the touching first-to-summit photo? glory reassigned?

Three weeks recouped, they mounted for a second search (the flow

of moist air off the ocean starting early). At Camp 5

the monsoon struck them full force, dealt the search a deathly blow

for three days (Blow away our tents, and we'll not stay alive);

all hope of finding Irvine lost beneath the mass of snow.

That all might not be lost them, Andy Politz shouldered pack

with cameraman Thom Pollard, and returned to Mallory,

and opened up the grave like any necrophiliac

the camera couldn't fail, he knew, of showing him to be.

He'd method: he had labored forth the metal finder they

had lugged along to find, God willing, deep beneath the snow,

the camera. Over Galahad it leapt to its assay

of scantly armored body, sounding off from head to toe.

That he was full of mettle was as plain as knight and day.

The rivets in his leather helmet; metal in his teeth?

(that alchemy had turned to gold?); the buckles free of rust

on knickers, braces; [louder] sounding something underneath

him!—in a pocket?—could it be?. . . No, wrist watch (had it bust

at some late-fallen hour, it could have meant he'd summitted);

the hobnail boot, the gallant symbol of a long-gone day;

[yet louder now] the iron will in all the blood he bled;

[now loudest], sounding, by his being one to lead the way,

the mettle that Sir Galahad was made of was pure led.

But nothing more was found around him save the broken rope,

unwound with care to take with them besides the hobnail boot;

nor found a thing around him on the bleak and frozen slope.

No sound was heard; the all beneath the fallen snow was mute;

no hope they'd find the proof in all that deathly silent range.

Without one's image stood atop Earth's highest of frontiers;

nor yet Ruth's likeness (finding it would be surpassing strange

enshrined in snow atop the Holy Grail for all those years),

the mystery would go unwound; no history would change.

The search was over. Nothing left them but to reinter

him, George Leigh Mallory. Stone human, Politz lifted up

the body high enough for Pollard, lying, to secure

a sidelong look upon the face that sought the Holy Cup;

face none had looked on for three-quarters of a century.

"The face was perfect, but for being slightly pancaked by

the snow weight all those years. His eyes were closed. I still could see

chin whiskers. Then I winced on seeing, over his left eye,

the likely cause of death: a deeply grievous cavity,

"dried blood around it, two white pieces of skull sticking out.

It looked as though somebody'd swung a ball-peen hammer and

caved in his forehead." But, the cold truth is, there's little doubt

that, though he was an hour from camp below the Yellow Band,

the deathly cold of fallen night, the lack of oxygen

(the body's heat), exhaustion, and the woeful lightness of

his armor, but the least of all his traumas, there and then,

was likely fatal, notwithstanding Ruth's undying love,

for all she dearly prayed to keep him safe above all men.

He gave all that he had. None need disturb him any more.

He sought the Holy Grail so gallantly, and won surcease

of all his knightly toils in falling in the Holy War,

his mount beneath him ever. Rest, Sir Galahad, in peace.

Once more they built the cairn above him, frozen rock upon

the one below as frozen. As the sky began to lower,

Politz spake, ". . . he knows our frame, that we are dust thereon,

and dust will be; our days are as the grass; and as the flower

flourishes. . . ." The wind blew over it, and they were gone.

Their packs were heavy down to Camp 5 almost lost in snow,

without the camera. But not lost upon all was the fire

to touch the Holy Grail, inflamed in faces, hearts aglow

by scantly armored knight and valiant knight-apprentice squire.

So dubbed, they'd beat the monsoons and the odds: the summit scaled,

so many questing hands on fire would, digging all about,

find Ruth amid the alien snow. Knights shining they'd be hailed!

No, they weren't Galahad, who grasped the sword and pulled it out

of solid stone. They'd die so questing. Cooler heads prevailed.

Descending with the dawn's light, they all knew how it would be

in years to come, as every year since mountains were thrust high

up from primeval earth, the highest-shining sights to see,

on which, thrust up from clay, man cast his summit-questing eye:

the fire to touch the Holy Grail would come again with spring.

Knights-errant of the round world would converge on Everest.

Their oaths sworn to ascend, they'd mount up and, on entering

the lists, their lances tilted high, their gallantry at test,

they'd spur their mount and charge in fealty to their inner king.

With all the grimness of a fierce fight unto death, they'd clash;

she'd hit them with the worst of death-zone weather that she had,

the meanest geologic hardships, each one meant to dash

their gallantry to death, as she had done Sir Galahad.

She'd felled him and his young squire, roped together, at a blow.

The rope caught fast, and it would either break their fall or break.

It broke and broke their fall (and broke them, anyone would know);

Yet Mallory continued sliding quickly. Faller brake!

He dug his ice axe into her to stave off death below.

But she deflected it, directing its point back at him,

and fiercely drove it in his forehead over his left eye;

but, still, he would not yield to her, though, God! the wound was grim,

his gloved hands clawing at the slope, determined not to die.

She ripped the gloves off. Digging in his fingers for dear life

in desperate Self-arrest! he clung to her, unyielding knight.

She flung him downward—but he couldn't die in all his strife.

He had his inner king to live for, so, with all his might,

in clinging to her, he might cling to her, Ruth, dearest wife.

He stopped himself with will; but he was broken grievously.

His felled squire lay a life apart, stopped by a raised rock shelf,

unconscious. Time and deathly cold and his extremity,

appalling pain, aroused him to his gravely injured self.

He saw his knight in his distress in moonlight. Calling out,

"Sir Galahad!" he got but echoes. Crawling to his side,

he wept to find all life flown from the gallant knight devout.

Four hundred yards from camp he yielded, too, his life, and cried,

cold moonlight on his face, the deathly silence all about.

She'd serve the ones to come as well, or even better yet,

for having the temerity of entering the lists,

all mounted up, their lances tilted high, to some regret,

on reaching the complacent height of paid-up optimists.

Those who survived, whose agonizing footfalls yet were bent

on victory would suffer themselves much to take each blow,

as she would suffer herself to allow some few ascent,

exulting in their triumph in the highest of high snow,

she knowing she would yet kill one in ten in the descent.

She'd hit them hard with sudden, falling, house-size blocks of ice;

or frostbite/hypothermia in one death lump—exposure;

lung edema; mountain sickness; one blow would suffice,

as with exhaustion and starvation, to bring life to closure;

one quick slash would cut the oxygen to every cell;

with one fast stroke deliver them a body-mangling fall;

edema, swelling of the brain, would serve them just as well;

or heart attack; or hemorrhage; or, favored stroke of all,

an avalanche. Whichever blow, they'd stay right where they fell,

to swell the lost-count legions littering the frozen lists

all round about her, vanquished, having taken their last breath,

their armor pierced, no life within the faux antagonists,

but empty vessels frozen in grim attitudes of death,

for goraks to look down upon as so much frozen food

of vanquished creatures alien to death-zone habitat,

and wonder what they could be seeking at that altitude;

and, looking at them every which way, glean no more than that

they're strange, these frozen carcasses, and nothing more conclude.

Still, they would come, faux knights, in quest to touch the Holy Grail,

so artless they'd not even know enough to be afraid,

high-mounted, entering the lists, not even turning pale

before her in their naïve gallantry; still, they'd have paid

their high-five figures ("in advance, yes"), so be good to go

with guides and Sherpas, gourmet chef and doctor, thus be clad

in armor knights of old could not have dreamed of, head to toe.

They'd tilt their lances high and charge, like bold Sir Galahad,

and, clashing, enter on the list of leopards in the snow.

Andrew "Sandy" Irvine (1902–1924; George Leigh Mallory (1886–1924).
16

Lester and the Lake

It was the spring of 1935

when Lester first trod the land,

the dreams of an immigrant in his heart,

the seeds of hope in his hand.

And he planted them there in the fertile earth;

God gave him to understand

the harmony of livin' free

as a simple farmin' man.

The Ojai Valley in those days

was peaceful and serene,

all blue and gold and shades of green,

it was such a pretty scene.

As the seasons passed and the years rolled on

it was all it could have been:

a paradise for a simple man

and his simple farmin' dream.

Lester never gambled in the town,

women never turned his head;

he sat upon his porch and watched

the sun go down instead.

And to folks around the county

who asked why he never wed,

"My love is for my farmin' land,"

was all that Lester said.

And then one day an agent of

the county did appear;

it was the middle of the harvest time,

and '48 the year.

And the solemn words that he spoke then

struck a farmer dumb with fear;

so he spoke again for he was sure

that Lester did not hear:

"You see, this country is a growin' one,

and the county's gettin' dry.

We must look toward the future now,

and that's the reason why

a dam must be constructed there

where your fruit trees grow so high.

We'll see you get a fair price

for the land that we must buy."

Well, Lester was a man of peace,

and never knew a fight.

Anyway, it would have been in vain,

for the county had all the might.

Some folks said it was progress,

others said it just weren't right.

And a gentle farmer's anguished cries

were heard upon the night.

Three years went by while the dam was built,

and the land was cleared away.

Though his very life was torn apart,

still Lester had to stay.

And it clearly broke his heart and spirit

on that final day,

when the big cat came and crushed his home

like it was made of clay.

It took twelve long years to fill the lake

to its full capacity;

for the murmur of Casitas Springs

to form an inland sea.

How much was lost? How much was gained?

the folks could not agree.

But the county said, "It's for the best."

It was 1963.

When they took his home Lester built a shack

on the hill above the lake,

on the land the county'd set aside

to give him a new stake.

But the dream was gone and the days were long,

and at nights he'd lie awake,

thinking about his cherished land

that he just could not forsake.

It was on a cold and rainy day

in the fall of '84,

that they found old Lester's weathered coat

and hat upon the shore.

And a simple note pinned to the brim

shook the county to the core:

"Forgive me, I just had to see,

and walk my land once more."

O Lake Casitas, you were born

in the dyin' of the land;

your crystal, silent waters came

to life at our command.

I know you cannot hear my song,

and cannot understand.

You claimed the land in '48,

and now you've claimed the man.

It was the spring of 1935

when Lester first trod the land,

the dreams of an immigrant in his heart,

the seeds of hope in his hand.

And he planted them there in the fertile earth;

God gave him to understand

the harmony of livin' free

as a simple farmin' man.

17

Mad Dogs of Sisar

(Being a posthumous collaboration with the late

Oliver Goldsmith upon The Death of a Mad Dog)

Good people all, of every sort, give ear unto my song,

and if you find it wondrous short, it cannot hold you long.

In Sisar Lane there lived a man of whom the world might say,

that still a godly race he ran when mad dogs he did flay.

So good folks all, since life is short, lend two ears to my song,

and if you find it wondrous sport, I pray life hold you long.

Down the lane in the woods in the forest of streams

near the canyon of stones in the valley of dreams;

round the halcyon homes in the cool, sober morn,

the mad dogs of Sisar lie sullen, forlorn.

Full purblind of color, benighted of soul,

from each knoll and hillock fell rheumy eyes roll;

sore mangy and rabid, unkempt and unshorn,

the mad dogs of Sisar in unison mourn:

no scent for sad nostrils, no movement or sound

foments eye or ear all the still valley round;

no canine adrenalin stirs in the blood,

no fevered heart quickens, its vessels to flood.

Behind every hedge now, aback every fence,

each nerve ending crouches to serve every sense;

for want of an instrument, absent so long,

their taut cords lie straining to break into song:

to sing out in chorus, to bay out of tune,

to wail loud and howl long as not for the moon;

to bristle, and brazen, and cry out Beware!

. . . But nothing, oh nothing, and so they all stare.

Scarce blinking, they narrow their sore-hooded eyes,

moist nostrils aquiver for scent of the prize;

one sound to a pricked ear could alter the dawn!

. . . But nothing, oh nothing, and so they all yawn.

Oh, what, for a dog, could be worse than this void,

so they, all the madder, their spirits alloyed,

seek to fill it—with voice—aye, with dog tongue in cheek

(for their masters have masterfully taught them to Speak):

"Lord, night is the precinct of creatures that prowl:

the coon, the coyote, the cat-snatching owl

whose master, the moon, casts a spell over voles,

bewitching earth's vermin to err from their holes,

when it's dank! and the black forest glistens with dew;

when the stones in the canyon turn stone cold and blue;

when it's so deathly silent, Lord, lonely—and dark!—

that a dog could go mad for good reason to bark!

"But soon will come children, small children with books,

wearing fresh-scented garments and small, frightened looks;

sweet milking cows, wee lambs, and tender, young goats,

all pastured and pampered and plumped up with oats;

then horses, tall horses, wild eyes full of pride,

shall clatter by, sweating, quite ripe for the ride,

neath mean-booted masters so beastly unkempt

they warrant disasters—our utmost contempt!

"Then we'll curl back our upper lips, bristle our hair,

flash snowy-white canines and balefully glare;

lunge forth—like we're mad—and, of course, bark to rule,

snarl once fiercely, snap twice, and openly drool!

"But woe! to those tramps of the forest and streams,

those vulgars who romp through the valley of dreams;

those sly, cunning gypsies who hide our best bones

in the bone-crushing maze of the canyon of stones;

who taunt us and tease us, alone and in packs,

with the sun and the moon, and the wind on their backs!

who wildly, so wantonly, freely—GR-R-R-R!—roam,

they tempt us each madly to give up our home;

and so bring out the beast, aye, the worst in us all,

then double-dog dare us to rise to their call,

which makes us so furious, jealous—and sad—

it hurries us on up to hellishly mad!

"So we're saving the best of our worst for the last,

for the renegade outcasts disgracing our caste:

the stray dogs of Sisar!—who stop at our gates,

and laugh in our faces—and mock at our fates!

Oh, the cheek and the nerve! Oh, the crust and the gall!

Oh, the bluster and swagger—the brass of it all!

To think they'd insult us—on our cherished path;

yes, they shall inherit our innermost wrath!

"So we'll froth and we'll rage to rekindle our fire,

and boil up a broth of our uttermost ire;

then serve it up choking hot, foaming with hate

—Belly up, curst stray dogs—and hold out your plate!. . .

"(Sigh) but now there is only the mist and the dawn,

no lean bone our outrage can fast seize upon.

Lord, now there is nothing—our senses run wild!

O Lord Dog in Heaven, pray send us—a child!"

The sound when soft earth meets a tender young sole,

a sane ear counts less than a crumb in Life's bowl;

to the mad dogs of Sisar who lust after meat,

such heard bones are sweeter—far sweeter than meat!

The chill, ragged ear of a skeletal whelp

first keens the soft footfall and fathers a yelp.

As surely the growth of the pine tree is slow,

how swiftly the "Wild Barking Forest" does grow!

Each mutt and each purebred, each lapdog and cur,

well echoes his neighbors' and then ups the slur;

every pup, every graybeard, each deerhound and bitch,

then doubles the ante—quadruples the pitch.

In a flash they are ten, in a flash now a score;

like thunderclaps fast on Life's heels now they roar

down the lane, through the woods, through the forest of streams,

till the stone canyon echoes, the valley blasphemes.

As the hoary mist swirls, giving way to the sun,

to the aid of old instincts wild spirits swift run

"—Surround the intruder! there, tighten the net!

Close ranks! cry in chorus!—the gauntlet is set."

And into the jaws now, the maws deep and wide,

the guilty, the suspect—the innocent—stride.

Yea, into the jaws of the beastly bastille,

whose laws grant no mercy, no right of appeal.

O child of your mother, before it's too late,

turn back on your dear heels, turn now—at the gate!

But the footstep of childhood, so carefree and bold,

has already fallen, as has been foretold.

And, too, now has risen the cry that would bode

of the fate that awaits those who take to the road:

—CR-ASH! (God in Heaven! )—CR-ASH! (God on High!)

—KA-BOOM! how the howling mad thunderclaps fly

like cannonballs loosed in some hellish tirade,

to befall on each head in a cruel cannonade;

to ring every anvil inside every ear

"—This is our dogmain! You have no business here!"

All wayfarers, passersby, each in due course,

on the wings of a prayer, and on foot, wheel and horse,

now enters this day, as all days of each year,

the cold "Aisle of Torment," the "Tunnel of Fear."

(Sweet child, you are borne in the teeth of the storm.

May God's mercy bless you, your bruised spirit warm;

for your lamb, oh, your precious lamb follows your rule,

and bleats in your footsteps so far from the school.)

In loud, scolding gusts now of buffeting jeers,

God's two tender lambs, midst a tempest of sneers,

at once now are shaken, and blasted in vain

by a cold scoffing blizzard, and blown down the lane.

And child after child is, as each mother grieves,

sucked up in the maelstrom like sere autumn leaves

(their senses now swirling and swishing like spume),

and flung through the door of the lone schoolhouse room.

"O brethren, it kindles and gladdens the heart,

When the cold morning gets such a heartwarming start:

each child shivered well, with the fear coming soon;

and comrades—the sun is still well clear of noon!

If we hone every sinew, commit every sense,

to our homes' and our bones' and our masters' defense;

if we heighten our vigilance, tighten our guard,

we could frighten the spots off a camelopard!

" 'Cause we're canines, fa-famously loyal and proud

to be so canis fa-miliarisly LOUD!

With a do re mi fa-fa-fa so la ti do,

there's no telling how fa-fa-far we could go!

Oh, surely the crown of the great Mountain King

shall resound with a bright tintinnabulous ring

—O Brothers! O Sisters! together now—SING!

Oh, isn't 'the Gauntlet' a fabulous thing?"

And the strains of a prelude sung down in Dog Hell

on the page of the valley commences to swell;

from the lines of the gauntlet, its unwitting staves,

in soaring crescendos, cacophanous waves,

notes strident and sour in a clamor arise,

fermenting sweet chords in fair Euphony's skies;

till each mutt and each mongrel, mad-flushed with the sound,

sings maudlinly—LOUDER!—full drunk to a hound.

"O curs bearing furs, it occurs and bestirs

that the slurs one incurs Man unjustly infers;

who confers, hims and hers—without bias—concurs,

and demurs that man errs when he thusly avers.

Oh, we're madder than hatters and ten dancing bears;

yes we're madder than platters of mad Marching hares;

we're barmy and scatterbrained, shattered and crazed,

most manic and moonstruck—and downright amazed!

"Yes, we're mad because it's a dog's life we lead,

no matter the pedigreed papers or breed;

yes, friends, we are mad, let us gnaw on the truth:

we're so mad about life that we'd change not a tooth!

If we thunder and threaten and bluster and curse;

malignly, molestingly muster up worse,

it's merely our method to right every wrong

—to bite every bugbear of life—with a song.

So we sing for the rapturous joy we derive,

to be runts in the litter of life who survive;

to be young—and in love! to be old—and alive!

one sweet drop of honey, one small part the hive.

"Such bliss! to be born in this space and this time,

when the earth's morning glory is hoary with rhyme;

to be blessed with the most perfect means to rejoice:

a prodigal, protestant—dogmatic voice!

"So we'll sing for the postman, his bag full of bills,

who brings to our masters all manner of ills,

which hastens the doctor, his bag full of pills

to worsen our masters' heads' fevers and chills.

We'll sing for the sound of the engine that drives

us so giddy with shivers and goosefleshy hives;

and howl at the courier when he arrives;

and at Christmas, the Courier—oh joy!—and Ives.

"Aye, sing to the spokes of the bicycle wheels,

bearing city-soft yokels' sweet biteable heels;

and croon to the yokes chafing slowpoking mules,

provoking our outspoken bellows and pules.

We're an ocean of protest, a sea of dissent;

we're a storm of denial and wild argument.

Oh, hurry, now, hurri-ca-nines! with a roar,

let your breakers uprise now—and crash LOUD ashore!"

Like lambs to the slaughterhouse one after one,

each martyr, each victim sore suffers his run;

with each swelling wave, oh, lest he be outdone,

so, too, through the morning uprises the sun:

high up over Sisar, up over the moon,

on up to his zenith, and over high noon;

till he, like the shorn lambs in surfeited swoon,

sinks slowly to west on the down side of noon.

And as each lamb is basted, chewed up with a shout,

his meekness is tasted, his dry bones spit out.

Now louder, now coarser, now shriller the cry;

now wilder, now chiller, now s-l-o-o-o-wer to die!

And so on and on through the late afternoon;

all creatures the spirit foretold would come soon

have come—run and gone!—like the late morning sun;

all players—that is, all wretches . . . but one.

When down from the canyon, the canyon of stones,

and into the gauntlet all hair, skin and bones;

as if all of life were a stage for his play,

now flounces, now gambols, now frolics—the stray!

Each muttzo-soprano, high alto and bass,

contralto and baritone—weary of face,

raw-throated, tongue-tattered, and barely survived,

by one smell and sight of—the beast!—is revived.

And, oh! how the chorus—as one—does rejoice,

aye, the devil himself must have leased them his voice;

So poisonous, venomous—loud!—is the roar,

that all—all was nothing!—that thus went before.

So wondrous the tempest and ferment that spread,

full many an angel peered down from her bed;

and, since waking the dead was their greatest of fears,

they quickly stuffed cloudlets in all the dead's ears.

Whilst down in the nether bowels deep in the earth,

the Angel of Darkness was writhing in mirth;

peering up from the flames through the hot mud and miles,

dark-countenanced, beaming most fiendish of smiles. . . .

But what of the shepherds who covet the fleece,

in their hellbegon homes near the mountains of peace;

when they were awarded their sheepskins and shears,

was no one—not one of them—handed out ears?

In the halls of the masters they hear not a hound,

for the walls of dead spirits deign scarcely a sound;

no glimpse of the tumult through windows may pass,

save wondrous! the sunset through rose-colored glass;

no hint of the carnage, no whisper of sin,

no sense of injustice seeps once through their skin;

no tears of compassion may weep from the heart,

for long since a dead thing pretends to the part.

In the weary day's glow now the old bearded sun

betakes to his west bed, the battle most won.

"No skirmish was lost, sir! no enemy missed!"

"Dog soldiers—stand easy! The gauntlet's dismissed."

And now all is peaceful, now all is serene,

that short tears ago was so blindly obscene;

the angels quick thinking spared waking the dead,

and Satan, disgusted, betook him to bed.

Down the lane in the woods in the forest of streams,

near the canyon of stones in the valley of dreams;

round the halcyon home fires as evening draws nigh,

the mad gods of Sisar sip caffeine, and sigh.

Though it's writ that the sane with the sun shall repose,

full many a wide eye within will not close.

And the mad dogs of Sisar, sore glad to be born,

turn round fairly three times, and lie down till morn.

It is bruited that Earth's canine troubles began

when a drooling tongue first licked the heartstrings of Man.

So well-hearing people, give ear to my song:

be you ever in Sisar Lane, ever so long,

take some good bottled courage, take an all-purpose prayer,

take your turn in the gauntlet. Too late to take care.

18

Mayan Mystery

I guess you knew Chac Mool was the 'King of Cool,'

in Chichén Itzá long ago did rule

in his laid-back style,

and just fooled the while

with his jaguars and serpents by his Great Green Pool.

Yet why did his Mayan subjects obey,

build him temples tall, and in fealty pray,

and belabor long

and belabor strong

for the centuries they were in his sway?

And why, in his deep pool did they bestow

gifts, and, when appeasement seemed so very slow,

why a virgin quite nice

did they then sacrifice,

who sank, like the rest, to the bottom below?

They were highly advanced; though they'd barely begun,

they could read well the stars and the moon and the sun.

But their great ancient text

still leaves us perplexed—

Why'd their whole avocado come finally undone?

Did Chac Mool's lust for one more crying heart

awaken them to their perverse dying art?

Did he have them so hexed

they became over-sexed?

And is this what upset their old pineapple cart?

Yes, whatever became of the cool clever Maya?

Did they move to the costa to play on the playa?

They were once so inspired.

Did they simply get tired?

Or just O.D. on the whole papaya?

Had they had it with Chac Mool's mystic manna,

fed up being hosed by the whole hosanna?

Did thunder come next

leaving them under-sexed?

Why did cool Chac Mool bite the big banana?
19

MH370

However many thousand fathoms deep

they lie, as one, in attitudes unknown,

all sleeping that profoundest, deepest sleep

that all must, in their oneness, sleep alone;

however many thousand fathoms deep

in space they had so lately, highly flown,

not knowing that not one was theirs to keep

—all this was something none(?) could have foreknown;

nor yet how many thousand sorrows deep

in space as cold and dark they would descend,

nor yet how deeply thousands more would weep,

not knowing, in the dark, cold, of their end.

Not all the fathoms linked of sea and sky

as deep as that profound unfathomed Why?

20

Might As Well Die

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp;

Guns aren't lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

—Dorothy Parker, Resumé

Vachel Lindsay [Nov. 10, 1879–Dec. 5, 1931]

The "Prairie Troubadour," he'd trade his rhymes

for bread, new Champ of Singing Poetry.

The prairies were in desiccating times

as troubadour-to-door he went. Soon he,

for all his singing for the staff of life,

worked up a thirst for tea to wash it down,

and thirsted all the more to make a wife

of Sara Teasdale, songstress of renown.

But, oh! unlike his rhymes, the bread dried up,

he thirsting more, his song-stressed throat so dry.

No Teasdale filling up his loving cup,

He downed a liquid, bellyached a cry:

"They tried to get me, but I got them first."

A bottleful of Lysol'd slaked his thirst.

Hart Crane [July 21, 1899–April 27, 1932]

Hard alcoholic, homosexual,

pariah; too, a Christian Scientist;

still he, the poet, pure romantical,

was ever the undying optimist.

He took the love boat down to Mexico

with Peggy—his first hetero affair.

It gave him hope; perhaps he wasn't so

queer after all, one half of a mixed pair.

But ardor for her waned; he made a pass

at crewman, with a poem. Beaten bloody,

broken hearted, he, before the mass,

leapt overboard with "Goodbye, everybody!"

Peggy wasn't shocked upon that score,

considering he'd jumped ship twice before.

Sara Teasdale [Aug. 8, 1884–Jan. 29, 1933]

Romantic singer, she was courted by

the Prairie Singer, Lindsay. Oh, but she

saw he was song rich (sad), and could but sigh

to see just what a poor nil-singer he

was, who could not fulfill her with the thing

her heart desired; so before too long

she took Filsinger's name, wealth, which would bring

security, and fill her heart with song.

But soon she found she'd wedded the wrong singer.

One Ill-Singer, she was moved to weep,

to see she should have wed the poor song-singer.

Now Pill-Slinger, she would be, come sleep,

not only a Nil-Singer, but she'd be

(sad) Sayonara for eternity.

Virginia Woolf [Jan. 25,1882–Mar. 28, 1941]

She'd money and a room of her own, room

to write, with her great intellect express

her feminism, which, as in a flume,

flowed forth in inky stream of consciousness;

she'd the respect of her Bloomsbury peers;

a vital, loving husband in her head;

a more admiring public with the years;

and she had Vita Sackville in her bed;

more, she had frantic bouts of mania;

just as she'd bouts of deep, depressive blues;

the crazy notion she'd two crania;

and near at hand she had the River Ouse.

Her pockets filled with rocks served to depress

her more in one last stream: unconsciousness.

Sylvia Plath [Oct, 27, 1932–Feb. 11, 1963]

The Oven Bird

Confessive songbird, dying-to-be-heard,

chick dying also to become a hen,

she went the distance; and, an English bird,

besang herself to Daddy of all men:

"You died on me when I was ten. I tried

to kill myself at twenty, but not past

the bourn of no return, I never died

(a bit of a Jew only). So, aghast,

I turned to gas, prepared to pay the cost,

and bit off, Daddy, more than I could Jew,

become an oven bird soon cold as frost.

Now, Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, I am through.

You needn't worry I the more will sing

to you, your frosted, song-diminished thing."

Anne Sexton [Nov. 9, 1928–Oct. 4, 1974]

A beauty and a model poetess,

her sex was more than foremost in her name,

and itching, too, to candidly confess

in song, it won her critical acclaim,

which spurred on her confessional career,

encouraging her yet more to avouch

herself of all, and no one shocked to hear

she spent a lot of time upon the couch

of psychoanalyst, until one day

she went home, put her mother's fur coat on,

and locked herself in the garage, and poured

herself a vodka, started the car bon

monoxide, good for what she most adored

upon the couch: her being out of breath

when it was over, and soon was, in death.

John Berryman [Oct. 25, 1914–Jan. 7, 1972]

As "Henry" he could sing about his lust,

his women woes with his close hostile "friend,"

how people loathed him, his own self-disgust,

and sing of death and suicide, depend,

in blackface—yas, jist shuck 'n' jive while white,

an' play de fool, oh, yassah, he de scream,

dat "Mistah Bones," he at de loadin' height,

his song 'n' dance—lawd!—mos' de puffikt dream.

Awaking alcoholic, lusting John,

still broken by his father's suicide,

now godless, stripped, too, of that Henry con,

he couldn't "face" the music, how he died,

so climbed the bridge rail, dropped the distance, done.

Unbroken this: like father, so like son.

In Brief

Depressed and lonely, Teasdale, for her ills,

took one last cup to chase her sleeping pills.

Sad singer Plath, whom everybody'd heard,

knew not to sing, become Frost's oven bird.

Beat, Sexton locked herself in her garage,

exhaust fumes her means of self-sabotage.

Woolf filled her pockets full of heavy blues

and stones, and sunk herself in River Ouse.

But Berryman, a man and not a dippy

Dame, bridge-dropped in frozen Mississippi.

Crane, man-hearted, broken by a beau,

Jumped ship, sank in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sly, germ-free Lindsay, out–self-sacrifice-all

man's man, drank a bottleful of Lysol.

21

New Year's Day

O New Year's Day, now come to balm us

with hopes fulfilled and dreams to calm us,

you'll find in us no doubting Thomas,

but all believe

that you'll prove true unto your promise

of yester eve.

So blessed are you Day the First,

all New Year's Eve we never durst

to miss your toast, so we rehearsed

—in abstinence

(for fear we'd often quench our thirst

at your expense).

How sweet you lie here in your manger,

Baby-breathed Our-Whole-Life-Changer.

—Hear us sing to you, blest stranger,

our lullabye,

with not a lull (for what's the danger,

Sweet, you lie?)

We hold our faith in you as creed,

though much you promised in good deed

to change in us—oh, not for greed,

but virtue brawnest

(the same you have that spares us need

to keep you honest).

But—oh!—it's New year's Day and one,

and cold the day for want of sun,

for naught of promise has been done,

as you avowed

—oh, less than naught—in number, none

upon our crowd.

To think all night, to Heaven's rafter,

we sang your praise—in joy and laughter—

to you now proved the same dream-crafter

you've ever been;

and we, your dreamers, all the dafter

for yester e'en.

Yet we've no doubt you'll be the grafter

that you've ever been, the drafter

of our dreams each Eve hereafter

evermore,

to see you are the mourning after

the night before.

22

No. 1

The dog, you say, is Man's best friend.

This mock cliché I would amend,

and knock him well from out false truth

who loves but this: his canine tooth;

who licks your lips (you think) alone

to get a foretaste of the bone

that you must proffer soon or late

(and schemes, as well, to lick your plate),

but not before he's licked (such class)

that part that sits upon your grass;

then licks another—No. 2—

which just so happens to be you,

and damned well licks you, as he'll do,

and well you bear that number, too.

Then, for your alms (such is his wit)

he'll scoff it down, and no more Sit!

You give him pet names, one and all,

and pride yourself he heeds each call.

You call him all dear things, this pooch

—yes, all, but what he is: a mooch

who runs to you on ragged claws,

to lay upon you nagging paws,

and licks you well, and feigns his awes

the better yet to hide his flaws;

and yaps his fraudulent thanksgiving

for his jobless mode of living.

You think his bark protects your home

who selfishly protects his bone.

He casts upon you dewy eyes

that seek in your meet hand, the prize.

You think he looks upon the Sun,

Man, he looks out for No. 1.

To all these truths I would append,

Your dirty dog's his own best friend.

That pains you? Fine, then you might laud

him well and truly Man's best fraud.

23

Off the Boat

Four johnny-on-the-spots stood in a row

on the construction site where four might rest

at one time from those labors that are so

hard: holding Nature back. Just such a stressed

Latrino laborer right off the boat

was hired (a drinker, and big eater, too).

His back teeth presently began to float,

his bowels screamed relief as bowels do.

He needed a latrine—and mighty quick!

So he was shown the "Restrooms." But, mid-dance,

although he had, of all four johns, his pick,

he only saw to wet and soil his pants.

He never having seen such "Restroom" scenes,

he couldn't see the four "rest" for latrines.

24

Prima Donna with Child

I will not leave (intentional)

such breed as is conventional,

conceiving (just because they have id),

driven, frantic to be gravid,

called (you're birthing) partyou'reition:

you're the part that, of your fission,

counts—on your genes to breed more;

they're only there to further your

compulsion to pass on your genes,

which, driven frantic, each convenes.

Let suchlike wear their ape-runs high

who ape themselves in theirs, and die.

The world is too much with their kind,

and I am of a different mind:

My genius I'll pass on—I'll live!

The tests all come back positive.

A flood of symptoms myriad

supplants my glad-missed period

of writer's stasis—joy! relieved

of poem block—I've, God, conceived

in wonder! the conception is

immaculate (the concept His).

The gift I've been so long denied

I now feel stirring deep inside;

and comes the feeling I could halve,

and halve again, and still would have

the strangest craving that could be:

I-scream and creativity.

I know it's in me, deep, profound;

I know it by the ultrasound

that so is music to my ears:

the fetal heart tones my heart hears

in blessed swells; and swells my breast

admitting of no teeming rest,

a blest with-child insomnia

that leaves me with an omniawe

to feel the stre-e-e-tch! marks, row on row,

all keeping pace with fetus-grow.

At last! I'm, genius all-convening,

pregnant, with this life—with meaning.

Up one now, it's such a pump

that I'm no longer up that stump

that—oof!—oh, baby, go it, tyke it!

Keep your coke, world!—no kick like it.

Write stumped, I was stressed, and venting;

Now, write pumped, I'm blessed-eventing.

Here's its image—oh-h-h-h—a GIF

from God! On high, I don't care if

I'm femininfanticipating

Or I'm masculinawaiting;

either gender's rhyme okay:

I'm in the poem-family way!

And see how largely genius-styled

—I'm certain to be great with child.

The only teeny infant doubt

I have, as flushed, I go about

my so expectant life and glance,

yes, furtively, as I advance

toward the great event, in faces,

truest mirrors of those traces

they reflect, as on I go,

blest week by week, is Do I show?

But there's no doubt each, in their prime,

so likes a show from time to time.

So, have your children, I'll have mine,

And so we'll go on down the line:

You'll seek to leave your genes behind

with yours, but half yours, keep in mind;

and that half will be halved again

with theirs, which, too, shall halve the strain

with theirs, whose own gene-halving calves,

in turn, will drain the pool by halves

till, in some generations few

—how precious little left of you!

I'll get with child time and again,

and each will be all mine. I'm vain

enough to think I'll make, by writ,

a write-good bloody show of it,

which, to a genius, shall be true

to me, unhalved, their long lives through,

for they will have none of their own;

their lines will end with me—alone,

thus not an end you'll ever wreathe

while speakers of my lines yet breathe.

Go! spawn your type (all yours by write,

birth certified, black type on white).

I'll bloody well flesh out my breed

for children of your type to read.

25

Rabbit Stew

That husband who makes rabbit stew

by firstly splitting clean in two

some hapless cottontails, a few,

should pick up, well before his knife,

a blindfold (this could save his life)

and fix it on his stewing wife,

so she won't see him (to his woe)

bisecting the poor conies so

they're split in two from head to toe;

since every time he does, she swears,

to watch his cut-in-two affairs,

that once again he's splitting hares.

26

Secondhand

Scratch now, vegetarian,

your brethren's every pore.

Scratch him good, and long, and deep;

he'll only ask for more.

But mind you well, don't be the fool

—don't scratch a carnivore!

For with a roar he'll stretch the rule

and scratch you—to the corps!

He knows you, vegetarian,

eat greens so young and sweet,

thus even a Rotarian

has sweet and tender meat;

and too the bone, the fat, the skin,

each green- and grain-fed part;

the blood, the organs deep within,

and best of all—your heart!

But judge this bloody beast not harsh;

the carnivore's not dumb:

it knows that meadow, field, and marsh

is where ALL life comes from;

yet, scorns the grass as something crass

for one so meetly planned;

so eats your hand, thus gets its grass

yet, meatly secondhand.

27

Selvin's Money Pit

Grain by grain, since hills were higher by a half, the sand

loosed by the rains, borne by the rains, had formed the spit of land

upon which, gene by gene, life's river borne, he'd come to stand.

A man of God, he strove to build a house upon the spit;

a house he'd make a family home, so each hard-scrabbled bit

of money he tossed, drib by drab, straight in the money pit.

Voracious as it was, he couldn't ever satisfy

its appetite for money, for which money pits all cry;

appeasement of its appetite was nothing he could buy.

He slouched towards the money lender, who pulled out his roll.

"Here's all you ask for, Mr. Selvin. All I ask? your soul

to fund your money pit." And Selvin went into the hole.

Of course he did. The money lender'd put him at his ease

by fronting "Selvin," his first name, with Mr., if you please;

which money lenders to a pleaser all do in Belize.

So, naturally, his shmoozing offer couldn't be refused;

nor could the payment of his sky-high interest be excused;

which rate of usury made Selvin feel a "good deal" used.

It all went in his money pit he sunk deep in the land,

the deeper over time, and every bit with his own hand;

not stopping once to think his money pit was built on sand.

And every month the lender, Mr. Sorduv Damocles,

hung over his head "Only just default and I will seize

your money pit right out from underneath your bended knees."

Each day the sands ran straight through Selvin's hourglass the same

way—out; nor could he tip it up, nor the leased hour reclaim.

And every night, for worry, less and less the sandman came.

Instead of sheep he counted his outflowing grains of sand,

each one a tiny grain of life that ran out of his hand.

And each day he had less than yesterday on which to stand.

One night as he lay counting all the sad spent grains of gold,

it struck him—"Need I stand upon so many in my old

age? Some small portion of the mounting aggregate, if sold,

"would not unfoot me; yet would surely bless the newborn mass

with sand—with life!—up to the brim of each babe's hourglass,

with some left over for their eyes (those of the sleeping class).

"Yes, life's an aggregate—and sand's the largest part of it,

of which the mass, like me, is wont to purchase no small bit,

that they may likewise toss straight into their own money pit,

"ingrained in concrete, age-old blend of sand and rock and lime,

which, unlike us, ingrained in death, withstands the sands of time,

as strong, as solid, unlike us, and always in its prime.

"Yes, surely I don't need this whole large spit of sand complete;

some few yards, no doubt, I could sell out from beneath my feet,

and still have plenty to stand firm—and flush—upon. How sweet!

"For all I'd sell, I'd still stand on a heap of sand. And who

could argue I'd not daily prove the axiom untrue:

with every bite of sand I'd eat my cake—and have it, too?

"I shall! I'll dig this money pit, a mortgage in reverse

of standard money pits—and every yard will reimburse

me, tossing pure gold up and out—right into my own purse!"

Resolved, he sprang up from his bed, his brow no longer knit,

on fire; a brush, a board, some paint, and

SELVIN'S MONEY PIT

ALL GRADES OF SAND

FOR YOURS FOR YOU

TO TOSS STRAIGHT

INTO IT

sprang up at roadside. Soon the word began to get around:

"That crazy Selvin's started selling yards of sandy ground

right out beneath his feet. We always knew he wasn't sound."

The dump trucks started rolling in, each with a nine-yard box,

which Selvin dumped the whole nine yards in. Talk went round the blocks:

"We always knew that Selvin was as crazy as a fox."

The pit got wider, deeper as each day passed, each as golden

as the one before, each serving more yet to embolden

him: "Yes, soon the day will come when I'll not be beholden

"longer—just a few more yards of gold and I'll be free

of Mr. Sorduv Damocles; that sharpster will not be

more hanging over me, with threat to come down hard on me.

"Yet, more each passing day, when I'm down in the pit, He all

the higher speaks down loudly, Selvin, thou dost me appall,

to sell my earth—for gold—for which mine awful wrath shall fall

"upon thee—vengeance be mine. Chastened, I avert my face,

although I long to gaze in His—God! I'm so in disgrace;

more desperate each day for how to get back in His grace.

"And yet each day I make my pit more of a blasphemy.

If only I might somehow make it the epitome

of beauty in His eyes, one worthy of his artis—tree!

"Yes! revelation is mine: I'll create a sunken garden:

SELVIN'S EDEN. He will see my good heart and unharden

His against me for my sacrilege, and grant me pardon.

"SELVIN'S EDEN won't have one, but many trees of life;

where I'll know, for the Tree of Knowledge, money pit and strife

no more; and, by the grace of God, cleave unto my goodwife.

"At first it tore my heart to sell the sand beneath my feet;

yet I'm on fire to sell it—now—the sooner to complete

my money pit, and end the fear of being in receipt

"of sharpster Sorduv Damocles, so poised to come down hard

upon my head, the point of which is to have no regard

for anyone or anything but money, by the yard.

"So done, God help me, I won't sell another golden grain

of His God-blessed earth to cause Him such Almighty pain;

and all my efforts then shall be for His Almighty gain.

"Atop of selvin's money pit He'll witness

CLOSED—FOR GOOD!

THE COMING—SOON—OF

'SELVIN'S EDEN'

(SELVIN THINKS GOD SHOULD

NOT SEE THE PIT THE MORE FOR

ALL THE BEAUTY OF THE WOOD)

"The many trees of life, all ripe with fruit that's good to eat,

and yielding seed; and every goodly plant and herb replete

with seed thereof, which, for the good of Man, shall be for meat."

One witnessing his born-again fire burning could but laud

the godly Selvin's flaming zeal, and could not but be awed,

to see he dug, as not before, his money pit for God.

"Yes, formerly, there should have come a retribution for

the gold that I took out (more gold, the retribution more),

by He who never fails of justly evening the score.

"But now that I am doing God's work, what's there to restrain

me in my mission, though I sell the last pure golden grain,

since, in the end (so glorious!), I do it for His gain."

How righteously, then, Selvin got down in his money pit,

and dug the gold out, nor was he reluctant to submit

it to his conscience ("After all, it's for His benefit").

The whole nine yards rolled out in droves, the money rolled on in.

Much time rolled by. "God, let me hear, Yea, not to my chagrin;

For Selvin's role in selling it (for Eden) is no sin;

For, as he has foresworn, when sharpster Sorduv Damocles

is damn sore that he missed his golden opportunities

of falling on him (his whole sharp point being but to seize

his money pit from under him); he and the mortgage burned,

yea, Selvin won't sell one grain more, though much more may be earned,

to make the Eden for which I and he have so long yearned."

The months went by; the CLOSED—FOR GOOD! day came, for which he'd planned;

but not his goodwife's taking him by the gold-digging hand:

"Lord! will you kill the golden goose that lays the golden sand?

"We have so much of it; but you and I, our children, too,

have precious little of the good some little sand could do

to lend some comfort to our lives, if only goods a few."

"You're right, my dear, what could it hurt to sell a few yards more?

It's not as though He'd notice it; yet should He see it's for

some little good in our lives, surely God could not be sore."

The whole nine yards kept rolling out; the money, for each sold

(no clinking kind, but honest-to-god money they could fold),

kept rolling in, in which, the folks saw, Selvin and his rolled.

You might know Selvin and his brood (and he began to brood

about God's retribution with no small disquietude)

were grown more and more used to the good life and plenitude.

And with each passing day his money pit (you've guessed the story)

grew the bigger, deeper as did Selvin's allegory:

"Greater pit must, after all, be for God's greater glory."

Years went by; and Selvin's Money Pit grew in repute,

as shrank his spit with each day's plucking of the golden fruit.

And each day grew the further and the deeper his commute.

One evening, having got his breath, most worn out from the strife

of climbing up out of the pit to the good things in life

that made their money pit a home, he sighed to his goodwife,

"Dear, we've got all that's good in life . . . but rest," nor did he smile.

"We've made our starter money pit a great and goodly pile.

I'm of a mind to close the pit; I'm down most half a mile."

"I couldn't bear," she wept, "to cut back on the style we've grown

accustomed to—our countertops the finest onyx stone;

a style our neighbors (strangely, all named Jones) would die to own."

"I own I get nostalgic for our mortgaged money pit;

when we had loads of sand, and time to hold hands and just sit,

and watch the kids romp all about our great expanse of spit."

"We're only making up for our back-then lives being hard,"

she sighed. "Why shouldn't we sell load on load, with no regard?

Besides, what more do young ones need to play in than one yard?"

So Selvin, come the dawn, made one more money pit commute,

and each new dawn one yet more perilous to execute,

which, more and more, he reasoned, argued for a parachute.

Month after month the gold was trucked up from the pit, no doubt,

at walking pace, till one day Selvin raised up a loud shout:

"Oh, dear! my goodwife—brace yourself! The gold has just run out!"

Up to the pit's edge ran his goodwife, overcome with grief.

And, seeing her, he shouted up a loud cry, which, in brief

he hoped might bring himself, if not his goodwife, much relief:

"There's but a few grains left—but, dear, I'm sure it's for the best;

the earth's as hot as blazes, and the sulphur fumes molest

my nostrils something terrible. It augurs for my rest."

"Wait! did I hear you right?" she shouted down with some emotion.

"Blazes? sulphur? Lord! it means you're right above His ocean,

yes! of fire and brimstone He attends with some devotion.

"Keep on digging! you're right over Satan's Many Pit.

Pure gold is right beneath your feet—the vain is infinite!

Look, never mind the heat and smell—you're close as Hell—don't quit!

"Just keep on digging; any moment you'll be breaking through.

And, Lord! don't introduce yourself, to come beneath review.

You've not exactly been an angel; He'll remember you.

"Then get right to the raise-on-debt, the reason you are there:

to strike a bargain with him (say you know that He'll be fair)

for fire and brimstone He's got in abundance everywhere.

"But, listen, don't let on how much His fire and brimstone's worth

(it means the richest good life for us!), since there is no dearth

of they who'd preach it daily (twice on Sunday) on this earth.

"Of course, be sure to tell Him, in return, you are prepared

by way of your deep money pit (this to be jointly shared,

the two of you so mutually, profitably paired),

"To offer up no end of sinners, fallen in God's eyes

so deeply in the mammon pit, He'll, Satan, realize

the good life, as they fall from grace, and fire and brimstone rise.

"And don't forget to add, the great plus for Him—it's a gem—

is, by their falling in the pit, which God's quick to condemn,

He'll save, not sending His handbaskets empty up for them.

"Yes! we can still enjoy the good life, now and evermore,

just for a simple Devil's bargain—you're right at His door,

and each day I'm no younger. Well, what are you waiting for?"

And Selvin looked up, way up at his goodwife in his shame

for selling out, for falling in his own pit for his dame,

her lust for More! and More! good life. (Moreena was her name.)

And Selvin thought, God help him, that day'd come when he would stand

tall up to her—he would—though it, too, like his ages-planned

resolve to close the money pit (God knows), was built on sand.

28

Shallot

Shall it be SHALLot

that tickles my palate?

Shall it or not?

I anguish a lot.

I know how to sow it;

I know how to grow it;

even how I should hoe it.

Yet how to bestow it?

So shall it be SHALLot

that tickles my palate?

The good book says not:

it shall be shaLOT.

Sir Webster says not:

it shall be shaLOT!

But shall it be hot,

or shall it be not,

its flavor I shall

always relish—a LOT.

So shall it be SHALLot

that tickles my palate?

Shall it . . . or not?

I anguish—a LOT.

I know how to smell it;

I know how to spell it;

even how I should sell it.

Yet how do I yell it?

So shall it be SHALLot

that tickles my palate?

The good book says not:

it shall be shaLOT.

Sir Webster says not:

it shall be shaLOT!

But shall it be hot

or shall it be not,

its flavor I shall

always relish—a LOT.

So shall it be taught:

it shall be shaLOT.

If you share this thought,

pronounce it 'shaLOT!'

And if you do not? . . .

Shut UP!

Thanksh a LOT.

29

The Art of Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin

A man is at his comfort height

when wearing things loose fit;

a woman when her skin is tight

—and there's far less of it.

30

The Brotherhood

The power shovel wheezes, scoops up earth,

comes swinging round, and dumps it, heaping high

the haul truck that, to feel its swollen girth,

climbs gruffly from the pit, comes rumbling by:

More gossip for the chatter of the treads

of dozer bulling earth this way and that;

behind, the heavy roller earthling dreads

comes juggernauting, all compacted flat.

We're laying down and building up the road

to meet the building of high bridge to come,

in brotherhood, it sings to me, an ode.

And all around me there's a building hum

I'm deeply moved to hear the workday long,

the while inside I sing my building song.

My workday done, marked by the day's-end whistle

parting through my lips with lightsome air,

I'm high on my velocipede, a missile

guided by the song that pulls me where

they've filled the once-deep sand pit in (two thousand

loads), and built the roadbed wide and high

(Two thousand more), now well above the cows, and

some thousand more will see the road bridge-high.

They're robbing Peter one mile down the road

of much his greatest wealth, the earth, but they

will pay to Paul the road that Paul is owed;

and Paul is looking forward to the day,

as I, as one day higher now I stand,

to see the road done, river bridged and spanned.

It's getting built! and I'm all eyes and ears.

No builder's job's too menial or small,

but I'm the closest of job scrutineers,

and I must see, hear, comprehend it all.

I've got my daily progress fix here, and

I'm off again at high velocipede,

and just as quick to lend a kindred hand

to all at my Hail-fellow-well-met! speed,

I know them all so well to see them. Yet

I often wonder what they make of me,

so met each workday, whether dry or wet;

If I'm as much a curiosity.

I wonder if they see me as I would

be seen, as one with them in brotherhood.

I'm soon upon the fragrant "Orchard Run"

that cuts the orange orchard clean in two.

It's up to grade, the grader almost done

with spreading, eighteen inches thick and new,

the fine-crushed rock atop the coarse, so white

it hurts the eyes to see it in full sun;

And that is only fair for it's a sight

for sore eyes, seeing it so nearly done.

The curve's so steeply banked I fancy my

velocipede is on the velodrome

at the Olympics, and I'm riding high

now in the curve, in front—and dashing home.

Ahead, they cheer me, men in building guilds,

I them. The "Finish" line excitement builds.

My hand they'd now be pumping, but their pace

is rushed, as was my own a moment gone,

the concrete pumping, running their own race

to get it poured. (It's setting fast—come on!)

The culvert's huge they're building, for good reason:

it will run beneath, where new road meets

the old, to carry off the rainy season

floods that flash, the rain come down in sheets.

There, see! They're building it the whole way to

the river, yes, they're builders of far-seeing:

roaring floods will rush beneath the new

road, floods to have the pleasure, too, of being,

fresh down from the sky and hill and ridge,

all so much water under the new bridge.

Men thinking big and going all the way,

they're builders after my own fashion I

am high to see, this close of building day,

in brotherhood, velocipeding by.

It's such relief to get the progress fix

each waning building day, to make the rounds:

more concrete poured, new course on course of bricks

laid straight and plumb. What, worksites? pleasure grounds!

But come the weekend, sad, and holidays

(The two-week Christmas shutdown worst of all),

Each day the same old same old meets our gaze,

and, but one cite for sore eyes, progress stall,

we feel their pain, both on the seeing rack:

not going ahead, they feel they're looking back.

And flying now across the river by

the old, low, wooden bridge that floods, and had

its building in a bygone day when I

was otherwhere, it makes me all too sad

I didn't get to see it built each day

of good, hard sapodilla wood fresh from

Belizean jungles, its new-sawn bouquet,

then, smelling to high heaven of its gum.

The crew, despite my street clothes, would have seen

my knowing looks, and recognized in me

a building brother, one by no means green,

with no less than a journeyman's degree.

And they'd have wished me equally good speed

to cross it, high on my velocipede.

Now in the sister town, I'm moved to fly,

the progress-seeing daylight fading fast,

downriver, oh, but not so fast that I

should miss a new-built sign in flying past:

new shingles, or a fresh, new coat of paint,

or fresh-filled pothole (lately a pitfall),

or some new sign that leaps out to acquaint

itself to me, my glad sight takes in all.

I know I should keep both eyes on the road,

and so I've made a right fair compromise:

what's right about them goes to new-built mode;

and to the road, what's left of my two eyes.

And so I fly on my velocipede,

both modes, new-built and safety, up to speed.

And now I'm at the opposite bridge site

that's standing still on its its still-higher rise,

and seems at once it's that much closer night,

to see it is the site for sorest eyes:

there's not a sign of building but for weeds;

the breeze in passing sings the saddest song.

That's wrong; its mournful sound by far exceeds

sad: Nothing new to see here. Move along.

The year just gone their cases were reversed:

This side, each day, was sight for sorest eyes,

While both my eyes were sorely reimbursed

By other idle side of sorest rise.

Though now not speeding on the homeward track,

I can't help feeling I'm going doubly back.

O brother builders, I know you'll come by

my job site some day, come to visit me,

to get your building fix with wondering eye

to see me in my work-clothes—Is it he?

Large peepholes in the fence around the site

assure you'll catch each building sight and sound,

Made large to, through their ample width and height,

accommodate your eyes as large and round.

Yet every view is from the same perspective:

You are looking over my write shoulder,

seeing as this view is most effective,

showing clearly I with old and older

masters have apprenticed, grade by grade,

and paid my dues to learn my building trade.

Like you, when I was green each master sent

me on some wild-goose chase (the masterstroke

tradition calls for; no real harm is meant,

and everyone is in upon the joke).

So off I'd go, the green apprentice-fetcher

asking for . . . a stanza spreader or

. . . a box of blank verse or . . . a meter stretcher,

. . . sonnet straightener or . . . metaphor

rebuilder. But I played along with each

Old Master, went to work day after day,

and every one had new old things to teach

me, well, of building, and I built away,

till one day I was sung, Hail-fellow-guilder-

Well-met- [and I was, too] brother-builder!

And still, day in, day out, I go to work

from Monday round to Sunday; holidays

are not excuses that I use to shirk

the building, nor yet miss a chance to raise

the time-and-a-half issue; I get to it

first thing; that is not an issue I'm

afraid to raise, although I seldom do it,

much preferring doing double time.

But should it rain, I mean, get really poury,

north wind blowing cold with all its might,

well, that's a whole completely different story,

if not two or three I'll get built right

as rain, from ground up, rainy, blowy, cold,

each tale the greatest building ever told.

Work from a blueprint? Never. As you'll see,

to gaze upon me building, heaven knows;

and yet I like to think that you'll agree:

the muse-inspired engineering shows.

You'll count the stories in my rising highrise,

building of a lifetime, one by one,

yet more impressed, with each unblinking eye-rise,

Tallest in the world—and still not done!

Yet, as you'll see, I work without a net

or tether—no, I'm not tied off at all,

as OSHA, teed off, knows, to much regret,

yet mine are accident-free days—no fall;

a highwire act to rouse the jealousy

of Nik Wallenda and Phillipe Petit.

And all along, inclemency or no,

You'll see me—oh so small—away up there,

upon a building high, and envy so

me building high my castles in the air.

And there, too, with his selfsame jaundiced eye,

the tired inspector, same old look of pain

upon his face, will shake his head and sigh,

and sign off on a castle once again.

Yes, man's home is his castle, and by slick

good luck, my job site, too—and, fancy, we

are here, and, builders all, well, you must stick

your heads in peepholes, eyes as wide, and see

a sight for sore eyes. Here, I'll put upon

myself my master builder's work-clothes on.

Feel free to look, do, over my write shoulder,

free of fear of rudeness, free of guilt.

We're brothers, after all; be the beholder

that I am of all you've newly built.

See how I've built, in choosing to go down

the Poets' Low-Pay Road, said road up high

to meet the building of the lofty crown

of sonnets I shall build before I die.

But only gaze upon, yes, feast your eyes,

on new-built haikus, each three stories tall;

I need but get some few more to so rise,

and I shall make a haiku crown of all.

My sonnet crown, my crowning glory, too,

will come. (One must work up to this high coup.)

See how I've built the bridges in between

the haikus every bit as high, and how

I've built the culvert with my great machine

as wide and high as constructs will allow

for carrying the undercurrent of

emotions in a flood that run so high

the whole way to the river, where, above,

the bridges just succeed in staying dry.

But, more important, see how it diverts

all criticism of the metaphor:

it makes the critics see how much it hurts

themselves that they don't see its beauty, or

else sees they get their sightless fix, for me,

by bearing them the whole way—to the sea.

You see my great machine in building action;

see the kind of building blocks I use:

first, form the concept out of an abstraction,

then, with slickest of all building coups,

start sticking these things up in cyber space,

then move them round (a coup is not a glue),

and then cement things in their "final" place,

as every master builder's learned to do,

with concrete images. And so you're done

with it, it's permanently cast in time

from that concluding moment to the one

that follows, when a glance tells you the rhyme,

the meter and the diction are all wrong,

the concept, the emotion, and the song.

That's why you need a master builder who

can teach you not to make such green mistakes.

It's in your building blood to want to do

this highest building right—yes, the miss stakes

Could not be higher! And I'm just the one

to take you on as green apprentices.

Men, I can see that you aren't boys to shun

the high (read nth) degree of work this is.

And you will earn it, too, because I'll show

you how to rightly use your great machine,

yes, you all have a great one, don't you know;

for building high, no better's ever been.

It's running now—it's on a building spree—

at high degree of creativity.

As green apprentices, you'll have to do

the grunt work, with the forms, be form devout,

day in, day out; it's heavy lifting, too:

your leaden phrases, brothers, wear you out!

Of course, tradition soon comes into play,

and, master builder, I'll be bound to set

you off on some wild-goose chase your first day:

Pick up a left-hand deadline meter . . . get

An overworked cliché remover (cool!) . . .

Ask for a metric crescent wrench, size nine . . .

Tell them you need the large enjambment tool,

To cram big extra syllables in line.

And everyone will laugh just like they laughed

behind my lack, to learn my building craft.

But someday you'll all get your first degree,

unlike the third degree you get at first.

And what a read belles lettres day that will be,

my brothers! all so proud that you could burst,

to be a master builder unto whom

no greater honor/glory is befalling

in the building trade. You may assume,

as all, correctly, there's no higher calling.

Oh! but, brothers, this is not a joke,

no, not a laughing matter—not by far.

One look down is sufficient to evoke

how scary high we highest builders are!

One slip . . . well, I don't have to tell you all

how far in everybody's eyes you'll fall.

31

The Death of Goddern Noetry

I think that I shall never see

unrhyming lines as poetry.

No matter they be muse-inspired,

for me mime's music be desired.

To ring of authenticity,

and sing with gay felicity,

implicitly they must be lyred,

or else the whole affair's misfired;

just pure and plain prosaic prose,

a pompous fraud; pretentious pose.

The Japanese are short, it's true,

but even shorter their haiku:

rhyme and syllables so few,

to contemplate it makes me blue.

They view the world through slanted eyes,

and so it comes as no surprise

(you can't expect more from a flock,

who like their gardens made of rock).

'Free verse' now is all the rage,

a curse that galls the modern page.

What on Earth could there be worse

than this pretender called free verse?

"Contemporary!" moderns cry.

"Contemptorary!" I reply.

"Poetry is free!" shout they.

"Poverty is too!" I say.

"This is modern poetry!"

"I know you must mean 'noetry' "

"It's so . . . so—mod—you must agree!"

"I call it goddern noetry!"

The spawn of poetastery,

crowned justly 'Goddern Noetry,'

was born in sin, a bastard child,

and, wrong from birth, grew wanton—wild:

no wit of discipline had he,

his punctuation wandered free,

so aimlessly, so cursively,

for all intense and purposery

(although it did so punctually),

it failed of punctuationry.

Then he, to up poetic drama,

promptly excised every comma;

and, for dots once myriad,

he entered one dark period,

wherein, for all its darkling ink,

he had no wherewithal to think.

Therein he languished night and day,

and anguished for some thought to say;

then, seizing one, did much rejoice,

"I've found my one true inner voice."

A sickly child, he thence inclined

to diarrhea of the mind.

An outlaw gringo, now full-grown,

he speaks a lingo all his own:

his diar sickness so full-blown,

he utters specious from the throne.

He cannot stand now, weak of wits,

so he pronounces while he sits:

a mirthless, worthless verbal blitz,

from dearthless tongue that never quits;

and there upon his crapulous mound

he seeks to make the whole profound,

and substitutes for consonants

the whole of his incontinence;

and in the wonted place of vowels

the whole of his unwanted bowels;

so cryptic in its craptic miens

he's moved to ask you what it means.

He robs his verses of all rhyme,

he murders meter—all the time!

No plagiary can hold a dime

compared to his Noetorious crime:

he plunders Beauty's chastity,

he rapes the lock of Miltonry

"—There! shoot him, Sheriff!—there he be,

the outlaw—Goddern Noetry!

Pray, let me live to see rebirth

of Byron's, Keats', and Shelley's girth!

of Coleridge now there is a dearth,

and such as he who knew Word'sworth.

Come now! new poets of Romance,

do make words ring, new make them dance.

Your lyrics shall our hearts entrance

when down upon their lines we glance.

Then you shall give—for all to see!—

new breath to rhyming poetry;

your renaissance sound dulcetly

the death of Goddern Noetry.

32

The Deerfield Convention

"Friends,

This raging social whirl has swirled

round us since we began:

Whether or not the Animal World

should include this fellow, Man.

Well, fish can fly and birds can swim;

only Man has the power to think.

Could this be why His every whim

has brought us to the brink?

Our native instincts serve us well,

and keep us in good health;

but Man, his innate guide, would quell

with 'intellect,' his 'wealth.'

We don't live life by learned rules,

but by our beastly wits.

Man 'lives' by what he learns in schools

in little abstract bits.

We've tried to come to terms with Man,

each time to no avail.

Just when we think we have a plan,

negotiations fail.

We've tried to live in peace with Him

from first days of our birth;

yet hope for friendship seems more dim

today through all the Earth."

Once more these old laments served Owl

to officially convene

the Animal World's Yearly Howl

in Deerfield-on-the-Green.

They came from near and far and round

on migratory flights,

to invoke once more on hallowed ground

their 'lower' creatures' rites.

Their hooves and paws and wings and claws

applauded with a roar,

as Owl said, "Let's address our cause

with comments from the floor.

To elaborate in cumbered rhyme

I know you all much yearn.

But—patience, please—in numbered time,

you all shall have your turn.

Each voice unique will have his say

before our parley's done;

So give a 'yea,' let's have a 'neigh'

from Speaker No.1."

"He saddle breaks me, feeds me hay;

what can a poor Horse do?

He makes me gallop till I'm gray

—then turns me into glue!"

"He milks me dry, my cream He drinks,"

sobbed Mrs. Cow in moos.

"And when, in time, production sinks

—Man turns me into shoes!"

"He thinks [and this did truly vex

the Whyte Rhinocerous]

my powdered horn improves His sex

—it's quite preposterous!"

"Well, horny rhino—lucky you!

—Man sees the pot in us,

and takes his pot shots—till we're blue!"

wept Hippopotamus.

"He steals my precious ivory,

a crime most relevant.

It's plain and pure deprivery,"

trumpeted, now, Elephant.

"Or else the 'Big-Top' is my fate,

I'm too HUGE for a pet.

I may forgive (I cannot hate)

—but I do not forget!

He works me like a slave each day,

why, Friends—I must be nuts!

And my paltry pay? You guessed it—hay!

and . . . ah, ah, ah-h-h-h-h . . . peaNUTS!"

(His mammoth, nutty sneeze

provoked a long and lasting howl.)

"Dear Comrades, please! maintain your ease.

God bless you, sir!" said Owl.

The sun rose up that morn in May

in Deerfield-on-the-Green;

sweet zephyrs blew, the mood was gay,

the sky was blue, serene.

It was a 'Passion Play' in many acts,

a tragi-comic scene,

as the players, all, portrayed the facts

(alleged) upon the green.

Now brother Dog barked from the floor,

his Master to defend.

"Man's very kind to me—what's more,

He keeps me till the end.

He feeds me, pets me, walks me too;

on Him I can depend

to treat me like a dog—owoo-o-o!

because I'm Man's best friend."

Mewed common Cat, "Man strokes my fur;

my way I always get.

He never treats me like a cur

—yes, I'm his pampered pet!

He likes me in his company,

his favorite round-the-houser

—but in Humane Society

the hour I prove no mouser."

"That's fine for you two!" Tiger whined,

"you chosen ones can't lose.

But He makes rugs of us—we find

ourselves—O Lord!—in zoos!"

Now Leopard snarled, "My problems stem

from all Man's fur-brained plots.

Were I not so attached to them,

—I'd change my much prized spots."

"As 'King of Beasts,' " now Lion roared,

"it stings me deep inside,

that, Monarch, I'm not more adored

—it really hurts my pride!

Not all enjoy Cat's cushy perch;

not all beasts does Man keep:

the unlucky suffer Man's research;

—the blest are put to 'sleep'!"

"I'm only bacon, chops—and ham,"

squealed Pig, "and sausage links;

that I'm a clever pet—I am!—

of me Man never thinks."

"I'm quite a lovely pet to groom,

more lovely than a Lynx

—but when I put on Skunk perfume,

my image, Man says—stinks!"

"I beg your pardon, Lady Skunk,"

now Bob-Tailed Lynx did growl,

"If I'd your tail—or but a hunk,

I'd really make Men howl.

I'd be twice as pretty, such a prize,

more cuddly than two minks."

These sighed, "But don't you realize

"—being comely is a jinx?"

The sun smiled down that morn in May

in Deerfield-on-the-Green,

but the presence there of Man that day

was nowhere to be seen.

It was a 'Passion Play' in many acts,

a tragi-comic scene,

as the players, all, portrayed the facts

(alleged) upon the green.

Tom Turkey gobbled, "I love living;

growing old is nice;

but each November, come Thanksgiving

—I'm as co-old as ice.

Man strips me naked, fills my body

—bread 'n' spice 'n' stuff.

Yes, I love living but—dear God!—

He makes it mighty tough."

"Then I'm defeathered come December,"

loud honked Christmas Goose,

"and every time I do remember,

I think, 'What's the use?' "

"I'd gladly trade you places—free!

now common Chicken clucked.

"Each day's a holiday for me

—Buck-buck—I'm daily plucked!"

"For all my Buck skin Man confers

on me no benison;

yet too would have my trophied antlers,

tender venison."

"Man covets me," sighed sad-eyed Doe,

"for all my soft doeskin,

still softer, that of our . . . fawn—oh!

our dearest Deerfield kin!"

Baaed Sheep, clean-shorn of all its wool,

"Man shears me of my prize,

to knit a sweater, thus to pull

my wool over His eyes.

A wolf in sheep's cloth, big and b-a-a-a-d,

is Man, is whatI say."

"To hear you say that makes me sad,"

is Wolf's lamenting bay.

"The truth is I am much maligned;

I'm really rather shy;

and must, because of justice blind,

notoriously die!"

Sly clever Fox yipped, "I'll be brief.

our Man has lost His soul.

He steals my fur which, ohh, foul thief

—the nerve!—He calls a 'stole.' "

"Man sticks my fine quills in His hair,

to feather His own nest;

but I'd really rather keep them where

they serve me well and best:

to cover, so I'm not impeached,

those zones remote and rare;

and feather my love-nest that's reached

where only Eagles dare!"

"He takes me from the jungle where

I'm really quite at home;

then clips my pretty wings so there's

no way that I can roam.

He sticks me in a tiny cage

—then teaches me to swear;

I would cuss at Man in rage,"

squawked Parrot—"but I just don't dare!"

The sun beat down upon the fray

in Deerfield-on-the-Green,

but the presence there of Man that day

was nowhere to be seen.

It was a 'Passion Play' in many acts,

a tragi-comic scene,

as the players, all, portrayed the facts

(alleged) upon the green.

Now chimpanzee turned backward flips,

to trump its somersault.

"Man teaches me these silly trips

—it's really not my fault.

Orangutan, the 'Forest Man'

was not to be outdone.

"I play my role as best I can

—where's Camera No.1?"

"I'm the great and silver-backed 'King Kong,' "

Gorilla shrieked and cried,

"but the movie ended wrong

—for you can see I haven't died!"

Two Apes, three Gibbons, one Baboon

in unison did bawl,

"He'll call us all fool primates soon,

make Monkeys of us—all!"

"A beast of burden's all I am,"

is Donkey's braying brass.

"He calls me stubborn just to slam

me, Burro—my whole class."

"Half Horse, half Donkey Man bred me

—a Mule!—a beastly mass!"

"I'd gladly so Mule-headed be,

if you'd be me—an Ass!"

Then from the reptile class, a bellow,

"Neighbors, what is worse:

be belt or luggage or—alas!

an Alligator purse?"

Close cousin Cayman cried, "The thought

I may not grow too old,

makes me shiver being caught

—and all the more my blood run cold."

Their relation croaked, jaws opened wide,

then echoed all their fears:

"Some pity! When I've died

Man just cries Crocodile tears!"

Snake-in-the-grass hissed, "I must fight

to save my hatband skin.

Man blames me for my frightful bite.

It's just adrenalin!"

The sun now setting, all did pray

in Deerfield-on-the-Green;

still, the presence there of Man that day

was nowhere to be seen.

It was a 'Passion Play' in many acts,

a tragi-comic scene,

as the players, all, portrayed the facts

(alleged) upon the green.

And so from north, south, west, and east

came forth and testified,

every wingéd, leggéd, writhing beast

from every precinct wide.

One by one in unleashed founts

they showed the tears they cried;

gave, one by one, their pained accounts,

no grievance would they hide.

Yet harmony and peace held sway

in Deerfield-on-the-Green,

for the presence there of Man that day

was nowhere to be seen.

"O Brothers, Sisters, Neighbors—all"

was wise Owl's solemn hoot.

"The question is a judgment call:

Man's brotherhood is moot.

You've raised your varied voices,

and it seems we can't dispute:

the concensus of your choices

is that Man is yet a brute.

His charities do not delude,

nor do they mollify;

again this year we must conclude:

Man does not qualify.

"And so, Dear Friends, another year

has come and gone in strife;

but from the breast hope springs eternal

where there yet breathes life.

So let us not despair but rather

lift our hopes up high;

that Man and beast shall one day gather

neath the open sky.

Oh, let us pray when next year ends,

Man's presence will be seen,

when once again we meet, as friends,

in Deerfield-on-the-Green."

33

The Greatest Story Ever Told

The sage said, "In my hand I hold

the greatest story ever told.

Now if, to you, this book were sold

(no matter if you're young or old),

if you could ever be so bold,

its precious pages, to unfold;

and if your eyes could be cajoled

to take to heart each word of gold

(and saw thereon its virtues scrolled)

—there, all of life, you would behold!"

He held it up for all to see,

but none went down on bended knee;

nor did one, save a poet, tarry

to buy the sage's dictionary.

34

The Highway Is My Home

The highway is my home, and the door is open always.

Its spacious rooms are bounteous, though none have lock or key.

They open off the many miles of paved and unpaved hallways,

and home am I in any one, no matter where I be.

Sweet Mother Earth's the cornerstone on which my home is founded;

its roof is but the wide blue open sky above my head;

its pillars are the towering peaks by which my rooms are bounded;

the river's course the plumbing where my thirsting spirit's led;

my recreation room is in the playgrounds of the nations;

my kitchen's in the fertile fields and farmlands everywhere;

my dining room's adjacent in its natural location:

the land of milk and honey where the table's never bare.

I bathe in salty oceans, and the rainfall is my shower;

I cleanse my soul in mountain lakes, and rinse neath waterfalls;

and in my garden I have every grass and tree and flower,

and pass awhile among them there whenever nature calls.

My home's so very well conceived, the floor plan needs no changing;

beneath my feet I've carpet, soft and mossy greenery;

so finely is it furnished that it needs no rearranging;

and for pictures on the wall I have the passing scenery.

It's painted with the colors of the sunrise in the morning,

the sunset in the evening, and the rainbow in between;

so masterfully rendered that it wants no more adorning

than a full moon's beam from time to time to lend its silver sheen.

And as for entertainment, I need only stop and listen;

each creature has a song to sing, each element a sound;

a symphony of music while the shifting seasons glisten

in a real-life moving picture show that plays the whole world round.

The highway is my home, and the door is open always,

its spacious guestrooms bounteous, though none have lock or key.

Come visit me down many miles of paved and unpaved hallways.

I'm ever home, but never know in which room I will be.

The highway is my home, and the door is open always.

Its spacious rooms are calling me, inviting me to roam.

They open off the many miles of paved and unpaved hallways,

and home am I in any, for the highway is my home.

35

The Jackass

God bethought Himself one leisurely day

to make Him a singular creature:

an exceptional beast in every way,

eccentric in every feature.

But the last thing I need on this troubled Earth

is yet one more name-calling fracas;

Yea, its very name must embody mirth

—lo, behold! I shall call it a jackass.

Now, the parts of this ass I must carefully choose,

spake God with godlike erudition,

so that gullible voters do not confuse

this ass for a politician.

So the first thing I'll give it is two long ears,

then two tears (one for each 'I') that glisten

(since the 'Jack' ass has never been known to shed one,

nor once been known to listen).

Then I'll give mine ass such a beastly tail

—yea, but one on mine ass shall dwell,

for a politician, without fail,

hath no single tale to tell.

Lo, a loud heehaw shall I give to mine ass,

and its brayin's shall be purely bred;

for the politician, it comes to pass

hath no single brayin' in his head.

And he standeth weak on legs but two;

mine ass I shall give two more,

that the forward two might stand firm and true

whilst the hind give the 'Jack' ass what for.

Yea, mine ass shall plant, in the midst of his rants,

a deep and permanent furrow;

cleave, with one kick, this ass in his pants,

leaving two occupants in his borough!

Yea, two is but half of four, verily,

when mine four-legged ass hath passed

into the world, yea, merrily,

he with two shall be but half-assed.

A butt on the right, a butt on the left,

like unto the egg with two yolks;

So might each butt—yea, each side of the cleft

be the butt of all earthly jokes. . . .

Six days, six nights God labored amight,

and created His ass as He would;

then rested and spake, Lo, let there be light!

And He saw that His ass was good.

Yea, His ass was perfect in every respect

(He saw naught of His ass to rescind;

for would not to rescind one single defect

be admitting He—God—had sinned

in creating the jackass (no minor sin)

—and original sin at that?

Could it be my omnipotent skin is as thin

as that of the ass I begat?

A humbling thought for a lower-case god,

much less with a capital 'G';

How can I expect Man to be over-awed

by such ungodly vanity?

Yet with lingering fondness God gazed on His ass

(it had taken Him most of a week),

and so proud was He of this beastly mass

that He swelled up and bid His ass speak.

Then out spake the ass with a loud Heehaw!

and God was unproudly dismayed,

for then—oh, then it was that He saw

what a perfect jackass He'd made!

Nay, He didn't so much see the jackass as hear

that, despite it was beastly dumb,

with every heehaw it was ever more clear

what a truly smart ass he'd become!

Then up spake the politician at once

as soon as he came to hear it,

for it seemed to him that it had been months

since he'd heard such a kindred spirit.

And such a ruckus did then ensue

of brayin's as Hell commends,

as Heehaw! Heehaw! these jackasses two

became quite the best of friends.

God! He'd done His best to specialize

—how then it smote His heart!

for, to save His soul, when He closed His eyes

He could not tell these asses apart!

Lo, the one, though it seems impossibly crass,

was more stubborn than the other;

and each ass swore to his kindred ass

that he was his true blood brother.

And they took to riding each other's back

by turns, and it came to pass,

that God found the butt of each rude wisecrack

sitting smugly upon his ass.

And as each sat upon his kindred ass,

taking hard abuse for his payin's,

he took comfort in knowing, in taking this sass,

he was sitting upon his brayin's.

I've tried to upbraid them—oh, what's the use?—

for their asinine behavior,

yet each heapeth naught but impious abuse

upon Me—their compassionate savior.

O welladay! fie! alack!—and alas!

O mercy!—what have I begun?

Though I've wrought each beast a most singular ass,

I might as well have wrought them as one!

—And so I shall, come Judgment Day,

when each ass its tale doth tell;

And if too damned smart, shall earn its stay

—yea, forever rot—in Hell!

O what am I saying—am I not the God

of forgiveness, mercy, compassion?

Did I not create them—however flawed—

and did I not their temperaments fashion?

A jackass with four legs, a jackass with two

—oh what in the world was I thinking?

I am God, it is true, but who wouldn't construe

I am Bacchus—the God of drinking?

Yea, verily, am I sorely chagrined

for these beasts are beyond any chiding;

but the least I can do (since they're both thin-skinned)

is to give them a damned good hiding!

Yea, I've made the jackass in my imagery

—and I've no one but Me to chide;

and since I have no one to pray to but Me

—God, damn my creationist hide!

36

The Legend of the RAFFAB FAB FOOSBOP

In the Guatemalan jungle, this, my strange tale, did unfold,

and which some say is the fabulousest tale that they've been told.

We had coursed the mighty river in a tingling spinal way,

and reached the Mayan ruins on the fifth and final day.

The cat-like roar of Howler monkeys pierced the humid air;

there were parakeets, macaws, and toucans—fierce things everywhere!

The high and verdant canopy hid topics from my sight;

The air was thick and redolent, suffused with tropic light.

I fell in rubber-necking, and perusing ancient stones,

and blissful in my ignorance, abusing ancient bones.

I was hungry from excitement, and so thirsty from the heat,

but my lust for ancient history was stronger, thus my feet

took me in my ardor to the top of temples, great and tall,

and in my zeal unearthed a stone whose spirits made me fall.

I tumbled down those sacred steps and struck my head a blow,

and the vision I remember was the sun so red and low. . . .

It was high up in a breadfruit tree past halfway to the top

that I saw the bird of paradise—the RAFFAB FAB FOOSBOP!

His body was a plump pineapple, sweet and ripe and gold;

his tail the bright green, spiny crown—a neat sight to behold.

Both head and neck a yellow-blush banana tipped with green,

for his beak, below blueberry eyes, that, jade-like, slipped between.

A splendid jewelled crest had he which ran from tail to head,

of sparkling grapes in alternation—pale green, blue and red.

Two pretty wings of watermelon slices (he must know),

would never get him airborne, so he flapped them just for show.

Well, as ravenous as I was then (and fruit to me is meat)

I truly thought he was, by far, too beautiful to eat.

So I lay awhile thus pondering my sorely-treated state:

well, no broken bones or open wounds—I guess I've cheated fate!

So I left him in his breadfruit tree, my RAFFAB FAB FOOSBOP,

and ate my way back homeward—hitting every fast-fruit stop.

I couldn't wait to share my rare and sacred find with friends,

but with sympathetic looks they said, "These things take time to mend";

opined that it was just a figment of my nasty fall.

(That he was really real, they could not understand at all!)

I pored through every book I could on ornithology;

more, paid my dues and joined the Audubon Society.

No picture, word, or mention could I find within their ranks.

When my testament I offered they dismissed me with, "No, thanks!"

But I saw with wondrous eyes, despite a word of their advice,

the Rare And Fruitful, Fair And Beautiful bird of paradise.

Although I have no pictures—take my word—he's very nice:

the FABled Flightless, Out Of Sightless, Bird Of Paradise.

So I'll brave, once more, the rapids of that river's steep decline,

though the thought of it at present sends cold shivers down my spine.

For one fine day I know that all this laughing's going to stop,

when I come back from the jungle with my RAFFAB FAB FOOSBOP.

Yes, one day soon I know that I'll be back—and right on top!

when I show them all my beautiful live RAFFAB FAB FOOSBOP.

37

The Literary Light Economist

The scribbling mass would see their name in lights

in letters tHEM feet high on the marquee,

that all might have their lit name in their sights,

and no lights, either, that save energy,

but high-What lights! On fire, en masse they burn

whole bare-alls of their midnight-oiled essence,

that THEY might be, above all (how they yearn!)

lit up with literary incandescence.

But I am no such wastrel as this mass;

I'm, by my nature, an economist.

Such squandering of energy won't pass

my lit-mass test. No, I'm an ecotist.

One humble glow would sate my frugal sight:

to see my name so lit up there in Light.

38

the low bridge

The proposal to remove the low-lying bridge may cause some consternation as it will remove a well-used pedestrian access point to residential and commercial properties on either side of the river.

Ministry of Works, Government of Belize

Macal River Second Crossing

Environmental and Social Impact Assessment

The low bridge is feeling terribly low,

hearing absolute power: "The low bridge must go!"

despite its good service to each goodly town

for a proud span of years, and it's terribly down.

Yet it can't bear to think of how low it would feel

should it think that it's borne up, as well as the steel

of the Hawkesworth, the townsfolk of such good renown,

and, although but of wood, hasn't once let them down;

yet is "Soon!" not to feel either river the more,

not across nor beneath it between either shore;

not the more to feel either one's great, goodly flow.

And the low bridge is feeling terribly low.

All the power is his, as it's been from the start,

the Works Minister's—and how it struck at the heart

of its heartwood: "It's high time the low bridge came down!"

Though it isn't the coldhearted talk of the town

on the one shore, nor that on the other, its twin,

the folk loving it warmly as if it were kin.

But, plenipotent Minister, he has the awe,

all the power and say, and what he says is law;

and which, striking the low bridge's heartwood and pure,

went straight to its works, causing no mini-stir:

"It must go this impermanent low pile of sticks,

just because it was built as an inter-rim fix

till the Hawkesworth was blest with a new steel deck,

now eleven years done—and it's high time I wreck

this too-low wooden bridge all too fleeting, I should

—look! it's bearing the goodfolk on transient wood

even now, bearing they who are of the same breed,

temporary, which fact we may hold as a creed:

they, too, in no long time, won't be up to speed.

What more proof do we all-too-transients need

that it just wasn't meant to, a mere passing stage,

ripen up into anything like old age.

It's a living thing, wood, it gets old and it cracks

for the steel permanence that it so sorely lacks.

Every span has its life, and each life has its span,

and there's nothing that anyone short of God can

do to lengthen the life pre-built into a man

or a low wooden bridge; but if anyone could,

it would be a Works Minister, God's own and good.

And it will, I maintain, since, as everyone knows,

I've got all the say—and what I say goes!"

Oh, if only it were a work he would maintain,

it could then, oh so surely, so ably remain

in good standing, and serving for many a year

to come, bearing the goodfolk, and not have to hear,

with a broken heart, that it must go, though its wood

is so able and willing to do the folk good,

being there for them, holding them close in its heart

—all the good all his power would sunder apart!

Yes, if only it might find, in this fatal hour,

the courage of heart, now, to talk truth to power:

"I hear, and I weep," and, as such, let him know

it has feelings, all hurt, and so terribly low.

How proud it had been upon opening day,

and how proudly had beamed, in its deep-driven way,

to stand firmly on legs sunk to bedrock and all,

as its deck as rock-steadily spanned the Macal

that felt good on its legs, as it felt, and so good

that it smelled to high heaven of newly sawn wood,

a proud foot on each shore, and both well rooted down,

and all proud of their joining twin town to twin town,

as in marriage ("Do you, San Ignacio, take

for all time, and for goodness' and happiness' sake

of two, Santa Elena, give all of your heart

for the better, till no bridge between you do part . . . ?"

which it couldn't imagine). And what pride it took,

for the weight given marriage, that it never shook

in the slightest, although it would not have denied

that, for pride of its newness, it trembled inside,

and the more so for pride of its native hard wood,

sapodilla, although it could hardly have stood

prouder as the Lord Mayor cut cleanly in two

the silk ribbon, as twin-town Lord Mayors will do,

as the all-children marching band struck up a tune,

and he, well on his way to be stuck up, and soon,

led them proudly across from the San wedded town

to the Santa, much as, to his piping renown,

the Pied Piper of Hamelin (it heard someone say)

led, by means of sound piping, the tots in his sway,

as it didn't, so solidly sound was its wood,

though the goodfolk of both towns at one point had stood

on it, proving its soundness to all in this way.

And, though outwardly none saw and none felt it sway,

in the heart of its heartwood, with every new strain,

it was moved by the marching band's rousing refrain;

and so picked up its feet, in a sense, to the sky

in their highstepping transport; and held its deck high.

In the heart of its heartwood such gladness held sway

that the folk felt it—strongly—by night and by day,

and felt safe, high and dry; and it felt itself so

high, and proud, not a bridge feeling terribly low.

And in pride it went on, as each blest day went by

like the river beneath it, to hold its deck high,

in despite that upriver, in clear line of sight,

stood the Hawkesworth, its deck held in greater steel height.

Yet it felt not the lower, its worth not as high,

for it carried its goodfolk as well and as dry

a good number of years, and a mighty good span,

just as high as a bridge with a heart of wood can . . .

until one day a storm cloud that wasn't the norm,

for its lowering power, dark, gathered in form

high above it; at once then a loud clap of thunder

struck fear in its heart, knowing that it was under

its power, and helpless: "The low bridge must go!"

and the low bridge felt then, as now, terribly low.

Yet how HIGH it would feel if it got a reprieve,

if he'd only, if only he'd give it good leave

to go carrying on in its good wooden way,

as it has done, for many a good wooden day;

if he'd only amend his cold "It has to go!"

"It has leave, with my blessings, to go with the flow

of life's river"—of goodfolk across it, as well

as the river beneath it, the more should it swell

with the runoff of rain (Maya Mountains' lifeblood)

running off with its earth in a river of mud,

flooding over it with fully fathoms of flood

that go rushing on by it like storm clouds that scud

High above; a low bridge that, though flooded, would be

thrilled to bid it good speed on its way to the sea,

though it get a stiff deck looking up—let it get,

the flood, higher!—low bridge, it would be higher yet,

given life! So it have not an uppercase name

Such as Hawkesworth?—its all would be up all the same

to be "low bridge" for life. The floodwaters would fall

soon, and it would be so high above the Macal;

and the river of goodfolk from each goodly shore

would flow over it in goodly numbers the more,

for no reason more than to be once again flowing

across it to see where on earth they are going,

not once looking down on its trusted hard wood

underfoot, feeling rock solid (safe, understood).

And, revering its firmness with every footfall,

they would not feel the low bridge beneath them at all.

But he once more, with power, so puts his foot down

That the shock waves go through it deep into each town.

"Every timber must go!" The cold-awful degree

of his voice has the timbre of awful decree:

"Torn, in spite of all hardness of heartwood, apart!"

revealing himself all the harder of heart,

never thinking how its sapodilla-hard wood,

must take it so hard, being torn down for "good,"

all the good that it does all the good folk—all lost!

though it came, a low bridge, to be built at high cost

of some thousands of years' worth of old-forest trees

from the heart of the rain forest, heart of Belize.

Oh, and where in the world could it possibly go,

but disjointed, used timbers so desperately low?

Who would have them at their age, and what would they do,

when their being a low bridge was all that they knew?

(Yet they once knew the feeling, the highest of high,

that touchstone of tree feelings—touching the sky;

but which, out of remembrance, all memory flown,

for cry of its "Timber!" has long been unknown.)

They could never go back to their roots, ever, be

any part of that highest of wood highs, a tree,

sapodilla; not ever anew feel the flow

of its river in flood, all its sap on the go;

nor should ever more bear its sweet fruit in the fall

upon bearable wood, nor, the sweetest of all,

the goodfolk they could not bear to think, all so good,

they would bear not the more on unbearable wood.

And what jungle would have them except to decay,

but the fodder for woods of a far-distant day?

There to molder and smolder where all are let fall,

where the all they once were is beyond all recall

(bridge closed to remembrance) by which they might live

their lives over, which none has the power to give,

not even a Works Minister. They must go.

And the low bridge is feeling so terribly low.

39

The Villain Nell

The villain Nell fast holds me in her spell.

Beheld, I can but gaze on her in awe;

nineteen, her lines bewitch, her form as well.

Man, look away! No use, I can't compel

my eyes for one brief moment to withdraw.

The villain Nell fast holds me in her spell.

God, I am so possessed; I dare not tell

a soul about her one and only flaw:

nineteen, her lines bewitch, her form as well.

Yes, she repeats herself, this damoiselle;

yet I can't fault each encore-sweet faux pas.

The villain Nell fast holds me in her spell.

So charmed, her one flaw I'd not seek to quell

when so much good (no harm)'s done me by Law.

Nineteen, her lines bewitch, her form as well.

Enchanted by each tolling of the belle,

I hear appeal of her repeat patois.

The villain Nell fast holds me in her spell.

Nineteen, her lines bewitch, her form as well.

Author

Canadian by birth, expatriate by climate, David Madison is an inveterate idyller who idylls his time away writing idylls, that is, narrative poems, especially longer ones, such as The Witch of Sulphur Mountain: The Supernatural Life of Agnes Baron, Meher Baba's Beloved Watchdog.

And yet, as if being an inveterate idyller were not enough to recommend him to you, he is also a tireless fabulist, meaning, a fabulous writer. But if you've had the novel pleasure of reading his first published book, Ms. Spinster's Novel Grammar: More Novel Yet Her Punctation, Spelling, Style . . . , you already know that. Each of the 330 tales illustrating a rule is written in the manner of a fable, "a short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point, often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans." He is a permanent resident of Belize, which, being situated below Mexico on the Caribbean Sea, is fabulous in its own right. But one look at a map will undeceive you: it is nowhere near as fabulous as he is. When he's not being fabulous, in one sense, he spends the remainder of his waking hours answering the question What qualifies you to write a grammar book? His ready answer, marvelous for its concision, is that he has some five more years of school learning than Mark Twain, and far fewer cats. While those two seeming disqualifications are sinking in, he is quick to emphasize that he correctly said far fewer, not far less cats.

Copyright

Copyright © 2019 David Madison

Smashwords Edition

Written by David Madison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy excerpts for classroom use, or others who would like to obtain permission, should send their inquiries to the publisher at dmadison@spinlady.net . Scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. Thank you for respecting the author's rights.

David Madison

P.O Box 257

San Ignacio, Belize

Central America

dmadison@spinlady.net

