THE REALM OF THE GODS WHO CONTROL OTHERS’ CREATIONS
While your muses canary you awake
my parrot perches asleep in its cage.
I burn in the absence of their flame
but you tower up like a crane.
And those birds do prophet our futures:
your doves and my vultures,
your peacocks and your hawks,
my silent shell’s empty bells.
Though we’re feathered alike, you and I,
your plumes atlas the sky
and mine mattress my sighs, my sighs.
THE MISSIONARY
My pilgrimage was blessed!
I counted off
The beads she strung
across her chest, her precious
rosary.
So
I’d passed
my first test, one step
upon the way. To finalize
my quest, incessantly
I prayed.
And when,
at last,
I pressed into
her nunnery, my passion
came to rest, enveloped
in glory.
Her cloister was a nest
of sacred ecstasy.
49th ISONZO
I can’t blame the war for coming between us.
I said: Adventure’s the blood of young manhood!
You said: Draw it, then — Doc Bellum’s constant prescription, leech at ready.
I said: Patriotism’s the formula for a love that crosses the borders of the personal.
You said: And war is the necessary antidote.
I said: Duty’s the pole star of civilization.
You said: Warfare, its magnetic opposite!
And so it went, battle after battle.
YOUR TASK, HAIJIN
Robin eggs all robbed,
violets violated:
Gardens need more guards!
Future’s days seem few.
Verse can’t restore Universe:
Penalty-clogged pens.
World’s orbit is whirled,
(encourage with ink!)
shattered, scattered, shat,
(redden earth with each word read!)
stymied for all time.
(redress all who read!)
Peace sounds in pieces,
the hole is found inside wholes.
Write to put it right!
BUCKEYE BOYS
Just a bunch of Ohio boys
takin’ in the Charleston joys.
Ain’t it fine, ain’t it
grand bein’ in this sunny land!
Ain’t it fine and ain’t it grand
to be in this sunny land!
Just a bunch of Ohio boys.
Skinny dippin’ off the pier,
smokin’ dope an’ drinkin’ beer.
Ain’t it fine, ain’t it grand
bein’ in this sunny land!
Ain’t it fine am’ ain’t it grand
to be in this sunny land,
Just a bunch of Ohio boys.
Combin’ for the ocean shells.
Lovin’ all the Southern belles.
Ain’t it fine, ain’t it grand
bein’ in this sunny land!
Ain’t it fine an’ ain’t it grand
to be in this sunny land.
Just a bunch of Ohio boys.
Driftin’ out in sailin’ sloops,
fishin’, eatin’ she-crab soup —
ain’t it fine! Ain’t it grand
bein’ in this sunny land!
Just a bunch of Ohio boys.
Flowin’ robes an’ burnin’ crosses,
black men bowin’ to the bosses.
Ain’t it fine, ain’t it grand
bein’ in this sunny land?
Just a bunch of Ohio boys, buckeye boys.
…