Three matches one by one struck in the night
The first to see your face in its entirety
The second to see your eyes
The last to see your mouth
And the darkness all around to remind me of all these
As I hold you in my arms.
I often repeat silently
that you must live in rememberance only
when few days are left to me.
What is past
is as if never was.
The past is a lace that
clenches at my throat to my mind
and takes energy from facing my present.
The past is only the smoke
of who hasn't lived.
What I have already seen
doesn't mean anything anymore.
The past and the future
aren't reality but only fleeting illusions.
I must be free from time
and live the present since there isn't any other time
than this wonderful moment.
We are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.
One is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
But age is the total of
our doing.
They have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
Not their fault?
Whose fault?
Mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
Age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is.
We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies -
The Heroism we recite
Would be a normal thing
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King.
Hands clasped, under the dark veil.
'Today, why are you so pale?'
- Because I've made him drink his fill
Of sorrow's bitter tale.
How could I forget? He staggered,
His mouth twisted with pain...
I ran down not touching the rail,
I ran all the way to the gate.
'I was joking,' I cried, breathlessly.
'If you go away, I am dead.'
Smiling strangely, calmly,
'Don't stand in the wind,' he said.
If I should'nt be alive
When the Robins come,
Give the one in Red Cravat,
A Memorial crumb -
If I could'nt thank you,
Being fast asleep,
You will know I'm trying
With my Granite lip!
If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill,
be a shrub in the valley.
But be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a highway, just be a trail.
If you can't be a sun, be a star.
For it isn't by size that you win or fail.
Be the best of whatever you are.
Try to understand the picture
that you're drawn to be,
then start realizing it in your life.
Jazz killed itself
But dont let poetry kill itself
Dont be afraid
of the cold night air
Dont listen to institutions
When you return manuscripts to
brownstone
dont bow and scuffle
for Edith Wharton pioneers
or ursula major nebraska prose
just hang in your own backyard
and laugh play pretty
cake trombone
and if somebody gives you beads
juju, jew, or otherwise,
sleep with em around your neck
Your dreams'll maybe better
There's no rain
there's no me
I'm telling ya man
sure as shit.
Part of the morning stars
The moon and the mail
The ravenous X, the raving ache,
-the moon Sittle La
Pottle, teh, teh, teh,
The poets in owlish old rooms
who write bent over the words
know that words were invented
because nothing was nothing
In use of words, use words,
the X and the blank
And the Emperor's white page
And the last of the Bulls
Before spring operates
Are all lotsa nothin
which we got anyway
So we'll deal in the night
in the market of words.
I live my life in widening circle
That reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
But I give myself to it.
I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
And I still don't know: am I a falcon,
A storm, or a great song?