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.
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.
When you give me your little hand
That conveys so much you never say,
Have I ever asked in any way
If you love me, if you can?
I don't desire love from thee,
Only that I know you're near
And that once in a while dear
You softly and silently give your hand to me.
You're my bondage and my freedom,
my flesh burning like a naked summer night,
you're my country.
Hazel eyes marbled green,
you're awesome, beautiful, and brave,
you're my desire always just out of reach.
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!
Driver drive faster and make a good run
Down the Springfield Line under the shining sun.
Fly like an aeroplane, don't pull up short
Till you brake for Grand Central Station, New York.
For there in the middle of the waiting-hall
Should be standing the one that I love best of all.
If he's not there to meet me when I get to town
I'll stand on the side-walk with tears rolling down.
For he is the one that I love to look on,
The acme of kindness and perfection.
He presses my hand and he says he loves me,
Which I find a admirable peculiarity.
The woods are bright green on both sides of the line,
The trees have their loves though they're different from mine.
But the poor fat old banker in the sun-parlour car
Has no one to love him except his cigar.
If I were the Head of the Church or the State,
I'd powder my nose and just tell them to wait.
For love's more important and powerful than
Ever a priest or a politician.
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?