Unexpected Fire - Song of Experience 4
another for the Major 1
Unexpected Fire - Song of Experience 3
another for the Major1
Unexpected Fire - Song of Experience 2
another for the Major 2
Unexpected Fire - Song of Experience 1
another for the Major 1
Of Childhood Lamenting - Song of Experience
Inside My Father's Bomber Dream - After Richard Hugo
for the Major, my father, an airman, not a sailor
Again, what is remembered.
The chase is on.
Sailors this time.
Cotton candy sweet
in their dress whites,
they seek out
stains desperate
for a night in arms.
Dawn's a blur, a slippery
Your Fear
You fear me?
You fear me not ...
I am not the driving force
in your silly, arrogant false choices:
For shooting me unarmed
For dancing across juxtaposed walkways
For spitting, farting, jeering and otherwise animalistic behaviors
Wetting in your pants fear.
You are not afraid of me
and therefore hating me,
avoiding me,
daring only a moment to love me
and then running away,
keeping me out of your schools,
barring me from little social clubs
You fear me not ...
I am not the driving force
in your silly, arrogant false choices:
For shooting me unarmed
For dancing across juxtaposed walkways
For spitting, farting, jeering and otherwise animalistic behaviors
Wetting in your pants fear.
You are not afraid of me
and therefore hating me,
avoiding me,
daring only a moment to love me
and then running away,
keeping me out of your schools,
barring me from little social clubs
Translation of Petrarch's Rima, Sonnet 134
I FIND no peace, and all my war is done;
I fear and hope; I burn and freeze like ice;
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I seize on;
That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not, yet can I 'scape nowise;
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device, [by my own choice]
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Withouten eyen, I see; and without tongue I plain; [lament]
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health;
I love another, and thus I hate myself;
Tz'u No. 1
To the tune "Courtyard Filled with Fragrance"
Fragrant grass beside the pond
green shade over the hall
a clear cold comes through
the window curtains
crescent moon beyond the golden bars
and a flute sounds
as if someone were coming
but alone on my mat with a cup
gazing sadly into nothingness
I want to call back
the blackberry flowers
that have fallen
though pear blossoms remain
for in that distant year
I came to love their fresh fragrance
scenting my sleeve
as we culled petals over the fire
Two Wishes XI
In the silence of the night Death descended from God toward the earth. He hovered above a city and pierced the dwellings with his eyes. He say the spirits floating on wings of dreams, and the people who were surrendered to the Slumber.
When the moon fell below the horizon and the city became black, Death walked silently among the houses -- careful to touch nothing -- until he reached a palace. He entered through the bolted gates undisturbed, and stood by the rich man's bed; and as Death touched his forehead, the sleeper's eyes opened, showing great fright.
Two on the Terrace
Warm waves of lavish moonlight
The Capitol enfold,
As if a richer noon light
Bathed its white walls with gold.
The great bronze Freedom shining,
Her crest in ether shrining,
Peers eastward as divining
The new day from the old.
Mark the mild planet pouring
Her splendor o'er the ground;
See the white obelisk soaring
To pierce the blue profound.
Beneath the still heavens beaming,
The lighted town lies gleaming,
In guarded slumber dreaming-
A world without a sound.
No laughter and no sobbing