car

Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides,
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
At midnight's murky hour
Thy origin began:
Rapacious MALICE was thy sire;
Thy Dam the sullen witch, Despair;
Thy Nurse, insatiate Ire.
The FATES conspir'd their ills to twine,
About thy heart's infected shrine;
They gave thee each disastrous spell,
Each desolating pow'r,
To blast the fairest hopes of man.

Soon as thy fatal birth was known,

I.
Sweet rural scene!
Of flocks and green!
At careless ease my limbs are spread;
All nature still
But yonder rill;
And listening pines not o'er my head:
II
In prospect wide,
The boundless tide!
Waves cease to foam, and winds to roar;
Without a breeze,
The curling seas
Dance on, in measure, to the shore.
III
Who sings the source

Non es meravelha s'eu chan
melhs de nul autre chantador,
que plus me tra.l cors vas amor
el melhs sui faihz a so coman.
Cor e cors e saber e sen
e fors' e poder i ai mes.
Si.m tira vas amor lo fres
que vas autra part no.m aten.

Cant eu la vei, be m'es parven
als olhs, al vis, a la color
car aissi tremble de paor
com fa la folha contra.l ven.
Non ai de sen per un efan
aissi sui d'amor entrepres;
e d'ome qu'es aissi conques
pot domn'aver almorna gran.

Ai Deus! car se fosson trian

You go up the long track
That will take a car, but is best walked
On slow foot, noting the lichen
That writes history on the page
Of the grey rock. Trees are about you
At first, but yield to the green bracken,
The nightjars house: you can hear it spin
On warm evenings; it is still now
In the noonday heat, only the lesser
Voices sound, blue-fly and gnat
And the stream's whisper. As the road climbs,
You will pause for breath and the far sea's
Signal will flash, till you turn again

Night funeral
In Harlem:

Where did they get
Them two fine cars?

Insurance man, he did not pay--
His insurance lapsed the other day--
Yet they got a satin box
for his head to lay.

Night funeral
In Harlem:

Who was it sent
That wreath of flowers?

Them flowers came
from that poor boy's friends--
They'll want flowers, too,
When they meet their ends.

Night funeral
in Harlem:

Who preached that
Black boy to his grave?

Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All,
I take a box
And add it to my wild rice, my Cornish game hens.
The slacked or shorted, basketed, identical
Food-gathering flocks
Are selves I overlook. Wisdom, said William James,

Is learning what to overlook. And I am wise
If that is wisdom.
Yet somehow, as I buy All from these shelves
And the boy takes it to my station wagon,
What I've become
Troubles me even if I shut my eyes.

When I was young and miserable and pretty
And poor, I'd wish

"...a frozen memory, like any photo,
where nothing is missing, not even,
and especially, nothingness..."
-- Julio Cortázar, "Blow Up"

Mirror-mad,
he photographed reflections:
sunstorms in puddles,
cities in canals,

double portraits framed
in sunglasses,
the fat phantoms who dance
on the flanks of cars.

Nothing caught his eye
unless it bent
or glistered
over something else.

He trapped clouds in bottles
the way kids
trap grasshoppers.

for Doug Lang

They came here first in a car shaped like a heart
and now they depart as brilliant jazz musicians.
They arrived in full costume, rolling north
through a winter of neon.
Now I watch them leaving me
in a moonlight of falsettos.

They are singing goodbye to me in the echo chamber
and I am smiling at them from my king-size window.
You get the idea.

I was always making way for the others.
Now, like an intake of breath, I am beside myself.

—he's a dandy
—small moustache
—usually sucking on a cigar

he tends to lean into cars as he
transacts business

first time I met him, he said,
"hey! ya gonna make a
killin'?"

"maybe," I answered.

next meeting it was:
"hey, Ramrod! what's
happening?"

"very little," I told
him.

next time I had my girlfriend with me
and he just
grinned.

next time I was
alone.

"hey," he asked, "where's the young
chick?"

A hundred years is a lot of living
I've often thought. and I'll know, maybe,
Some day if the gods are good in giving,
And grant me to turn the century.
Yet in all my eighty years of being
I've never known but one ancient man
Who actively feeling, hearing, seeing,
Survived t beyond the hundred span.

Thinking? No, I don't guess he pondered;
He had the brains of a tiny tot,
And in his mind he so often wandered,
I doubted him capable of thought.
He hadn't much to think of anyway,