heaven

The sky was a midnight blue
velvet cloth draping
a birdcage and no moon
but the breeze was whistling
and the sound of a car
on Valentine Place was
the rush of a waterfall
on the phone in New York City
and that's when the muse
turned up with curly brown locks
she was a poet, too, and wanted
me to give her an assignment
she was willing to trade
fifteen minutes of inspiration
in return for a phone call
from Frank O'Hara in heaven
sipping espresso and Irish whiskey
and then a morning swim

Stranger, that massy, mouldering pile,
Whose ivied ruins load the ground,
Reechoed once to pious strains
By holy sisters breathed around.

There many a noble virgin came
To bid the world she loved....adieu;
There, victim of parental pride,
To years of hopeless grief withdrew.

Yes, proud St. Claire! thy costly walls
Have witnessed oft the mourner's pain;
And hearts in joyless durance bound,
Which sighed for kindred hearts in vain.

But never more within thy cells

Written at Twelve Years of Age, in imitation of Ovid's Epistles.


Are love and pow'r incapable to meet?
And must they all be wretched who are great?
Enslav'd by titles, and by forms confin'd,
For wretched victims to the state design'd.
What rural maid, that my sad fortune knows,
Would quit her cottage to embrace my woes?
Would be this cursed sacrifice to pow'r,
This wretched daughter of Rome's emperour?
When sick with sighs to absent Ovid given,
I tire with vows the unrelenting Heaven,

A ball will bounce; but less and less. It's not
A light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience.
Falling is what it loves, and the earth falls
So in our hearts from brilliance,
Settles and is forgot.
It takes a sky-blue juggler with five red balls

To shake our gravity up. Whee, in the air
The balls roll around, wheel on his wheeling hands,
Learning the ways of lightness, alter to spheres
Grazing his finger ends,
Cling to their courses there,
Swinging a small heaven about his ears.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.

For God has given us a language of monosyllables to prevent our clipping.

For a toad enjoys a finer prospect than another creature to compensate his lack.

Tho' toad I am the object of man's hate.
Yet better am I than a reprobate. who has the worst of prospects.
For there are stones, whose constituent particles are little toads.

For the spiritual musick is as follows.

For there is the thunder-stop, which is the voice of God direct.

For the rest of the stops are by their rhimes.

For a Man is to be looked upon in that which he excells as on a prospect.

For there be twelve cardinal virtues -- three to the East -- Greatness, Valour, Piety.

For there be three to the West -- Goodness, Purity and Sublimity.

For there be three to the North -- Meditation, Happiness, Strength.

For there be three to the South -- Constancy, Pleasantry and Wisdom.

For the Argument A PRIORI is GOD in every man's CONSCIENCE.

For the Argument A POSTERIORI is God before every man's eyes.

FIRST SPIRIT

Sister spirit, listen!
Methinks I hear a song,
Resounding strangely, sadly,
These peaceful plains along.

SECOND SPIRIT

'Tis like those lays we sang in earthly days,
When we trod our pilgrimage of pain;

FIRST SPIRIT

And earthlike are those values
Which chant the solemn strain:

CHORUS OF MORTALS

Low in the dust before Thee,
Great King of Kings, we fall!
Least of the host which adore Thee,
Do not despise our call!
From the paths of right,

Men fight all shapes and sizes as the racing horses run,
And no man knows his courage till he stands before a gun.
At mixed-up fighting, hand to hand, and clawing men about
They reckon Fuzzy-Wuzzy is the hottest fighter out.
But Fuzzy gives himself away -- his style is out of date,
He charges like a driven grouse that rushes on its fate;
You've nothing in the world to do but pump him full of lead:
But when you're fighting Johhny Boer you have to use your head;
He don't believe in front attacks or charging at the run,

AIR -- "The Drunkard"

I
Come listen, friends, and hear a song,
It is a doleful one,
About a young man, dead and gone --
He died far away from home.
John Robinson this young man's name,
His age I cannot tell,
And he was loved by all his friends,
And he was known full well.
II
His father and mother being dead,
It left him an orphan boy,
When he was with his brother
His health failed him, poor boy.
Kind friends they thought 'twould do him good
To travel for his health;