a wise history is a wise,
decision in the making
a wise decision is a wise,
point of decision
in the making is in the making,
of a wise sense
history is a sense of history
a galaxy is a decision in the making
a galaxy is history in the making
a wise sense is a wise sense of history
a galaxy is a wise sense of history
history is a fact of history
history is a wise fact
a wise fact is a wise sense
The Poet will publish my poem, “My Mother’s History” in an upcoming anthology on Cultural Identity. My ethnic background is a bit complicated. Depending upon how I look at it, I have 18 to 20 nationalities in my tangled family DNA.
the lost art
of statues and colonnades
sketched in time
Ꚛ
stars slumber
as the sea water
that rings my feet
Ꚛ
light mixed in shade
between the leaves
that line my feet
Ꚛ
centuries old
as leaves whisper
on New England stone
Ꚛ
another day
she wanders on
without a name
Upon the darkened prairie
a Comanche Moon shines,
rising from the horizon
and a swath of yellow pines.
Rousted from the tall grass
where buffaloes once roamed--
rabbits, ferrets and bobwhites
from the safety of their homes.
The ground doth tremble
and the earth doth quake.
Advancing shadows from the forest
disrupt the peaceful state.
Grasshoppers fly from their perch.
Wolf packs bound out of sight.
Something deadly stalks the prairie
shedding blood on the moon this night.
There is a section in my library for death
and another for Irish history,
a few shelves for the poetry of China and Japan,
and in the center a row of imperturbable reference books,
the ones you can turn to anytime,
when the night is going wrong
or when the day is full of empty promise.
I have nothing against
the thin monograph, the odd query,
a note on the identity of Chekhov's dentist,
but what I prefer on days like these
is to get up from the couch,
pull down The History of the World,
There is a section in my library for death
and another for Irish history,
a few shelves for the poetry of China and Japan,
and in the center a row of imperturbable reference books,
the ones you can turn to anytime,
when the night is going wrong
or when the day is full of empty promise.
I have nothing against
the thin monograph, the odd query,
a note on the identity of Chekhov's dentist,
but what I prefer on days like these
is to get up from the couch,
pull down The History of the World,
1
Today, recovering from influenza,
I begin, having nothing worse to do,
This autobiography that ends a
Half of my life I'm glad I'm through.
O Love, what a bloody hullaballoo
I look back at, shaken and sober,
When that intemperate life I view
From this temperate October.
To nineteen hundred and forty-seven
I pay the deepest of respects,
For during this year I was given
Some insight into the other sex.
I was a victim, till forty-six,
Of the rosy bed with bitches in it;
Philosophy the great and only heir
Of all that human knowledge which has bin
Unforfeited by man's rebellious sin,
Though full of years he do appear,
(Philosophy, I say, and call it, he,
For whatso'ere the painter's fancy be,
It a male-virtue seems to me)
Has still been kept in nonage till of late,
Nor manag'd or enjoy'd his vast estate:
Three or four thousand years one would have thought,
To ripeness and perfection might have brought
A science so well bred and nurst,
I'm part of people I have known
And they are part of me;
The seeds of thought that I have sown
In other minds I see.
There's something of me in the throne
And in the gallows tree.
There's something of me in each one
With whom I work and play,
For islanded there can be none
In this dynamic day;
And meshed with me perchance may be
A leper in Cathay.
There's me in you and you in me,
For deeply in us delves
Thirty-two years since, up against the sun,
Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,
Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,
And four lives paid for what the seven had won.
They were the first by whom the deed was done,
And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight
To that day's tragic feat of manly might,
As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.
Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon
Thou watch'dst each night the planets lift and lower;
