Songs

Lewis Ellingham

2011

 Lewis Ellingham Many of the cited song lyrics in this work are copyrighted, and permission to reproduce has not been sought. As excerpted material situated to be a part of an original composition, these are transformed texts, a part of a larger whole. A list of sources online and from printed material appears at the end of this book.

Contents
page 5 larc-en-ciel 7 Always 10 Amazing Grace 13 angels sing thee 16 The Archer 18 Avalokitasvara 20 before you break my heart 23 Bei Mir bis du Schn 25 Blauer Engel 31 A Bridge 33 ce beau matin 38 cool 40 exactly 43 faded amber 46 Hannah 48 her dream of love was gone 50 how you can love 54 laughing at the clouds 57 The Library 60 magic pool 63 une maison bleue adoss la colline 66 mamselle 69 Margie 71 mine eyes have seen 76 The Mission 78 mosquitoes 80 my face painted with blue 83 Nokomis 88 The Oriole 90 The Owl 90 paired Chinese elms 96 pebbles 98 le stelle che tremano 101 Ive lost our good old mama 104 The Window 107 The Witness 111 a wonderful world

larc-en-ciel

a cabbage butterfly flutters almost to a pause, a moment of sunlight breaking through the fog of almost every July morning, a scream (theres no other word (a progressing scream) from a passing jay adds sound to the forms of the spread hand of a rampant vine passing through the spaces as field for the again fluttering butterfly, cabbage a name for white seen throughout the year larc-en-ciel travers la toile de laraigne (the rainbow through the spiders web) Get sick, get well Hang around a ink well Ring bell, hard to tell If anything is goin to sell Try hard, get barred Get back, write braille Get jailed, jump bail Join the army, if you fail

a white dog, a volume masked by fluff, an assertive innocence in the gaze that nuzzled (me) this, what? a buttered weed, a jay hand picking the affection, the dog asked and gave larc-en-ciel the spiders web the precious stones that were hiding (les pierres prcieuses qui se cachaient) always that uncertainty a junco Dont steal, dont lift Twenty years of schoolin And they put you on the day shift Look out kid They keep it all hid monkey flower, bright yellow if it may be called orange starlings in the distance Look out kid Its somethin you did God knows when But youre doin it again You better duck down these animals have grown, the hand weed etched as veins in the butterfly cabbage diaphanous & magnificent as in dried leaves fallen

Always

three young plasterers celebrate the early morning working on an apartment building, the top floor below the sundeck on a roof reached by an elevator; there will be an elevator even for the cars, a tight fitting structure on an urban property built speculatively for a high-end market in a low-end economy we hear all about it in the news shows two are Latino, one Anglo the language is working-class English Ill be loving you, always, With a love thats true, always, When the things youve planned Need a helping hand, I will understand, always, Always Brother Duck! Sister Dragonfly! Brother Osprey! Sister Barnacle! Brother Orchid! Sister Tulip! Brother Turnip! Sister Turdus migratorius! Rejoice! Laudati sunt! Days may not be fair, always, Thats when Ill be there, always. Not for just an hour, Not for just a day, Not for just a year, But always.

Kinston, N.C. (AP) The Gospel of John quotes Jesus as saying "I am the true vine," and some folks in eastern North Carolina think they may have witnessed a literal demonstration. A utility pole about a mile south of Kinston has attracted attention in the last week or so from people who say the kudzu clinging to it resembles the image of Jesus on the cross. Kent Hardison goes by the pole every day on his way to work at Ma's Hotdog House, about a 90-minute drive east of Raleigh. His first reaction, common here when it comes to kudzu, was to blast it with Roundup herbicide. But then he had second thoughts, according to The Free Press of Kinston. "I glanced at it, and it looks like Jesus," Hardison said. "I thought, 'You can't spray Jesus with Roundup.'" Believers have reported seeing the face of Jesus in everything from sheet metal to a grilled cheese sandwich, but the depiction of the crucifixion is a rarer phenomenon. "I just thought it was my imagination," Hardison said. "I thought I was crazy the first time I saw it and it resembled Jesus." Hardison and some of his customers think the vine might be an indication that God is watching over the region. "Maybe it's a sign of the times," Michelle Davis said. "There's been a lot going on in this area." Kudzu, originally imported from Japan decades ago to help prevent soil erosion, has enjoyed such explosive growth that it's sometimes known as "the vine that ate the South." Long a problem for foresters and farmers with large plots of land, in recent years it's been moving into cities and developed areas. Power companies spend about $1.5 million a year fixing damaged power lines caused by kudzu growth, according to Irwin Forseth Jr., a biologist at the University of Maryland. Hardison said that regardless of whether there's any deep meaning to the vine, kudzu makes an appropriate medium for a divine message. "It doesn't matter what you do, it is going to be around," he said. "Ain't that a lot like Jesus?" [San Francisco Chronicle 30 June 2011] Ill be loving you, always, With a love thats true, always, When the things youve planned Need a helping hand, I will understand, always, Always

a pair of small, smooth stones rested on the surface of the tombstone, flat to the ground, and another single stone remained on its companion memorial with another small stone, probably once its mate, along side the identically carved graves a few inches away, the stone on bare ground. Only later did I discover leaving stones at cemetery sites to be a Jewish tradition the summer day a rich windy blue, Lake Michigan not far distant a line of surf, random muddled sounds Days may not be fair, always, Thats when Ill be there, always. Not for just an hour the name derives from the commedia dellarte to describe this creature, Harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus): Adult males are slate blue with chestnut sides and white markings including a white crescent at the base of the bill. Adult females are less colorful, with brownish-grey plumage and a white patch on the head around the eye. Both adults have a white ear-patch but this male seems

to have paired with a surf scoter, his constant companion

Amazing Grace

startling, well, I jumped up to see the hawk fly away, a she I think though the sighting is imperfect, her back to me on a TV aerial, a few wing feathers fuzzy and loose, her head turning against the late afternoon sky, the beak a silhouette recovering, a Coopers hawk, she had banged against the plate window glass next to my head as I lay reading about Rosa Luxemburg, not noticing at all that a pigeon had taken refuge in a potted plant, a weak pelargonium on the window ledge hidden amidst a bank of ferns & flowering plants partly hidden by ornamental pillows piled against the glass crash! the terrified pigeon only revealing its presence when I leaned from an open window panel to see what had gone on, if anything needed repair & so spooked the pigeon, up & out a hurried departure, the hawk already gone from her perch in a neighbors yard

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Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me.... I once was lost but now am found, Was blind, but now, I see. a guest had just left an hour before, a poet who balanced gossip, poetry & critique nimbly as she explored the pastry offerings of an afternoon reserved each year to note the highlights of the jacaranda trees in the garden, a viewing garden revealing the lavender blossoms at fullest blossom a tea, held almost ceremonially an extravagance like much else that passed that conversational day, the talk tightened into shapes of social discipline to limit damage and perhaps allow questions, beliefs & tastes to flower without penalty T'was Grace that taught... my heart to fear. And Grace, my fears relieved. How precious did that Grace appear... the hour I first believed. I extracted the potted plant, pot and broken pelargonium from its saucer, realizing it had escaped its weekly watering that very morning, would in fact probably escape all watering since it had disappeared under the spread of nearby plants, just

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a place for a pigeon to believe safety possible, just the setting for a hawk with 8-times human visions clarity to believe otherwise Through many dangers, toils and snares... we have already come. T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far... and Grace will lead us home. a question had arisen, whether Fates dare border ordinary human enterprise thus reducing such activitys meaning to moot, a puppets life the whole range of mankinds best efforts, & as well whether a well told story, & sequence of accounts of human things might benefit or be diminished when the human dance is set against such clouds The Lord has promised good to me... His word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be... as long as life endures. pigeons are settling for the evening, light is weakening everywhere, a fog cover has assembled for the night, the throb from a nearby apartment paces slowly the bass parts of some musical display, this neighbor like the pigeons hour by hour feeding upon the cultures each recognize

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Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease, I shall possess within the veil, a life of joy and peace. the jacarandas have almost settled too, their feathery leaves & generous blossoms, a measured tango from faster moves, feelings cooling, there will be no stars When we've been here ten thousand years... bright shining as the sun. We've no less days to sing God's praise... then when we've first begun.

angels sing thee

goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! In a perfect world One we've never known We would never need to face the world alone Helmut Dantine (7 October 1917 2 May 1982) was a film actor remembered for playing many Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. Dantine's father was the head of the Austrian railway system. As a young man, Dantine became involved in an anti-Nazi movement in Vienna. In 1938, when he was 21 years old, the Nazis took over Austria during the Anschluss. Dantine was rounded up, with hundreds of other enemies of the Third Reich, and imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp outside Vienna. Three months later, using their influence, his parents got his release and immediately sent him to California to live with a friend.

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Both his parents would later die in a Nazi concentration camp. He began his U.S. acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was spotted by a talent scout and signed to a Warner Bros. contract. Dantine spent the early 1940s there, appearing in International Squadron (1941) with Ronald Reagan, Casablanca (1942), Edge of Darkness (his first lead role), Mission to Moscow, Northern Pursuit (all 1943), Passage to Marseille, The Mask of Dimitrios (both 1944), Hotel Berlin, and Escape in the Desert (both 1945). Dantine was also loaned out to other film companies for two notable films in 1942. To Be or Not to Be and Mrs. Miniver were both released in 1942. This last named film I saw several times, age 9: from it I knew that I was gay, that the beauty of my father one evening in a tuxedo extended They can have the world We'll create our own I may not be brave or strong or smart But somewhere in my secret heart an architecture of fantastic cities a teenage where steel became platinum light the wash of muted love for love I know Love will find a way Any where we go I'm home If you are there beside me a weaving of fabulous cloth tapestry hinted brocade

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Like dark turning into day Somehow we'll come through Now that I've found you Love will find a way Audie Murphy (June 20, 1924 May 28, 1971) was a fifth grade dropout from an extremely poor family who fought in World War II. In the course of his service, he became the most decorated American soldier of all time. After the war he became a celebrated movie star for over two decades, appearing in 44 films. Murphy's successful movie career included To Hell and Back (1955), based on his book of the same title (1949). He died in a plane crash in 1971 and was interred, with full military honors, in Arlington National Cemetery. One hot afternoon in the early 1950s I wandered 63rd Street in Chicago from the lake inland, found a movie house playing a triple feature of Audie Murphy formula pix, air-conditioned but really that lust, pulsing longing that is transformed after half an hour in some bar I was so afraid Now I realize Love is never wrong And so it never dies as the Latin of cathedrals and Italian loveliness gave sensuality & power the snows of northern Europe & America lent a leaner face the contoured animals of cave art opened limbs & groins, where it all had been long before

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There's a perfect world Shining in your eyes And if only they could feel it too The happiness I feel with you They'd know Love will find a way Anywhere we go a golden rose We're home If we are there together Like dark turning into day Somehow we'll come through Now that I've found you Love will find a way the golden rose

The Archer

Because I didnt want to disturb him, I kept closely to the edge of the community garden, its ornamental flowered fence just to watch him assemble the targets, stack equipment, mainly large bows & quivers of arrows resting against a table hed set up on the lawn of the park: he moved with grace, pacing his setup tasks as if breathing into each one, evenly

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A brilliant day; the high May sun streamed through the Douglas firs, into pools of air, tangibly blue. Darker green, the waters of the Umpqua fell in tiny crystals from the paddle waves from the canoe sighed in the shadows of white alders and lacey vine maples. apparently my gaze more a stare he turned his head & then his body toward me, his eyes asking what ... The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art ... a kind of smile, a graded hint of curiosity mixed with busyness as his glance toward the targets suggested these move forward slightly, and he set to do this, one by one, my binoculars focused high into a tree, a eucalyptus well beyond the lawn, above it, topping a slope, a ravine wash the tree supporting breezes and a bird, a house finch darting through the maze of dancing leaves The target pulls the arrow, I said. He heard me & waited, back to me as he adjusted one of the target tripods, Oh? walking on, along the flowered fence, binoculars in hand, I caught his eye, just as he looked toward

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me, turning again fully toward me, a question in his smile sometimes, sometime this happens, not usually or often, but you might tell them & see if it is so a small van of children had arrived & were jostling to some shape of grouping, a shepherding second adult patting them together as if making a clay pot

Avalokitasvara

left elbow to right knee, right elbow to left knee, step it up Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, Sweet dreams that leave your worries behind you But in your dreams, whatever they be, Dream a little dream about me ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha goodie goodie gumdrop! ha, ha, ha Stars fading, but I linger on, Still craving is that rhubarb? no, no, cooked cabbage and a dollop of sour cream oh, borscht! yeah, like soup it is

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Say nighty-night and kiss me, Just hold me tight and tell me youll miss me While Im alone and blue as can be, Dream a little dream of me sssssh Leonard, ssssssssssssshh, dont repeat out loud Stars shining bright above you, Night breezes seem to whisper I love you Birds singing in the sycamore tree Dream a little dream of me no, no, its type 2 diabetes, type 1 is from birth, but at this stage its all the same, the needles, the glycerine or orange juice, all that Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you ha, ha, ha Stars fading, but I linger on the green beans all half dozen of them arent bad, but call this beef Stroganoff? Gravy sort of youve gotta call it something yeah, yeah hold on to your chair, now, right leg forward, hold it there, up, up a little, Mary Birds singing in the sycamore tree Dream a little dream of me

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before you break my heart

An old friend from whom Ive been for some time estranged chanced upon me or I him while he walked his dog in our shared neighborhood. When we meet, it is cordially but, unlike years ago, we have little to say, usually guard what we do say rather, and by now have settled into this distance as the new normal, as in fact the long normal. But a remark, something quite unexpected came from him, doubtless a suggestion of memories of former intimacy: have you forgiven your parents? apropos of nothing that had so far been said, and my reply, yes, I have, which seemed both broadly sweeping & almost irrelevant since my father has been dead 45 years and my mother over 75 years ago & my fathers second wife, my stepmother, dead some 30 years in a family never at all close where a notion like unconditional love was unknown & unexpected. Odd then, but no doubt this question reflected a wider concern, that children often blame parents for adversities perceived which, from some remembered talk or incident in the past, had been my feeling about my early life. Such a question! though & I wondered, is this style? If so, it is effective Stop! In the name of love Before you break my heart what had passed between old duffers passing on the street seemed haunting

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I'm aware of where you go Each time you leave my door I watch you walk down the street Knowing your other love you'll meet my maternal grandmother escaped my attention: she shouldnt have, she raised me & disliked me, how much so I only discovered in letters surfacing many years after her death in 1948, a death that was the collusion of the instruction & her independently minded doctor that, if its bad, let me go and he did. But this time before you run to her Leaving me alone and hurt is she forgiven? perhaps but less so than my father whose image savors better, for no known reason except maybe sexual attraction & a taste for the life of the mind that absurdity, something my Irish peasant grandmother would not have tolerated in her intolerant mind, bright as it often was, bright as the conservatism that crept as fog over the flat landscape Stop! In the name of love Before you break my heart Think it over

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only gestures, rather feeble opposed Think it over I've known of Your secluded nights I've even seen her Maybe once or twice my brazen departure from hearth & nurture, age 18, to spread wings I was unsure of, in air I doubted would sustain, determined folly that, in 70 years, worked out well But is her sweet expression Worth more than my love and affection? my siblings dead, my goals secret, especially from myself each time you are together I'm so afraid I'll be losing you forever until goals spilled almost by chance & I could say yes, I have how this has come to pass I cannot say Stop! In the name of love Before you break my heart Stop! In the name of love Before you break my heart Baby, think it over goals spilled almost by chance & I could say

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Bei Mir Bist du Schn

the German social democrat Eduard Bernstein said at the end of the 19th century, the movement is everything, the ends are nothing, against his Marxist colleages, who liked to explain how wonderful things would be after the revolution but made no attempt to organize for social justice in the meantime. Why are you telling me this? Of all the boys I've known, and I've known some Until I first met you I was lonesome And when you came in sight, dear, my heart grew light And this old world seemed new to me Honest mechanic and loving family man his Shell station three decades planted on our corner until he sickened and vanished from behind the bulletproof glass But as one of Bernsteins most persistent critics, the French syndicalist Georges Sorel, pointed out, the problem with democracy was not that it was too messy, but too neat: it reduced everything to winning elections. This meant the movement would always be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. It was hopeless to expect elected politicians to stand up to the forces of global capitalism seen from the standpoint of the early 21st century, there is something uncannily prescient about his remark, Democracy, he said, is the paradise of which unscrupulous financiers dream. Who is telling me this? You're really swell, I have to admit, you Deserve expressions that really fit you And so I've wracked my brain, hoping to explain All the things that you do to me

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The station crept along a few more years then closed soot from the dirty air gathering on its gray canting surfaces pumps hooded then removed with all remaining walls and pillars ancient tanks disinterred and hauled away empty graves filled in the surface graded to a bald gentle dome behind a chain-link fence Sappho: Moonset already. the Pleiades, too: midnight. the hour passes and I lie down, a lonely woman. Bei mir bist du schn, please let me explain Bei mir bist du schn means you're grand Bei mir bist du schn, again I'll explain It means you're the fairest in the land Poppies and weeds pumpkins at Halloween at Christmas a transient forest of dead fragrant trees all other seasons sun rain bare ground with rags styrofoam sparrows blurring in dusty depressions Sappho: Most beautiful of all the stars O Hesperus bringing everything the bright dawn scattered: you bring the sheep, you bring the goat, you bring the child back to her mother.

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I could say bella, bella, even say wunderbar Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are I've tried to explain, bei mir bist du schn So kiss me, and say you understand And today gleaning dandelion seeds lemony goldfinches each dark wing flashing a tiny gleam of white to Andromeda, Sappho: when you lie dead and there will be no memory of you no one missing you afterward, for you have no part in the roses of Piria. Unnoticed to this house of Hades, too, youll wander, flittering after faded corpses. I could say bella, bella, even say wunderbar Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are I've tried to explain, bei mir bist du schn So kiss me, and say that you will understand

Blauer Engel

Safeway always has much to offer today, however, large green California olives stuffed with mozzarella were not available, though the jars of fresh quite large oysters were as were medium-sized navel oranges, broccoli heads and zucchini, fresh sweet corn on the cob it is summer so of course, so much and Paul was there, a checker who is store translator for Norwegian and a wit in English by the flower display collect several wanderers against

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whom the store no longer offers an open restroom, mostly homeless people, one must ask someone to punch in the number code as key Early morning half dreamed night Flying like an echo through the head Frhmorgens halbgetrumte Nacht fliegt wie ein Echo durch den Kopf You piece of shit! Wow, man! You piece of hippy shit! this from a senior checker, George, overweight now, a cone topped by a sour face; once he was just efficient, but he has added the flavor of anger to his eyes and tone, as well as food, this cant go on, you but George is at a loss his irritation with the loosely prancing waif of yesteryear probably stole something, or just giggled inappropriately, you know, like man, cool it man, Ive been around. You are looking in the mirror, who touches You with fingers Your pictures put together A million times to different times A million times to different times Du schaust den Spiegel unverwandt an, der mit Fingern dich befhlt Dein Photo aneinanderreiht Millionenfach, zu and'rer Zeit Millionenfach, zu and'rer Zeit the aim was for un-salted saltines on the top shelf of aisle #5, the 3 women an essay in spherical

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masses, each larger than the next & all 3 in a row before the layers of boxed and bagged breads & confections, a climbing display but can you reach it? & it was not the largest sphere but the middle one, more ovoid than spheroid, a pear rather than an orange, she reached for the top shelf & got the box, displacing many cellophane packages of oyster crackers in so doing, they fell to the floor & the women moved on This is me, and not you You are looking at a distance You are screaming I can see But I only laugh back at you. Das bin dann ich, nicht etwa du Du schaust mir nur von Weitem zu Du schreist, ich seh's an deinem Blick Ich aber lache nur zurck Take your eyes off her! an angry man, to me to me! shouting, a quietly controlled shout, his stare hot, cutting, a young man (I am old, he might have hit me otherwise) we were standing in the checkout line, a girl the checker, but this angry man was acting to protect his companion, a curiously dressed, almost stylish slender woman, gaunt? into drugs? that had been my interest, who is she really? he good looking to me, now that I noticed I almost hissed at him, Im gay, you stupid motherfuck but

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said nothing, just turning to look at the checker, who averted her glance, with contempt, so that I realized, they all think Im a dirty old man, lets enjoy this a moment, who has thought this about me in years if ever, well, when it comes to boys, of course, I am exactly what they think. It's cold on the railroad platform 6, Berlin to Hamm over Hannover Orders are screamed at the trains, the coaches rattle into the night Causing the endless front of windows to be a deja vu from the eyes Picture after picture melting to the very last passenger.. Dagegen kalt auf Bahnsteig sechs, Berlin von Hamm ber Hannover Kommandos gellen an den Zgen, die Wagen rucken in die Nacht Passiert die endlos lange Front von Fenstern dja vu die Augen Und Bild um Bild verschmelzen sie zum allerletzten Passagier I saw my yoga teacher in the parking lot, looking perplexed, and saw why, with Safeway security guards nearby, and a tall young black man, thin, bobbing up and down behind their screening semicircle preventing passers-by from seeing him, then a break in the shield and I saw the young man had dropped his pants though still held the upper fringes, his belt dangling, his cock dangling, his right knee upward, standing on his left foot, the balance fragile and a very youthful looking female security guard talking to him she could be heard saying you dont want to do that and he clearly wanting to do

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that, and doing it, though every once and again he would pull the pants back on only to again drop them, my yoga teacher looking at the party, then at me, hello I said, not wanting to contribute to the minor mayhem of the stripping black, not wanting to go away and pretend I was not interested in the scene when I was: hello he said and then we both turned to walk away, already noticing one of the guards waving us on with his glance and a motion of his head, it was then I noticed the stare of the five mannequin owls across Market Street atop a building, their stares powerless to move the many pigeons in the parking lot, or along Church or Market streets, a busy intersection, but not perhaps without power, their stares long a feature of the corner when, over years, their number has decreased by eight, once thirteen mannequin owls, fading now with colors gone, only an ever-growing turbulence along the sidewalks, the asphalt of the parking lot, even to the spire of Our Lady of Safeway, across Church Street, now more a community center for 12-step groups and charities than the Lutheran establishment it but slightly remained: years before the pastor had pronounced himself gay and the parish was removed from the Lutheran rolls this had not broken the stare of the mannequin owls, nothing had, little would, only a catastrophe greater than a black groin before varied strange eyes

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Now to the 12th floor. Apartment 100, apartment 100 Somebody is going through the room... 3 fast steps to the balcony, the door slams closed And 30 doors slamming and it sounds like wild animals Zuletzt woanders, 12. Stockwerk, Appartement 100, Appartement 100 Und jemand schleicht sich durch den Raum... Drei schnelle Schritte zum Balkon, die Tr knallt hinter dir ins Schloss Und krachen dreissig Tren und hallen wider wie wilde Tiere 7 panels the bike mural along Safeways back wall, facing the hole where 2 city streetcar lines enter the subway system along Duboce Street one end with a hang-gliding biker flying over San Francisco Bay & the other a bike and the legs and torso of its rider racing toward the surf at Ocean Beach, a long tire track in the beach sand leaving a snowy plover in its wake, the City presented in settings in the panels between, even time of day, the middle panel with night scenes, its neighbors partly too, a skunk crossing a road, generic Victorian painted lady houses & a subway train riding the tail of a banner fluttering toward the flying cyclist over what? the sanctum of what is seen here, of what the owls see, this is me, and not you you are looking at a distance Now we are there, just me and you, we watch each other falling The scream is you, I am your face You are just a shadow, I am the light... Das sind dann wir, nur ich und du, wir schauen uns im Fallen zu Der Schrei bist du, ich dein Gesicht Du nur ein Schatten, ich das Licht...

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A Bridge

Sur le pont d'Avignon L'on y danse, l'on y danse coming toward me a square faced youth wrapped in hood, dark gray, wool perhaps, or what passes, square his walk too, a stride, the morning sun bright in the still moist air, the fog bank dissipating, the sky mostly blue, a summer azure Sur le pont d'Avignon L'on y danse tous en rond and soon thereafter another square faced youth, a bit older perhaps his ears wrapped in muffs electronic links to an orbiting master somewhere well well away under a glistening street tree passage, flowering Japanese plums fruitless but beautiful, the old archdiocese offices across the street, a public middle school this side Les beaux messieurs font comm' Et puis encore comm' immediately a faceless crew-cut passerby cut between the on-comer and

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these blue eyes, my own, the gardener of this scene, faceless because he walked away, his short sleeved shirt (burnt Sienna) perhaps too light for where the day yet was Sur le pont d'Avignon L'on y danse, l'on y danse I noticed then the light gold of the middle schools faade reflected over the plum trees, the dew catching points a soul of middling years, the age a descriptive choice of course Asian, a set smile carrying a tote bag, valise really customed to a suggestion of costliness, bulging slightly, as if pregnant, a stately off-white, ivory? no one would know his eyes fixed benignly, no sound had clicked or shuffled or Sur le pont d'Avignon L'on y danse tous en rond Next month, the last four of more than two dozen giant steel modules each with a roadbed segment about half the size of a football field will be loaded onto a huge ship and transported 6,500 miles to Oakland. There, they will be assembled to fit into the eastern span of the new Bay Bridge. The project is part of Chinas continual move up the global economic value chain from cheap toys to Apple iPads to commercial jetliners as it aims to become the worlds civil engineer.[NYTimes, 26 June 2011] there was no one on the street now, just the morning

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Les jardiniers font comm' Et puis encore comm' a streetcar screamed southward, my direction, a police car raced opposite, less noise, but it would come, the noise and brighter light, the insistency Sur le pont d'Avignon L'on y danse, l'on y danse Sur le pont d'Avignon L'on y danse tous en rond I too carried something, a grocery sack, other small packages of pastries just bought l'on y danse l'on y danse a kind of sleep the walking shadows shorter glistening leaves a fog drop soon to dry

ce beau matin

a perfect day, brilliantly blue, a breeze, everyone in shirt sleeves on the street, the cafs full & well they might be! just lovely When the little bluebird

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Who has never said a word Starts to sing Spring When the little bluebell At the bottom of the dell Starts to ring Ding dong Ding dong When the little blue clerk In the middle of his work Starts a tune to the moon up above It is nature that is all Simply telling us to fall in love Do you recall the thing we saw one time One summer morning fair and fresh: The pathway turned and there, upon a bed of stone, A great hulk of decaying flesh, Its legs upthrust to mock female lubricity, Seething and sweating pollution, Its open belly Venting a gaseous corruption? Rappelez-vous lobjet que vous vmes, mon me, Ce beau matin dt si doux: Au detour dun sentier une charogne infme Sur un lit sem de cailloux, Les jambes en lair, comme une femme lubrique, Brlante et suant les poisons, Ouvrait dune faon nonchalante et cynique Son ventre plein dexhalaisons. I felt my mood closing as if pressure were squeezing my arms, the sunny street, the passers-by all decaying into ugliness, or nearly so, some less than repulsive, others vibrating an unexplained aggression, an urban brittleness, their skins metallic against whatever passed along the arid street, tiny pockets of clumsy privacy the goal, the breath brutish, the streets innocence crumpled like wadded paper. And that's why birds do it, bees do it

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Even educated fleas do it Let's do it, let's fall in love Flies in droves descended on that putrid belly From whence exuded black brigades Of larvae trickling slowly like a liquid jelly From end to end along its shreds Les mouches bourdonnaient sur ce ventre putride, Do sortaient de noirs batallons De larves, qui coulaient comme un pais liquide Le long des ces vivants haillons. by the time Id reached the checkout counter at the supermarket where Id been shopping, the play of nastiness had leapt into every pause in my attention, each face scrutinized, every body examined for what pleased me and did not when the checkout clerk began to throw the next customers purchases into the pile that was mine, I sharply bit not the vodka! and she erased the liquor item from my tab, but the mechanism failed to work and so a delay brought the line to a halt, a supervisor was found, the register righted and my receipt printed please sign & a scrawl of e-ink on an e-receipt generated a small printed memo of the transaction, thank you Mr & the clerk couldnt quite get my name Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it Even lazy jellyfish do it Let's do it, let's fall in love

35

All of it heaved and fell as smoothly as the sea And writhed and rustled in its motion; One might surmise the corpse, breathing uncertainly, Survived in the proliferation. Tout cela descendait, montait comme une vague, Ou slanait en ptillant; On et dit que le corps, enfl dun mouvement rhythmique Agite et tourne dans son van. hoping the half-gallons of milk would not break through the paper bags why didnt she double these? and that the loosely capped plastic container of marinated olives would hold so that spillage would not soak the bags in olive oil and weaken them like last week, why didnt she do what I asked? suddenly the sunshine brightened parking lot and mood, well, we both were distracted I've heard that lizards and frogs do it Layin' on a rock They say that roosters do it With a doodle and cock An apprehensive bitch behind a granite slab Was watching with offended moans, Waiting for the moment when to leap and, with a grab, Retrieve her morsel from the bones. Derrire les rochers une chienne inquite Nous regardait dun il fch, piant le moment de reprendre au squelette Le morceau quelle avait lch. while waiting for the train to carry me & two grocery bags homeward, not far but the platform is an island

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in the middle of a busy street with railings to prevent people from falling into traffic for some time Ive used these to pass time with yoga moves, a luxury I enjoy, showing off in a way, though some might say look at that old man, showing off Some Argentines, without means do it I hear even Boston beans do it Let's do it, let's fall in love Yes! That is what youll be, O queen of every grace, When, last rites said, you lie alone; Beneath the sod and fat bouquets, youll find your place And, moldering, become dry bone. Oui! telle que vous serez, la reine des grces, Aprs les derniers sacraments, Quand vous irez, sous lherbe et les floraisons grasses, Moisir parmi les ossements. Id not forgotten that I was under the gaze of the five owls, the familiars of the bandaged creature, the blueeyed mummy sentinel at Sparkys, the all-night foodery down the street, that Sabrina watched from her windows, the soothsayer alert to a false move, a false thought, O! the peril, the wedging grave of judgments, of recriminations, the lack of light The most refined lady bugs do it When a gentleman calls Moths in your rugs they do it

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What's the use of moth balls Then, O my beautiful, repeat this to the worm Whose kisses eat your face away: That I preserve the sacred essence and the form Of all my loves as they decay! Alors, ma beaut! dites la vermine Qui vous mangera de baisers, Que jai gard la forme et lessence divine De mes amours decomposes! The chimpanzees in the zoos do it, Some courageous kangaroos do it Let's do it, let's fall in love a passenger on the train caught my eye, he casually slumped hanging from the safety rails along the trains ceiling, his shirt rising to reveal a naked waist I found distracting we exited together, going different ways

Cool Something cool I'd like to order something cool It's so warm here in town and this heat gets me down Yes, I'd like something cool a black kite & rather full crescent moon over Dolores Park were sure signs: cool too a light breeze mid-afternoon, full sun but in this port city it is rarely warm cool, precisely, whatever the reason

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My, it's nice to simply sit and rest awhile You know it's a shame I can't think of your name I remember your smile spiders were at rest on the walls, one hanging & fully etched by skylight through opaque glass its web a wing, a great wing, a gesture toward what was remembered, ants circling, a jay rapidly hopping from place to place, a squirrel on a lower branch, a black kite, a rather full crescent moon somewhere to the east I don't ordinarily drink with strangers I guess I usually drink alone But you were so awfully nice to ask me And I'm so terribly far from home a shoe avoiding ants on asphalt, bright the ants, the shoes surface, even the black oilbased asphalt, pocked with pits the ants avoided, a pant leg followed the shoe avoiding ants Like my dress I must confess it's very old But it's simple and neat, it's just right for this heat Save my furs for the cold A cigarette, no I don't smoke them as a rule But I'll have one, it might be fun with something cool an hibiscus flower, very full, crimson,

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its leaves very green, darkly emerald, more hibiscus blooming, the thought indigo And I know you couldn't picture me The time I went to Paris in the fall And who would think the man that I loved Was quite so handsome and quite so tall the kite black, the moon crescent, rather full as crescent to the east Well, it's through, it's just a memory I had One I almost forgot since the weather's so hot And I'm feeling so bad about a date, oh wait, I'm such a fool He's just a guy who stopped to buy me something cool

exactly

Ma sagesse est aussi ddaigne que le chaos. Quest mon nant, aprs de la stupeur qui vous attend? My wisdom is as spurned as chaos. What is my nothingness, compared to the amazement that awaits you? Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw him, you would even say it glows. this is about nothing, a story about so little only the slight sunburn over my face gives it life beyond

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remembered moments of vivacity, for example a glance northward along Polk Street standing next to the central library, an oncoming traffic charge against my vision, noticing a few people straggle across the street, then it came to me they would not be hit, the quiet morning too quiet to permit this All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games. there was the tree on 23rd Street, the lower slope of Potrero Hill commemorating the death from AIDS of Ralton Dayton Carpenter, aged 40, who shared a house with three friends, and whose lover I had been, in a way, an older lover who shared much but not a life with him: the survivors had selected the tree and it was still there, mature now after these twenty years exactly Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say: "Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" when the #19 bus eventually arrived at the corner of Evans & Jennings, when I eventually passed by the old dismantling power station on the Bay, earth movers and

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workmen busy everywhere over the site, when I walked on to Herons Head, a spit of land onto the water surrounded by industrial San Francisco, the weekday morning deafening from the promise of nothing overpowered by the human noise of a great human city, the path leading to some reported rare birds in the saltmarsh I never saw, a breeze gaining in strength over quiet Then all the reindeer loved him as they shouted out with glee, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history! shimmering water, the fog bank far to the west but visible, the welcome line of gray on this blue and perfect day, the visible source of a physical comfort, the air fresh and cool against a known-to-be hot day inland, the plants along the path familiar, though only some of the human names known, the wildlife too, a vitality with a landscape sized for human eyes, scaled infinitely at some size for whatever eyes, joggers and dog walkers, two lovers, an Asian man, quite thin and his blond friend, both talking, running wonderfully to the very

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end of the land, two least sandpipers and three oystercatchers so quiet the couple certainly and I almost missing them as I very slowly ambled the path slowly emerged the Cape Henry, a military ship so long anchored at a pier just north of the slough along which one walked, one wondered if it were still seaworthy, a snowy egret flying close to manmade things, passing the ships prow by a short bit to continue over the Bay waters

faded amber

the face, the style, the shape suggested pleasure, the love handles wasted skin & wrinkles otherwise Proust tells us anticipation & memory are the points of reward for experience My story is much too sad to be told But practically everything leaves me totally cold The only exception I know is the case When I'm out on a quiet spree, fighting vainly the old ennui

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And I suddenly turn and see Your fabulous face the small table had held a light lunch, a cloth swept it clean, light maple well used & again clean a tiny bug, some flea or, much smaller, a violation, suddenly jumped about, how did it get there? just there it was all I could do not to kill it Buddhism tells us that the present is the only tense worth considering I get no kick from champagne Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all So tell me why should it be true That I get a kick out of you for years he was everywhere mildly aggressively assertive, harmlessly wanting love all could see it then it was said hed attempted suicide & in a psych ward when next seen he was slumped, staring drugged stupor?

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eventually he again raced about, heavy goggled eyes revealing a trace of something unnoticed before, who had not noticed? kinder, more measured, just a glance anxiety decimates the present decimal by decimal until experience is a memory only & anticipation floats in faded amber Some get a kick from cocaine I'm sure that if I took even one sniff That would bore me terrifically too But I get a kick out of you he stopped me on the street & asked, do you believe in God? how odd! & I answered no then he said the poem comes from elsewhere how very odd! Id said nothing about that, just no about God his coke-bottle eyes still unblinking I get a kick every time I see you standing there before me I get a kick though it's clear to me, you obviously don't adore me I get no kick in a plane Flying too high with some guy in the sky Is my idea of nothing to do Yet I get a kick out of you

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Hannah

the photo clerk at Walgreens filled me in on details I had missed when Hannahs was still open at 18th & Hartford in The Castro Id seen Hannah with a customer at the picnic table outside her place of business, she sipping from a flute of (maybe) champagne, her customer, a heavy-set man in suit with an open collar shirt, drinking beer he wouldnt be there for chakra cleansing, perhaps marriage repair, improvement in professional fortune, maybe even a reading but I doubted it anyhow, the clerk described Hannah, when she came to Walgreens as high maintenance & not like her husband, easy that polished face looking medieval with its teal glint and henna-ed hair piled high, the eyes high maintenance indeed Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life End over end neither left nor to right Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life. I teased friends at the zen center nearby, suggesting they move in on the chakra cleansing business since Hannah charged a minimum of $10 to get in the door, and surcharged for each specialized accommodation with the spiritual world since there are 7 chakras, each suggested opportunities for individual treatment, the throat chakra giving voice in

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blue Vishuddha: purification inspiration, devotion, infinity, very vulnerable for example, such desires open-ended and unclearly defined, we all agreed some would really be daunting Make me, oh make me, Lord more than I am Make me a piece in your master game plan Free from the earthly tempestion below Ive got the will, Lord if youve got the toe. as in the solar plexus chakra, its color, golden yellow, its mode Power but for those needing cleansing, those suffering from imbalances of Fear, Hate, Indifference, Stress, SelfLoathing, Need for Power what might one expect? Hannahs shop, the very walls, the patio and its meager ground of a few flowers, shrubs and flagstones, the earth below, all would one day need a Superfund of cleansing resources just to deal with the karmic detritus of such exudings woe! woe! the horror of such cancers freely flowing, creeping, rising in the airs of human breath & nurture! Take all the brothers whove gone on before And all of the sisters whove knocked on your door All the departed dear loved ones of mine Stickem up front in the offensive line. Hannah, now in Las Vegas, crushed in defeat, her project a shambles, her aims in retreat, the land now abandoned, what hope for those left? wed laughed before looking, the landscape bereft

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Yeah, Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life End over end neither left nor to right Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.

her dream of love was gone

the jacaranda blooms late this year for whatever reason, the chills of springtime longer, livelier than usual, though too water has been plentiful, one thought an early richness but no, July is well along and the blossoming season is only now underway the ancients have truly returned to us and have unfurled flags of sudden Cloud Rings from rivers crossing the most ordinary streets on the way back Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today, Madam. Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today. She is sorry to be delayed, But last evening down in Lover's Lane she strayed. Madam. Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today. over years the jacaranda no longer seems a carpet of lavender balls rolling at eye level from the window but has grown so that these blossoms now are viewed from below, scattered rather amidst the filigree of leaves, the skeletal trunk and branch system differing only to

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eyes that have seen this spectacle summer after summer the youngest gods burst from the bubbles of sperm spit Listen! their music played from buzz & bleats you can not hear except through periscopes set down among vascular whales mating under the crisis of rock & shale When she woke up and found that her dream of love was gone, Madam, She ran to the man who had led her so far astray. And from under a velvet gown, She drew a gun and shot her lover down, Madam. Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today. soon darkness will engulf the jacaranda, evening now stroking the filigree green and the grays of bark with soft lights, a small dance, a breeze provoking petals floating to a lawn cups whose brims overcrowd the rustling autumn Door to the invisible temple built unseen in cities of the satanic machine Cups the legends reveal and the ancients are beginning to pass around When the mob came and got her and dragged her from the jail, Madam, They strung her from the old willow cross the way. And the moment before she died, She lifted up her lovely head and cried, Madam. Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today. an act of faith the blossoms will remain the night

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the morning sun dazzling them from another side in a way humming thru crystals of light most unexpected the ancients sizzle and dazzle not as we imagined its roots going back to the starfields of Every Night Miss Otis regrets... she's unable to lunch today She is sorry to be delayed.

how you can love

La Morenitas is the name of the place, a Mexican roadside restaurant in the Sierra Nevada near Pinecrest on the Sonora Pass road, nothing all that much, tasty tacos & such, what one would expect, but Big Red I did not expect, nor even believe at first since the surface has been coated over with paint and varnish thickly, an impressionistic rendering now of something once & still celebrated that, as my traveling companion said at the time is appalling, namely, the 1976 harvesting of a giant sugar pine from nearby forests, the enormous slice of this giant deposited along the wall of this restaurant, casually, a segment from 65 feet from the ground of what

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once was a standing tree, no point in overdoing it, the old photo of the loggers and a chunk of the trunk on some by now quaint vehicle proud as posies & peaches about this accomplishment: Big Red is what Americas about, as is my, and my companions sadness that it happened. Oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny, how you can love. Oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny, heavens above. You make my sad heart jump with joy, And when you're near I just can't sit still a minute. Well, approaching the mountains, at Oakdale in the San Joaquin Valley, Id had my foretaste of this celebration, a couple of teenage girls in bikinis waving homemade signs CARWASH on the road, some auto fixing or gas station in the background, I mean deliciously country featherless chickens some drooling lecher, any lascivious or licentious creep no, lets just call it rural family fun, the young midriffs rippling in that wondrous land where the nave moves to the hot, where hopes are jewels of unnamed promise suggesting maybe life might more than work out, be fun, be uncomplicated, be different from Big Red before hes all painted over with two cracks deep to the center of the wood, the waitress couldnt

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make change for my $20 bill so I still owe my friend $10 for the meal. I'm so, oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny... Please tell me, dear, what makes me love you so? You're not handsome, it's true, but when I look at you, I just, oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny! oh! Wed hardly set up our tents when the soughing winds in the Jeffrey pine woodland wed chosen to camp out in began to fade, along with the light of a cloudless sky, and Arcturus, then the whole of the constellation Cygnus, then Vega and its constellation, Lyra, then hints of the Milky Way like old cloth hinted toward Antares and Scorpius on the horizon, the moon still an hour or two from rising, a gibbous three quarters masking the stars from then onward to the dawn my sleeping bag, adequate, my stare at the moon-drenched fabric of the tent interior, uncertain about what to think for there was nothing to do, ones alone in this setting, bound by the plastic of contemporary life, the moon imagined as were the stars, not even my watch shone somewhere on the tents floor somewhere to my side, only one certainty that, as my vertebrae relaxed onto the air mattress under me, as my body assessed its strenuous day, no hint of pain, no wrongness appeared, not

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what I usually feel before sleeping, this I knew was another wisdom, fatigue evenly as ease All the girls are crazy about a certain little lad, Although he's very, very bad. He could be, oh, so good when he wanted to. Bad or good he understood 'bout love 'n' other things. For every girl in town followed him around, Just to hold his hand and sing... Blue Lake was immaculate, but not evenly blue, patches of teal green and sandy brown floated over portions, the whole lake small, the details of color, of logs anchored in mud, of ripples from occasional breezes wafting across the water, under a steep talus drop of rust red with snow patches a hermit thrush sang, clear mountain air supporting the lyric thrill of the melody, often called flute-like and all that while more, not just the intricacy and tenuousness of its imperatives, but the almost that, the almost the clearest presence, the robin a close relative and fine singer, but never this, leaving one suspended in conclusion, waiting, wanting another run of what could this be? so perfect, so fine much nearer, two other singers, a Cassins

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finch atop a lodgepole pine and higher still, a Fox sparrow on a rock above a stunted shrub, both singing, great singers too what could this concert be? it could not be more than it was. [Band members shout:] Oh, Johnny! [Andrew Sisters:] Hoh, Je-Johnny, Johnny, how you can love. [Band members shout:] Oh, Johnny! [Sisters:] Hoh, Je-Johnny, Johnny, heaven up above, way above. You make my sad heart jump with joy, And when you're near I just can't sit still another minute. [Sigh.] [Band members shout:] Oh, Johnny! [Sisters:] Hoh, Je-Johnny, Johnny, Please tell me, dear, what makes me love you so? You're not handsome, it is true, but when I look at you, I just, oh, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny! My! Da-da-da da-da-da-dada-dada-dah

laughing at clouds

Its alive! Its alive! Araucaria heterophylla (synonym A. excelsa) is a distinctive conifer, a member of the ancient and now disjointly distributed family Araucariaceae. As its vernacular name Norfolk Island Pine implies, the tree is endemic to Norfolk Island, a small island in the Pacific Ocean between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The genus Araucaria occurs across the South Pacific, especially concentrated in New Caledonia (about 700 kilometers due north of Norfolk Island) where 13 closely related and similarappearing species are found. It is sometimes

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called a star pine, due to its symmetrical shape as a sapling, although it is not a true pine. I'm singin in the rain Just singin in the rain What a glorious feelin I'm happy again. the trees grow to a height of 5065 meters, with straight vertical trunks and symmetrical branches, even in the face of incessant onshore winds that can contort most other species. The scientific name heterophylla (different leaves) derives from the variation in the leaves between young and adult plants. The tallest peak of Haleakala, at 10,023 feet (3,055 meters), is Puu Ulaula (Red Hill). From the summit one looks down into a massive depression some 11.25 kilometers (7 miles) across, 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) wide, and nearly 800 meters (2,600 feet) deep. The surrounding walls are steep and the interior mostly barren-looking with a scattering of volcanic cones. Its alive! Its alive! Im laughing at clouds. So dark up above The sun's in my heart And I'm ready for love The first European known to have sighted Norfolk Island, and thus the Norfolk Island pine, was Captain James Cook, in 1774, on his second voyage to the South Pacific on HMS Resolution. He named the island after the Duchess of Norfolk, wife of Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk (16851777). Cook landed on Norfolk Island, and reported on the presence of large quantities of tall, straight trees which appeared to be suitable for use as masts and yards for sailing ships. However, when the island was occupied in 1788 by transported convicts from Britain, it was found that Norfolk Island Pine was not

55

resilient enough for these uses and the industry was abandoned. Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Its alive! Its alive! Come on with the rain Ive a smile on my face I walk down the lane With a happy refrain just singin singin in the rain Some people may experience a strong allergic reaction if they touch the leaves. What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? Its alive! Its alive! Dancin in the rain... Im happy again... String theory mainly posits that the electrons and quarks within an atom are not 0-dimensional objects, but rather 1-dimensional oscillating lines (strings). The earliest string model, the bosonic string, incorporated only bosons, although this view developed to the superstring theory, which posits that a connection (a supersymmetry) exists between bosons and fermions. String theories also require the existence of several extra, unobservable dimensions to the universe, in addition to the four known spacetime dimensions. Its alive! Its alive! I'm singin and dancin in the rain...

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The Library

ting, ting, ting! ting, ting ting! a joy of smiling faces, babies in the laps of caregivers, a mothers face, ovoid and unadorned, and in one case, a males, similarly without etched aspect, plain in ting! ting! went the circles ring, the Asian matron conducting the circle of bablies bouncing on the laps of My mother groaned! My father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless, naked, piping loud: Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my fathers hands: Striving against my swaddling bands: Bound and weary I thought best To sulk upon my mothers breast. We'll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgment of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song whee, whee, whee! wheeeeeeee! without hesitation the Asian matrons practiced face, benign and certain, moved along with the song, wheeeeeeeee! again as the little ones bobbed and their caregivers bounced, a seeming quiet dimming their voices as they followed the matrons wheeeeeeeeeee

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I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And Thou shalt not, writ over the door; So I turnd to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore, And I saw it was filled with graves, And tombstones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding the briars, my joys and desires. Change it had to come We knew it all along We were liberated from the fall that's all But the world looks just the same And history ain't changed 'Cause the banners, they all flew in the last war the rondeau in the childrens corner whispered with its tings and whees as the clerk checked my three books at his counter a smile, a winning wondering, I asked him do you enjoy these toddlers sessions? there was a moment, staring at my library card, then the slightest curl at his mouths corners and he looked at me, the eyes winning too as if, as if could it be possible we didnt know? Cruelty has a human heart And jealousy a Human Face Terror, the Human Form Divine And secrecy, the Human Dress The Human Dress, is forged from Iron The Human Form, a fiery Forge The Human Face, a Furnace seald The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.

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I'll move myself and my family aside If we happen to be left half alive I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky For I know that the hypnotized never lie the smile was too attractive not to realize, of course replaced as if wheeeeeeeee! especially loud from the fading corner, the patrons of this branch a democratic sampling of what some hope for and some do not ting, ting, ting! ting, ting ting! I Dreamt a Dream! what can it mean? And that I was a maiden Queen: Guarded by an Angel mild: Witless woe, was neer beguiled! And I wept both night and day And he wiped my tears away And I wept both day and night And hid from him my hearts delight So he took his wings and fled: Then the morn blushed rosy red: I dried my tears and armed my fears, With ten thousand shields and spears. Soon my Angel came again: I was armed, he came in vain: For the time of youth was fled And grey hairs were on my head There's nothing in the street Looks any different to me And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye And the parting on the left Is now the parting on the right And the beards have all grown longer overnight a joy of smiling faces

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magic pool back and forth zig and zag pebbles and duff ruts now dry rivulets in the spring September clear snow well up the peak the pass 12,000 feet Jeffrey pine, a few willows along the creek, no name luckily, at least for me, maybe Lyell Creek for the mountain but I wanted only the sparkling water the little sounds, the glisten Des yeux qui font baisser les miens, Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche Voil le portrait sans retouche De lhomme auquel jappartiens. Eyes that gaze into mine, A smile that is lost on his lips That is the unretouched portrait Of the man to whom I belong. tufts of bunch grass sometimes a tiny clump of flowers lewisia in scree here and there large pinecones seedless, opened, brittle, dry, a Clarks nutcracker long since made off with the food, buried it

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Quand il me prend dans ses bras, Il me parle tout bas, Je vois la vie en rose. Il me dit des mots damour, Des mots de tous les jours, Et a me fait quelque chose. When he takes me in his arms And speaks softly to me, I see life in rosy hues. He tells me words of love, Words of every day, And in them I become something. I remember to put a small stone in my mouth, it acts as moisturizer against thirst, saliva ducts making little fountains in my mouth just as I need them, want distraction from an even panting, I never had strong breath, a regret Il est entr dans mon cur, Une part de bonheur Dont je connais la cause. Cest lui pour moi, Moi pour lui dans la vie, Il me la dit, la jur pour la vie. Et ds que je laperois, Alors je sens en moi Mon cur qui bat. He has entered my heart, A part of happiness And I understand the reason. Its he for me and I for him, throughout life, He has told me, he has sworn to me, for life. And from the things I sense, Now I can feel within me My heart beating.

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at last, there the pass and crossing a walk longer than Id thought it would be, the divide between waters that flow to the Pacific, that flow toward the desert to the east, no desert yet, just vast mountainness, lines of snow, bands of conifers, little lakes in hollows, the wind everywhere pulsed a breath one doesnt ask steady there Et ds que je laperois, Alors je sens en moi Mon cur qui bat. And from the things I sense, Now I can feel within me My heart beating. the trail sweeps gently now, soon an alpine pool and nearby a clump of whitebark pines, windshaped, broken a sand island water so clear it seems liquid air, still surface tension supporting grains of what? things living or not, just suspended

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une maison bleue adosse la colline

Id watched this Victorian being rebuilt for years, a favorite street tree a honey locust destroyed so a garage could be devised, steel I-beams to support an elevator to the upper two stories from inside the garage, and an hydraulic system on the garage roof to support a deck of plants, neighbors sometimes called the project the mafia graveyard because so little showed for such great effort, so much dirt removed C'est une maison bleue Adosse la colline On y vient pied On ne frappe pas Ceux qui vivent l Ont jet la cl On se retrouve ensemble Aprs des annes de route Et on vient s'asseoir Autour d'un repas Tout le monde est l cinq heures du soir and then the refurbished house joined others along the way, specifically the south side of 18th Street in the Castro, half a city block from Dolores Park, from Mission High, the improvements fading, the color old mayonnaise flecked in soot, not much San Francisco is not an industrial place but flecked Quand San Francisco s'embrume Quand San Francisco s'allume San Francisco

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O tes-vous Lizzard et Luc Psylvia Attendez-moi Maxime Le Forestier, who had heard of him? but one afternoon a crowd of people massed on the street outside this again newly painted house, Id hardly noticed the baby blue paint and replanting of the beds and boxes with bright annuals, petunias and primrose, a creamy painted border too oddly, the TV cameras setting up were marked in French, the national news network, why? Nageant dans le brouillard Enlacs roulant dans l'herbe On coutera Tom la guitare Phil la kna jusqu' la nuit noire Un autre arrivera Pour nous dire des nouvelles D'un qui reviendra dans un an ou deux Puisqu'il est heureux on s'endormira some famous entertainer, said a party next to me, watching from a window, he lived there as a hippy 40 years ago, a commune like so many others here, just some guy C'est une maison bleue Adosse la colline On y vient pied On ne frappe pas Ceux qui vivent l Ont jet la cl Peuple de cheveux longs De grands lits et de musique Peupls de lumire

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Et peuple de fous Elle sera dernire rester debout. yeah, he wrote a song about it all & its still famous, people still my thoughts turned away, seized by the legs, not very gently, thrust upward violently, whissssh the sound as much as the motion and sense of protective flesh as gasping I viewed what I would not have understood at all if I had not seen a lifetime of film, of photographic imaging of what a vivid geosphere might be, is, a blue ball of life whisssssssssshh no end to Ariane is a series of a European civilian expendable launch vehicles for space launch use. The name comes from the French spelling of the mythological character Ariadne; the word is also used in French to describe some types of hummingbird. but the urge was to look in, not out, as these racing forces blinded, the shield total as whatever grew grew from a core perceived as light brightening, a sphere tiny, abdominal utterly strong in fragile focus, quivering for itself

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Ariadne was associated with the surname "Very Holy Maid," because her name is a variant of Ariagne from the Greek word gni, which means "the most holy." Under this title gni Aphrodite on Delos was honored. a witness would have seen a shower of fire, what was seen saw a hesitant center, petunia and primrose ice

Mam'selle

Tyrone Power Larry Darrell Isabel Bradley Gene Tierney Gray Maturin John Payne Sophie MacDonald Anne Baxter Elliott Templeton Clifton Webb W. Somerset Maugham Herbert Marshall Louisa Bradley Lucile Watson Bob MacDonald Frank Latimore Miss Keith Elsa Lanchester by degrees, consciousness returning, an alarming unease, what could be the matter? nothing seemed more wrong than usual, it was sadness, a wash as if something were in the air; I slowly rose, from lightly resting, a morning nap to fill out a very early start to a day that now found me near breathlessness, what? A small caf, mam`selle Our rendez-vouz, mam`selle The violins were warm and sweet and so were you, mam`selle

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I knew my feeling had something to do with The Razors Edge, the old movie Id watched the evening before the memory of an opinion Somerset Maughan had made about his own writing, the source an article somewhere, quoting Maugham, Id have to paraphrase, My writing is of the first rank in the second tier, which Id thought astute. What this had to do with the movie made from his novel, in which he was so involved he appears as a character maybe after a shower, after a light breakfast, Id And as the night danced by A kiss became a sigh Your lovely eyes Seem to sparkle just like wine does the Keats poem quoted when Tyrone Power as the saintly Larry Darrell goes through the murdered Anne Baxters (Sophie MacDonald) effects in her Toulon hotel room, citing, reciting the text what is the poem?! as a shared memory from childhood when really did I see and read this? the effect on hearing the reading yesterday is an impression of increasing

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beauty, a sentiment, do I mean sentimental? Tyrone Power? saint / holy fool Anne Baxter? murdered drunkard Gene Tierney? a woman so immature and possessive she kills for love, yes, there Maughams misogyny stands out in full flower, the scent of this terrifying rose No heart ever yearned the way that mine does, for you And yet I know too well Someday you`ll say goodbye the shower blasted, the yogurt, coffee, scone gave a moments peace The violins were warm and sweet and so were you, mam`selle is it really Keats poem, elegant and so articulate in presenting the intricacy of youthful life, flavored then in eros wrapping such life he died young the emotion must be what is all this? why am I stepping about the first feeling, the one I felt waking so very recently? can I stand it? thats where this is, from a time when I could not stand it, both novel and film read and seen not many years after

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the film was made, after the war so called Then violins will cry And so will I, mam`selle the truth then I could not stand it ah! at least Keats sonnet can be recovered: The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast, Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone, Bright eyes, accomplish'd shape, and lang'rous waist! Faded the flower and all its budded charms, Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes, Faded the shape of beauty from my arms, Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise Vanish'd unseasonably at shut of eve, When the dusk holiday or holinight Of fragrant-curtain'd love begins to weave The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight; But, as I've read love's missal through today, He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

Margie

a pig is what he called it, an expert in boat building and design, heavy and broad beamed and a rocker and roller but when the sea-going craft finally sailed before the wind, a reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian cargo vessel, wide rectangular sail pushing 7 knots on an easy sea, he said too that this is fun & the best boat Ive been on

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in these circumstances: fun, well, its the wind that counts My little Margie, I'm always thinking of you, Margie! I'll tell the whole wide world I love you; Don't forget your promise to me, yes, the wind, often the principal signal a weather front is coming, is here, one feels the chill, the fog of early morning peeling back as the sun burns roiling moisture away, or contrarywise, the fog racing inland to follow the pull of the sun toward hot earth somewhere the sea is little known yes Don't forget your promise to me, I will bring you a home and ring and everything I thought it quaint when older people said, a tumor took her, and only 30 took her where? Oh Margie, you've been my inspiration, Days are never blue Hepshepsut had commissioned ships to gather the wonderful things of Punt and these required transit from the South, a passage on the Red Sea, whatever it was called in the 18th Dynasty, incense particularly, a passage to the gods, and leopard skins, such majesties for others of like rank, the ships already noble, made from cedars from Lebanon,

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guided by a pair of steering oars and powered by the wind, uncertain of course, the course dependent After all is said and done, There is really only one, Oh Margie, Margie, it's you! the only photo of her, a flapper with a permanent stylizing curl over kohled eyes and one guesses short statured from the shape of her 20s-something body, the cincture sexually placed, the shine satin, silk something bright the camera caught reflection Days are never blue After all is said and done, There is really only one its the wind delighting our concerns, framing them you know we all do

Mine eyes have seen

Sarah Sally Hemings (Shadwell, Albemarle County, Virginia, circa 1773 Charlottesville, Virginia, 1835) was a mixed-race slave owned by president Thomas Jefferson through inheritance by his wife. She was the half-sister of Jeffersons wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson by their father John Wayles. She was notable because most

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historians now widely believe that the widower Jefferson took her as a concubine, had six children with her, and an extended relationship for 38 years until his death. They were seven-eighths white by ancestry and born into slavery. When Jeffersons relationship and children were reported in 1802, there was sensational coverage for a time, but Jefferson remained silent on the issue. Four HemingsJefferson children survived to adulthood. He let two escape in 1822 at the age of 21 and freed the younger two in his will in 1826. Informally freed by Jefferson's daughter after his death in 1826, Sally Hemings lived her last nine years with her two freed sons in nearby Charlottesville, Virginia. An 1833 county census recorded the Hemingses as white, consistent with their mostly European ancestry and appearance. After Sallys death in 1835, Eston and Madison Hemings migrated with their families to Chillicothe in the free state of Ohio. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on. The Wounded Knee Massacre happened on December 29,  1890, near Wounded Knee Creek  on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, USA. On the day before, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside intercepted Spotted Elk's (Big Foot) band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them 5 miles westward (8 km) to Wounded Knee Creek where they made camp. The rest of the 7th Cavalry Regiment arrived led by Colonel James Forsyth and surrounded the encampment supported by four Hotchkiss guns. On the morning of December 29, the troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. One version of events claims that during the process of disarming the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle claiming he had paid a lot for it. A scuffle over Black Coyote's rifle escalated and a shot was fired which resulted in the 7th Cavalry opening firing indiscriminately from all

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sides, killing men, women, and children, as well as some of their own fellow troopers. Those few Lakota warriors who still had weapons began shooting back at the attacking troopers, who quickly suppressed the Lakota fire. The surviving Lakota fled, but U.S. cavalrymen pursued and killed many who were unarmed. By the time it was over, at least 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux had been killed and 51 wounded (4 men, 47 women and children, some of whom died later); some estimates placed the number of dead at 300. Twenty-five troopers also died, and thirty-nine were wounded (6 of the wounded would also die). It is believed that many were the victims of friendly fire, as the shooting took place at close range in chaotic conditions. Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on. My dearest, most beloved Lamb I who in tenderest union am To all thy cross-air-birds bound, Smell to and kiss each corpses wound, Yet at the Side-holes part, There pants and throbs my heart, I see still, how the soldier fierce Did thy lovely Pleura pierce, That dearest Side-hole! Be praised, O God, for this Spears slit! I thank thee, Soldier, too for it. Ive licked this Rocks salt round and round Where can such relish else be found. During the period known as the Sifting Time, roughly from 1746 to 1750, the Moravians went mad celebrating the wounds of the sacrificial victim, Jesus Christ. Most of H. D.s [Hilda Doolittles] poetry is allusive and reticent, but one poem reminds of the symbolism we find in such Moravian hymns. Hyman was written in 1917: There with his honey-seeking lips The bee clings close and warmly sips,

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And seeks with honey-thighs to sway And drink the very flower away. (Ah, stern the petals drawing back; Ah rare, ah virginal her breath!) Crimson, with honey-seeking lips, The sun lies hot across his back, The gold is flashed across his wings. Quivering he sways and quivering clings (Ah, rare her shoulders drawing back!) One moment, then the plunderer slips Between the purple flower-lips. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on. preceding the great Moravian revival of 1727, it was Count Zinzendorf who was used to encourage prayer for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Was there ever in the whole of church history such an astonishing prayer meeting as that which beginning in 1727, went on one hundred years? It was known as the Hourly Intercession. And it meant that by relays of brothers and sisters, prayer without ceasing was made to God for all the work and wants of His church. The best antidote for a powerless Church is the influence of a praying man. The influence of Count Zinzendorfs prayer-life did not stop with one small community. It ultimately went on to influence the whole world. Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His day is marching on. The My Lai Massacre was the mass murder of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, conducted by a unit of the United States Army. All of the victims were civilians and most were women, children (including babies), and elderly people. Many of the victims were raped, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. 

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The massacre took place in the hamlets of My Lai and My Khe of Son My village during the Vietnam War. While 26  US soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses  for their actions at My Lai, only William Calley was  convicted of killing 22 villagers. Originally given a life  sentence, he served three and a half years under house arrest. When the incident became public knowledge in 1969, it  prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre also increased domestic opposition to the US  involvement in the Vietnam War. Three US servicemen  who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were later denounced by US Congressmen. They received hate mail, death threats and found mutilated  animals on their doorsteps. It would take 30 years before  they were honored for their efforts.  The massacre is also known as the Song My Massacre. The US military codeword for the hamlet was Pinkville. I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on. Somali Tied to Militants Held on U.S. Ship for Months In an indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York, the Somali, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, was charged with nine counts related to accusations that he provided support to the Shabab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen. Mr. Warsame, believed to be in his mid-20s, was captured on April 19, and a plane carrying him arrived in New York City around midnight Monday night, officials said. While the Justice Department called Mr. Warsame a Shabab leader, it does not accuse him of plotting any specific attack. Officials gave conflicting accounts of his significance: one portrayed him as a senior operational commander while another played down his role, saying that his capture was instead important because he had provided large amounts of intelligence about the groups and ties between them.

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Regardless, his case is likely to have outsize significance in the political arena because it resonates with intense debates surrounding the administrations counterterrorism policies including whether to bring newly captured detainees to the military prison at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba; whether to prosecute terrorism cases in civilian court or before a military commission; and what rights terrorism suspects have during interrogation. [New York Times , July 5, 2011] He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. (Chorus) Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

The Mission

whitewashed & tiled a gem to be adored the Gray Line buses ejecting the once bored now singing Mein kleiner grner Kaktus steht drauen am Balkon, hollari, hollari, hollaro! frolicking, snake-dancing with voices in accord some shouting, some tinny, all spirits have soared Was brauch' ich rote Rosen, was brauch' ich roten Mohn, hollari, hollari, hollaro!

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when Padre Palu & Lieutenant Moraga concocted a church that was also a ranch, peopled by Indians the Ohlones, so called to fashion a branch of Spains empire near the Arroyo de Nuestra Seora de los Dolores, a well-named location foretelling for all some decades of wealth & the shadow of fear Blumen im Garten, so zwanzig Arten, von Rosen Tulpen und Narzissen more than 5,000 Indians are thought to have been buried in the cemetery adjacent to the Mission thus by 1842, only eight Christian Indians were living at the Mission Mein kleiner grner Kaktus steht drauen am Balkon, hollari, hollari, hollaro! buenos dios, alcalde! buenos dios, padre! the stretch limo came & out spilled a couple, gown blazing, tux lithe buenos dios, alcalde! buenos dios, padre! the guests crowd the steps, leaves blowing the street, roses & tulip abundant & lush! Mein kleiner grner Kaktus steht drauen am Balkon, hollari, hollari, hollaro! 20 species of roses, with narcissus of course

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buenos dios, alcalde! buenos dios, padre! the stretch limo hovers & in pours the couple, gown blazing, tux lithe buenos dios, alcalde! buenos dios, padre! was brauch' ich roten Mohn why a red poppy, oh why? oh why?

mosquitoes

O flea! Whatever you do, dont jump; that way is the river.

Falling in love again Never wanted to What am I to do? Can't help it

In this world we walk on the roof of hell, gazing at flowers.

Love's always been my game Play it how I may

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I was made that way Can't help it

Dont kill that fly! Look its wringing its hands, wringing its feet.

Men cluster to me like moths around a flame And if their wings burn, I know I'm not to blame Falling in love again Never wanted to What am I to do? Can't help it

All the time I pray to Buddha I keep on killing mosquitoes.

Love's always been my game Play it how I may I was made that way Can't help it.

That wren looking here, looking there. You lose something?

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Men cluster to me like moths around a flame And if their wings burn, I know I'm not to blame

Dont worry, spiders, I keep house casually.

my face painted with blue

It was the previous year, in December. The Finnish skirmishers, having passed the wilderness of Vuoksi, reached the fringe of the wild, endless forest of Rikkola. The forest was full of [Red Army troops in] Karelia, [which] to escape the trap of the Finnish forces, had fled toward Ldoga, in hopes of being able to embark their guns and horses and save themselves by crossing the lake. But the Soviet barges and tugboats were late in arriving. Every hour of delay could be fatal, since the cold was intense, furious, the lake could freeze over at any moment, and the Finnish troops, composed of units of sissit, were already infiltrating the forest, pressing the Russians on all sides, on the flanks and from behind. On the third day a huge fire broke out in the forest of Rikkola. The men, horses, trees trapped in the circle of fire screamed in terror. The sissit assaulted the fire, firing into the wall of flame and smoke, closing off every avenue of escape. Crazed with fear, the Soviet artillery horses there were nearly a thousand threw themselves into the fire, breaking through the siege of flames and machine guns. Many perished in the fire, but a large part of them reached the shore of the lake, and threw themselves into the water. The lake is not very deep at that point, no more than a couple of meters; but within a hundred paces of the shore, the bottom drops off precipitously. Confined in that small space (the shore, in that part of Ldoga, curves, forming a small bay), between the deep water and the wall of fire, the

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horses clustered, trembling with cold and fear, with their heads above the water. Those closer to the shore, assaulted in front by the flames, reared and forced their way among their companions, biting and kicking. In their madness, the freeze took them by surprise. I think that a dream like that will never return I painted my hands and my face with blue Then suddenly, I was taken by the wind And I began to fly in the endless sky Penso che un sogno cos non ritorni mai pi: mi dipingevo le mani e la faccia di blu, poi dimprovviso venivo dal vento rapito e incominciavo a volare nel cielo infinito During the night, the north wind came down. (The north wind comes from the Sea of Murmansk, like an angel, screeching, and the earth abruptly dies.) A terrible cold descended. Instantly, with the characteristic vibrating sound of struck glass, the water froze. The sea, the lakes, the rivers, all froze at once with the abrupt shattering of the thermal equilibrium. Even the waves froze in motion, becoming waves of ice, suspended in the void. Flying.oh oh singingoh oh oh oh! In the blue sky, painted in blue, so glad to be there Volare oh, oh! cantare oh, oh, oh, oh! nel blu, dipinto di blu, felice di stare lass. The following day, when the first platoons of sissit, their hair singed, their faces black with smoke, walking cautiously on the still-warm ashes across the carbonized forest, reached the shore of the lake, a horrible and marvelous spectacle greeted them. The lake was like an immense sheet of white marble, on which seemed to rest hundreds and hundreds of horses heads. Only the heads projected above the sheet of ice. All the heads were turned toward the shore. The white flame of terror still burned in their wide-open eyes. Near the shore, a tangle of ferociously rearing horses rose from the icy prison.

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But all the dreams fall away in the rise because The moon brings them away when it falls But Im still dreaming in your beautiful eyes That are blue like the sky painted with stars Ma tutti sogni nellalba svaniscon perch, quando tramonta, la luna li porta con s, Ma io continuo a sognare negli occhi tuoi belli, che sono blu come un cielo trapunto di stelle. Sunday morning the sissit gathered again at the lttala of Rikkola, and after drinking a cup of tea, went down to the lake. (The sissit are the Finnish rangers, the wolves of the forest war. They are in large part young, and many are very young, a few still boys. They belong to the solitary and taciturn race of the heroes of Sillanp. They live their entire lives in the depths of the forest; they live like trees, like stones, like wild animals.) They descended to the lake, and walked out to sit on the horses heads. The accordion player intoned a laulu; it was the Vrtiossa, the watchmans song. Wrapped in their sheepskin capes, fur caps pulled down to their eyebrows, the sissit sang the sad laulu in chorus. Then the accordionist, sitting on an icy mane, ran his fingers over the keyboard, and the sissit intoned the Rppurin laulu, the Karelian song of the cuckoo, the sacred bird of Karelia. And I dont stop flying happily higher than the sun and more While the world is slowly disappearing in your blue eyes Your voice is a sweet music that sings for me E continuo a volare felice pi in alto del sole ed ancora pi su, mentre il mondo pian piano scompare negli occhi tuoi blu, la tua voce una musica dolce che suona per me The cuckoos cry, guk-kuup, sounded sad and loud in the silence of the forest. Cannons thundered from the opposite shore of Ldoga. The concussions shivered the trees like a fluttering of wings, like a trembling of leaves. And high above that living silence, which the solitary ta-pum of a rifle shot now and then made deeper and more secret, there rose, insistently, monotonous, perfectly pure, the song of

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the cuckoo, a cry that little by little became human: gukkuup, guk-kuup. And I dont stop flying happily higher than the sun and more While the world is slowly disappearing in your blue eyes Your voice is a sweet music that sings for me Flying.oh oh singingoh oh oh oh! In the blue sky of your blue eyes, so glad to be there E continuo a volare felice pi in alto del sole ed ancora pi su, mentre il mondo pian piano scompare negli occhi tuoi blu, la tua voce una musica dolce che suona per me Volare oh, oh! cantare oh, oh, oh, oh! nel blu degli occhi tuoi blu, felice di stare quaggi.

Nokomis

Id passed the southwest corner to cross to the public transit island mid-street and had not noticed a lively scene on the northeast corner of the intersection until sirens blasted the noonday calm and a fire rescue truck hove to view racing to a stop, the uniformed attendants jumping to the curb where someone was sprawled, back to ground, unidentifiable even as to race or gender from such parts as showed though the head was raised not young, I gleaned, though I altered passing interpretations quickly when I realized no indicator was certain, just the quiet of the scene, no

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shouting, no apparent alarm, the attendants even smiling from time to time as the work went forward, ambulance arriving, stretcher lowered, patient hoisted onto stretcher, stretcher into ambulance, which remained when I boarded my train, watching the scene as it faded, the distinctive fire department colors, the what? someone dead or dying, drunk or fainted, who? Oh, Bill Why can't you behave Why can't you behave? How in hell can you be jealous When you know, baby, I'm your slave? I'm just mad for you And I'll always be But naturally..... By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, Rose the firs with cones upon them; Bright before it beat the water, Beat the clear and sunny water, Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water. All Suffering Soon to End! At some time in your life, you have likely asked, Why all this suffering? For thousands of years, the human family has suffered greatly from wars, poverty, disasters, crime, injustice, sickness and death. The past hundred years have seen more suffering than ever before. Will all of this ever end? The comforting answer is yes,

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and very soon! Gods Word, the Bible, proclaims: The wicked one will be no more But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace. For how long? The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it. a psalm is cited Id even begun to read this rather than meet the eye, the sustained stare of this mild middle-aged woman who gestured toward the faade of the hospital I was just exiting onto the busy street, her hair a style I remembered from my childhood shed pressed this pamphlet into my hand, saying, This will soon go! which provoked my remarking, Increasing unemployment in these troubled times? And she did laugh. If a custom-tailored vet Asks me out for something wet When the vet begins to pet, I cry hooray! But Im always true to you, darlin, in my fashion Yes, Im always true to you, darlin, in my way There the wrinkled old Nokomis Nursed the little Hiawatha, Rocked him in his linden cradle, Bedded soft in moss and rushes, Safely bound with reindeer sinews; Stilled his fretful wail by saying, Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee! Lulled him into slumber, singing, Ewa-yea! my little owlet! Who is this, that lights the wigwam?

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With his great eyes lights the wigwam? Ewa-yea! my little owlet! Id gladly be the abandoned child on the pier setting out for the open sea, the young farm boy in the lane whose forehead grazes the sky. The paths are harsh. The little hills are cloaked with broom. The air is motionless. How far away the birds and the springs are! It can only be the end of the world, as you move forward. Je serais bien lenfant abandonn sur la jete partie la haute mer, le petit valet, suivant lalle dont le front touche le ciel. Les sentiers sont pres. Les monticules se couvrent de genets. Lair est immobile. Que les oiseaux et les sources sont loin! Ce ne peut tre que la fin du monde, en avanant. Theres a madman known as Mack Who is planning to attack If his mad attack means a Cadillac, okay! But I'm always true to you, darlin, in my fashion Yes, I'm always true to you, darlin in my way Many things Nokomis taught him Of the stars that shine in heaven; Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet, Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses; Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits, Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs, Flaring far away to northward In the frosty nights of Winter; Showed the broad white road in heaven, Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, Running straight across the heavens, Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows.

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The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the safety of the chemical, which was created more than 40 years ago as a surgical scrub for hospitals. Triclosan is now in a range of consumer products, including soaps, kitchen cutting boards and even a best-selling toothpaste, Colgate Total. It is so prevalent that a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the chemical present in the urine of 75 percent of Americans over the age of 5. [nytdirect@nytimes.com: August 20, 2011] There is also Mister Blotch Hes a whiskey king topnotch Mister Blotch is full of Scotch and full of play But I'm always true to you, darlin, in my fashion Yes, I'm always true to you, darlin, in my way At the door on summer evenings Sat the little Hiawatha; Heard the whispering of the pine-trees, Heard the lapping of the waters, Sounds of music, words of wonder; Minne-wawa! said the Pine-trees, Mudway-aushka! said the water. Saw the fire-fly, Wah-wah-taysee, Flitting through the dusk of evening, With the twinkle of its candle Lighting up the brakes and bushes, And he sang the song of children, Sang the song Nokomis taught him: Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly, Little, flitting, white-fire insect, Little, dancing, white-fire creature, Light me with your little candle, Ere upon my bed I lay me, Ere in sleep I close my eyelids! almost every day I take a seat at a local caf positioned to watch a pair of tea roses at the entrance of a house next door, the rose farthest from me, a peace heres one description: Peace was

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originally bred in 1935 by a French hybridizer, Francis Meilland. At the close of WW2 on April 29, 1945, the date of the fall of Berlin to the Allied Forces, an American, by the name of Conard Pyle, formally introduced the rose as 'Peace', to commemorate the end of the war. and the rose closest to me, and the street, is an Amber Queen described as a pure amber golden yellow rose, with the ability to produce lots of clusters of very large and beautifully formed blooms in abundance throughout the summer and fall. It has a compact and neat growth habit, is very disease free, and has a very sweet rose fragrance. of course all this fits as mask in carnival, is the wrap of language pretending to be what is there

The Oriole

Listen bozo sweetest, Im not here for your pleasure, to tantalize you or to pass the time, Im here because Im resting after a horrendous morning with my in-laws, yes, the very same that stole (you heard, no?) stole my travel money for the Joshua Tree trip next month, can you believe these schmucks, these

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very unfriendly dudes, these what else? parasites preying on the first year migrants, the fledglings, oh well, why bother! to complain Moon river Wider than a mile I'm crossing you in style Some day... Yeah, I can see youre wanting me to be squeaky wonderful cause this tree is so pretty, the new jacaranda blooms just getting there, coming out of their pre-purple hiding; Im out of hiding too, you better know it! wow, I mean, like, wow, is it great! but Im just resting on a branch Old dream maker You heart breaker Wherever you're going I'm going your way... I know you like me, Ive seen you around the park looking in the palm trees, everywhere for my parents and lately me so, I know but all this gotta be over. Im going away strange how now Im looking in your window from your tree you see every day and it just may be the last day, the very last we see each other, I wanna go! but Im just a sentimental new fool I know, like

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if tomorrow I see you here or in the park well just say ciao Two drifters Off to see the world There's such a lot of world To see... I mean its not much, just a little gold dust for the places that dont know us, dont know what we eat and, Im sure dont care, thats how it is yeah, and it takes a few days, sometimes I hear up to a week to get to and through southern California and not always agreeable conditions, you know how it is, like it always is We're after the same rainbows end Waiting around the bend My Huckleberry friend Moon River and me... yeah, like it is, nice tree

The Owl

You came to me like the night to an owl bathed in a magenta, a deep green an amber and curious deeper silver chaotic starburst twisting, all but puce, fifty maybe seventy feet overhead, art deco, the helixed chandelier, deco beat lighting screwed

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Frre Jacques, Frre Jacques, Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? a cupola ceiling, edges fading, edges less by the eyes choices, a childs layout, a bubble above the lucid opacities of humans, human beings placid as movie creatures ready to agree to be cruel, or not to think lust but feel hunger for the room Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines! Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don. yes, like the night we were waiting you came to me we had no plans, certainly had no plans, swirling as vertebrae dance climbing through blood and tissue, the loveliness of the owl.

paired Chinese elms When they begin the beguine it brings back the sound of music so tender it brings back a night of tropical splendor it brings back a memory of green Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

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Tis some visitor, I muttered, tapping at my chamber door Only this, and nothing more. a pair of Chinese elms Ulmus parvifolia on the 200 block of Hartford Street in the Castro astounds in this city where street tree neglect has reached an art form none of the graceful giants of Midwestern cities, the now extinct wineglass elms of eastern & middle American cities and towns, all thats but unknown in this dense community wedging buildings flush to narrow sidewalks, the ornamental vegetation like garden shrubbery but these great masters of their form, well maintained beauties of capacious perfection, these I'm with you once more under the stars and down by the shore an orchestras playing and even the palms seem to be swaying when they begin the beguine Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, Sir, said I, or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you - here I opened wide the door; Darkness there, and nothing more.

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are perfection, a viewer wrapped in woven nests arching overhead as each folds about one standing under their interlocking web, so intricate & well shaped that even utility wires scarcely note their passage through this structured web of life to live it again is past all endeavor except when that tune clutches my heart and there we are swearing to love forever and promising never never to part Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou, I said, art sure no craven. Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore! Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore! Quoth the raven, Nevermore. its the bark that catches, then holds

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the eye, flaking mottled grays & tans & russet tones melting through pastels to sharper hints, the whole an essay of life abstracted, the vitality insistent even as the form is beauty anywhere a moment divine what rapture serene til clouds came along to disperse the joys we had tasted and now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted I know but too well what they mean Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, Doubtless, said I, what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore Of Never-nevermore. a friend now dead, long dead, a professional horticulturalist once said to me, San Franciscos greatest street ornament is the Chinese elm plantation, and until then Id not even noticed them the bark is what caught me, a wonderful thing, the twisting tree trunks rising, the hinted orange flaking, and then the branching, the leafing, a fine tree, or series for

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often the elms had been placed in line along some street hardly interesting for other views so dont let them begin the beguine let the love that was once a fire remain an ember let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember when they begin the beguine Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend! I shrieked upstarting Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quoth the raven, Nevermore. property owners of course complain about these trees, the long roots strangling water pipes into the basements, upending sidewalks with these roots, for which the owners must pay to replace, which they do if law says they must with modest arbors likely little to molest oh yes let them begin the beguine make them play til the stars that were there before return above you til you whisper to me once more darling I love you and we suddenly know what heaven we're in when they begin the beguine

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And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light oer him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted - nevermore!

pebbles

he spoke of obeisance, of a sea of black robes suddenly bowing at Greengulch in Marin, a novice entering the zendo A cigarette that bares a lipstick's traces An airline ticket to romantic places Still my heart has wings These foolish things remind me of you. the occasion crowded, many from the ordinary world but these the established who would receive him in due course, he spoke of sangha, of acceptance in this community, the sea a wash of love Still my heart has wings These foolish things remind me

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startling, a curtain that need not part to admit him, the dark wave rolling as if forward & over him, the novice un-new once the wave passed, once the crinkling roll of pebbles opened to a sky of bright beauty strange because never seen, the pebbles too clacking sounds never heard, themselves polished by sands A tinkling piano in the next apartment Those stumblin'words That told you what my heart meant A fair ground painted swings These foolish things remind me of you. of worlds neither round nor shaped recognizably, the lips that ask for mercy, the eyes that search for grace, the heart that beats in a new air These foolish things remind me of you. You came, you saw, you conquered me these sands slip to a shelf made from no uplift, sunk from no crisis When you did that to me I knew somehow this had to be The winds of march that made my heart a dancer

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the embrace without dimension wrapping in a color undefined seen for a moment in a zendo A telephone that rings but who's to answer Oh, how the ghost of you clings These foolish things remind me of you

le stelle che tremano

black, utterly black, swallows and swifts in flocks darted here and there from the face of the galleria returning to passes over the sloping roof of the duomo, in Italian as in English, similar sounding as rondine & rondone hard to tell apart, only gradually the ease as birds, as language in transit through the sky Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, o, Principessa, nella tua fredda stanza, guardi le stelle che tremano d'amore e di speranza. Nobody shall sleep! Nobody shall sleep!

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Even you, o Princess, in your cold room, watch the stars, that tremble with love and with hope. a young German backpacker, fresh and sunburnt, blond, chatty, he had spoken first in German, then in English easily & clear, a voice telling me as the words did not that he would like sex with me, though the time was mid-morning, a setting of opportunity doubtless, what impressed me at once was his confidence which I did not share at all, he quickly assessed hesitancy as refusal, accurately Ma il mio mistero chiuso in me, il nome mio nessun sapr! No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dir quando la luce splender! Ed il mio bacio scioglier il silenzio che ti fa mia! But my secret is hidden within me, my name no one shall know... No! No! On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines. And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine! forgotten as I passed one couple or another, a single tourist climbing

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about the roof, up stairwells, narrow passages onto this same sloping metallic surface, rondine & rondone hard to tell apart, only gradually another ease the Italian words, the birds too, it was the shape, the intense color, black, utterly black, the swallows and swifts in flocks darting here and there from the face of the galleria returning in passes over the sloping roof of the duomo, at first a monstrous draped figure, a scholar in academic robes and floppy generous hat, his eyes intensely flavored, penetrating, a green or even red then the joker on a playing card, hardly third-dimensional, just there, still in time years had passed, 50 at least, the flocks of swifts, of swallows as much an echo, or loud whisper sustaining me, I couldnt move until a thin woman in a light patterned dress muttered something, almost forcing me to allow her to pass

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Il nome suo nessun sapr!... e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!) Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle! Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincer! vincer, vincer! (No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.) Vanish, o night! Set, stars! Set, stars! At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!

We've lost our good old mama

Little Boy was the codename of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, of the United States Army Air Forces. It was the first atomic bomb to be used as a weapon. The second, the Fat Man, was dropped three days later on Nagasaki. Show us the way to the next whiskey bar Dont ask why For we must find the next whiskey bar Or if we dont find the next whiskey bar I tell you we must die I tell you we must die I tell you I tell you I tell you we must die Feel your body balance, heal, strengthen and renew. And know that you are whole and well, and radiating peace and joy, love and light. Oh moon of Alabama We now must say goodbye 101

We've lost our good old mama And must have whiskey ... you know why Approximately 600 to 860 milligrams of matter in the bomb was converted into the active energy of heat and radiation. It exploded with an energy between 13 and 18 kilotons of TNT (54 and 75 TJ) (estimates vary). It has been estimated that 130,000 to 150,000 persons had died by the end of December 1945. Show us the way to the next dollar Don't ask why For we must find the next little dollar Or if we don't find the next little dollar I tell you we must die I tell you we must die I tell you I tell you I tell you we must die Feel your body balance, heal, strengthen and renew. And know that you are whole and well, and radiating peace and joy, love and light. HIROSHIMA, Japan, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Saturday reaffirmed the need to reduce the country's reliance on nuclear energy at a ceremony in Hiroshima to mark the 66th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack. The nuclear crisis at the plant was the world's worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl explosion. It was triggered by the devastating March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The facility is still leaking radioactive substances into the environment. A nuclear bomb was detonated over Hiroshima at an altitude of some 600 meters at the end of World War II, killing an estimated 140,000 people in 1945. A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945 and Japan surrendered six days later.

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Oh moon of Alabama We now must say goodbye Weve lost our good old mama And must have whiskey ... you know why Feel your body balance, heal, strengthen and renew. And know that you are whole and well, and radiating peace and joy, love and light. A tube-nosed fruit bat with an appearance reminiscent of the Star Wars Jedi Master Yoda has been discovered in a remote rainforest. The bat, along with an orange spider and a yellow-spotted frog are among a host of new species found in a region of Papua New Guinea. Show us the way to the next dollar Don't ask why A white tipped-tail mouse, at least one ant and several of the crickets, or katydids, are so different from other known species they each represent an entirely new genus, the scientists said. For we must find the next whiskey bar Or if we dont find the next whiskey bar I tell you we must die One of the newly-discovered katydids has exceptionally long, spiny hind legs which it uses to jab at anything that threatens it, one new species has pink eyes and another has emerald-green patterning. A fish with curving vampire fangs, a gecko that looks as if it's wearing lipstick and a carnivorous plant more than 7 meters high may sound like creatures from a nightmare but they are real. I tell you we must die I tell you we must die I tell you I tell you I tell you we must die

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Feel your body balance, heal, strengthen and renew. And know that you are whole and well, and radiating peace and joy, love and light. The ongoing nuclear crisis also changed the overall stance toward nuclear energy taken by the surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are also called hibakusha, a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosionaffected people". The group, known as hibakushas, had not discussed the pros and cons of nuclear energy before the accident. But a recent Kyodo News survey found that about 73 percent of the group are now against the peaceful use of nuclear power. Other featured creatures include a fangless snake, a frog that chirps like a cricket, and a pitcher plant that traps insects and grows to a height of over seven meters. Show us the way to the next whiskey bar Dont ask why For we must find the next whiskey bar

The Window

short, long, fat, hollow, bulging, tiny, oblong, square, thimble-shaped, peering, vacant, at depths from right at the glass to well into the rooms interior, the owls stare, generally forward, outward, into the street, onto the sidewalk, in daylight often unnoticed but after dark more fetchingly as back-lit sentinels of quiet, of immobility John Browns body lies a-mouldering in the grave, John Browns body lies a-mouldering in the grave, But his soul goes marching on. 104

positioned strategically, kittycorner from Dolores Park at 18th & Dolores, these owls need but raise wings to singly, doubly, collectively wisp away to somewhere in the park, its trees, its tennis courts & wires, its few small buildings & shelters, who knows whatever occupies this 2-block space of lawns & sundry placements at night, not after darkness because a city is never dark at night, but quieter usually, less visibly populated, the night presences Hes gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord, Hes gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord, His soul goes marching on. once it must have been easier, the drug dealers, the pimps and male hustlers for the large local gay passerby population, the high school facing 18th Street closed of course, just the night people, the owls might watch bemused, but now gentrification has seized the space, parameters of class and money have somewhat changed, the requirements of & upon the owls multifariously manifest, cracks perhaps have appeared in the groups

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social structure as cracks have appeared in time & space for all who venture onto the dimly lighted lawns John Browns knapsack is strapped upon his back, John Browns knapsack is strapped upon his back, His soul goes marching on. of course there are the pathetic, the old women searching the public waste bins, the young scanvengers searching the public waste bins, the homeless sleeping under hoods or on tucked arms as the park lights quit hour by hour, the very bright tennis courts to darkness, the few street lamps the only vestige of any human lighting in the park though, true, maybe a match struck, a lighter lit in a dark place, a footfall on asphalt, a shadow from rats racing from one palm tree to another John Brown died that the slaves might be free, John Brown died that the slaves might be free, His soul goes marching on. as night to day as elves to play as the gowned bodies of courts judicial &/or surreptitious as we stand about, stand behind one another

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wrinkled in creases in time & place, desert places, very wet ones, the owls return to their window at 18th & Dolores streets crossed in some way The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down, The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down, His soul goes marching on. short, long, fat, hollow, bulging, tiny, oblong, square, thimble-shaped, peering vacantly Glory, glory, hallelujah, Glory, glory, hallelujah, His soul goes marching on. His soul goes marching on.

The Witnesses

Three little girls came up the path, their mother? their caretaker a bit behind, the dust clouding near the childrens feet, muting the shine of the mothers, the caregivers tall brown boots, shiny only where they wrapped her calves. Did you see the owls? she asks me, a solitary sentinel unmoving along the creekside route to the day nursery a hundred yards along, the willows and other riverine trees low over

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Islais Creek restored now to year-round flow in Glen Park Canyon, passing now some twenty feet or more below us to one side, praise, benediction, adoration and love peace through our Lord Jesus Christ hadnt that been the May procession chorus at the church of my childhood, the children in pairs tossing rose petals from a wicker basket, repeating praise, benediction, have you seen the owls? The crowd sees me out dancing Carefree and romancing Happy with my someone new Im laughing on the outside Crying on the inside cause I'm still in love with you No, not this morning, but another birder told me they are there, was what I said to the woman in the dusty boots, though in fact Id only seen reports of the established great horned owl family on the specialty website for birders several days before. Id not yet come to the place where they usually are, high above this path on a horizontal branch toward OShaughnessy Boulevard along the parks western border. The toddlers passed beyond me, praise, benediction, adoration and love peace through our Lord Jesus Christ but of course they

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were just chatting in their own way They see me night and daytime Having such a gay time They don't know what I go through Im laughing on the outside Crying on the inside cause I'm still in love with you I liked the way the highbooted woman tossed her long auburn hair as she passed me, a headband of lightly tinted leather, wide and ornamented with small silver zodiacal signs, a Wilsons warbler calling from among the creekside trees at the same time, its steady note sequence announcing an arrival that indeed occurred in moments. Then the owls, three small ones, identical silhouettes all on the horizontal branch Id seen the family on a past years: they are profoundly unobtrusive in daytime, just there, a hint in leaf whisper peace through our Lord Jesus Christ but this remained too faint to be certain of No one knows it's just a pose Pretending I'm glad we're apart And when I cry, my eyes are dry The tears are in my heart Another group approached: two children, a boy and girl, romping vigorously, the girl pushed and falling down the ravine toward the creek, its quiet waters hinting their passage in occasional glints

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by stones and litter along the waters way, this time the caretaker a stylishly stubbled man, surely the father, in bluejeans and an open jean shirt, running to gather up the girl who was screaming in distress, praise, benediction, adoration My darling, can't we make up? Ever since our breakup Make believe is all I do I'm laughing on the outside Crying on the inside 'cause I'm still in love A large wing rose, very slowly, deliberately where the horizontal branch met the tree trunk and what had seemed a part of the trunk now revealed a parent owl, stretching toward the owlets, or gesturing with some intention, unknown its meaning if any I am still in love with you the boy and girl were righted and proceeded to squeal and rampage as the stylishly stubbled caregiver went his way

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a wonderful world

Everything seemed to conspire against when my intention seemed so benign, to take the subway to the Ferry Building, the farmers market held there each weekend the first mishaps, that I missed the train and so took the next, a streetcar designated for the overland route along Market Street, a slow business, but maybe interesting, who knew, and I had time, so boarding, an unkempt street person jumped ahead of me and tried an electronic boarding card which failed to work, so I stepped by him (mistake!) and earned his shout, Heah! Shithead! Wait your turn!!! I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom, for me and you. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. Luckily I held my peace, after a muttered nastiness that I knew better than to pursue, and found a seat, staring from the streetcar window while the outraged passenger shouted on others boarded, his comments were to them, sometimes mild, sometimes not, his speech was clear, his words formed well, but anger I see skies of blue, And clouds of white.

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The bright blessed day, The dark sacred night. And I think to myself, What a wonderful world. My thoughts turned toward compassion, how little of it I ever had, easily, that whenever compassion seemed appropriate, called for, even something likely for many, I rarely felt any of it at all, anger instead being the first response and an infinite reservoir The colors of the rainbow, So pretty in the sky. Are also on the faces, Of people going by, I see friends shaking hands. Saying, How do you do? They're really saying, I love you. When I disembarked at the Ferry Building I saw Id been mistaken, a Sunday and the only farmers market one Id just passed at Civic Center, what to do? I walked the buildings concourse, left to face the small park by the huge water feature called a fountain on the Embarcadero, a public ornament that had been in place for decades and had only for a few weeks in in the early days blasted bundles of salty water everywhere as it was designed to do, only then a general recognition this could not be sustained, too much energy required, the plumbing never treated for salt corrosion, so

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its been a trickle ever since but a band was playing now, a disheveled group of people lined by a public sculpture of severed heads, one resting on the side of its face, one upright, both eggshaped and enormous, side-eyed, bluntly crazy looking, the scattered audience of tourists, passers-by, perhaps faithful for the voices rose in Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy wounded side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure; Save from wrath and make me pure. I hear babies cry, I watch them grow, They'll learn much more, Than I'll ever know. And I think to myself, What a wonderful world. The park itself, known as Ferry Park, was fenced for reconstruction; there was no one about. A very pleasant day, an agreeable day, in every way, while somehow the memory of the street person, his rant which by now would be in full flow at Fishermans Wharf, where the streetcar line ended, and my continuing ambivalence about him and his setting, the public issues surrounding his situation, all shrunk my pleasure surrounding the place I was in, the fading song as I walked still Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to the cross I cling; Naked, come to Thee for dress;

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Helpless look to Thee for grace; Foul, I to the fountain fly; Wash me, Savior, or I die. Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world. Oh yeah. Crossing by the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Market Street again, aiming for the subway maw that this time perhaps would swallow me without benefit of homeless harassment, my loss of compassion once more showing, I had to stop and wait as a Mercedes convertible issued from the parking entrance of the hotel, a couple of young men laughing, the top down in morning sunshine; a pregnant woman crossed the hotel entrance with me too, street garbage blowing hither to elsewhere, the fenced escalator from the subway yawning its beckon, into space increasing dark Oh yeah Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world.

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Sources for songs cited in texts:

page 5 larc-en-ciel - from Illuminations (After the Deluge) by Arthur Rimbaud John Ashbery translation of Illuminations (New York: New Directions, 2011) ; pp. 18-19) - Subterranean Homesick Blues (by Bob Dylan) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_ujAXxNxU0] & assorted Bob Dylan sites 7 Always - Always [http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Always-lyrics-FrankSinatra/34B3AF8CB94214E348256920000A6FE9] 10 Amazing Grace - Amazing Grace [http://www.littleleaf.com/amazinggrace.htm 13 angels sing thee - Goodnight, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Wm. Shakespeare (Hamlet,V,ii) - Love will find a way [http://www.lionking.org/lyrics/RTPR/LoveWillFindAWay.html] & elsewhere biographical notes (Helmut Dantine & Audie Murphy) from Wikipedia, 2011 16 The Archer - opening sentences from The Song of the Loon, by Richard Amory (1966) [http://first10pages.com/2010/01/15/song-of-the-loon-richard-amory/ - an assessment of Eugen Herrigels Zen and the Art of Archery (1948) [http://www.writework.com/essay/zen-and-art-archery-eugene-herrigel 18 Avaalokitasvara - Dream a Little Dream of Me [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_070zWcEuk] 20 before you break my heart - Stop in the Name of Love [http://www.lyricsdepot.com/diana-ross-the-supremes/stop-in-the-name-oflove.html] 23 Bei mir bist du schn - Bei mir bist du schn [http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/b/beimirbistduschon.shtml] 115

- Obituary (poem by Charles B. Hibbard, unpublished, summer 2011) 25 Blauer Engel - Blauer Engel [http://lyrics.wikia.com/Alphaville:Blauer_Engel/en] [http://lyricstrue.net/bandsongtext/Alphaville/Blauer_Engel.html 31 A Bridge - Sur le pont d'Avignon [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZUzzWlvn1w] 33 ce beau matin - Lets do it [http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/c/coleporter5950/letsdoit235318.html]s Une Charogne (The Carcass) from Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal (translations by Wm. H. Crosby; BOA Editions, Ltd., Rochester,NY, 1991, pp. 64-49) 39 cool [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIv1zFVPrTE 41 exactly - from Illuminations (Arthur Rimbaud) [Lives, I] (translated by John Ashbery) [New York: W. W. Norton, 2011; pp. 47-48] - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer [http://www.carols.org.uk/rudolf_the_red_nosed_reindeer.htm 44 faded amber - I Get a Kick Out of You [http://www.lyricstime.com/ella-fitzgerald-i-get-a-kick-out-of-you-lyrics.html 47 Hannah - Drop kick me Jesus [Words and music by Paul Craft. CD, BWCD-040292] 49 her dream of love was gone - The Ancients Have Returned Amongst Us Bed of Sphinxes, by Philip Lamantia (City Lights Books, San Francisco, pp. 70-71. 1997) - Miss Otis regrets [http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/c/coleporter5950/missotisregrets235319.html 51 how you can love - Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh

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[http://www.lyricsreg.com/lyrics/the+andrews+sisters/Oh+Johnny+Oh+Johnny+ Oh/] 55 laughing at the clouds - Singing In The Rain [http://www.elyrics.net/read/g/gene-kelly-lyrics/singing-in-the-rain-lyrics.html] - the tiger [http://www.bartleby.com/101/489.html] (& other citations all from Wikipedia, 2011) 58 The Library - 4 poems from Wm. Blakes Songs of Experience: A Divine Image, Infant Sorrow, The Angel & The Garden of Love [http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/angel-the/] & other online sources - Won't Get Fooled Again (by The Who) [http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/won%27t-get-fooled-again-lyrics-thewho/761ef79aab42fa9c48256977002e72f9] 61 magic pool - La vie en rose [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g4NiHef4Ks] 64 une maison bleue adoss la colline - San Francisco (a song by Maxime Le Forestie) [http://lyrics.wikia.com/Maxime_Leforestier:San_Francisco] -on the Ariane rocket [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_%28rocket_family%29] - Ariadne (an article by Dr Alena Trckova-Flamee, Ph.D.) [http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/ariadne.html] 67 mamselle - mam'selle [http://lyricstranslate.com http://lyricstranslate.com/en/mam039sellemamselle.html] 70 Margie - Margie [http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/c/cabcalloway18116/margie609205.html] 72 mine eyes have seen - The Battle Hymn of the Republic [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irZmknvOB4I] 76 The Mission - Mein kleiner grner Kaktus

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[http://lyricstranslate.com/en/mein-kleiner-gruener-kaktus-my-small-greencactus.html] 79 mosquitoes - 6 haiku by Kobayashi Issa: [Dont worry] p. 153; [O flea! & In this world] p. 158; [Dont kill that fly!] p. 159; [Im going out] p. 160; [All the time I pray] p. 165 & [That wren] p. 172 : The Essential Haiku, versions of Basho, Buson & Issa, translation by Robert Haas (Ecco Press, Hopewell, NJ), 1994 - Falling in Love Again [http://www.nomorelyrics.net/marlene_dietrichlyrics/181619-falling_in_love_again-lyrics.html] 81 my face painted with blue - Kaputt, by Curzio Malaparte (1944) [passage entitled I cavalli di ghiaccio," translated by Chas. B. Hibbard (unpublished) 2011; a 1982 translation by Cesare Foligno (Marlboro Press, Marlboro, VT, pp.56ff covers the same episode cited in these pages - Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu (Volare) [http://old.yoursonglyrics.com/nel-blu-dipinto-di-blu-volare-domenicomodugno/] 84 Nokomis - Always True to You, Darlin, in my Fashion [http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/a/alwaystruetoyouinmyfashion.shtml] - from The Song of Hiawatha (Part III: Hiawatha's Childhood) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/song-03.html] - All Suffering Soon to End! (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania (2005) [c/o Jehovahs Witnesses] - from Illuminations (Arthur Rimbaud) [Childhood, V] (translated by John Ashbery) [New York: W. W. Norton, 2011; pp. 28-29] - concerning 2 tea roses (Peace & Amber Queen) [http://www.rose-gardening-made-easy.com/yellow-rose.html 89 The Oriole - Moon River [http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/moonriver.htm] [also: Wikipedia, 2011 91 The Owl - line you came to me like an owl to night (lyric line from song used) German film: 3 (three short films, 2011) - Frre Jacques, Frre Jacques [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wyKqvCg4gs]

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92 paired Chinese elms - begin the beguine [http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/c/coleporter5950/beginthebeguine2 ]35309.html - The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe [http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.htm] 97 pebbles - These foolish things [http://www.lyricstime.com/billie-holiday-these-foolish-things-lyrics.html 99 le stelle che tremano - Turandot [http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/opera/qt/nessundormatext.htm] 102 Weve lost our good old mama - Atomic Bombs in Japan [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy] - Oh Moon over Alabama [http://www.metrolyrics.com/moon-over-alabama-lyrics-nina-simone.html] - Feel your body Kevan Housers yoga class, San Franciso (kevansf@aol.com) - Japanese Prime Minister [http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-08/06/c_131032957.htm] - Tube-nosed bat [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1318093/Bat-resembling-StarWars-Yoda-discovered-Papua-New-Guinea-rainforest.html#ixzz1UGksZX2E] 105 The Window - John Browns Body [http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/johnbrown/brownbody.html] 108 The Witness - Laughing on the outside [http://www.hitslyrics.com/n/natkingcole-lyrics5551/laughingontheoutsidecryingontheinside-lyrics-704020.html 111 a wonderful world [http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/r/o/rockages.htm] - What A Wonderful World [http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/what-a-wonderful-world-lyrics-louisarmstrong/d44476580961f717482569700017af3c]

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