a few representative selections from my published books
On White II, Kandinsky, 1923
From Reviving a Dead Priest (translucent books, 2018) :
Song for the End of Time
“And so, in time, will come the end of time.” – Anon.
All that has come before is gone.All that is yet to come will be gone.
There is no Beyond –Beyond all bounds, the boundaryBeyond which there is no beyond –Yea, even beyond the Boundless.
All is contained within ItselfAnd there is no Other.
Sloughing off its burdens, borne Always and forever, one by one,And all at once it will all be done,A final moment and a final soundWithout resound:
A dull thump, a sudden pop –But no musing, no astonishment,No time for thought –Only Naught.
Planets will be smashed to smithereensAnd ground to dust, And the suns themselves will fall,And all the mighty galaxies will fly apart At speeds approaching infinity –Or else implode in no time at all!
Cosmic pinwheels that roll and spin,Tops and spirals that turn and turn,The mighty furnaces of the VastAll blow out, and All is Past…
Silence waits at the end of time.
All that has come before is gone.All that is yet to come will be gone.
There is no Beyond –Beyond all bounds, the boundaryBeyond which there is no beyond –Yea, even beyond the Boundless.
All is contained within ItselfAnd there is no Other.
Sloughing off its burdens, borne Always and forever, one by one,And all at once it will all be done,A final moment and a final soundWithout resound:
A dull thump, a sudden pop –But no musing, no astonishment,No time for thought –Only Naught.
Planets will be smashed to smithereensAnd ground to dust, And the suns themselves will fall,And all the mighty galaxies will fly apart At speeds approaching infinity –Or else implode in no time at all!
Cosmic pinwheels that roll and spin,Tops and spirals that turn and turn,The mighty furnaces of the VastAll blow out, and All is Past…
Silence waits at the end of time.
From I Grew These Hueless Clouds in the Dreary South (translucent books, 2017) :
I Grew these Hueless Clouds in the Dreary South
I grew these hueless clouds in the dreary south –Where all my giddiest learning was done,Where even Liberty looks melancholy,With her book of secrets and her frozen flame.
Unhappily, we miss all the wind –Oriana, my doleful stormy flower, and I,Wedded under the oratory round. We have but one motto: “Ever the month of Autumn.”
We sat by the Cumberland and heard The eternal sound of the Tigris.Possibly a crystalline wild swan was there –Or else it was my wild imagination.
And so we left – but Tatius stayed onIn the land of darkness they had wrought;At the southern extremity they built a wavering towerWhose windows yielded Cubist views of the city.
So live, my dim Tatius, and learn:The cracked chalice you bought from the carpetbagger Begs its own forgiveness in chalky tones.May thy low forehead urge weeping –Reminded of your shadowy home, and you in it...
You learned to fence on English parapetsStolen from the Drama Department,While all about the ivy-grown towers quakedAnd fell like dead weights.
Again the wind blows full – another earthy dare – To scatter wide the Dixie denizens.We see them run like mad ewes thrilling,Or insects radiating from the nest. So look, dear Tatius, this book is my deedBefore the Golden Eye, that a seed may flowerIn the space of one mind, reading –To such a one we pass picked locks.
May they forgive me yet that I did takeThe broken road that ever bid me leaveTo seek the heart of summer-chaseWhere hueful clouds grow free.
Unhappily, we miss all the wind –Oriana, my doleful stormy flower, and I,Wedded under the oratory round. We have but one motto: “Ever the month of Autumn.”
We sat by the Cumberland and heard The eternal sound of the Tigris.Possibly a crystalline wild swan was there –Or else it was my wild imagination.
And so we left – but Tatius stayed onIn the land of darkness they had wrought;At the southern extremity they built a wavering towerWhose windows yielded Cubist views of the city.
So live, my dim Tatius, and learn:The cracked chalice you bought from the carpetbagger Begs its own forgiveness in chalky tones.May thy low forehead urge weeping –Reminded of your shadowy home, and you in it...
You learned to fence on English parapetsStolen from the Drama Department,While all about the ivy-grown towers quakedAnd fell like dead weights.
Again the wind blows full – another earthy dare – To scatter wide the Dixie denizens.We see them run like mad ewes thrilling,Or insects radiating from the nest. So look, dear Tatius, this book is my deedBefore the Golden Eye, that a seed may flowerIn the space of one mind, reading –To such a one we pass picked locks.
May they forgive me yet that I did takeThe broken road that ever bid me leaveTo seek the heart of summer-chaseWhere hueful clouds grow free.
From The Adventures of Franco Corelli (translucent books, 2017) :
Among the Philistines
This was speech at depth,Upshot from a chapter entitled The Vision in the Dark –
“He jumped up and barked At the locked windowAbove the blockaded door.
“The fool on the hillAlso arrived before noon,And spoke to the Philistines,Inanities spilling off his tongue...”
A day or two later I was recalled By my office in Rome; suddenly,My expense account was being revised:My forensic escapades in Galatia were out!
“He jumped up and barked At the locked windowAbove the blockaded door.
“The fool on the hillAlso arrived before noon,And spoke to the Philistines,Inanities spilling off his tongue...”
A day or two later I was recalled By my office in Rome; suddenly,My expense account was being revised:My forensic escapades in Galatia were out!
From The Lighthouse Above the Graveyard by John Allen and Alan Gullette (Dark Green Sun Press, 2016) :
I Wake Beside Myself
I wake beside myself beside a yewwith a fasting face welcome among the holyflesh starved away by fear and flightin scabrous apparel worn by Paul
Brusquely brushing aside the piping fiendthe high priest of mercy plays the leaden friendAnd nigh the east wind flirts with the glass curtainthen lets it go still again in taunting gesture
Watch-fires light the mossy gulf of morningwith the pompous lustre of braided moonswhere towers loom and high cirrus showcute curls on the fresh brow of sky
Ricercar to the waving spectacle of clouds trembling with utmost poise like prayerbefore the majestic marble of lean starsresigned to the pagan necessity of their bloodless fallin wan distances exhaustless and untrodden
Hence my gladness at the clearer dawns of summerHey! danced my joyful summonscheeks of the gray cumulous still colored haughty in the halesome rouge of springthere whirl and hover on a moving wind whereunderno words relish the bare rocks
On the hillside where ruins of Greek temples hidebeneath foliage profound and proudon the basalt ballast of outcroppings wideexposed like an unwanted child, I find my heart.
Brusquely brushing aside the piping fiendthe high priest of mercy plays the leaden friendAnd nigh the east wind flirts with the glass curtainthen lets it go still again in taunting gesture
Watch-fires light the mossy gulf of morningwith the pompous lustre of braided moonswhere towers loom and high cirrus showcute curls on the fresh brow of sky
Ricercar to the waving spectacle of clouds trembling with utmost poise like prayerbefore the majestic marble of lean starsresigned to the pagan necessity of their bloodless fallin wan distances exhaustless and untrodden
Hence my gladness at the clearer dawns of summerHey! danced my joyful summonscheeks of the gray cumulous still colored haughty in the halesome rouge of springthere whirl and hover on a moving wind whereunderno words relish the bare rocks
On the hillside where ruins of Greek temples hidebeneath foliage profound and proudon the basalt ballast of outcroppings wideexposed like an unwanted child, I find my heart.
Sonnet: To J--- A----
The Heart throbs at the midpoint of things –Transparent planes intersecting Now and HereTo interject a lambent circumspect,Accruing dormant means resounding clear.
The unnamable nebulous source consigns The Rime of the Ancient Reasoner, who findsA shadow of a doubt that’s cast Against the silver screen of the Vast.
Without compass, template or protracted lineWe trace the pattern of the patternless – No possible meaning to “meaningless” When golden veins pulse with the mother load…
Transcending time and nursery rhymeWe drink the wine of the sublime!
The unnamable nebulous source consigns The Rime of the Ancient Reasoner, who findsA shadow of a doubt that’s cast Against the silver screen of the Vast.
Without compass, template or protracted lineWe trace the pattern of the patternless – No possible meaning to “meaningless” When golden veins pulse with the mother load…
Transcending time and nursery rhymeWe drink the wine of the sublime!
From Intimations of Unreality (Hippocampus Press, 2012) :
Carven Faces
Carven faces in the mountains,Gargoyle watchers o’er mankind;These are relics of Their passing,Measured traces left behind.
Dimly through the aether staring,Masked by mist and mystery;Faces – silent stone, but knowing –Motionless eternally.
Chilled, the mist is stirred and flurried,Animated oddly bySome great power, dormant, hidden –Deep within stone faces lies.
Now the mountains fully tremble,Coldly shiver, stolid quake;And the carven mountain facesSmile malignly and awake.
Dimly through the aether staring,Masked by mist and mystery;Faces – silent stone, but knowing –Motionless eternally.
Chilled, the mist is stirred and flurried,Animated oddly bySome great power, dormant, hidden –Deep within stone faces lies.
Now the mountains fully tremble,Coldly shiver, stolid quake;And the carven mountain facesSmile malignly and awake.
Lizard Life
Lizards in love we slither along the lakesidethe skyline of tourists fades into the lost background of past realitiesall we know is the slick feel of oiled leather,sliding through the grass, scampering on the ground,sliding against each other, scampering
Autumn basks in cool evenings but lizards love daylight –O to lie outstretched on a bare stone in the full sun!we sit for hours on end without moving –simply watching, watching and breathing –breathing, feeling the warm sun, and simply watching
Once I touched you after watching you from afar for a thousand yearsthe years move slowly as I await my next opportunityto fill the time I write lizard poems and leave them lying aroundI leave them lying under tall grasses, under wild ferns,Under open skies I leave them lying on the bare stones
But lizard music carries you away, wafting into the dark millenniuma thousand years of cold silence, dry lizard leather in old airabandoned like a Mayan temple at the depths of a junglemy lizard poems etched in a forgotten tongue, inscrutable figures,indecipherable ravings of unkempt emotion – ignoble, usurped, and fallen
Lost then in mazes of Mayan undergrowth, seeking the lizard lady go Irunning through the open desert on bare burning leather feetI cross mountain ranges and float over oceans on a banana leafall to pursue the beauty, the leather touch, the endless hours on that stone –All to love the lizard lady in the lazy languor of this lizard life!
Autumn basks in cool evenings but lizards love daylight –O to lie outstretched on a bare stone in the full sun!we sit for hours on end without moving –simply watching, watching and breathing –breathing, feeling the warm sun, and simply watching
Once I touched you after watching you from afar for a thousand yearsthe years move slowly as I await my next opportunityto fill the time I write lizard poems and leave them lying aroundI leave them lying under tall grasses, under wild ferns,Under open skies I leave them lying on the bare stones
But lizard music carries you away, wafting into the dark millenniuma thousand years of cold silence, dry lizard leather in old airabandoned like a Mayan temple at the depths of a junglemy lizard poems etched in a forgotten tongue, inscrutable figures,indecipherable ravings of unkempt emotion – ignoble, usurped, and fallen
Lost then in mazes of Mayan undergrowth, seeking the lizard lady go Irunning through the open desert on bare burning leather feetI cross mountain ranges and float over oceans on a banana leafall to pursue the beauty, the leather touch, the endless hours on that stone –All to love the lizard lady in the lazy languor of this lizard life!