five in the morning

I dream of shining fish in a murky river. Of collages in the radical magazines.

I dream of slender mysterious poems whose meanings are not found in the back of the book.

I dream of the face of God on the number 80 bus.

I dream of cool Septembers on the last day of August.

I dream of significant anniversaries and lavish expenditures.

I dream of poverty and unstinting charity.

I dream of waking up to a dark and quiet apartment. I dream of Adam's ale and the matutinal cup o' joe.

I dream of mirthful commonwealths where ebullience never ceases. I dream of distant sisters who learned how to rhyme with April.

I dream of vehement activists. I dream of civilization.

I dream of an eternal reward of hurtfully curative mercy.

fourteen fragments

1
Stenographers, exult! The wind blows cold.

2
Forty degrees somewhere north of here.

3
Summer pollutes the mind, winter makes clean.

4
Inspirational rhymes next to the box scores.

5
Dire vocals of the mirthless folk singer.

6
When gluttons try to fast, the will flinches.

7
Paradise and solitude, the red den.

8
Space for the harbingers of hope, selah.

9
A precious metaphysical conceit!

10
Excelling chant of monks, my true love's voice.

11
Minute particulars, news of the day.

12
Who is this bozo on the pitcher's mound?

13
Fragments of brilliance, lost in lassitude.

14
An urban prelude, regal demoiselle.

When will dylan resume blogging?

Soon. Probably not today!

Snow and Stars

by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

The grackles sing avant the spring
Most spiss -- oh! Yes, most spissantly.
They sing right puissantly.

This robe of snow and winter stars,
The devil take it, wear it, too.
It might become his hole of blue.

Let him move it to his regions,
White and star-furred for his legions,
And make much bing, high bing.

It would be ransom for the willow
And fill the hill and fill it full
Of ding, ding, dong.

Quotation

The Lord forgives many things,
so I have heard.

Mary Oliver, "More Beautiful than the Honey Locust Tree Are the Words of the Lord," from Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006), p. 31

The Proclaimers

"Throw the 'R' Away" (1987-ish?), a slightly abridged version, missing the lines

Some days I stand
On your green and pleasant land
How dare I show face
When my diction is such a disgrace

An anthology of verse

Amaryllis is made of vers libre.

The senator begins his epic
In the rhythm of The Song of Hiawatha.

Sestinas dance in Davis Square,
While sonnets snore on waterbeds.

Quatrains eat scrambled eggs for breakfast,
Heroic couplets cold cereal.

The lawyer left her housekeys
Beside the terza rima.

Refreshed by slant-rhymed villanelles,
Beachgoers lie beneath humongous parasols.

Johnny finds a hole in his pantoum
The size of a Sacagawea dollar coin.

Olivia's cinquain
Makes a noise like a dripping faucet.

Oh, for the unity of blank verse!
For the hope and change of anapests!

Winter's ballad makes the nose run,
Summer's ballade burns fair skin.

St Lawrence went to the gridiron, we are told,
Taunting his executioners
In Catullan hendecasyllabics.

Bellies

Progressive bellies are chubby.
Conservative bellies are lean.

Catholic bellies sit primly
Above legs that genuflect
Before a monstrance or a tabernacle.

Protestant bellies
Thunder the Scriptures
In the King James Version,
And often in a Southern accent.

The poet sips his fourth, maybe fifth, beer
And waxes poetic about his Chestertonian girth.

The teacher's belly is covered in chalkdust
From September to June.

A reminder

Am also blogging here.

John Hughes (1950-2009)

The blogueuse at Shredded Cheddar answers the question: Which John Hughes character was, in fact, the Devil?

Dickinson

Further in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness.

Antiquest felt at Noon
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify

Remit as yet no Grace
No Furrow on the Glow
Yet a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now