it's probably ungrammatical, but what the heck .....

la politique
ne vaut rien
comparée à
un cœur humain

where are the estlins of yesteryear?

(from i: six nonlectures by E E Cummings [pp.31-32])

in the world of my boyhood -- long, long ago

before time was space and Oedipus was a complex and religion was the opiate of the people and pigeons had learned to play pingpong -- social stratification not merely existed but luxuriated. All women were not, as now [1952], ladies; a gentleman was a gentleman; and a mucker (as the professional denizens of Irving and Scott streets knew full well : since their lofty fragment of Cambridge almost adjoined plebeian Somerville) was a mucker. Being myself a professor's (& later a clergyman's) son, I had every socalled reason to accept these conventional distinctions without cavil; yet for some unreason I didn't. The more implacably a virtuous Cambridge drew me toward what might have been her bosom, the more sure I felt that soi-disant respectability comprised nearly everything which I couldn't respect, and the more eagerly I explored sinful Somerville. But while sinful Somerville certainly possessed a bosom (in fact, bosoms) she also possessed fists which hit below the belt and arms which threw snowballs containing small rocks.

Little by little and bruise by teacup

my doubly disillusioned spirit made an awe-inspiring discovery; which (on more than several occasions) has prevented me from wholly misunderstanding socalled humanity : the discovery, namely, that all groups, gangs, and collectivities -- no matter how apparently disparate -- are fundamentally alike; and that what makes any world go round is not the trivial difference between a Somerville and a Cambridge, but the immeasurable difference between either of them and individuality. Whether this discovery is valid for you, I can't pretend to say : but I can and do say, without pretending, that it's true for me -- inasmuch as I've found (and am still finding) authentic individuals in the most varied environments conceivable. Nor will anything ever persuade me that, by turning Somerville into Cambridge or Cambridge into Somerville or both into neither, anybody can make an even slightly better world. Better worlds (I suggest) are born, not made; and their birthdays are the birthdays of individuals.

Per la vostra dilettazione

David Bowie in italiano, "Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola"

Minimalist silliness

sleep
sleep sleep
sleep

to sleep
perchance
to dream

aye
there
's the
rub

nap
at noon?
nope

but the mind
craves
slumber

craves
a deeper
sleep

than that which
night
has given us

of late
:: :: ::
:: :: ::

sleep
like John Keats
"enshaded

in for-
getfulness
divine"

Cool down, papa!

Nnenna Freelon & Take 6 at the Grammys a few years back, performing "Straighten Up and Fly Right"

Jennifer Atkinson

Several poems by the author. This reader prizes especially "St Veronica's Day" and the two ghazals -- slightly favoring the first.

Short takes

1.
Ninety-four degrees:
Friday, the transition day --
rain, then cool and bright!

2.
August 31st:
subverting the summer heat,
leaves begin to change.

3.
Doctor will put me
on a thinning regimen
just in time for fall.

4.
Heavenly barmaid!
Kick-ass sense of humor, and
Italian good looks.

5.
It's that time of day --
fridge holds one cold beer, methinks.
Not for very long!

6.
It seems like the first
day in the last week or two
that I've bought no books.

7.
"Progressive" chapels
where the Mass is still the Mass
I don't mind at all.

8.
Auden's naughtiness --
"Even Hate should be precise" --
always makes me smile.

9.
Puer natus est!
My first cousin's a grandmom!
What does that make me?

10.
Go, silly verses.
Make some reader chuckle; let
him forsake his woe.

The One Whose Reproach I Cannot Evade

by George Hitchcock (1914-2010)


She sits in her glass garden
and awaits the guests --
The sailor with the blue tangerines
the fish clothed in languages
the dolphin with a revolver in its teeth.

Dusk enters from stage left:
its voice falls like dew on the arbor.
Tiny bells
sway in the catalpa tree.

What is it she hopes to catch in her net
of love? Petals? Conch-shells?
The night-moth? She does not speak.
Tonight, I tell her, no one comes;
you wait in vain.

Yet at eight precisely
the moon opens its theatric doors,
an arm rises from the fountain,
the music box, face down
on her tabouret, swells and bursts
its cover -- a tinkling flood of
rice moves over the table.

She smiles at me, false believer,
smiles and goes in, leaving
the garden empty and my thighs
half-eaten by the raging twilight.