“I never read anyone half so right as I.”
-- William Saroyan
Now you listen to me, Saroyan, and him.
page 1forward
they all said
a Muse is always a she
however obliviously
a HE a-Muse's me
page 2preface
and if my tongue is ever in my cheek please,
love, it's not affront to you.
it's just
adjust of mine
to God' design
does the ever mean sometimes or always
or do i just hope it means always?
and should it be affront or a front?
and is just as in justice or just merely,
or just abandon itself to gist,
or more merrilly still
to JEST
o k o k o k ok ....... you write that one .......
page 3preface
page 5religion
if i can face
this place
i can't very well
worry about Hell.
page 6religion
if i can't rhyme
with Time
what use to me
Eternity?
if i can't fitly deal
with present woe and weal
what use to me
Infinity?
page 7religion
their God is Good
their Devil is Bad
my God is a laughing clown
who doesn't know up from down
page 4
their God is Good
the Devil is Bad
my God is an imp
that I call versus
page 8religion
J. C.
Jesus passionately paid the price
for the power he had.
playing God comes high.
such a man, men crucify.
Jesus was not God.
He played God and
he passionately paid God
a fair price for
that paradise
of power.
page 9religion
if it isn't funny
it's phoney and no fun. He,
that Old Guy in the sky,
laughs, so why shouldn't I?
page 10religion
A decision which has saved me a
great deal of time
no poet no prophet no seer
no wise man no philosopher
no minister no cracker-barrel
grass roots wit
will i listen to
unless he laughs and knows he's just
another HAM
like God with his outrageous sunsets,
etc. etc.
page 11religion
whatever blooms bright in the mind
of the mystic
is neatly named GOD
giving the mystic per MISSION to
tell everyone what to do.
AM i a mystic?
but, of course.
page 12religion
we all know
that to grow
we need rain and pain
as well as sun and fun
therefore later
know that hater
did for you as much
as lover: both
are equally deserving
of your everlasting love.
page 13religion
your thoughts sublime
what good are they
if you've no time
to live that way?
brag of your ache
for India's poor
and daily break
the heart next door?
page 14religion
page 15love
i wondered along
collecting fragments.
i met you;
i looked at my hand
and wondered to behold the
perfect round.
it would surely be greed
to ask for, or say that we need
more than this blessed knowing;
only death can consummate.
page 16love
the moon can't pity the sea,
but you me?
the moon can't stop it,
but you can?
the moon attracts the sea
in the same way you me,
but does the sea ache too
as i, being human, do?
and if the sea does ache
does the moon pity the sea?
human you know that i ache
but do you pity me?
you are heartless as the moon
i am helpless as the sea.
P•L•E•A•S•E dim your dazzling eyes
and me demagnetize.
page 17love
the sea may be content
in bondage to the moon
precisely God's intent
she yet may do
but i am not content
in bondage thus to you
for me such tides not meant
i've other work to do.
page 18love
Renunciation is not water
to put out a fire
but rather oxygen that
makes it roar the higher
page 19love
did Jesus command “Love thy
neighbor as thyself.” ?
or say, (“Thou wilt) love thy
neighbor (to the same
degree) as (thou lovest) thyself.” ?
love IS when two persons cannot
distinguish between
give and take
when you and i are shaking
hands who is giving
who taking?
if your love be love
all fragments you descry
you will treat with tenderness
howsoe'er awry
page 20love
April in New England
the Earth said to the Sun
“please, Sir, put down upon me
your warm hand; please, Sir,
let my green fires leap free.”
page 21love
P•L•E•A•S•E
let no other see
your me
i still have to be
their me
please let me be
your me
only when none but you
can see.
page 22love
Winter Thought
this year i fear the thrust of spring
and summer’s certain blossoming.
page 23love
some days Earth cries out with loveliness
that burns with all the fires of Hell
and all the light of Heaven,
“Please, Sir, forbear.”
God answers with a day
of quiet grey.
Earth wants all God’s weather
i all yours.
page 24love
page 25marriage
Spring 1955
stop being wife? perhaps
when the earth,
under caress of April
sun, can withhold.
page 26marriage
Little Boy to Little Girl
or, mayhap,
Some Woman to Her Husband
let's (gently) put away our toys;
you, your dolls,
and i my soldier boys
and play US, man and wife.
page 27marriage
jeanne and charlie mend a broken chair
through the break, from opposite sides
they drove two screws.
strong as new, with two
pulling against each other
pulling against together.
page 28marriage
afraid to live
or die?
not i.
Heaven is here
Hell, too,
with you
page 29marriage
acknowledge that marriage
is the ultimate of
slavery .... it becomes
ultimate of freedom
page 30marriage
page 31some humans
God bless this spinning earth you walk upon
God bless the sun that warms you
God bless all clean green growing things
but most of all God bless the creatures who,
not knowing why, forbear and let
them grow
page 32some humans
For William Blake
your words upon the printed page
i could not understand
and yet you touched and warmed me
with your living hand.
page 33some humans
For W. Blake’s Spiritual Heirs
if you would visit Heaven
and chat with God
and still be here to do
your work on earth,
Prudence dictates
take a friend along
else you'll be lonely here
and called MAD..
page 34some humans
why should i have to psychoanalyze?
what you are shines clearly from
your eyes;
what you lack and long for i know
well
from the twisted tale your silent lips
tell.
page 36some humans
there is a place where i go for nectar.
she who serves it appears to be
an ordinary mortal like you and me
i get down on my knees
and say to her please
how do you make it or
where do you get it?
have you ever stared straight at the sun?
page 37some humans
Rocks
for: Willy D. and Willy T. (against gardening ladies)
i love rocks ... not the ones the pick strikes
and the bar persuades out of our own earth..
such rocks are pale brown, though they hose off
sometimes right colorful, but pick-and-bar
escarred, bare lichen-less .. such rocks we pound
to lifting size and haul away for fill..
the rocks i want are grey and lichen-green
from long years of living with the weather.
i like the look of lichen. Like?
God Almighty, come-for-coffee-in-my-kitchen,
could no way please me more than you could,
or any, by bringing me and gently
(Ooh, please don't scratch it!) placing
(No, a little to the left) to look ‘Tumbled’
(No, back, and tip it up an inch or so) in my garden
just one--small--grey--touched-with-moss and lichen
-luscious THREE TON rock. Darling i love you.
page 38some humans
page 39children
i wonder if my little girl--
she's not quite two--
when she grows up to woman's work
will speak as true
as now? one says to her “Bad girl”
she counters “Girl”
when someone says to her “Good girl”
again says “Girl”.
page 40children
for Helen, five, who asked
what is the sky?
how high?
the distant blue
touches you;
only breath or sigh
and you are filled with sky.
no wonder i
am growing high
with every breath
i breathe sky.
page 41children
To Children: when someone says,
“Which hand?” say “B•O•T•H•”
the old man had a happy mouth. wife
-protected and self-deluded, he
beamed on us. he preached and he talked
about God and The Abundant Life.
the son had a stern mouth. trapped by life
and self-deluded he frowned on us.
when he talked he said that economic necessity
forced him to stay with his wife.
the grandson has a big mouth
with one corner up, the other down.
page 42children
page 43creative
desire will tend,
fulfilled, to end.
contained, it can
build higher than
it first intends,
to endless ends.
page 44creative
Poet
The poet has daily intimate concourse
with his unconcious mind.
He dwells upon that sharp point
where all contradictions fuse.
The poet is sufficient as a tree
and as subject to the weather.
He will visit with you;
loneliness forces him to keep trying.
The poetic imagination is not
worth a damn
unless it happily and humbly mates
with daily duty
unless the conflict of that union
becomes for both
a nurturing clasp which creates ......
page 45creative
a new configuration comes only
to him whom faith allows
to put willy in temporary chains
and let nilly carouse.
page 46creative
my unconscious mind is LIGHT not dark
through the fear wall, unasked, unheralded
upthrusts a sudden shaft of light.
in the dark confusion of the conscious
mind it blooms: configuration bright.
page 47creative
out of one who can hold
Heaven on the open palm
and not a finger fold
out of one who can hold
Hell in his belly
contained and untold
Art explodes to life.
page 48creative
poems
let them burn burn burn
in the crucible
let them pulse and push and pound
in the womb
let them tear your living heart wide open
still contain them
page 49creative
a poem is the ultimate scream of birth and
a living creature.
some will only hear the scream
but some will also know and love
the living creature.
page 50creative
page 51facts
the answers you get
when you sit down calmly and
reasonably, logically, mathematically
add up the columns,
are, acknowledged or not, seldom the
answers you live by.
page 52facts
On Rearing Children
as you seek to domesticate
the animal,
beware lest you desiccate the human.
exorcise the Devil
and God's gone, too.
page 53facts
page 54frontiers
Frontiers of “Science”
The psychiatrists and their ilk have made
this great discovery about “projection”.
What was the Seek-and-you-shall-find-knock-
and-it-shall ... guy talking about some years back?
page 55frontiers
page 56conclusion
a “multitude of others” made me ... make an I out of ought and should and must yet this I is NO THING; just this here now here this feeling-Being BLISS in sunlight and dark
page 57conclusion