Rhymed Stanza

My life is vile
I hate it so
I’ ll wait awhile
And then I’ ll go.

Why wait at all?
Hope springs alive,
Good may befall
I yet may thrive.

It is because I can’ t make up my mind
If God is good, impotent or unkind.

He tells me in Bangkok he’ s robbed
Because he’ s white; in London because he’ s black;
In Barcelona, Jew; in Paris, Arab:
Everywhere and at all times, and he fights back.

He holds up seven thick little fingers
To show me he’ s rated seventh in the world,
And there’ s no passion in his voice, no anger
In the flat brown eyes flecked with blood.

The little girl won’ t eat her sandwich;
she lifts the bun and looks in, but the grey beef
coated with relish is always there.
Her mother says, “Do it for mother.”
Milk and relish and a hard bun that comes off
like a hat — a kid’ s life is a cinch.

I’ m wondering where you are now
Married, or mad, or free:
Wherever you are you’ re likely glad,
But memory troubles me.

We could’ ve had us children,
We could’ ve had a home —
But you thought not, and I thought not,
And these nine years we roam.

Today I worked in the deep dark tanks,
And climbed out to watch the sea:
Gulls and salty waves pass by,
And mountains of Araby.

One night, not long after the disaster,
as our train was passing Astor,
the car door opened with a shudder
and a girl came flying down the aisle,
hair that looked to be all feathers
and a half-moon smile
making open air of our small car.

The crowd ignored her or they muttered
“Hey, excuse me” as they passed her
when the train had paused at Rector.
The specter crowed “Excuse me,” swiftly
turned, and ran back up the corridor,
then stopped for me.
We dove under the river.

Schliemann is outside, digging. He’ s not
not calling a spade a spade.
The stadium where the Greeks once played
used to stand on this very spot.

Each night, Penelope, operating
in mythical time, unspools the light
gray orb Schliemann has just unearthed. Come daylight,
her hands will restitch it. The suitors sigh, waiting.

And each night I’ d watch as my hero curled
himself round home plate, as if he were going
to bat for me. And I’ d hold my breath, knowing
a strong enough shot might be heard round the world.

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crown’ d from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all flow’ rs and all trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.

I
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II
Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

PRECEPT I.

In Things of moment, on thy self depend,
Nor trust too far thy Servant or thy Friend:
With private Views, thy Friend may promise fair,
And Servants very seldom prove sincere.

PRECEPT II.

What can be done, with Care perform to Day,
Dangers unthought-of will attend Delay;
Your distant Prospects all precarious are,
And Fortune is as fickle as she’ s fair.

PRECEPT III.