When Shakespeare came to London
He met no shouting throngs;
He carried in his knapsack
A scroll of quiet songs.
No proud heraldic trumpet
Acclaimed him on his way;
Their court and camp have perished;
The songs live on for ay.
Nobody saw or heard them,
But, all around him there,
Spirits of light and music
Went treading the April air.
He passed like any pedlar,
Yet he had wealth untold.
The galleons of th' armada
Could not contain his gold.
Like everyone, I wanted my animal
to be the hawk.
I thought I wanted the strength
to eat the eyes first then tear
into the fuse box of the chest
and soar away.
I needed help because I still
cowered under the shadow of my father,
a man who inspected picture tubes
five out of seven nights,
I hid the deed:
— would my life end?
The grackle called it back again.
The grackle then
became
my life. A swan’ s neck
curling to ask
what if
uncurled
to reachinto the reed,
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
— Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
She had a death in me, knees drawn up
and my bowl and cloth rinsed through with her.
As morning takes night, field closes the hare,
and ay would burrow into her.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Oh! Shepherd John is good and kind,
Oh! Shepherd John is brave;
He loves the weakest of his flock,
His arm is quick to save.
But Shepherd John to little John
Says: ‘Learn, my laddie, learn!
In grassy nooks still read your books,
And aye for knowledge burn.
In the aftermath of calculus
your toast fell butter-side down.
Squirrels swarmed the lawns
in flight patterns. The hovercraft
helped the waves along. From
every corner there was perspective.
On the billboards the diamonds
were real, in the stores, only zirconia.
I cc’ ed you. I let you know.
Sat down to write the Black Ice Memo.
Dinner would be meager &
reminiscent of next week’ s lunch.
So what if I sat on the sectional?
As always I was beside myself.
Tightened jaw, I did not love.
Flashback of myself jerked about,
legs high above my head, men
laughing, I came to sea drifts,
movement and crashing. I found I am
not so far from God exploding.
Gifting, a friend once said, is why we live.
Seven storks still and white on a gold lake.
My lazy eye glances back to that original
split, myself high above myself.
Whiplashed into forgetting, I didn’ t know
hours from minutes. I was hypervigilant for
catastrophes. My head raging then numb.
