My chalk is no longer than a chip of fingernail,
Chip by which I must explain this Monday
Night the verbs “to get;” “to wear,” “to cut.”
I’ m not given much, these tired students,
Knuckle-wrapped from work as roofers,
Sour from scrubbing toilets and pedestal sinks.
I’ m given this room with five windows,
A coffee machine, a piano with busted strings,
The music of how we feel as the sun falls,
Exhausted from keeping up.
I stand at
I WILL give you all my keys,
You shall be my châtelaine,
You shall enter as you please,
As you please shall go again.
When I hear you jingling through
All the chambers of my soul,
How I sit and laugh at you
In your vain housekeeping rôle.
Jealous of the smallest cover,
Angry at the simplest door;
Well, you anxious, inquisitive lover,
Are you pleased with what's in store?
You have fingered all my treasures,
Have you not, most curiously,
Handled all my tools and measures
And masculine machinery?
For knowledge, says the Old Sage, add; for wisdom,
subtract. My head in a surgeon’ s chair, checking
Lao Tsu’ s math as these teeth I barely knew
I had (mumbled of as wisdom) introduced
themselves — rude party guests — right as they had
to go, their pinched goodbye-hello. Like learning
you’ ve been speaking your whole life in prose,
or my late eighth-grade astonishment that I —
confirmed a Gentile in almost all respects —
had hung so long among the circumcised.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
1
I now release from my blood the bird of thirty she wasted
that’ s how wars crumble us
I now tell those who are exhausted from the expense
of children the secret of happiness and happiness itself
Here is the place; right over the hill
Runs the path I took;
You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.
There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
And the poplars tall;
And the barn’ s brown length, and the cattle-yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.
Fellow fugitive
Forgive yourself
And me thereby
Thus we can live
Whatever’ s left
Of time for us,
Each day a gift
We take on trust
Ten fat sausages sizzling in a pan,
Ten fat sausages sizzling in a pan,
One went 'pop', the other went 'bang'
Now there's eight fat sausages sizzling in a pan.
Eight fat sausages sizzling in a pan,
Eight fat sausages sizzling in a pan,
One went 'pop', the other went 'bang'
Now there's six fat sausages sizzling in a pan.
Six fat sausages sizzling in a pan,
Six fat sausages sizzling in a pan,
One went 'pop', the other went 'bang'
Now there's four fat sausages sizzling in a pan.
Ten green bottles hanging on the wall,
Ten green bottles hanging on the wall,
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall,
There'll be...
Nine green bottles hanging on the wall,
Nine green bottles hanging on the wall,
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall,
There'll be...
Eight green bottles hanging on the wall,
Eight green bottles hanging on the wall,
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall,
There'll be...
There were ten in the bed and the little one said,
'Roll over, roll over!'
So they all rolled over and one fell out
There were nine in the bed and the little one said,
'Roll over, roll over!'
So they all rolled over and one fell out
There were eight in the bed and the little one said,
'Roll over, roll over!'
So they all rolled over and one fell out
There were seven in the bed and the little one said,
'Roll over, roll over!'
So they all rolled over and one fell out
