INFANTRY COLUMNS
We're foot--slog--slog--slog--sloggin' over Africa --
Foot--foot--foot--foot--sloggin' over Africa --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
Seven--six--eleven--five--nine-an'-tw enty mile to-day --
Four--eleven--seventeen--thirty-two the day before --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
......
"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead--
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired--
......
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
......
I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;--
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;--
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,
......
Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
- The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!
......
ñuqa hamuyku punchawkunapi,
ch’isi, k’uychi, ch’uñu,
mana tukuychu kanki.
in navy blue dusk
mulberry brushes green grass ~
a scene that's starlit
CONSUMMATING THE WORD
In the beginning was
The Word
Consummating it is
becoming Wordless
I fly them through windows
onto tarred roads
where tyres tread them
......
Sultry evening surprise,
the starry sky of fireflies!
Pink, shining, full moon
on rosy, Dragonfly Lagoon.
Lofty fireflies are winking,
as gold time is blinking.
Ash silhouetted clouds,
partially veil fleet crowds,
that glow emerald green,
until so suddenly unseen.
......
As I stand, a poet in an ocean of words,
Unspoken feelings, unheard verses surge.
What is this craft, this calling to write?
Is it light for others or my own plight?
I pen the tales of others, the struggles they bear,
Yet each word I write is a weight I wear.
To live, to serve, to break free from norm,
A poet’s life—a perpetual storm.
......