When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
......
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
......
I prefer red chile over my eggs
and potatoes for breakfast.
Red chile ristras decorate my door,
dry on my roof, and hang from eaves.
They lend open-air vegetable stands
historical grandeur, and gently swing
with an air of festive welcome.
I can hear them talking in the wind,
haggard, yellowing, crisp, rasping
tongues of old men, licking the breeze.
......
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-
......
Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,
for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake
of the objective, the soil bludgeoned, the rock blasted.
Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.
I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective the planners planned
at blank desks set in rows. I visited the loud factories
where the machines were made that would drive ever forward
toward the objective. I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; I saw
the poisoned river, the mountain cast into the valley;
......
What if I can see it, smell it, almost touch it,
That gilded throne where I will proudly sit,
Would people think me mad,
Is my ambition so preposterous and bad.
And why not me, have I not earned this crown,
Someone not worthy of that queenly gown,
Bejeweled and composed for all to see,
My vassals all around, bowing deep to me.
......
In shadows of the past,
they whispered,
bound in lace and duty,
hands busy with thread,
hearts stifled in silence,
dreams tucked beneath layers of fabric.
Time spun its wheel,
and they rose,
voices like thunder,
......
I became friends with the darkness
The sun has become a myth
The Rain was only a comforting sound
And how I missed the snow
The walls were covered in tally marks
Counting the days
But seems time has escaped me
And the monsters in my head where only getting louder
......
Women are created in the image of God just as men are
Females are seen by Jesus as genuine persons
Not simply as the objects of male desire
Every family has disagreements, conflicts
Some men treat her with bitterness and uncontrolled anger,
They quarrel with her, abuse her,
Some Men are so rude, violent, controlling, and hatred
They do not reflect the love of Christ to her
For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God
......
Lighting candles in the shade
of high priests and saints,
she prays for a peace that only exists
before she discovered her power.
She cartwheels from one man to another,
paints her eyelids with graffiti,
dreams of marigolds and picket fences,
as she is used,
her body recycled,
her rent taken from parts
......