A Little Boy Lost
Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.
'And, father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.'
Song Of Myself, I
I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
Henry King
The Chief Defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of String.
At last he swallowed some which tied
Itself in ugly Knots inside.
Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
"There is no Cure for this Disease.
1954
Then dirt scared me, because of the dirt
he had put on her face. And her training bra
scared me—the newspapers, morning and evening,
kept saying it, training bra,
as if the cups of it had been calling
the breasts up—he buried her in it,
perhaps he had never bothered to take it
off. They found her underpants
in a garbage can. And I feared the word
eczema, like my acne and like
A Dog's Mistake
He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide,
He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside;
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair,
With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear.
He was very poor and humble and content with what he got,
So we fed him bones and biscuits, till he heartened up a lot;
Then he growled and grew aggressive, treating orders with disdain,
Till at last he bit the butcher, which would argue want of brain.
On The Death Of A Young Lady Of Five Years Of Age
FROM dark abodes to fair etherial light
Th' enraptur'd innocent has wing'd her flight;
On the kind bosom of eternal love
She finds unknown beatitude above.
This known, ye parents, nor her loss deplore,
She feels the iron hand of pain no more;
The dispensations of unerring grace,
Should turn your sorrows into grateful praise;
Let then no tears for her henceforward flow,
No more distress'd in our dark vale below,
Graduation Day
Graduation Day is the climax of a dream.
A parental dream that began when a child is born,
And their hope come true it would seem,
A triumph held after periods of forlorn,
A feeling of pride and euphoria years away
For a daughter or son - Graduation Day.
It is a peak of success for the graduate,
Not only for the graduate but parents too.
A joyful event after many years they had to wait,
Ave Atque Vale
Through many countries and over many seas
I have come, Brother, to these melancholy rites,
to show this final honour to the dead,
and speak (to what purpose?) to your silent ashes,
since now fate takes you, even you, from me.
Oh, Brother, ripped away from me so cruelly,
now at least take these last offerings, blessed
by the tradition of our parents, gifts to the dead.
Accept, by custom, what a brother’s tears drown,
and, for eternity, Brother, ‘Hail and Farewell’.
A Homage
I open my window to let in the morning light and the cool fresh air
Though in the midst of a legion of works assigned for the day
The girl servant next door fills my heart with her innocent smile
Like a pure dew drop glares from the grass-top in the dawn
No child labour prohibition ever peeps into her pains and miseries
No humanists rise in revolt to protect her from cruel exploitation
She can be the foetus that grew up surviving all efforts of abortion
She may be the female baby abandoned to avoid a culpable burden
I Don't Care
My head is bald,
but I don't care.
I'm not so tall,
but I don't care.
I'm overworked
and underpaid.
It's been ten years
since I got
Joy And Pleasure
Now, joy is born of parents poor,
And pleasure of our richer kind;
Though pleasure's free, she cannot sing
As sweet a song as joy confined.
Pleasure's a Moth, that sleeps by day
And dances by false glare at night;
But Joy's a Butterfly, that loves
To spread its wings in Nature's light.
I Woke Up This Morning
I woke up this morning
and I was mourning
weary and broken
my life burnin' down to ashes and smokin'
and I frowned
and looked around
and I saw my bedroom cluttered with all
those keepsakes from the seashore and the doll
you sent from Vietnam and the dream catchers we made in mountain meadow
years and years ago
The Parent
Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
I Am
I sit in the terrace, gazing at the starry sky,
and think about the answer to the question, 'Who am I? '
I am a girl who wants to be young forever,
but I'm a girl who also wants to grow up and be someone that everyone will remember.
I'm a girl who wants to stay in the protected world my parents have built for me,
but I'm also a girl who wants to touch the sky and break free.
I want to be happy and dance in the rain,
but I also wanna cry for the unfortunate and feel their pain.
I want to be wise and go towards the sun ray,
So Does Everybody Else, Only Not So Much
O all ye exorcizers come and exorcize now, and ye clergymen draw nigh and clerge, For I wish to be purged of an urge. It is an irksome urge, compounded of nettles and glue, And it is turning all my friends back into acquaintances, and all my acquaintances into people who look the other way when I heave into view. It is an indication that my mental buttery is butterless and my mental larder lardless, And it consists not of "Stop me if you've heard this one," but of "I know you've heard this one because I told it to you myself, but I'm going to tell it to you again regardless," Yes I fear I am living beyond my mental means. When I realize that it is not only anecdotes that I reiterate but what is far worse, summaries of radio programs and descriptions of caroons in newspapers and magazines. I want to resist but I cannot resist recounting the bright sayins of celebrities that everybody already is familiar with every word of; I want to refrain but cannot refrain from telling the same audience on two successive evenings the same little snatches of domestic gossip about people I used to know that they have never heard of. When I remember some titlating episode of my childhood I figure that if it's worth narrating once it's worth narrating twice, in spite of lackluster eyes and dropping jaws, And indeed I have now worked my way backward from titllating episodes in my own childhood to titillating episodes in the childhood of my parents or even my parents-in-laws, And what really turns my corpuscles to ice, I carry around clippings and read them to people twice. And I know what I am doing while I am doing it and I don't want to do it but I can't help doing it and I am just another Ancient Mariner, And the prospects for my future social life couldn't possibly be barrener. Did I tell you that the prospects for my future social life couldn't be barrener?
Let Us Forget
He lost his parents
In communal riots
But he forgot it!
Acquired was his fertile tract
For a paltry amount
But he forgot it
He has to fast many a night
Unable to meet rising costs
Sun N Son
Something has gone wrong with meaning of words,
'Sun' and 'Son' beautiful creation of lords,
Both represent energy having sharpness of swords,
Both are crucial for survival and existence of world,
Son is embodiment of energy and power,
Darkness disappears when sun rays appear,
All worship Sun god and offer prayer
Light may appear through clouds from layer
A L O N E
Man is mortal and death is certain
So my beloved remove all the curtains
Hanging between you and reality
My boy mind well, it is your duty.
As a kid you belonged to your parents
Youth is for the better-half apparent.
Throught life as a fool you behave often
Trying to form & maintain motley relations.
** The Sun-Im Proud Of Him **
Tyrannical, horrible, traumatic, ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
That’s what, I’ll say-
Juvenescent childhood, as it flowed thro
hushed Mississipi, and over her sands,
lost its virginity, to delinquent Lolita’s hands
over her rough and craggy ravines
with all her nefarious desires maligns
Decrescent childhood
No Teacher, Please
Teacher, teacher, teacher,
you don't be a preacher,
and never be a searcher,
I will become a researcher,
Madame always I mischief,
Still, you give relief,
Never you have punished,
If work not finished,