You And I

I explain quietly. You hear me shouting. You try a new tack. I feel old wounds reopen. You see both sides. I see your blinkers. I am placatory. You sense a new selfishness.

Absence

I have scarcely left you When you go in me, crystalline, Or trembling, Or uneasy, wounded by me Or overwhelmed with love, as when your eyes Close upon the gift of life That without cease I give you. My love,

Under One Small Star

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all. Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.

Nettles

My son aged three fell in the nettle bed. 'Bed' seemed a curious name for those green spears, That regiment of spite behind the shed: It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears The boy came seeking comfort and I saw White blisters beaded on his tender skin. We soothed him till his pain was not so raw. At last he offered us a watery grin, And then I took my billhook, honed the blade And went outside and slashed in fury with it

a Humble Complaint

You could have been more polite observing me, Your harsh words have left An indelible impression, Hatred can be won by love alone, As one gets relief from Scorching heat By gentle rain, As the sermon of a saint soothes The disturbed mind, Your words could have healed

Absolution

The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes Till beauty shines in all that we can see. War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise, And, fighting for our freedom, we are free. Horror of wounds and anger at the foe, And loss of things desired; all these must pass. We are the happy legion, for we know Time's but a golden wind that shakes the grass.

. Walking Wounded

Somewhere, sometime, you were Wounded Maybe as early as infancy when you were denied All the essentials of the bonding experience Perhaps the wounds were inflicted When another toddler refused to return the toy you readily shared Or by the mean girl who broke your favorite colored crayon Or the bully who pushed you on the playground Or perhaps it happened that first time Someone more sophisticated, though lacking empathy, Assailed your ears with a course laughter,

Children Of The Street

In their faces a colourless gaping of life's adversity: the hopeless grief of a hellish existence; Malnourished, starving, filth and olfactory horrors; Their humiliating nothingness clothed in rags; Usually barefooted with low self-esteem; Begging, and rummaging through garbage for thrown-away foods to assuage pangs of hunger; Oftentimes feeling cold that comes from being sickly; Sleeping or indulging in cheap cocktails of toxic sedatives at the dark corners of the street:

All That I Owe The Fellows Of The Grave

All that I owe the fellows of the grave And all the dead bequeathed from pale estates Lies in the fortuned bone, the flask of blood, Like senna stirs along the ravaged roots. O all I owe is all the flesh inherits, My fathers' loves that pull upon my nerves, My sisters tears that sing upon my head My brothers' blood that salts my open wounds Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop,

Imagine

. Imagine how Long was the night And it broke into a day Loaded with shadows — As deep

Strange Meeting

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall; By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

God Knows.... A Simple Prayer

God knew that I need someone To keep as a treasure in my heart. Someone who is so true Fine and caring. God knew that I need smiles To go on my hard way And dress my wounds With love.

Holy Spring

O Out of a bed of love When that immortal hospital made one more moove to soothe The curless counted body, And ruin and his causes Over the barbed and shooting sea assumed an army And swept into our wounds and houses, I climb to greet the war in which I have no heart but only That one dark I owe my light, Call for confessor and wiser mirror but there is none

A Hymn To Love

I will confess With cheerfulness, Love is a thing so likes me, That, let her lay On me all day, I'll kiss the hand that strikes me. I will not, I, Now blubb'ring cry, It, ah! too late repents me

You Will Forget Me

You will forget me. The years are so tender, They bind up the wounds which we think are so deep, This dream of our youth will fade out as the splendour Fades from the skies when the sun sinks to sleep, The cloud of forgetfulness, over and over Will banish the last rosy colours away, And the fingers of time will weave garlands to cover The scar which you think is a life-mark today. You will forget me. The one boon you covet

Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth

SAY not the struggle naught availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.

At Ease

Most wounds can Time repair; But some are mortal -- these: For a broken heart there is no balm, No cure for a heart at ease -- At ease, but cold as stone, Though the intellect spin on, And the feat and practiced face may show Nought of the life that is gone;

Echoes

Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope, The freshness of the elder lays, the might Of manly, modern passion shall alight Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope (Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope) With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight; Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope. But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave O'erbrowed by rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,

By Night When Others Soundly Slept

. By night when others soundly slept And hath at once both ease and Rest, My waking eyes were open kept And so to lie I found it best. . I sought him whom my Soul did Love, With tears I sought him earnestly. He bow'd his ear down from Above. In vain I did not seek or cry.

The Character Of A Happy Life

How happy is he born or taught, That serveth not another's will; Whose armour is his honest thought, And simple truth his highest skill; Whose passions not his masters are; Whose soul is still prepar'd for death Untied unto the world with care Of princes' grace or vulgar breath;