A Poem in Many Voices 

Ah that the world could use a dream or a flame
Cold teeth in their fat throats! O the lock is crusted over
With frauds and tricks, a silt of greed and compromise
O break the damn thing! And I sleep here away
From all sorrow. The winding sheet and the paler thighs
A Grecian maiden, my silken braids all tangled with night.
Is late so soon that it runs the stag and the bell to cover
Before the warm mouth can be flowered in youth’s merry weather?
O let them remember me, and forget the lies and the hating
For the dark sex that coveteth all shall soon be their lover.
Sword on the wind, black knuckles of a thief, is this
King to be left here like a cast-off dog? the bloated
Tongues of flies licking the juice of His saving wounds?
O come a little way in, death, my lads have no supper
The old woman she wails like a goose, there’s plenty
Of fodder and beer as well though the bastards don’t want
        a meatless
Nose like me poking round. O Rosalind
And Penelope, what lovely grub they must have had!
Ragged sacks for a fool to put his neighbor in, the digging
Grave is proof that none is given what all would have.
Blather dung and rubble, a coat and sup, their meanness
Is my lot. Back down and hold your clutching gab.
Swine hiss amongst their gems and Ledas bite their nails
Above the mirrored waters of this destroying world.
O none save the fiery hunter would stay to mourn the tiger.
Dotellers told in the black dice of their cities. And I lie here
Removed from all sorrow. A withered heart and a rusted dagger
The Laird of Emmet, my powerful hands they squeeze at the dust.
Is life the meat that swings the falcon down from his highs?
Yes, a poisoned bait in the trap of a vicious fancier.
O let him chase me now, and give this slowness haste
For the dark peace that abideth here is filled with eyes.
If Fannin’s river whispers the fate of my tried love
And a red wild voice laments where all sorrow lies
O Willie brought me ribbons. I thought he was so mild
Prettied me for an angel, but under a devil I got my child.
Cold rain on the talking stone, the weeping mind
Poor guest at a poorer feast. O who is born dies
And a grim hand colors the rose. O wondrous Light
Titanic wings of fire sweeping down through the night.
There was never money enough, I’m tired
Of showing them pictures of plump-bottomed queens
And reading aloud at wise-and-biscuity tales
Where ghosts rattle the lids of tombs and flick up like beans.
O resurrect my sons, Lord, from this empty table!
Worms begin lower, and they gather all, but the mold
Out-thinks the stone and the hangman’s tree. Words of the flesh
Bleed out of the moving dark…We fall we thirst we are cold
While in the summer meadow lovers find what is warm.

        A broken cup and a wisp of rotted hair
Come cry come in wrath of love and be not comforted
Until the grave that is this world is torn asunder
For human the lock and human the key
O everything that lives is holy!
And Man and God are one in that mystery.