. . . ode to Mike Weir
You can't imagine how unfortunate you are
to have met me,
for I'm impressed with your hard work and focus;
having praised you more than once
to the big Boss
I been thirty years climbing, lifting and hollaring;
basically just getting the job done, an' on time.
Making decent money which I send back home
to Donegal for reasons of my own.
And there one early morning in winter
you show up with your new tools
at One Chase Plaza, waiting in the cruel wind for the sun to rise.
You're not a young man,
an' none of us could watch you walk the beam
without some guilt worked up for fear
that you'd fall
and each would have to live his life
knowing.
But that you stayed the day, each day
to pack your spud and harness for the evening
earned you some small piece of my respect
and here your sorrow.
For I saw something I could learn from you,
a way of speaking about the damn cold
like it were fine reading or a radio program
and I distrust them both.
So the months passed like this
where I no longer cared about the peculiar swing
of your hammer
or your backward hitches tied to impossible loads
of planks and braces
swung out over the city;
over the gang six hundred feet below.
I just enjoyed having you around
and excused your manner for your person.
No, it weren't something you or me could change
when I got caught and fired
from the work I done for thirty year or more,
and were disgraced;
yet that I liked you more made it the worse
to shake your hand
after I kissed the ring for my pension
and a pardon.
For your sake I could only snub you, wanting
that I had never taken to you from the start,
'cause you who were so much to me
are my ever shameful reminder
of just how cold a New York winter can be.
copyright Jeff Thomas 2005
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Alder boughs
On the ground
underneath the swaying alder boughs
two lovers napping
in a field.
I knew a man so poor, he said
who sold his eldest daughter
for a goat
which died on a rope before that Saturday.
A cloud was blown into a fish,
was cut between the green coins
rustling in the breeze;
her hair was red as ivy.
Which so upset the wretched family, he went on,
the goat did, they were no more;
four years old
the sudden prince of his affairs.
He were a Hebrew, taught
in the old manner
to accept the rightness
of Abraham; denying Paul
And said the cloud is not a fish
but is instead a drop of lantern oil
from a slave ship off
the west coast of Byzantium, and a wretch
who was so poor she drowned him five days old,
cut a line across her face to show
some healing had begun
and begged the street with fresh urgency.
That was no drop, no hideous oil
she protested
but a whale from Jonah
a book about faith, and sailing
How the good are tested, driven from the well
where the water, wet and plentiful
turns to mud
before the pail is filled.
I knew a woman, he persisted
who would kill to know
the number that could buy her lace,
enough to hold her tears;
enough time to frame his boyish face
before the lye cut in.
In August, she announced, will be a wedding
at the great house near the harbour
the one with a hickory swing
and rose trellises.
I expect that you should want me on your arm,
to sit beside me during mass
we'll dance and talk
beneath the stars, of Paradise.
In the sky
a red hood worked the field in rings
hare lay low,
the student lay there wagering
Who would not forget
they saw me in a suit?
and threw a rock into the brush
to end his curiosity.
A man, she spoke, slow as winter
hangs inside that cloud
upon a Judas tree!
Whereon replied: I knew a man so desperate poor
he took his son into a church!
They made love for hours then
underneath the swaying alder boughs.
© Jeff Thomas 2009
underneath the swaying alder boughs
two lovers napping
in a field.
I knew a man so poor, he said
who sold his eldest daughter
for a goat
which died on a rope before that Saturday.
A cloud was blown into a fish,
was cut between the green coins
rustling in the breeze;
her hair was red as ivy.
Which so upset the wretched family, he went on,
the goat did, they were no more;
four years old
the sudden prince of his affairs.
He were a Hebrew, taught
in the old manner
to accept the rightness
of Abraham; denying Paul
And said the cloud is not a fish
but is instead a drop of lantern oil
from a slave ship off
the west coast of Byzantium, and a wretch
who was so poor she drowned him five days old,
cut a line across her face to show
some healing had begun
and begged the street with fresh urgency.
That was no drop, no hideous oil
she protested
but a whale from Jonah
a book about faith, and sailing
How the good are tested, driven from the well
where the water, wet and plentiful
turns to mud
before the pail is filled.
I knew a woman, he persisted
who would kill to know
the number that could buy her lace,
enough to hold her tears;
enough time to frame his boyish face
before the lye cut in.
In August, she announced, will be a wedding
at the great house near the harbour
the one with a hickory swing
and rose trellises.
I expect that you should want me on your arm,
to sit beside me during mass
we'll dance and talk
beneath the stars, of Paradise.
In the sky
a red hood worked the field in rings
hare lay low,
the student lay there wagering
Who would not forget
they saw me in a suit?
and threw a rock into the brush
to end his curiosity.
A man, she spoke, slow as winter
hangs inside that cloud
upon a Judas tree!
Whereon replied: I knew a man so desperate poor
he took his son into a church!
They made love for hours then
underneath the swaying alder boughs.
© Jeff Thomas 2009
Moxie
We chose him
. . . and agreed to love him,
and that all he said should be holy, profound.
(it is elegant, he is beguiling.)
And we fed him for his newest work
before he had written;
(we are his patrons, you see)
We, who might exhume some meaning
to within a full quarter-inch of true sense.
Who would trade our confidence like baseball cards.
Who arrive before breakfast
with our new contracts, drawn on the sky
in white letters
by seven bright painted planes
from the second world war.
He sent us photographs of the life
we were too dignified to live;
the one exception to the code
of unbridled arrogance we love to share;
who have set traps for each other
in the snow.
He was a prince
and perhaps he despised it,
though he never let on.
Maligning instead
the train wreck of truth in his head,
from the hi-def blue screens,
and those AOL streams
from the radio waves and the satellite beams
that we aim through the gates
of his east coast estate.
Who we've hung in our homes
like a plaster-cast Elvis
staring down at the world he condemns
in his Greek and his tarot; dissertations on crime,
dissecting James Joyce in savage quatrains that rhyme.
His privilege his curse
looking downtown, unblind
at my table and scissor legged chairs,
at the discount store rug on a peel and stick floor;
at the speakers which sit
on an vacant book shelf
and repeat the sad words to a lecture he gave
at the grave of the kind old ambassador’s son,
his companion, his paramour
from those beach combing days
by Jeruselum, Auschwitz,
from Woodstock and Rome.
And he says to beware of the light
on the portraits and busts in the hall;
from the smell of the sweat and colognes
of the Caesars and Titans and Stalins
who are the damned and the Delphi;
and from the axe and the shield; from the law
and the films and the books and the songs;
to distrust the glow of the sun and the moon,
the arrangement of stars and the red-lighted rooms.
‘Til we’ve learned to despise in our leisure
the scars and the blisters we nourish by day.
And we celebrate him to detest us,
providing him ink for his pen;
who withhold any praise or attention
for news that he's published again.
So he spits and he sings
with a sack on a stick
‘longside of a mile long factory road;
Like an ill behaved acolyte, done what he’s told
taking shots at the soldiers and tanks rolling past,
at the bright circus tents and the jails, schools and Parliments
at the prostitutes, crack-heads and corporate presidents,
at the cross-worded columnists, shamans and Bollywood stars;
at the New Agers, the hedgefunds and American Idols
in bright colored custom pimped cars;
the magniloquent jews, sanctimonious mullahs
and the restless hypochristians
at MD's without borders and bomb strapped kids with their orders;
as this whole fuckin' nightmare crawls by.
And for each there’s a word that he twists for us,
makes us see into the bleak and blessed waste.
A fable of hope that he pens for us
absent of glamour and taste.
And for this we hold hands and light candles
and we feed him with food off our plate;
in the rain he will take my umbrella
in my shame he restoreth my faith.
That I may feed my child in the bliss of sin
I will make a cursed saint of him.
. . . and agreed to love him,
and that all he said should be holy, profound.
(it is elegant, he is beguiling.)
And we fed him for his newest work
before he had written;
(we are his patrons, you see)
We, who might exhume some meaning
to within a full quarter-inch of true sense.
Who would trade our confidence like baseball cards.
Who arrive before breakfast
with our new contracts, drawn on the sky
in white letters
by seven bright painted planes
from the second world war.
He sent us photographs of the life
we were too dignified to live;
the one exception to the code
of unbridled arrogance we love to share;
who have set traps for each other
in the snow.
He was a prince
and perhaps he despised it,
though he never let on.
Maligning instead
the train wreck of truth in his head,
from the hi-def blue screens,
and those AOL streams
from the radio waves and the satellite beams
that we aim through the gates
of his east coast estate.
Who we've hung in our homes
like a plaster-cast Elvis
staring down at the world he condemns
in his Greek and his tarot; dissertations on crime,
dissecting James Joyce in savage quatrains that rhyme.
His privilege his curse
looking downtown, unblind
at my table and scissor legged chairs,
at the discount store rug on a peel and stick floor;
at the speakers which sit
on an vacant book shelf
and repeat the sad words to a lecture he gave
at the grave of the kind old ambassador’s son,
his companion, his paramour
from those beach combing days
by Jeruselum, Auschwitz,
from Woodstock and Rome.
And he says to beware of the light
on the portraits and busts in the hall;
from the smell of the sweat and colognes
of the Caesars and Titans and Stalins
who are the damned and the Delphi;
and from the axe and the shield; from the law
and the films and the books and the songs;
to distrust the glow of the sun and the moon,
the arrangement of stars and the red-lighted rooms.
‘Til we’ve learned to despise in our leisure
the scars and the blisters we nourish by day.
And we celebrate him to detest us,
providing him ink for his pen;
who withhold any praise or attention
for news that he's published again.
So he spits and he sings
with a sack on a stick
‘longside of a mile long factory road;
Like an ill behaved acolyte, done what he’s told
taking shots at the soldiers and tanks rolling past,
at the bright circus tents and the jails, schools and Parliments
at the prostitutes, crack-heads and corporate presidents,
at the cross-worded columnists, shamans and Bollywood stars;
at the New Agers, the hedgefunds and American Idols
in bright colored custom pimped cars;
the magniloquent jews, sanctimonious mullahs
and the restless hypochristians
at MD's without borders and bomb strapped kids with their orders;
as this whole fuckin' nightmare crawls by.
And for each there’s a word that he twists for us,
makes us see into the bleak and blessed waste.
A fable of hope that he pens for us
absent of glamour and taste.
And for this we hold hands and light candles
and we feed him with food off our plate;
in the rain he will take my umbrella
in my shame he restoreth my faith.
That I may feed my child in the bliss of sin
I will make a cursed saint of him.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
The Burlwood Symposium
"art thou yet content
the bear is gone
and with it left thy blue-eyed son
who brought him on" . . .
The curtain waved; beige lace is no match for the sun,
the air is thin, weak and blistered;
my sleep lay never more undone.
So wakes my cousin, I had sent away to bed
who's come from antique Memphis,
from the dry mud grass beside the Nile
from the restless and oppressive sands
who crossed the waste to call on me again.
Much in the style of Despair without the gloomy Celtic drapes
(the uncomfortable hemp knots
swaying in the courthouse breezes;
a painted carriage boxed in glass, hitched
to blue-black funeral stallions);
yet that this angel dominates
who is fire-bleached, wicked, pale-white and false.
White as an eye fixed too long and blinded by the sun,
molten, raw-delicate, exposed;
five fingers gripped in forehead rivulets and hair,
the widows peak dissolving in the valley of some king;
(my sod, my grass, my holy earth!
the daylight stripped and the sad nightfall;
in time such things are rearranged, eclipsed
behind a wall.)
These precious histories are foregone and grievous,
(here they are no more and done)
left floating helicoptic through the lotus on a boat of reeds,
numbed by railroads and of symphonies
as yet sleeping, unbegun.
Here the stained glass stairs began to sink
from the steeple to the sand and mud on down;
(deposed sarcastic apparitions haunt this space)
violet shadows crawl like sonnets on the ground.
The petals of my own time here on earth
peeled like daisies backward one by one
lie stripped beyond the bloom,
from their purest unfamiliar resting place,
here to the slow fan turning in this airless cutting room.
Here will our hero of a thousand days be so weighed down,
paralyzed one dehydrate afternoon;
a voice so badly broken that it stings to speak of.
White haze of the heavy August city,
the only one I know.
Hope's blanched face uplifted from the sandy floor of Africa;
beyond the crazy root of man;
the camel's cradle gone to fire.
To where the meek, stark naked lie awake
center-field upon the searing cobble-stones of Memphis,
anxious and foul violated;
(oil weeps in drops upon the surface of white gasoline
and here does vaporize without the will or nerve to scream.)
and the artist sings:
When I work, I bid the shadows spill down
from the fragrant lilac, here to frame my art,
that if removed will tear the tender fabric of my heart.
Heaven in her wilder days set forth upon the darkness
with such experiments,
there exceeding all the courage of our galaxy combined against it.
Darkness seeps into the mortar of the temples
melting in the clay Jerusalem.
His temptress worked to draw him to this place,
who bored with Eldorado sought distraction in her overlapping waves and umber'd folds.
The fool, my captain, dropped an anchor here;
who sipped green tea,
who defiled the Dead Sea scrolls.
Let the blackness set upon and drown him,
do not mourn;
I burn to merely look onto and envy such a man,
(my heart and eyes of salt die slower down.)
Heaven wills that White destroy with all new force,
then leaves the chapel in her brand new robe and brand new voice.
I understand the rain, the grip of battle and the guilt of crime.
I mop the stain of evil with experience,
avoid the steel and rope of catholic avenues and wine.
the artist laments:
silence blackness! stand aside;
I measure thee familiar still,
(in all thy wee, unholy numbers)
as though were water 'pon my sweated head;
if not by scale of purpose or dementia
I then count thy mildew'd drops instead.
The smell of death.
The rotted hem of habits and of hopeful projects
slaughtered in the dank manure by the flower bed.
these things did heaven weave into the tropic depths
of dirt and grime,
that give thee rabbi and good cardinal germs to speculate
in your initiation and odd-meter'd rhymes;
the countless sermons on the mount
out from the good lamb's helpless, gaping mouth.
Black are the layers and the waves,
imperfect folds of Death's first and famous half.
And here the lord composed his strictest code:
that Faith alone shall never earn the peace my generation seeks;
(up on the scaffold kneels the brutal, broken Night
who sand three hymns to this strange Daylight.)
Such a cause is lost,
a conga line blind-folded high up on the canyon's edge;
black sickles and black demons dyed into the skin
of these last eleven holy men.
Where truest evil spawns her arch-white felony,
these pallid vapors wash, forever hid;
for here the brightness blinds me as the darkness never did.
The goat will likewise reach the children with his curious tongue;
the legend of cathedral bells already cold, already rung.
That on one afternoon as this,
the dogs and leopards wail below a sane man's window sill;
(three songs from Memphis in an unfamiliar key)
that here no color and no sulfate seeps
to darken where the cursed sunlight spills.
White does kill as will the cankerous ebony,
yet here there is no dampness, filth
. . . no fame.
Whiteness.
As did the pale horse ride; white of Sorrow, white of Uselessness;
melancholy white.
White star and white night.
Kill the artist on these days.
His will sleeps lively as Death's jig inside the swinging tavern door.
The waters are acetic with the evermore.
the bear is gone
and with it left thy blue-eyed son
who brought him on" . . .
The curtain waved; beige lace is no match for the sun,
the air is thin, weak and blistered;
my sleep lay never more undone.
So wakes my cousin, I had sent away to bed
who's come from antique Memphis,
from the dry mud grass beside the Nile
from the restless and oppressive sands
who crossed the waste to call on me again.
Much in the style of Despair without the gloomy Celtic drapes
(the uncomfortable hemp knots
swaying in the courthouse breezes;
a painted carriage boxed in glass, hitched
to blue-black funeral stallions);
yet that this angel dominates
who is fire-bleached, wicked, pale-white and false.
White as an eye fixed too long and blinded by the sun,
molten, raw-delicate, exposed;
five fingers gripped in forehead rivulets and hair,
the widows peak dissolving in the valley of some king;
(my sod, my grass, my holy earth!
the daylight stripped and the sad nightfall;
in time such things are rearranged, eclipsed
behind a wall.)
These precious histories are foregone and grievous,
(here they are no more and done)
left floating helicoptic through the lotus on a boat of reeds,
numbed by railroads and of symphonies
as yet sleeping, unbegun.
Here the stained glass stairs began to sink
from the steeple to the sand and mud on down;
(deposed sarcastic apparitions haunt this space)
violet shadows crawl like sonnets on the ground.
The petals of my own time here on earth
peeled like daisies backward one by one
lie stripped beyond the bloom,
from their purest unfamiliar resting place,
here to the slow fan turning in this airless cutting room.
Here will our hero of a thousand days be so weighed down,
paralyzed one dehydrate afternoon;
a voice so badly broken that it stings to speak of.
White haze of the heavy August city,
the only one I know.
Hope's blanched face uplifted from the sandy floor of Africa;
beyond the crazy root of man;
the camel's cradle gone to fire.
To where the meek, stark naked lie awake
center-field upon the searing cobble-stones of Memphis,
anxious and foul violated;
(oil weeps in drops upon the surface of white gasoline
and here does vaporize without the will or nerve to scream.)
and the artist sings:
When I work, I bid the shadows spill down
from the fragrant lilac, here to frame my art,
that if removed will tear the tender fabric of my heart.
Heaven in her wilder days set forth upon the darkness
with such experiments,
there exceeding all the courage of our galaxy combined against it.
Darkness seeps into the mortar of the temples
melting in the clay Jerusalem.
His temptress worked to draw him to this place,
who bored with Eldorado sought distraction in her overlapping waves and umber'd folds.
The fool, my captain, dropped an anchor here;
who sipped green tea,
who defiled the Dead Sea scrolls.
Let the blackness set upon and drown him,
do not mourn;
I burn to merely look onto and envy such a man,
(my heart and eyes of salt die slower down.)
Heaven wills that White destroy with all new force,
then leaves the chapel in her brand new robe and brand new voice.
I understand the rain, the grip of battle and the guilt of crime.
I mop the stain of evil with experience,
avoid the steel and rope of catholic avenues and wine.
the artist laments:
silence blackness! stand aside;
I measure thee familiar still,
(in all thy wee, unholy numbers)
as though were water 'pon my sweated head;
if not by scale of purpose or dementia
I then count thy mildew'd drops instead.
The smell of death.
The rotted hem of habits and of hopeful projects
slaughtered in the dank manure by the flower bed.
these things did heaven weave into the tropic depths
of dirt and grime,
that give thee rabbi and good cardinal germs to speculate
in your initiation and odd-meter'd rhymes;
the countless sermons on the mount
out from the good lamb's helpless, gaping mouth.
Black are the layers and the waves,
imperfect folds of Death's first and famous half.
And here the lord composed his strictest code:
that Faith alone shall never earn the peace my generation seeks;
(up on the scaffold kneels the brutal, broken Night
who sand three hymns to this strange Daylight.)
Such a cause is lost,
a conga line blind-folded high up on the canyon's edge;
black sickles and black demons dyed into the skin
of these last eleven holy men.
Where truest evil spawns her arch-white felony,
these pallid vapors wash, forever hid;
for here the brightness blinds me as the darkness never did.
The goat will likewise reach the children with his curious tongue;
the legend of cathedral bells already cold, already rung.
That on one afternoon as this,
the dogs and leopards wail below a sane man's window sill;
(three songs from Memphis in an unfamiliar key)
that here no color and no sulfate seeps
to darken where the cursed sunlight spills.
White does kill as will the cankerous ebony,
yet here there is no dampness, filth
. . . no fame.
Whiteness.
As did the pale horse ride; white of Sorrow, white of Uselessness;
melancholy white.
White star and white night.
Kill the artist on these days.
His will sleeps lively as Death's jig inside the swinging tavern door.
The waters are acetic with the evermore.
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