That time I was marooned
by a toothache – weeping eyes
screwed shut, mouth agape –
I might’ve been taken for someone
in the throes of ecstasy, lying
on the couch with all
the windows open. The weather
was June, and wonderful.
All afternoon I clung to the thread
of the brown thrasher’s song.
Even in extremis it’s simple
to tell a thrasher from his cousin
the catbird: he repeats
almost every improvised line.
Paired phrases sometimes reach
into the low thousands
the carpenter sent me a blackbird
to whistle in the house
so pleasant to hear
nightingales sing out back
and I hear the poor thing shuffling
to riff on a life sentence
a song is fatal
the note is as gone as ash after I play it
who having great need
to meet myself at the harp
take for granted that time
is knocking nails
Wine and wormwood,
we two who
are ever wooing—
picture and price,
water and fire,
book and song,
heaven and bed.
so far from town
singing
till almost 12:00 at night
I miss the war.
All the officers and friends of my past
sang songs
and then went away.
And night came
to wash me clean.
I read in shorthand
the long sentences
like a troll on board
the King’s boat,
making a pretty deal
of public sin—
fitting in.
I gain a home.
They have me sing.
All the alders
in disorder
fitting themselves
with singing ears
that roar and clap.
My body gives me joy,
as if I were a swan or a fish.
A song or two
in my chamber in the dark,
now that the bed is out,
sound very well.
To play
and gain
and own
no money
exceeding
merry
I sing
After talking about going to sea,
after drinking with a butcher and a violin,
after bacon, capons and fritters,
after singing and drinking,
after a dance or two with my lord,
soberly and without fear
I lay awake.
I sang a song to my beard,
overgrown powder
of my neck and altered head,
brown thing of thorn, bridge
to a brave day abominably bare.