I wrote the lyrics for the following songs mostly in my 20s. I was doing poetry performances in Philly in the late 70s and began singing with a band, The Sea of Hands, who accompanied me, before doing songs of their own. It was a … Read More →
Monthly Archives: April 2012
The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost
Was Robert Frost a bitter phony chained resolutely to the laws of metrics (he would never play tennis without a net: iamb the iamb)? Whatever, we are left with the poem. As strictly as The Tuft of Flowers sticks to form (iambic pentameter couplets here), … Read More →
The Waste Land
….. I bought the Collected Works of T.S. Eliot (1909-1935) at a used bookstore in Philadelphia in 1969. I’d just flunked out of Temple University, something almost impossible to do, but I’d managed to do it, got a job as an office boy for an … Read More →
A Few Swimmers Appear
… Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. A few swimmers appear in a huge whirlpool. —Vergil … … sleep vanishes When sleep vanishes then you swim. Awake is no island merely swift stroke and breath. The moon is not the sun’s skull day is not … Read More →
Fucking II, part II: Poet Laundromat: I see a Tiajuana donkey leans
Poet Laundromat was published with the help of Stephen Spera & Philadelphia Eye & Ear Press in 1983. It comes from a long poem I was working on called Fucking, but it took its own form from the larger poem and became itself. I see … Read More →
Sonnet 74: I saw the bluebird first, its beating soft
I saw the bluebird first, its beating soft Red breast. Young water snake, I looked for it Next settled near the dock but it hadn’t Risen yet or already’d slithered off. The pond’s cold. I won’t dive in. It is flogged By nasty winds abstractly … Read More →
Sonnet 69: Happy children hunted for eggs and went
Happy children hunted for eggs and went Bursting through the bushes. I hurriedly Made love before that unexpectedly Standing up expecting any moment Students who didn’t come. Morning’s over. The afternoon has found a warm bright sun. Today was many people, now they’re none. It … Read More →
Sonnet 68: Had I left sooner or later it would
Had I left sooner or later it would All have been different, but I didn’t And got into two arguments, one in A store and one on the sidewalk about The neighborhood with two freeloaders who Do nothing, yet want something for nothing. Today is … Read More →