To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass,
to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches,
or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
......
arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.
Cutting with knives served by their softest care,
Served by their love, so barbarously fair.
Whose mothers taught: You'd better not be cruel!
......
To our private taste, there is always something a little exotic,
almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress,
are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They affect us
like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote;
the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose,
nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April
as the English thrush. -- THE ATHEN]AEUM.
Buy my English posies!
Kent and Surrey may --
......
Without you every morning would feel like going back to work after a holiday,
Without you I couldn't stand the smell of the East Lancs Road,
Without you ghost ferries would cross the Mersey manned by skeleton crews,
Without you I'd probably feel happy and have more money and time and nothing to do with it,
Without you I'd have to leave my stillborn poems on other people's doorsteps, wrapped in brown paper,
Without you there'd never be sauce to put on sausage butties,
Without you plastic flowers in shop windows would just be plastic flowers in shop windows,
Without you I'd spend my summers picking morosley over the remains of train crashes,
Without you white birds would wrench themselves free from my paintings and fly off dripping blood into the night,
Without you green apples wouldn't taste greener,
......
The white moth to the closing bine,
The bee to the opened clover,
And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood
Ever the wide world over.
Ever the wide world over, lass,
Ever the trail held true,
Over the world and under the world,
And back at the last to you.
......
Wait
This can't be a mistake
The morning light
Is just too bright
We've overslept
Curled up in bed
Now we must rush
......
Her essence in the breeze,
teasing, tantalizing, tasty.
Piquant pleasures fill his head
powerful, dangerous… unconstrained.
A boy watching, wishing from shore.
joined in imagination and dreams.
Slow shrinking ships at the horizon,
the alter of liquid pleasure.
......
Forgetfulness is a cabin on the beach,
A rocking chair on a pier.
A sunset over a sailboat.
The ocean's tide swallows fear and worry,
It's salty mist spraying serenity and rest.
The crash of waves bring power from stormy seas,
Lapping of ripples under a dock from wind and tide.
......
I was a stylish, assertive travel agent, arranging getaways for busy people;
Like sudden getaways of jewel, shooting stars, on ebony nights of upheaval.
I planned calm, exotic, trip itineraries, for all tired of city hustle and bustle;
Like a dark red flower, blooming isolated, in peach sunshine of little trouble.
I also arranged for transportation and lodging, for exhausted, glad travelers;
As beauty birds fly north and south singing, ever ecstatic, joy ambassadors.
I began dreaming of a getaway myself, one of complete rest and relaxation.
......
You and I will go to the seaside
You and I will flee the frigid winter
To live on beautiful and clean beaches
In the short waves on the shore.
You and I will dream together every night
You and I will live under the stars in the dark
You and I will sleep with our pillows
On the sparkling and crystal sand of the summer heat.
......