Fast Day 345 January 17 2014 Ode On A Roman Tomb

 

Keat's Grave In The Protestant Cemetery In Rome

Ode On A Roman Tomb

Laying about in Rome, where the Via Appia begins,
waiting for the granitic tombstone promised by my friends,
let my name be writ in water,
let my nickname Tiber be,
after the father flow of ancient Rome
until it meets the sea where it abruptly ends.

My name upon the water which has ten billion eyes,
gleaming upon Earth or upon rogue planets discover
event horizon of Shelley,
who drowned in a black hole -
the cypress tombs and pyramid distend
like whale’s belly, where Jonah meet his lover.

--

Fast Day 344 January 10 2014 Coming Home

Coming Home 

A stately grace of elms surrounds
a farmhouse of the better sort,
and yonder squares of apple trees
bivouac like armies flush from
red and gold battle, having marched
night and day by general order,
until they come up to the Sherman,
or the Grant of that genius farm...

...who orders agriculture’s armies
as he cast long view across the
windswept fields of billowing grains
that fall like young men in their prime,
and rise like all who have gone down!
The pepper of the pollen in the air
is a covenant which we hold dear,
and the far away copse of poplars
‘long the winding shore of the creek
is a promise that shall be kept!


--

Catching Up

I have a number of poems I am trying to finish and put up.

I have been awfully busy... I think.

--

Fast Day 343 January 3 2014 Hunting On Europa

 Solar Sail Spaceships

Hunting On Europa

a small solar sail 200 miles long
above the hunter’s flat fowler space ship,
painted camo in steampunk greens and tan
intended for only an intrepid,
an explorer
or maybe two, and their faithful dog entanglement.

the sun oozes into the photon trap,
swelling slowly and starving of the light
of small stars by swampy brown dwarf planets,
shallow creek scull;
we crouch in the prow, looking for Europa’s birds.

 

--

Camo "On The Wing"  Wm. Lamb and Son