Poet Milking Sacred Cow

Victual Reality, Or How American Poets Are Turning

The Poem Into Tripe

Merle’s

hag-

gard

old

sagging

cow

belly’s

gone

to

pot.

The photograph late April 1975, half-way through a coast-to-coast motoring trip from Seattle to Boston; the poem twenty-some years later—maybe our titillating poet should have thought twice before regurgitating it.

All for Naught?

Was what he was trying to say worth the effort,

Or was it simply a case of not assaying the worth

Of what he wanted to say?

The Tachydromos Delivers the Goods

Compressing  thousands of years into a mere twelve days, swift-footed Hermes flew over 7000 miles to get William Michaelian’s timeless treasure safe and sound into our hands: It was worth the wait.

Sound of Solitude, Sound of Mind

I will not 

Go away 

Whispered the wind 

To the pines 

As long as 

You wish 

I stay.

Dedicated to the One I Love

Speak, Vazambam!

Two Modes in Tramp Time

The Epic 

It’s too bad 

You were destined 

For greater things. 

The Lyric 

Perhaps but why is it 

The less I say, 

The better 

Everything becomes. 

Two Poems by George Seferis

10.

At the hour when dreams come true,

at the first sweet glimmer of dawn,

I saw lips that opened

leaf by leaf.

A slim sickle shone in the sky.

I feared it would mow them down.

from “Summer Solstice,” part three of Three Secret Poems,

translated  by Walter Kaiser.

*

The Jasmine

Whether it gets dark

or light

the jasmine stays

always white.

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.

NB: Some down-to-earth observers of the heavens will note that the sickle framed in jasmine is setting in the west and not rising in the east but that shouldn't distract them from noticing the celestialness of these two pieces.