Primavera

Late May. The darling blossoms, freshly shaken,
Fall to the brick sidewalks of Arlington.
Bird-choristers sing "Morning Has Broken"
Congratulating that brave champion sun.

Churches announce a musical Pentecost:
Women, men, chant Veni, Sancte Spiritus!
May brings an end to school, to must and dust;
Open car-windows arrive, and open-toed shoes.

Silently smiling faces start to sing
Spiritual canticles, and psalms, and hymns:
Traces of God appear in everything!

Lhude sing cuccu, for summer comes,
And woe betide the starchy and the staid!
Rejoice! This is the day the Lord has made.

Untitled

The tired lady barkeep, lovely and overworked,
Suffering under the looks of drunken customers --
Who will sing of her dignity, her noble sharp-tongued beauty?

Yesterday Once More

The Evening Globe announces the demise
Of phone booths, 45s, and discothèques.
A Pan Am jet descends the friendly skies
And eases into Logan. Dynamite wrecks
The Hotel Madison, once bright beside
The ratty Boston Garden, Causeway Street.
Crowds of highschoolers jam themselves inside
Arborway's trolley in the late spring heat.

At Barney's Bar & Grill (a block from home)
I hoist a Schaefer or a Löwenbräu.
Pope Paul VI says a High Mass in Rome;
The Ford Administration tells me how
Time's lethal scythe will mercilessly steal
My youth and the Revere Beach ferris wheel.

Catullus 46: a paraphrase

Iam ver egelidos refert tepores, 

iam caeli furor aequinoctialis

iucundis Zephyri silescit auris ...

Now the warmth returns, and now spring breezes
Calm the fury of March. The world unfreezes!
Catullus, leave behind the Phrygian field:
Nicaea's land of rich and fertile yield
Beckons you: "Come to Asia. Quickly! Fly!"
The flower-scented air's getting me high:
My heart's aflutter with the urge to wander;
My eager feet would travel wide.  Far yonder!
O band of friends who've kept me company,
Who, since we left home, have stayed close to me,
Let's go our separate ways till we get back,
Each of us headed down a different track.

Catullus 50: a paraphrase

Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi

multum lusimus in meis tabellis,

ut convenerat esse delicatos:

scribens versiculos uterque nostrum

ludebat numero modo hoc modo illoc ...

Yesterday, old chum (a day of leisure!),
we messed around a lot with pen and paper
indulging in our blithe poetic whimsy,
writing, each of us, delightful verses,
trying out iambics, ghazals, sonnets,
fuelled by wine and leavened by levity.
I left your place all wound up, overwrought,
still drunk on your charm and on the fun we had,
that (wretched me!) I couldn't have my supper
or settle down enough to sleep last night:
instead, I twisted up the sheets, quite restless
to see the light and once again be with you
so we could improvise more poetry!
My sleepless limbs lay sprawled across the bed
(by morning you could say I was half dead)
but just for you, old pal, I made this poem;
read it, and you'll see my joy and anguish.

Work in Progress

Awake once more during the wee small hours,
Incapable, it seems, of sleeping at night
For much longer than two or three brief hours,
How shall I pass these dark and sleepless hours,
Conscious of neighbours and the need to be quiet?
How shall I entertain the passing hours?
Shall I watch the clock, counting minutes and hours?
I'll sit and drink coffee, in domestic bliss,
Perhaps begin a poem (ah! such bliss!) --
The leaden seconds become fleet-footed hours
Spent in productive joy, industrious peace.
All restless poets should come to know such peace!

No television wrecks my morning peace:
Serene and sacrosanct, these pleasant hours,
Like a child's prayer to the holy Queen of Peace.
The news so rarely brings us tidings of peace:
It shows the human soul in a bleak cold night
Estranged from hope, inimical to peace.
When will we teach our hearts the ways of peace?
When will we flee noise to cultivate quiet?
(It's said that the voice of God is soft and quiet,
Always urging the peccant soul to peace.)
Instruct us, Lord of Heaven, in holy bliss!
Let us forget all baser kinds of bliss.

Baudelaire wrote of steamy carnal bliss,
Of muses that disturbed his delicate peace
With promises of hot infernal bliss.
The road of excess so rarely leads to bliss:
The years we spend, the thousand reckless hours
Pursuing some mirage of ultimate bliss.
Beneath pure starlight, I have found my bliss,
Composing odes to the suburban night,
A pastime suited to a dreamless night.
In Beatrice, young Dante's sacred bliss
Became incarnate, beautiful and quiet;
Before her form, all chattering tongues grew quiet.

O cherish this oasis of peace and quiet,
Of eremitical light, Cistercian bliss!
How rare in this hectic century to find quiet,
The genitrix of wisdom, blessed quiet,
A prelude to more lasting forms of peace
In which all clamorous hankerings fall quiet.
Come to the restful waters, calm and quiet:
Keep vigil through the hushed and hallowed hours,
As monks with psalmody might bless the hours.
We foster knowledge best in places of quiet:
Alas, our cities' noise disgraces the night.
Not even Christmas is a silent night!

Here in Arlington, no noise breaks the night
Of calm repose, of soft light, of sweet quiet:
Rowdies and drunks are strangers to this night.
Muses of peace, come bless my desk this night!
Let me know the maker's enduring bliss,
A timeless joy outlasting this brief night.
We work when there is light. Soon comes that night
When work must yield to grave and solemn peace,
When frantic souls, we pray, will rest in peace.
Then, hymns of the lark will pierce the fleeting night
And usher in those shining, radiant hours,
A brilliant day not measured in minutes or hours.

Yes, I drink coffee at the strangest hours,
In the middle of the unexpired night:
I work on poems while the world is quiet,
Announcing my faith in love's enduring bliss,
In heaven's lasting joy and perpetual peace.

Here and Now

Let's have some poetry! Let's write here and now!
Gracie and George, say good night here and now.

You say you've memorized Dylan Thomas's "Prologue":
How much of it can you recite here and now?

TV gets rather religious as dawn approaches:
Watch "This is the Life" and "Insight" here and now.

What if the cherry blossoms changed into May snow,
If the pavement turned winter-white here and now?

Singer Jill Scott has a golden voice. Not I!
I live my life like it's pyrite here and now.

I'm a mess of flab, slack muscle and thick fat,
Unshapely, plagued by cellulite here and now.

Eve plucked forbidden fruit at the serpent's urging:
He told her, go ahead, take a bite here and now.

Hart Crane, as you sit writing your "Voyages,"
Vest your sentences in samite here and now.

Is that Morrissey caterwauling in the distance?
Shoplifters of the world, unite here and now!

Can I find my old 45 of the Starland Vocal Band?
Let's have some "Afternoon Delight" here and now!

Let's arm ourselves with love, wage peace, not war:
Let's fight against our urge to fight here and now.

Cherish all those warm-hearted days gone by;
Recall their sweet Gemütlichkeit here and now.

At twenty, I loved New Seeds of Contemplation
But I'm not Merton's acolyte here and now.

DeFreitas, what are we going to do with you?
Straighten up and fly right. Here and now.

Le temps a laissé son manteau

The weather has thrown off her cover
Of gray and chill, of wind and rain,
And now is garbed in a bright train
Of sunshine brilliant like none other.

All beasts that prowl, all birds that hover,
Sound and announce their joy made plain!
The weather has thrown off her cover
Of gray and chill, of wind and rain.

River, fountain, and stream discover
Their scintillant livery again
With silver sparkles, gay and vain!
Everyone's dressed to greet a lover:
The weather has thrown off her cover
Of gray and chill, of wind and rain.