American Poems

to die before one
wakes
must be glad
(to the same extent
maybe
that it is also
sad)

a slipping away
in glee
unobserved and
free
in the wide—

i
all that night
I prayed for eyes to see again
whose last sight
had been
a broken bottle
held negligently
in a racist
fist
God give us trees to

Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.

Watch the people succumb
To

First, suicide notes should be
(not long) but written
second,
all suicide notes
should be signed
in blood
by hand
and to the point—
that point being, perhaps,
that there

Once made a fairy rooster from
Mashed potatoes
Whose eyes I forget
But green onions were his tail
And his two legs were carrot sticks
A tomato slice his crown.<br

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old—
This knight so bold—
And o’er his

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,<br

OF THE DESERTED MAIDEN TO HER LOVER .

Go! go! thou hast forgotten all
Thine early vows, so false, so vain!
Thy faithless love I’d not recall,
Could one word make

Fare thee well! forever!—ever!
‘Twere vain my anguish now to tell;
A truer heart will love thee never,
But fare thee well!

In distant climes, and scenes of danger,
‘Twill soon

Our sails are spread before the wind,
And onward, onward swift we fly;
We’ve left our country far behind,
No prospect now invites the eye,
Save the blue sea, and

Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in that solitude,<br

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?<br