Lettie 6/12/2001 to 6/2/2013
© Harold Anthony
Lloyd 2016
Preface for Lettie
A household lacking
animals
Is like a Cyclops who
Half-brained has
lost an ear, a hand,
A leg, a nostril, too.
Reductio
ad absurdum With a Titular Pun
Hymn of Leisure[1]
The bible is a
leisure book.
Eternity He took
Before six days of
work and then
He loafed a bit again.
Long idleness can
never be
The devil’s work or He
Would be the
devil. “Loaf!” He says,
“And imitate My Ways!”
I thus read
Whitman, watch a finch[2]
And hear it, too. Such rest
Finds many miles
within an inch.
“O Loafer, thou art blessed!”
Metaphors and Similes
Jesus
Confides in Mary Magdalene
The kingdom is
within. Search for it there.
The sinner is the
one who in despair
Awaits the day his
chariot should come.
The kingdom is not
coming. It is here.
There are no
portents, earthquakes, storms to fear
Before arrival. Simply look within.
Tell others that
the kingdom is within,
That first it’s
small like seeds or leaven in
The dough but has
its powers to expand.
Be mindful of the
present or you’ll miss
Brief miracles of
leavens such as this.
Live in the “am,” not
in the “will” or “was”
And revel in the
kingdom found within.
There can be no
forgiveness for the sin
Of
self-rejection. Broken can’t be right.
Commit yourself at
once, do not delay
To act on what
you’ve found. Though others say
That faith suffices,
fruit defines the tree.
Embrace your enemy
and do no deed
You’d not have
others do to you. Once freed
From difference,
inner light uncovered shines.
Be humble and be
open as a child.
Be curious and
never be beguiled
By rules or
“prophets” that snuff out the light.
For light will show
whenever two are one,
Whole mountains can
be moved. Division gone,
Whole mountains
cannot claim their former place.
Know rules serve
us. When bending must be done,
Bend rules to
light, not light to them. Don’t sin
By elevating
Sabbaths over light.
Though I must leave
you soon, I still shall shine:
My light remains in
you as yours in mine,
And therefore
separation never comes.
Split any piece of
wood and I am there.
Lift any rock and
you will find me there.
Set any table. You will find me there.
Have bread and wine
in common to recall
The need to share
both food and drink with all—
And do this for
your fellow flesh and blood.
As I have done,
reach out to heal the sick—
Though not just
those with fevers. Heal heartsick
And troubled
spirits, too. Do miracles.
Though I have set
upon a painful course,
I choose it
freely--right could never force
A faultless one to
pay another’s fine.
No innocents are
sacrificed though I
Am willing for the
sake of truth to die.
That’s what the
Cross should symbolize for you.
I’m neither Paul,
nor Pope, nor Protestant.
I am before they
came, before they went.
I am before their
Sabbaths as are you.
Withered Wings
One envies those who fly
by any means
Above the many hazards of
the ground.
One envies fog that lifts, one
envies clouds,
One envies butterflies. But most of all
One envies birds
blessed both with song and chance
To soar with their
own notes-- until they fall
And see clouds turn
to rain then muddy land
And sea and soggy
sand where soaring things
Soon join the grounded bird with
withered wings
Its mother gave. On both sides of the sand,
The songless ostrich
buries its brief head
Among the living and
among the dead.
The
Broken Crow (March 2012)
With a mangled
wing, some black had learned to run
In vain, I thought,
as fast as I could run
Negating hope of
rescue. Will to live
Ironically assured
it would not live.
Feet cast their
pall upon occasional thought
Till dark undid itself. Again I saw
Fleet ebony undaunted in
its speed.
What did I
know? I wished it all Godspeed.
Titular
Puns
Light Verse I
Light’s circles
widen constantly around
Old Gettysburg and
Auschwitz, halos that
Belie a deeper
truth from Helios
Than Einstein’s
constant might suggest to us.
Fresh witnesses may
grow in numbers—light
Provides the
possibility at least
Of ever-widening
vantages that give
The lie to
“past.” Somewhere all “past” is live
Where light years
match. There telescopes can see
Whatever “was”
unfold in present time--
Poor Picket’s
charge plows into hostile crowds
And smokestacks
belch their awful human clouds
In ever-widening
circles that outrun
The claim that
anything is ever done.
Light Verse II
Perhaps one day
I’ll stumble in a place
Where I can watch
“myself” walk Chambers field
In cap and gown and
then walk into place
Where I can watch
“myself” so watching “me”
And any watch upon
my wrist. I’ll then
Repeat the same
again, again, again
Until at last I
feel quite satisfied
That time runs
endless ways at once and “I”
Expand in surpluses
that never die.
Light Verse III
Perhaps one day
I’ll intersect her light
And look back on my
mother as a girl
As she goes
sledding down steep Ninth Street hill
Where snow has
frozen other traffic still.
Perhaps one day
I’ll intersect his light
And look back on my
lonely father in
The Presidio as he
prepares to sail
For war he’s spared
because his eardrums fail.
Perhaps one day
I’ll intersect their light
And look back on
grandparents as they sit
Among the flowers
in the sun and shade
The moment that that photograph is made.
Perhaps one day
I’ll intersect their light
And see first parents prior to the snake,
See Eden when it's open to us all,
See perfectly though blinded by the fall.
See perfectly though blinded by the fall.
Titular Metaphors
When Darkness Falls on Kindred Souls (I)
Know no one can divide like souls from you.
When Darkness Falls on Kindred Souls (I)
Know no one can divide like souls from you.
Division needs dimension to perform
Such separation. Having only form,
No kindred souls are cleavable from you.
Transcending space, they touch you everywhere:
They're in the breezes playing with your hair.
They're in the leaves that strike the windowpane.
They’re in the door you bolt at night again.
They’re in the darkness putting out your bed.
They're in the raindrops crying overhead.
They’re in the silence after winds are done.
They’re in the stars’ and fireflies’ lighter sun.
When Darkness Falls on Kindred Souls (II)
Old Faust, know
that you need not be alone.
Know that you need
no devils changing you.
Know countless
other souls love as you do--
Know that you’ve
never been the only one.
Know no one can divide like souls from you.
Division needs
dimension to perform
Such separation. Having only form,
No kindred souls
are cleavable from you.
Transform yourself
instead! Despite the fact
You’ve snubbed your
kind in your long loneliness,
You’ve common souls
around you nonetheless
Who know your worth
despite the ways you act,
Who offer heart and
wit, who’ve never fled
And still consent
to share your empty bed.
Internal
Rhyme
Pangloss and a Tree
One shadowy
refutation in the night
Disproves
theodicies. Last night in bed,
I oddly dreamed of an insensate tree
Whose fruit was every body part but heads.
Both wolves and men plucked fresh meat from the tree
As unharmed sheep fed on insensate plains
And carrion crows and vultures circled round
To pick each fruit that fell upon the ground
Before it
spoiled. No hunger, rotting, pain,
What was it Dr.
Pangloss said again?
Personification
Cloud
As I look up and
see a duck transform
Into a white hare
without changing form,
That puffiness has
time as well to peer
Down: “Teacher?
Writer? Poet? Lawyer? Queer?”
Antinomies
Spring’s
Sickle
Spring’s
death! Foul proof is in the flies
That fetid fumes reprise
To swarm round rotting
winter’s weeds
And smoggy, acid skies.
We mourn the
feverish mornings now!
Our undertakers mow
To keep a corpse of
winter till
There comes a vigorous snow.
Spring’s
Suckle
Spring’s life! The honeysuckle soon
Will lend a scented rope
To garrote any
wintertime
The daffodils have left.
It’s suckle
time! Spring’s eager lips
Are white with milky drips
That mingle with
the pollen stains
On eager fingertips.
No
Aporia
Why We Sneeze
Of course there
must be pollen in the spring
Opposing all the
beauty of the thing--
Sir Isaac’s laws of
opposition would
Be breached by only
perfume in the wood.
Aporia
A
Theodicy
Was God a boy
before a man
In Heaven as on Earth?
Would common image
not require
That bit of common mirth
That comes from
plucking out the wings
Of helpless butterflies
Before the moral
lessons come?
Of all theodicies,
Perhaps the
fumblings of God’s first
Own boyhood best explain
The fissures in the
Earth, the wind,
The body, and the brain?
Fallacy
of Black and White
A False
Preacher after Picking Pears
Much like
Augustine, he’d misspent his youth
Whose remnants left
a slimy, snail-like trail
Of failed
employment and debauchery
That marked the way
to categories that
Entombed him under
shameful epitaphs.
Though boxed in
darkness there invisible,
He saw the light,
rolled back the heavy stone
And re-emerged by
force of words alone.
He married, started
preaching, and thereby
Could do no wrong
in God’s own language. Thus
Self-wrapped in
righteous trappings, he had purged
Himself. He found men paid him for it, too,
As well they
should: by definition price
Is fair in open
markets of advice.
Preachers in Their Wilderness of Guilt
Their dictionaries tell
them that midday
Lies equidistant
from sunrise, sunset
No matter length of
day. Their alphabet
Requires the sun to
rise and set each day.
As noon carves days
into their equal halves,
Word preachers in
their wilderness of guilt
Condemn with
certainty that certain tilt
And inclination
terra firma has
To thrust its pole
in un-straight solstice wards
That raise the sun
by dropping it, that force
Opposing acts at
once and thus of course
Unravel scripture
by unraveling words.
“That cannot
be!” The word-wound preacher says.
“There’s sin in
arctic winter solstices!”
Double Entendre
The
Sinister Side
Some Siamese twins
were sewn in such a way
No surgery could
safely sever them.
Thus, ethics kept
all saws and knives away--
At least until the
left sinned. How condemn
Him? Was it right to hang the right with him
Or should the left
be left to spare the right?
Of course, the
un-twinned found such straights applied
To them as
well. Though sole outside, inside
Their single skulls
twin souls or more were tied
As saints and
sinners knotted just as tight.
Pun
Unstated
Key to
My Heart
If any key could
pick my heart, I’d say
B minor could be
mine—or maybe A.
Antimetabole
Though I must sound
to live, I live to sound
Which means of
course my logic must be sound.
Reductio
ad absurdum
Safe
From Apocalypse
I don’t think Jesus
can come back.
He’d save and yet abort
Inchoate,
countless, Christian souls
Apocalypse cuts short?
Chiasmus
Earth cast my
shadow on the moon.[3]
The lights had somehow crossed
Themselves. The moon shrank to a “p”
Instead of Gallic “d”
(Which imitates the
“dernier”
Of waning moons in French--
“p” imitates the
“premier”
Of waxing moons in French.)
The moon came back
yet still was crossed--
It grew into a “d”
Instead of “p” to
end eclipse
Of language and of moon.
Equivocation
A
Man of Good Taste
He buys books by
the yard and hue,
By how their covers feel.
He purchases
pianos, harps
And lyres whose measures fit
The rooms he’d
furnish. Dishes, too,
Piled in his kitchen show
Much taste as do
the various stains
Of chocolates down his chins.
The Bitch
How could a bitch
presume some right of way?
The March of Dimes
has called for help today
And one old woman
turns round on a dime
To march and mail
her check in proper time.
(The woman knows
her science. Some have borne
Mean genes that
hurt their babies when they’re born.)
She shoos a gaunt
and pregnant dog that blocks
The sidewalk by her
closest postal box.
She doesn’t hear
the whine. She thinks instead
Of several bits of
Faulkner she’s just read
Where “moral”
whites have somehow treated blacks
No better than that
that bitch within her tracks.
The
Fires in Alexandria
A fiend fired up
five hundred thousand heads
Once full of vivid
thoughts wound tight within
Papyrus locks. Rolled characters burst in
Brief ghastly
flames of oranges and reds.
Fires fed upon the
signifiers, not
The references of
course--though we were blind
Thereafter to
whatever was unsigned
And would lament
such “history” except
The fires in
Alexandria roar on.
In countless
crematoria still burn
Roles, characters
un-tethering in turn
More precious
objects lost. As days roll on,
More athenaeums
vanish—at least till
The trumpet sounds
if sound it ever will.
Occultatio
I’ll never speak of
what prose did to us--
It’s much too
wretched, much too scandalous.
Paradox
Fetters
An alphabet unlocks
me locking me
With combinations
of but twenty-six
Quite different
chords that I must choose to fix
Around the necks of
thoughts I would set free.
“Free”
Verse Is Hardly Free
There are duets in
meter and in rhyme
Not found in
solipsisms of “free” verse--
The forms push back
with their responses, too,
That poets can
consider as they sing
Unshackled from
their first dogmatic notes.
A
Horse & Soldier Have a Drink
He rode a snowy
horse he’d painted green
To slip past Yankee
snipers he had seen
Within the
verdure. Naturally he’d made
That different
mount renounce its proper shade.
Both paused beside
a lake to have a drink
Where sounds of
waters made the soldier think
Of mysteries that
unseen depths suggest
Until he noticed in
his moment’s rest
That he’d observed
a lie. He saw the dam
Then wondered how
the artificial could
Have any
depth. The natural of course
Raised no such
questions and was less complex.
Therefore, to his
surprise the soldier found
The unnatural to be
the more profound.
Alliteration
Fear and Far Away
(Inspired by Montaigne, Book 1, Chapter 3)
Disquiet souls, we
rarely stay at home
To savor that
uniqueness heaven gave
Us. Far from self and heritage we roam
Enjoying not the
vantages we have.
Why would we wander
off from our own place?
Why would we not
reside there openly?
Why would we wish
for any other place
To flaunt
ourselves? We lack audacity.
We search the
various regions of the earth
For havens where
desire and self both might
Dare speak their
names and dare display their worth.
Yet, ever seeking
out such havens, we
Defer ourselves and
to our heirs’ delight
Conserve our all
for days we’ll never see.
Syllepsis?
Had (i) alphabets
appeared some later time,
Or (ii) ancient
inks less durability,
Leviticus might
yield to God’s pure slate
And save more souls
than any priests could do
If “saving souls”
is something one should do.
Sonnets for Lettie
Sonnet on Time
The conjugations of “good” grammars have
Time flowing from the past. Yet, words allow
Diversity of current.
We say, too,
That time flows back from future days:
“The future is unfolding as we speak.”
Or does time just swirl round in circles so
Poor Judas hangs himself repeatedly?
Don’t currents cross?
But how? Must they not freeze
Since “current” cannot move beyond the “now”
And yet be current?
Yet it moves? Time both
Conveys the ship and clock it threatens, too,
With icebergs of itself within itself?
Or does time just swirl round in circles so
Poor Judas hangs himself repeatedly?
Though
Others Mow the Air
Though others mow
the air as well as ground,
I’d plant, not pull
up magpies if they grew
On this side of the
sea—I’ve often found
Much bloom in
others’ weeds right where they grew.
I’ve natural doubts
when others weed the air
Or ground with artificial notions of first class--
Can lawns be
lovelier the more we pare
The buttercups and
violets from the grass?
Do we improve the skies by weeding birds
With poisons or with guns because some hate
"The magpie" (merely words)? Of course not. Things
Trump words instead. I weep when others mow
The heavens and the earth "to better" things
That are more wondrous left alone to grow.
Do we improve the skies by weeding birds
With poisons or with guns because some hate
"The magpie" (merely words)? Of course not. Things
Trump words instead. I weep when others mow
The heavens and the earth "to better" things
That are more wondrous left alone to grow.
Fame
Is Not A Quiddity
Fame is not a
quiddity. It flies
As fast from good
men as from derelicts.
And yet one rarely
finds biographies
Unmotivated by
it. Fame directs
Most inquiry. Mere accidents serve up
Both subjects and
the recompense of those
Who write for fame
themselves. As tomes pass up
The truly great and
vile, times therefore lose
Extraordinary lives
of men and crows
(And other souls)
and images of those
Unnoticed by the
foolish eyes of fame--
Except where art
for art might yet reclaim
Such losses from
the void—the Muses may
Still dictate
tales that others tossed away.
Fossils
The prints of many
years of young men’s feet
Prove treacherous upon
a college stair
Where fossils of
past youth can trip up feet
With dips and waves
in steps no longer square.
The present makes
its tricky fossils, too.
The gnomon’s shadow
fades with darkness. Too,
Our own prints
bounce in mirrors on the walls
And dive each time
a mirror of us falls,
Those glasses that
would twist us in reverse
In backward fossils
of ourselves. Our verse
Must get us right
yet somehow never freeze
Us in the fossils
of our meters. These
Must capture us and
yet not capture us:
Mere servants,
words should never master us.
A Little Festival of Verse
If Lettie is my
cuckoo or I’m hers
Why not a little
festival of verse
In honor of
ephemeral boundaries of
Stupidity,
duplicity and love?
Why can’t the
songbird (without playing fool)
Adopt the cuckoo
hatched within its nest?
Why can’t the
cuckoo choose to spend the rest
Of its brief days
with such melodious fowl?
Why can’t the two
rely upon the woods
To justify their
integration? Pines
Grow with the oaks,
the maples and the vines
Ignoring tenses,
syllables and moods.
Why can’t the two
of us be either bird--
Or neither since
the thing declines the word.
A Wake Asleep February 19
Puns Direct and Slant
Lettie Going Deaf
How better life is now than once it seemed!
How better life is now than once it seemed!
Each piece
exchanged for peace is witty trade
That wiser ears and years have deftly made--
That wiser ears and years have deftly made--
Though mail still
rouses crashing through the flap,
The new assistant handles matters deemed
Too meager now to interrupt a nap.
The new assistant handles matters deemed
Too meager now to interrupt a nap.
Handel’s Wager
(Behold, I Tell You a Mystery . . . .)
Forever lost before
nativity,
He rose at birth
from out a vaster sleep
Than death.
He knew first sleep
must reach back endlessly
While calendars can
measure second sleep
Of death--
Which means if
second horns should waken us
They would do less
by ending shorter sleep
Of death.
His basis sound,
that English German thus
Had basses sound
that horns end shorter sleep
Of death.
A Wake Asleep February 19
I died last night
within my sleep.
The symbols stopped at once.
One’s worlds
collapsed to airiness
Then eeriness that came
Too fast yet held
too fast to stop
Signs seeping back with time--
I duly kept a wake
in sleep
On that first night of death,
And time a wake
involved dissolved
The timelessness of death.
Outdoing even
Lazarus,
I died yet never did.
Homonymns
The Argentine
I can’t believe
that Borges could be right
That day is but
reflection of the night
When sentiments of
reason and of rite
Divide the very
things he would unite.
Miscellaneous
Schemes for The Reader to Identify
Dream on 11-11-11
We lay in cross-dug
holes within the ground
Arms properly
stretched out, feet overlapped
Until He lined us
up above the ground
And told us plainly
that each one He tapped
Would
disappear. He gave no rational ground
For what He
did. He simply started, tapped
And people
disappeared as minutes ground
Toward me--though I
escaped when I unnapped
Before He reached
my place above the ground.
Graffiti
on the Sphinx
The Sphinx
displayed a riddle on its side:
“They spawn
‘worlds’ including, too, themselves.”
Some answered with
“at least two mirrors” while
The lettered Sphinx
kept “words” inside itself.
Parasites
and Bears
Foul leeches, ticks
and tapeworms dine
On flesh they’ve left unkilled
While clean and
righteous Sapiens dine
On animals they’ve killed--
Which means of
course that murder’s fine
And mercy’s filthy. Skilled
In such good
manners, too, bears dine
On men and beasts they’ve killed.
Quilting Me
I quilted me and
wrapped me round
Myself against the night
In contradictory
patchwork sewn
Up lovely, rare, and right.
Losing
Face
Ask soldiers what
it means to lose one’s face:
Abandoning too soon
some wretched place
Or blowing off
another person’s face?
When
Hour Has Come To Quit
When hour has come
to quit let’s trust
The heavens take away
Our motivations so
we just
Sleep on that happy day.
Iron
Petards
Some people stuff
their fellows in
Iron categories yet
Don’t understand
they’ve ironed themselves
As well by doing that.
No Distance Sunders Kindred Souls
Since spirit takes no space, no pigeonholes
Hold it. No distance sunders kindred souls .
Instilling Revelry
There's revelry in words--though sometimes still
More revelry in reveling in still.
Three But One?
God's so complex he must be three in one
Though only one religion's right for him?
No Distance Sunders Kindred Souls
Since spirit takes no space, no pigeonholes
Hold it. No distance sunders kindred souls .
Instilling Revelry
There's revelry in words--though sometimes still
More revelry in reveling in still.
Three But One?
God's so complex he must be three in one
Though only one religion's right for him?
Four
Eyes
"Behold
bespectacled God's agent who,"
Says number one,
"is called to rope the stray
And tug it back on
course, drive wolves away
Before the
slaughter. It's God's work he'd
do."
"Observe the
man with careful glasses who
Abandoned worldly
exploits--great minds may
Set out an earthly
or a spiritual way
And he chose
Heaven's," so says number two.
"He raised his
intricate, high palace to
Make tangible what
Paradise," so say
The third man's
lips, "awaits believers. May
Its glorious spires
inspire the sinners, too!"
"Inspire it
does," the fourth agrees. "I pray
There is indeed
that awful judgment day."
Sum ergo credo
Sum ergo
credo. How can we
In right mind wont
our piety,
Want weight of
unbelief
And loss of easy
“virtuous”
When God instead
may offer us
Forgiveness and
relief?
Angel
Cake
Sometimes when
flipping calendars
Our eyes will fall upon
A date. We’ll wonder whether that
Could be our other one,
Our other day of cake
While knowing it’s
just silliness,
Our wondering such a thing.
There are no dates
beyond the dates--
Though reason, too, will play
And have its angel day.
Translations
for Lettie
Du Bellay’s Regrets,
Number 1
In nature’s bosom
I’ve no wish to pry,
No wish to find
what cosmos truly is,
No wish to sound
dark depths of the abyss,
Or sketch grand
architectures of the sky.
The ink I use has
not so rich a dye,
Nor does my verse
explore such loftiness:
Down here I merely
write about what is--
Though good or
bad--by chance I versify.
My lines hear my
complaints if I’ve regret,
I laugh with them,
my secrets, too, they get
As trusted
secretaries of my heart.
I do not wish to
comb or curl them, though,
Or hide them under
gallant names as though
They’re more than
merely jottings on my part.
Du Bellay’s Regrets,
Number 38
O happy is the man
whose life is spent
With others like
himself! He need not feign,
Fear, strive or
envy. He can peacefully reign
In his poor home
ambitionless, content.
The miserable cares
of more accomplishment
Can’t tyrannize or
otherwise restrain
Him when all wealth
he wishes to attain
Is heritage that
comes from his descent.
He’s not
preoccupied with others’ rank.
For his great hopes
he has himself to thank.
His court, king,
patron, and his boss he is.
He never risks his
wealth in foreign states,
Nor risks his life
for other men’s estates,
Nor wishes greater
wealth than now is his.
Du Bellay’s Regrets,
Number 51 (To Mauny)
Let’s look for
pleasure in adversity.
We have no good of
which we are assured;
Yet, in misfortune
we can hope, assured
That ill luck like
all luck shifts constantly.
Wise sailors flinch
at Neptune’s charity
Since sunny days
have never long endured,
And random storms
of course must be preferred
To constant fear of
what might lurk at sea.
Thus, virtues are
enhanced by storms we bear.
Whenever fortune
dims our virtue, we
Find strength and
light in our adversity;
When good luck
tricks us with its lying face,
Ill fortune culls
out flatterers we face
And helps to make
our own self-knowledge clear.
Dante on Fame
Earthly fame is
nothing but a trace
Of wind that first
approaches, then departs
And changes names
because it changes place.
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