Monday, July 10, 2006

As it was...

Start with five favorite poems.

The rest ?

Extemporize.

Spice all seasons
with the simmery saveur
of uncurried favors.

Watch the rough wind rake
white caps on the bay
beneath the Golden Gate.

Sit on an sunny bench
in a shady part of town,
eyes blown full
of city street grit,
fall asleep and wake with
pigeons fluttering about
your dream-draped head.

When later comes
(and it will)
relish the long look back
to days that seemed
to seethe and dazzle.

They were thrown at you
in ripe, clustered bunches,
and you devoured them.

In the dog-eared fotographs from then,
you can practically see
the sweet juice gleam
from grinning, wine-swilling chins.

Men, through history,
very generally speaking,
have too oft wrung
their work-thick hands,
love lush afternoons forgotten
in the avoidance of provincial notoriety.

In the instant of return
of simple surrender
there the essential is relinquished-
like fragrance sent in the flicker
of a scented candle's flame-
it approaches the absolute.

Anymore
there are no wrong songs sung,
none too naive-
this you'll realize
(effortlessly)
when pulling a cork
or blowing out a guttering taper
some nondescript nostalgic night
of twice read autumnal tomes.

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