What kind of thoughts now, do you carry
   In your travels day by day
Are they bright and lofty visions, 
   Or neglected, gone astray?

Matters not how great in fancy, 
    Or what deeds of skill you’ve wrought; 
Man, though high may be his station, 
    Is no better than his thoughts. 

Catch your thoughts and hold them tightly, 
   Let each one an honor be; 
Purge them, scourge them, burnish brightly, 
   Then in love set each one free. 

We can not tell what happiness 
We might on earth possess 
If in singleness of heart 
We would strive to act a proper part. 
‘Tis true we see the effects of sin
All without and all within. 
We long may live a life in vain, 
Much good possess, but still complain. 
We may appear to other eyes, 
To be extremely rich and wise; 
But if our hearts are not right, 
Life will not be beautiful and bright. 
Oh! may our life, day by day, 
In love and duty pass away; 
And at last when our bodies die, 
We may live in that world above the sky; 
Where free from sin, death and pain, 
The good will meet and love again. 

We can not tell what happiness 
We might on earth possess 
If in singleness of heart 
We would strive to act a proper part. 
‘Tis true we see the effects of sin
All without and all within. 
We long may live a life in vain, 
Much good possess, but still complain. 
We may appear to other eyes, 
To be extremely rich and wise; 
But if our hearts are not right, 
Life will not be beautiful and bright. 
Oh! may our life, day by day, 
In love and duty pass away; 
And at last when our bodies die, 
We may live in that world above the sky; 
Where free from sin, death and pain, 
The good will meet and love again. 

Pulling out of the old scarred skin
(old rough thing I don't need now
I strip off
slip out of
leave behind)

I slough off deadscales
flick skinflakes to the ground

Shedding toughness
peeling layers down
to vulnerable stuff

And I'm blinking off old eyelids
for a new way of seeing

By the rock I rub against
I'm going to be tender again

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
       Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
       Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
       Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
       Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
       All of the night was quite barred out except
       An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
       No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
       But one telling me plain what I escaped
       And others could not, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,
       Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice
       Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
       Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

^{A Picture}

Fair mistress of a warlike State,
What crime of thine deserves this fate?
While other ports to Freedom rise,
In thee that flame of honour dies.

With wars and horrors overspread,
Seven years, and more, we fought and bled:
Seized British hosts and Hessian bands,
And all—to leave you in their hands.

While British tribes forsake our plains,
In you, a ghastly herd remains:
Must vipers to your halls repair;
Must poison taint that purest air?

Ah! what a scene torments the eye:
In thee, what putrid monsters lie!
What dirt, and mud, and mouldering walls,
Burnt domes, dead dogs, and funerals!

Those grassy banks, where oft we stood,
And fondly viewed the passing flood;
There, owls obscene, that daylight shun,
Pollute the waters, as they run.

Thus in the east—once Asia’s queen—
Palmyra’s tottering towers are seen;
While through her streets the serpent feeds,
Thus she puts on her mourning weeds!

Lo! Skinner there for Scotia hails
The sweepings of Cesarean jails:
While, to receive the odious freight,
A thousand sable transports wait.

Had he been born in days of old
When men with gods their 'squires enrolled,
Hermes had claimed his aid above,
Arch-quibbler in the courts of Jove.

O chief, that wrangled at the bar—
Grown old in less successful war;
What crowds of miscreants round you stand,
What vagrants bow to your command!

I say I
&
a small mosquito drinks from my tongue

but many say we and hear I
say you or he and
hear I

what can we do with this problem

a bowl held in both hands
cannot be filled by its holder

x, says the blue whale
x, say the krill
solve for y, says the ocean, then multiply by existence

the feet of an ant make their own sound on the earth

ice is astonished by water

a person misreads
delirium as delphinium
and falls into
a blueness sleepy as beauty when sneezing

the pronoun dozes

—2010