For Gerrit

What is poetry? an image

      in the mirror;

reflection from a broadside

    pinned to the wall,

    penned by a friend,

        from where old feelings

        old meanings arise;

relief from pain; the diligence of work.



Mysterious words upon a page in adolescence;

listening to poets read. What is poetry?

       Breath, competence, success

or simply Eros.

                          “Four sides to every thing.”



The increase in electricity causes lights to flow.

   Is it only light, or heat,

      words ordered in a row.

Men or gods. I’ll never know

      or try to know

          more than the doing,

                  the flowing

rain upon the roof. That one hears,

                  and reveres

inside, away from the cold

    within the house

       where the heat



reminds one of what it is to be like

               out in the cold

   rushing over the field

     mad,



Intelligence or emotion?     language.

             Dancing dandelions
   and buttercups in the grass
remind me of other summer
flowers, simple blossoms

roses and tiger lilies by the wall
         milk pod, sumac branches
lilacs across the road, daisies, blueberries
snaps, cut violets

             three years ago still grow in my mind
as peonies or planted geraniums, bachelor buttons
in downy fields filled with clover
lover, come again and again up fern

path upheld as memory’s perennial
against stern hard-faced officers of imprisonment
and cold regulation more painful than lover’s arms
or flowers charming but not more lasting.

No, the wild tulip shall outlast the prison wall
no matter what grows within.

                   THE POOL PLAYERS. 
                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.