Formes Fixes for Hebe and Ganymède

Rondeau

I love to make love to Hebe,
kissing her skin,
for she is like Ganymède
and ever untouched, as Phoebe.

Starting again,
I love to make love to Hebe.

Kissing her skin
leaves all of her senses sleepy.

That's when I win.

Because I am dead,
I love to make love to Hebe,
kissing her skin,
for she is like Ganymède.


Ballade

Ganymède lives inside a picture book.
No one could reach to take his outstretched hand.
Even from other novels, heroes shook,
leaving the war campaigns that they had planned,
sighing for his idyllic summer land.
If it is breakable, I'll break it. Look!
I am like Roland; I will be like Zeus.
I am the one to take him where I stand;
I am the one to make his leash a noose.


Virelai

After I have had a drink
of your dark, untainted ink,
Cupbearer, oh, do you think
there will be enough for more?

Scurry down your kitchen sink
inside the chink:
is there much of it in store?

Will you shrivel up and shrink
or rot and stink
if I drain you to the core?

Give me drafts that won't unkink,
don't run dry, and never blink;
always more--and you're the link,
you're the one whom I adore.

After I have had a drink
of your dark, untainted ink,
Cupbearer, oh, do you think
there will be enough for more?

先輩と [With my older classmate]

I’m happy when we’re huddled
Together on the bed, squealing
With delight, clutching hands and sleeves,
Bouncing and bouncing and
Oh, we’re rooting for you, honey,
With all of our hearts,
At the top of our lungs, we love you,
Go out there and win it for us
‘Cause we wanna watch you represent
Kiss him hard, kick her ass,
Prove yourself ‘cause you’re awesome
You’re gorgeous, yeah
You don’t know how we need it,
The fresh air on top of the world
We’ll never do it for ourselves
But you’re just like us only better

Hello

Eyes are black and wide and warm and wet;
skin is clear, embalmed in ribbon, chic;
half a million rushing thoughts, and yet
not a sound, the words that she would speak
left to interested parties' pique.
She, not having any mouth, is mute,
pleading with her eyes against the threat:
Care for me, I'm sweet and young and cute;
give your loyal mercy to the weak.

Lecture Rhythms, Part 2

My teacher is young
and very earnest.
I sit in the back
of class, and maybe,
I think, I'm the one
and only student
who's not a complete
and total moron.
Well, maybe that kid
who sits in front there,
eternally smirking
with snarky comments,
just might have a clue;
he might just know what
he's talking about.
His neighbor doesn't.
I feel very old
and out of place here.

Lecture Rhythms

thea Doption Of
pa'Ticular Languages
as Lingua Francas
is'n'x Ample Of
the Golden Rule:
Those who Have the Gold
Make the Rules.

Iced Tea

In the evening people sitting
on their porches watch and watch and
murmur. There are many acts that
comfort others when they do them
but somehow discomfit me.

Gardening

Today
the person I know
who pushes the plow
is not a boy;
it is I.

And the joy
that ought to go
thundering through the spray
is still. How
and why?

I want to allow
trees to grow,
but sugars cloy
to the clay
that I ply,

and the koi
that swim by
are gray
instead of gold, now,
and slow.

Bow
to the wind, low
so the ploy
on your face is covered; say
the best lie,

and pry
secrets from the coy
water, the way
a vow
seeps into the snow.

Holly

A dolly, two cakes, a merry and young, unfaded sweet sleeve--
a weave of folly that wakes the very far-flung, far traded,
and jaded to leave. My Molly, she bakes the dairy that sprung
of young, new-mated, who grieve; the volley that makes the berry
burst carry the tongue is fated to cleave the jolly snowflakes
it takes. But wary, I sung 'til sated the eve of Holly.

Sonnet LXII

Hair is falling in my eyes in dashes
of unpolished tan and gold, and jaded
chocolate green looks through the curls created
by the wind, the sunshine, and its ashes.
I think dreamily of summer splashes,
winter snows that never were, the faded
tangles, round and pink and sweet and mated,
honey brown with flitting, sooty lashes.
Maybe no one else thinks love is summer:
warm and sleepy, sticky-mouthed and sunny,
and by nature instantaneous and strangled,
but, I think, you'll understand the mummer
in the masque can fall in love with honey
and her hair--a boy that's soft and mangled.

Global English

We write in Sand, the poet said,
believing that when he was dead,
the English tongue would change for good--
his lines would not be understood--

and writers, to prevent this curse,
took arms--so I can read his verse--
but such a thing cannot be done
again unless a war's begun:

for English is no more our own
by any reckoning that's known.
The eager multitudes of Earth
adore the tongue which since our birth

we've spoken as our own. They've torn
it from our mouths as we've been born;
each speaker only owns among
the crowds a piece of his own tongue.

Latitude

I was the last of my kind,
kind of. Latitude
stolen from the brain

gives me the rights to my mind,
so my attitude
can be false and vain,

also, and true. We are blind,
but this platitude
doesn't tell the main:

difference is all that we find.
Hear with gratitude;
sameness isn't sane.

Sonnet LXI

Your given name is lovely on the page,
until a tangled mess of sticky curls,
its perfect imperfection spinning swirls,
goes tumbling through my vision. In the age
that you're away, I never seem to gauge
your picture accurately--it's like pearls
before my eyes--but words I cherish: twirls,
unbounded, tulip, flushing, brownest, sage.
Here, don't you want to sit with me and eat
new butter, cold-clean water, honeyed bread?
And don't you want to giggle in my ear?
So tell me that you want to stay, too sweet
Mignon, because if you attempt to spread
beyond me, I will choose to hold you here.