Short Poems

The behavior of the pigeon
is beyond reproach,
but the mountain cuckoo?


Translated by Robert Hass

Blind, as was Homer; as Belisarius, blind,
But one weak child to guide his vision dim.
The hand which dealt him bread, in pity kind--
He'll never see; God sees it, though, for him.

I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking
about you.

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

THE sea-breeze beating on her brow,
The foam asurge her shining feet,
She stood,-a silver Victory,
Poised high on some Athenian prow,
Leading against a tyrant fleet
The winged vanguard of the free.

The banana tree
blown by winds pours raindrops
into the bucket

The Angel that presided o'er my birth
Said, 'Little creature, form'd of Joy and Mirth,
'Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth.'

Once, when midnight smote the air,
Eunuchs ran through Hell and met
From thoroughfare to thoroughfare,
While that great Juan galloped by;
And like these to rail and sweat
Staring upon his sinewy thigh.

Without arms or legs, they wiggle out of the sea & up onto the beach shouting commands from fish-like mouths, the authorities. "Put your best & bluest eyes in the crinkled scars where our limbs were attached! Hurry up! What are you waiting for? You know the penalty for disobedience." And so, timid creatures that we are, we do. We always do, always hoping that we haven't lost the ability to grow new eyes, bluer & better eyes than the ones we give away.

Go lytell treatyse deuoyde of eloquence
Tremblynge for drede to approche the maieste
Of our souerayne lorde surmountynge in excellence
But vnder the wynge of his benygnyte
Submyttynge the to his mercyfull pyte
And beche his grace to pardon thy rudenes
Whiche of late was made to eschewe ydylnes.