With apologies to Mississippi John Hurt

May he rest in peace. But I am just so excited that I (almost) have learned one of my favorite of his songs!
--Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me

This is a song the Mississippi John Hurt wrote, based on the tune of "Waiting for a Train." If you have never listed to Mississippi John Hurt, check him out sometime.

The frog comes in on little cat feet.

F[r]OG

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

The frog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over the coat rack
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

In which are revealed the origins, difficulties, and feats of endurance of my life as a coal miner.

Sixteen ton.

Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist

1.

On this grey

midday the snow

had turned to rain by noon

soon softly mounded

drifts grew heavy

6a.

while in this room our passions

settled like milk in tea

the moon behind its cloudy sea

whispered its tautology

everything everything that is

that is that is is every-

thing that is the case

2.

and you and you,

yes you you you

to me you are the case.

3a.

the house was cold

and we each sat

in blankets wrapped in separate thought

but this cannot go on

and so almost athletically

we stirred these strings

like pieces of a game these words

had their own form but were to us

as something more

5.

i say, unmoving, "dear,

i'm going

to go

out"

4.

all the curtained evening stars

ripple like points of light

upon the surface of a lake

better yet, this river that circles

like a huge and mythic harmony

the sounding of the intervals

that measure the space between ourselves

6b.

when we pull back from it

then how we meet our fate

rainspun span of afternoon

how the emptiness between the snow

comforts us unknown

3b.

and to me you are the case

the world the world the world

what world?

of thorn and rock and brae and fen

ox and field and fowl and glen

how will we know what is the case?

7.

finally i get up and to the door

from the threshold see the night is clear

how high sounds single liminal note

walk, snow, and tree to the finial twig

all ice-sheathed shine--

this sudden rush of dormant strain

turn, turn, and close the door again.

Navidad

ten years ago my heart would have caught
in my throat to see this tricked
out chevy blazer mariachi bass
basting bright chrome rims

when it stopped to honk
and the tinted window slid
I would have thought
"what's gonna go down"

the shouted "feliz navidad"
seems like the sweetest words I've ever heard
for some reason, and this Christmas Eve
I think "thank God
that we are alive
and still can learn."

Hopes and fears of all the years...

You tell me
How there will come a point

when you no longer can

look forward to the year

new year

and i know somehow

no one should have to feel this way

yet here where we wait for gaudy sphere

to drop, where there is only counting

down and counting down

even here in all the blast and flop

of fireworks, confetti muck

even now, in all this press of people

is there not knit

with time timeless?

this hyacinth, this madeliene

this other way where light pours forth

from magic lamps Arabian nights

i cannot spin that tale too well nor shine

that light, but lo how fabled star still shineth

bright on this dark river--

how she will not succumb to winters' ice

Not ideas about the thing

the snow is new

this morning

with my first step

mucus freezing

in my nostril

i know i can't belong

to this spotless day

and the dark coats

collars raised

hurrying to coughing cars

we do not fit

still far away

the sun

in its own way awakes

yes i will say "awakes"

Lullay, lullay my tiny child

when the baby cries

i try to hold her just so

to sway and sing and gently dance along

the circumference of this room

the contours of the song

and hold her to the beat of my chest

the hum of my lungs

while the solid earth holds us both

circling slow all caught in the playful sun's

imaginary lasso

around, around, and around we go

like sleep softly creeping

down her brow to kiss her nose

empty words lullay my mind

that truth is simply made of love

how like an echo on the air I breath

now hush and hush my tiny babe

Venite adoremus

this evening the sun descends,
a heap of fire, first star-sparks sprightly crackle
over the silent snow-capped evergreen
like vigil pyres of herald hosts,
and all this agony of heaven leaves at last a pink blush
brushed across the westward sky
child sleeping gentle on the earthly breast

advent passes in the window just behind

the computer screen

how simple to miss god with us.

An attempt at some Christmas Guitar

What Child is This/Greensleeves

Borrowing heavily from a Carissa's Weird tune.

Something isn't there.

Shoveling Snow

In the cold and dark with the wind
pouring out from behind the house
the snow falls, falls and I
bend, rasp my shovel on the sidewalk
under the white blanket like a final
breath and the snow covers over the hidden world
soft, beautiful, and cold
a marble for the gusting pyg-
malion air. the gentle earth is sorry that I
give my warmth up to the sky
throwing this load like salt
over my shoulder for the voice of the wind
to scatter like particles of common grace
upon the silent sleeping world.
how the eternal lightness of the firmament
tugs now at my ragged gasps.

Chiefly Concerning the Rutabagas

At the nordic
themed Christmas party
you enjoyed the mashed rutabagas and
the purse of your lips as you did
and the curve of your cheek, your hair
drawn back in the candlelight cause me
to digress
as this
is chiefly concerning the rutabagas

which were once the main commercial crop
in the tiny Danish immigrant town in which I was also raised
and on which I, a schoolboy, did a history project,
interviewing an elderly fellow who used to work
the rutabaga fields. I thought, when I went
to his home to talk to him that he would be glad to wax
nostalgic and warm to the tale,
but it was quite different
he did not remember this topic fondly for some reason.
Athelred was his name, call him Red, and he was unready
to reveal the exciting days of the rutabaga.
Here I had thought
that was the joy of old men,
and so I was deeply disappointed,
but again,
this is chiefly concerning the rutabagas,

of which he did tell this tale:
that when the warehouse where the rutabagas waited
with their purple tops for the trains to take them
to the unsuspecting boys and girls of America--yes,
when it caught fire, the wax, you know, young man
in which they are shipped, to preserve their pale hide,
ran down the streets like a Dansk Pompeii
(I am adding this for poetic effect)
and into the sewers, a very good place for liquid wax,
but when it cooled and stopped the whole town up
people got so sick of rutabagas that they never
wanted to see their pasty white forms again
and so the warehouse stood empty, got old
and romantic enough to interest me
which is why I talked to Red
who, in his younger days would probably
have been equally distracted by
the way your eyes so infuse this air
that when I breathe its warmth
into my lungs it almost stops my breath
(I was going to say like sewers filled
with rutabaga wax,
but that is enough
concerning the rutabagas).

When your eyes can't feel to weep

I will say what use
is it to dispute
with you, sitting on my stomach like
a hundred-pound of feathers
I would rather rearrange this icarus
like, the wax of my thought soft, soft
the wax of our faces let us set to the sun

run with me, stretch your arms wide too
now the wind moves, alive with the unknown
particles of energy--how i feel you beside me
bathed in plastic lightwave beam
how I know your gold-droplet eyes again alive
--no

not tears these are, but the wake of blazing dream.

On the occassion of the creation of the grand amorphous Christmas constellary

We strung lights
starting too late in the evening
and it grew dark before we had finished

we had shaped and wrapped the strings intricately
not accounting for the space between the lights
and as the last pink cloud banks broke for the coming night
and we plugged in the last link of string, sitting back to admire
it became clear to us that it would take all the imagination of ancient
astronomers to decipher our intent.

Following the flash of distant light

one thousand one
good morning, dennis
how was your weekend

too short, and you?
one thousand two

happy wednesday
we're half way there
one thousand three
thank god it's friday
do you have big plans?
hell yes, payday.
one thousand four

another monday
yep, monday, monday...
one thousand five, did you hear that?
hear what?