Independence Day Service

By invitation, I read (actually sang some of the lines) this "untitled" sonnet of e.e. cummings at an Independence Day celebration at the Unitarian Fellowship of Houston yesterday. I did not actually read the last line of the poem but instead drank from a glass of water and departed the pulpit.

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than those heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

e.e. cummings
used without permission

And again from the folder marked "drafts"

Poem for Andrea

Of all the dreams I've chased --
Those caught and those missed --
You're the only one I sought more than once.
The only time I wanted a second chance:

Roses bloom again after an early freeze;
Peaches sometimes grow on stubborn trees.

bkb
used with permission

Again from the folder marked "drafts"

Poem

A woman stands at a window looking out.
The window measures from her middle thigh
to six inches above her head.
The frame's width is four times the width of her body.
She is about to turn to her right, but has not moved.
Is there a frown?

Is she about to turn to her right?
She frowns.

Or maybe she should merely sigh
and lean against the white frame of the curtain-less window.

bkb
used with permission

From the folder marked "drafts"

Der Schmetterling

Angular,
yet grace so unexpected
I wince at the raw,
randy beauty of such symmetry:

Her dance is an invasion of sorts
like an assault on Guadalacanal,
the total commitment
but there is no loss here.
Quark to quark,
she slices to the quick.

There is not so much surrender
to such an assault
as a dawning -
a primordial sun
bursting upon a new day
filled with colors
as subtle as a gauguin landscape.
The sky filling
with a rainbow of moons
waxing
strutting -
a pungent
earthy air,
the mixed metaphors
of horny bare feet
and the lusty lemony nectars of venus.

bkb
used with permission

My Grandfather Ben

The American Immigration Council announced the winner of its
14th Annual Creative Writing Contest:

From China sailed my Grandfather Ben.
He came to America when he was four plus ten.
His Guangzhou village was small and poor
And he helped his mother with farming chores.
Every morning he gathered bits of firewood
And drew water from the well as much as he could.
From morning to night he slaved like an ox.
But it was never enough to fill the rice box.
So his parents said, "You'd better leave home
And go to America where you can roam".
Until you find a great place of your own.
America, Gold Mountain, is the place to go
Big and wide, and high and low.
Everything is yes, and there are never any nos.

The complete poem is on their website here. It is well worth the read!

April is the coolest month

Blustery dawn breeze
Andrea's cinnamon coffee
Yellow Iris and yawning sun

bkb
used with permission

Sometimes,

I can almost grasp what it may be like to fly like a crow.

spring and all (again)

April's porous earth,
fecund, awaits the amorous probe
of sprouting root.

bkb
used with permission