Morning Songs

This page contains poems that I wrote in my college years, at least those that have survived my many moves. (Let us all pretend that the good ones were mysteriously lost.) Poems that I have written recently may be found in my Evening Verse page. One or more verses (depending on what I might find in the future in my mass of yellowing paper) can also be found on my Interlude page.

I won’t say that they are good, although there are some fine lines scattered about here and there. Nor would I say that they are bad, although there is much sentiment found within, and more than a hint of doggerel. Today I might well treat the same themes differently, whether for better or worse I cannot say, but I do not wish to disavow the past. Let the past stand and speak for itself.

Each poem is preceded by a comment, a moment of criticism or explanation. It is one of the follies of age that you can no longer simply declaim without the urge to explicate. The poems themselves, by the way, should be read aloud — poetry is meant for the ear as well as for the eye.

My poems are commoners; they have no titles. There is an index of first lines if you want to skip around. index

This poem has a bit of history. Over the years I have used it off and on in usenet signatures files. From time to time I get correspondence asking where the lines came from. For those who wanted more I once wrote a larger poem in which these were the concluding lines. I have lost that poem and it’s just as well. These lines stand alone. (The longer version has surfaced like a lost puppy. It can be found in the interlude section.)

In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.

This poem is one of the finest things I have done; it is one of the few things that I have written that I have committed to memory and recited to myself over the years. Like many morning songs it is floridly romantic.

My gods are dark gods that crawl and creep of night,
Their eyes aglow with dark and hellish light.
Dark gods, but my gods, and I try to serve them well,
Though the path that they do counsel is the path that leads to hell.
For they fill my heart with cold undying fires
And steal away the embers of burnt and lost desires
That I might die with life a dream undreamed
And a soul quite dead where once a soul gleamed.

Much of my poetry was dark and depressing. My sister Lynn requested that I write something happier so I did. Here is a poem about a happy man.

You have told me
That you wished to hear of happy things
That you are tired of my bitter wailing in the night.
Very well, I will speak of happy things,
For men that cry are most unwelcome guests.

I am happy man; count me among happy men.
I see the flowers, simple things
That fill my heart with joy.
Oh it’s true the rain is cold
And the wind cuts through my coat.
But the sun will shine when the rain is through,
And snow’s not here for months to come.
What matter trifles such as that?
With my flowers I am content;
I am a happy man.

If I’ve no job what matter that?
I am a poet and surely you must know
That such as we do not care for trifles of the world.
Besides, I have my flowers arrayed in splendoured hues.
And thus with simple childish joys I am content.
I am a happy man.

And if I have no home, so what?
A poet doesn’t need these artificial bounds
Of civilizations softening ways.
Surely you can see that I must be a happy man.
Perhaps I have no friends but do I care;
The world is my friend.
My lands are all that I survey
And deeds and titles do not count
Beside the poets muse.

The flowers of the field
Are the precious jewels of my treasure house
That I sit and count by the hour.
With treasures such as these
Could I be else but a happy man?

Poverty is but a worldy term
That does not count this inner wealth of mine.
And starve is just another word
To be used in a clever rhyme.
In a world filled with lovely things
My heart is filled with lovely thoughts,
For I am a happy man.

I sit on a hill
And look at the flowers
On the graves of those I have loved
And reflect on my blessings and rejoice
For I am a happy man.

The title page in the notebook in which I kept my verse had its own lines. Here they are. In those days I was an optimist.

The world is dark and dreary
My bones are tired and weary
Life is sad, life is bad
And people are no damn good.

This is a “real” poem — the sort of thing that poets are supposed to write. I like it anyway.

We sail — the fleet is on its way.
We leave behind our castles
That sit beside the bay.
Glittering softly in the moonlight
They sit beside the bay.
The sun shines bright; the sea is blue.
We taste the salty spray.
And in all that sunlit ocean
There are no castles by the bay.

As a thorough going romantic I savored, nay wallowed in, disillusion. The bright toys of childhood turn to trash, thereby offering endless occasion for weltschmerz.

The words that once did sound so grand
Are only pablum, dull and bland
The things we thought forever new
Are no longer even true
All those things we felt before
All those things we feel no more.

This is a bit of nothing but it’s true and that’s what poetry is all about.

Green it grows and green it be
The grass that spreads beneath the tree
In the sun it’s greener still
I love that green; I always will.

Romantic poetry is haunted by the ruins of the past. Great poets wrote Petra and Ozymandius. Lesser poets such as I dwelt in those ruins too.

The old gray god is past his time.
The land he ruled has changed its clime.
His city’s streets are choked with grime,
And the dust blows.

The old priests chant is heard no more.
The temple gate is an unused door.
The old true faith is gone of yore,
And the dust blows.

The old gray god sits on his throne.
His wise old eyes were only stone.
Brooding still, he sits alone,
And the dust blows.

This piece, which works the same ruins, makes no sense whatsoever but it does have some nice lines in it.

In my elder days I did dream
Of a land now barren waste
Once gold and honey, and yellow sun
Now gone beyond a trace.

Its cities were great cities
That reached up in the sky,
And its towers were great towers
That stood a thousand meters high.

But the years have turned to eons
And the cities turned to dust.
Those mighty marble towers
Have lost their skyward thrust.

The honey’s gone, the gold is gone
The sun burns bright on blighted lands.
And all that’s left and all that’s real
Are tumbled stones in desert sands.

A literary criticism class might have fun with this. Assume that the poet is not being clumsy; what is he getting at? Why an iron edge? What is meaning of the third line?

The iron edge of time
Cuts all lives equally
Takes not, leaves not,
But hurries on and never stops
For those who wish to rest.

In retrospect I think the line “When danger stalks…” is a mistake — playing with “poetic imagery” doesn’t fit the style of the poem. Replace it by “When danger comes” if you like. I left the line as it was as a mark of respect for the poet; after all I am not the person who wrote those lines anymore, am I? So who am I to change them?

So I’m a coward – so what?
So I’m yellow – so what?
All men get scared
All men get feel their guts turn cold
All men tremble
When danger stalks like tigers in the night
All men are afraid.
Only I was a coward.
I ran – so what?

One of the things that happens when people know that you write poetry is that they ask you to write poems [well, verse] for them. Here was my response to one such request.

I thought I’d write a word or two
About a girl who’s made me blue.
She sought from me some bits of verse
Until her seeking became a curse.

She wanted words that tinkled fair
And saw a poet who wasn’t there.
Her beseeching made me write,
And now I’ve wasted half the night.

This is a love poem; all poets write love poems, don’t they? This one doesn’t carry any literary baggage; it’s pure distilled sentiment.

A moment.
That’s all I ask,
A moment.
To see your face,
To touch your hand,
For a moment.
How much happiness,
How much love
In a moment?
All that one can bear,
All that
In a moment.

When my sister Lynn asked for a happy poem perhaps she was thinking of poems like this.

The children cry at night now
Since their father went away.
Bread and milk compose their meals;
Their mother works by day.
Her eyes are red; she cries too much;
There’s a sadness in the house.
The world has no justice
When such men have to die.
It isn’t fair; it isn’t right
That children cry at night.

I suppose this one is banal but it’s true and that counts for something. I could delete it from my corpus of work but suppose I’m wrong; suppose it’s better than I think it is. Who could take the chance?

Night is a friend.
Its quiet calm will still the soul
And let the thought of beauty
Seem less strange.

Here is another happy poem. You might suspect that I was undergoing a serious bout of depression. Believe me, I wasn’t; I was a happy man. Actually this is one of my favorites.

I am tired and about to cry
So do not ask me, oh do not ask me
To carry on the smile I wear.
I’m much too tired to be happy
Much too weary to be gay.
So let me rest and go on by
For I am tired and I must cry.

This really isn’t a poem; it is a dialog cast as a poem. In answer to the obvious question, no, I hadn’t seen Waiting For Godot when I wrote it.

What did they say, did you hear?

It sounded like yes, don’t you think?

I thought so too, a bit, perhaps.
It had a yessy sort of sound,
Or so I thought, so I heard.

Yes, I thought so too – it sounded so.
And yet – it didn’t. What do you think?

I don’t know. It did seem like a yes.
It did so seem like a yes. And yet –

I know what you mean. It’s always like that.
They speak but they don’t speak very clear,
And what they say they don’t always mean.

But one must know, one has to know.

Yes, one has to know. And yet – wait.
Do you hear it – it sounds as though they are…

They are, they are, listen, listen, they are.

What did they say, did you hear?

The great poets have written odes to Grecian urns and skylarks. Lesser poets must, perforce, make do with lesser subjects.

Men have writ with wondrous words
Mighty odes to skittish birds.
Now it is my humble hope
To write in praise of a piece of soap.

Suds were its function and dirt was its bane;
It did its daily task reposing by the drain.
Tho now it is a remnant which must be cast away
It served a noble cause to bring a cleaner day.

I beg you friend, do not mock that petty piece of scrap
That did its daily work beneath the water tap.
That humble bit of soap has done its duty true;
When all is said and done, can the same be said of you?

Yes, I had read Nietzche when I wrote this. Others have done it better.

Out of the guts of weakness comes the mighty wail
Of cripples, chattering in the midnight,
Selling dreams of superman –
Tormented minds, singing glittering crystal nonsense,
Saying cold, cold is the heart that dares,
Spindly monsters, alone too long,
Dreaming cold and twisted dreams,
Making madness, private madness,
The mountain of desire.

The way that they would have it,
That they would will the world to be –
The weak would be the strong,
And the mad would be the sane.
The lame would stomp the world
With delusions iron boot.
Theirs is a dream of madness
Made real in a world madder still.

Tennessee Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie. I wrote — well, I wrote this:

I had a dream once, the substance of my life
And to this fragile nothing you brought your bloody knife.
From my quaint illusions you sought to set me free
Til now, in glare of daylight, there is nothing left for me.
The nothing that you gave me I cannot bear to face;
Now I stand alone, a stranger to the race.

What can I say? These things happen and this is the way they happen.

I heard a child cry in the dark
As I sat on a bench in a city park
And the thoughts I thought were broken there
By that childs cry in the still night air.

For some reason this particular poem seemed to disturb people when they read it. I never quite understood why.

Fire is a friend; it burns.
It is most my friend
When its fuel is human flesh.
It did me well when it fed
On those I had loved
And it burned exceedingly well.

No, I really wasn’t undergoing a serious bout of depression. If I had felt what this poem expresses I never could have written it.

The world is nothing, nowhere, dead
A flat block of nothing,
A nowhere, a nothing,
Dead, deserted, gray and still,
And empty, Oh God, how empty.

Gone is all light, gone is all heart
Gone is the moment still.
I do not laugh, I do not cry
My world is gone, empty,
Flat and dead, a nothing.

This is my heart, shrivelled and gray,
A lifeless thing upon the sands.
This is my life, empty and dead.
And where are my promised lands?

I studied calculus and I know what a derivative is. How dare you say this is derivative.

For decades I did seek in search of certain truth
And thus did waste on volumes the glory of my youth.
And when I found the answer to the object of my quest
I found that I had squandered the years that are the best.

I learned from ancient volumes the lore of many things
And gained the quiet wisdom that bookish study brings.
But the answers to my seeking at last I came to see
Were in a heart that was from seeking free.

Is this doggerel or is it not; you be a judge. Some say it is; I say it is not. If you haven’t been there it is patter. If you have it is distilled truth. I vas dere, Cholly.

The gambler sat at cards all night
And quit his game by morning light.
When his mind by sleep was dimmed
He dreamed of suckers he had trimmed.

To that man that game is life,
Child and home, parent and wife.
When his backword day is done
He reckons life by what he’s won.

When I wrote this I thought I had failed; upon rereading it’s much better than I realized. I suppose it’s not meaningful if you haven’t been born to the land. And, yes, it’s a ripoff of Whitman.

I am the prairie. I am the West.
My voice speaks in the wind that burns the summer dry.
I am the grass, dry brown grass that never ends.
I am the land, rich rolling land, dry parched land
That waits for water that never comes.
I am the blizzard that buries the world
In a wind driven hell of blinding snow.
I am the farmer, fighting the land for my daily bread.
I am the cattle, the wealth of the West.
I am the spring, a moment of green
Promising much before the drought.
I am rain and snow, land and sun
Grass and cattle, land and man.
I am the prairie. I am the West.

Youth loves the dramatic posture; age knows the reality.

Do not fret my dear
That the love I bear you is not returned.
This bitter cup I’ve drunk before;
How well I know it’s taste.
What’s love – a trifle blown in the wind
A bauble to be broken half in fun.
I do not care – see, I laugh.
‘Tis an old familiar life long friend
Whose acquaintance I renew,
A broken heart broke anew.

If poetry is truth, is this poetry? And if it is, should it be? Perhaps not. Youth deals in existential dispair; age knows youth is an optimist. There are worse things than nothing.

Our deep and noble passions are not sustained;
They melt away against the pattering trivia of reality.
Our passions, our meanings, all our intensity,
Are but lies – self made illusion
To fill out the nothing that is life.

We love and that love dies;
It was nothing but self deceptive lies.
We hate and that hate will fade away:
It was an idle oddment to fill an empty day.

We build the castle of illusion on a solid rock of lie
And preserve our self delusion and never wonder why.
We laugh, we cry, we love and hate.
We make believe that life runs deep and true.

All this noble grandeur, all this stately pose
Is but a shouting effort to keep the nothing out.
We pretend, we deceive, we spin a web of lies –
Cheap lies – to make our lives worthwhile.
All our mighty striving, all that we hold dear
Is built upon, is fostered by
Cheap lies.

I don’t know what to say about this one. I know it was true; I said what I felt when I wrote it. Age knows that youth is a fool — fair words never won fair lady. And age knows, if age is honest, that age is equally a fool. Love seeks no magicians; love seeks magic and love makes that magic out of its own heart.

This I know to be quite true
I am, my dear, in love with you.
I’ve tried to say that I am not
But when I do I’m talking rot.

I wish my words were gentle art,
Golden keys to gain your heart.
I fear my words have been too bold
So that now your love has turned quite cold.
I think my words have stung too deep
And made the price of love too steep.

I wish for you a heart content
That you might live with neck unbent
I wish for you a perfect day
That you might spend in a happy way.
I wish for you a perfect hour
As precious as a golden flower.

All that’s mine is yours as well
If you but ask to stay a spell.
I give my love if you wish my heart
Or say goodby if you wish to part.
I do not claim a claim on you
But only ask “To yourself be true”.

Some things you get right the first time.

The paranoid has his delusions
Of a most remarkable logical frame.
The preacher has his doctrines
Of a most remarkable logical frame.
The statesman has his ideology
Of a most remarkable logical frame.
Now the world calls them different
But the logic is the same.
And for all I see, for all I know,
The difference is in the name.

There’s nothing profound here, just words for the pleasure of words. Boom Bah.

Ten thousand marching troops
Arrayed in ranks and files
With shining brass and flashing guns
And uniforms all pressed and white.

They march and march, a thunder on parade.
Ten thousand lefts, ten thousand rights,
Ten thousand paces marched in time.

With a left and a right and a left and a right
And a left and a right and a left and a right,
Ten thousand marching men
Marching on and on.

I hope, I really do hope that my readers do not understand this poem.

The bombs fell like gentle rain
Loosed by rulers no longer sane
And when the world was dead and done
They celebrated victory won.

Like many of my poems this one is mixed in quality. The first verse carries the baggage of romantic pretension; the last two lines go for the gut.

Life, to me, is an empty thing which tears my soul apart;
I must bear the burden of a cold and lonely heart.
Tis not a lost love that breaks my heart in two,
But the worlds cold indifference which is my only due.

I’m just a nameless stranger, watching passers by
I know they do not see me as I slowly wander by.
They do not seek to hurt me; they do not really care;
To them I’m just a stranger who really isn’t there.

This poem tells an old story. My version was sparked by the beginning of Asimov’s Foundation and Empire.

The Emperor of Space
Ruled four thousand worlds.
Born to the purple, his word was law.
His thought was truth, his glory had no end.
He was the master of the mightiest Empire
That Man has ever known.
His was the glory and the grandeur.
His were the worlds of Space.
He was the master, the King, the Almighty Lord,
The God given ruler of all,
The Imperial Potentate who ruled space
Until he died like other men.

Perhaps, amidst the anguish and the angst, you might like a quiet moment.

Evening falls unguarded
As solemn trees stand awry
And sungold whispery traces
Vanish from a darkening sky.

This is free verse and overpriced. It should be read aloud in the style of a Maine Yankee, clipped with a pause after each line.

Was at the museum the other day.
Saw a picture.
It was art.
Knew it was.

Had to be – couldn’t understand it, you know.
All blobs and swirls,
Messes and chunks of colors;
It was art.
Knew it was.

Heard a song the other day –
Lots of noise, like bandsaws
And bombers burping
It was art.
Knew it was;
Had to be – no melody, you see.

Wrote a poem the other day –
No rhyme, no sense, no meter –
Just words.
It was art.
Knew it was;
Just had to be.

Lost loves and existential angst are, when all is said and done, mostly stage props and painted flats in bad melodrama. This poem is real. It tells an incandescent truth of my youth and a truth that has never really gone away.

My wandering feet do call me, for my home is on the road.
The travellers nightly waystop is my only true abode.
The time that I am homesick and my heart is far away
Is when I’ve stopped and settled to find a place to stay.

So let me ramble, let me roam, let me spread my wings
For it’s on the open roadside that a travelling stranger sings.
It’s the distant call of faraway, the land beyond the hill,
The only place my homesick heart can hope to find its fill.

It is said “Judge not that ye not be judged”. Don’t believe it; you will be judged anyway.

The Gods sit in full court
And judge the ways of men.
Their ways are not our ways,
Their wants are not our wants,
Their hopes are not our hopes,
But it is their will and not ours
That is done
And recorded in the annals of time.

This poem was recently (2005) retrieved from a long misplaced folder; I leave it to the reader as to whether it should have stayed misplaced. I suppose I have to say that I never felt the emotions portrayed in this poem. Some people find it upsetting anyway. I can’t imagine why.

I hate man.
I hate every man, woman, and child,
   Every misshapen monstrosity bearing the human name.
My face is stone; my soul is sickened
As I look upon the puling, smelly visage of humanity.
I hate Man and all his works.
I hate that which gives him aid:
   The soil, that he does not starve;
   The air, that he does not choke;
   The water, that he does not parch.
I hate the Sun, that gives him warmth,
   And the stars that light his night.
I hate the whole stinking universe
   For evolving this misbegotten, ill conceived,
   Puking, puling, leprous, snot nosed
   Caricature called Man.
I hate Man.
I hate his works –
   His radio, his television,
   His arts, his science,
   His highways and billboards,
   His manufactures and creations.
Everything that man has touched,
That bears the Judas touch of human hand,
That thing I hate.

I hate the mothers that spill the sickly byproducts
   Of their vapid fornication into the cofferwells
      Of humanity;
   The fathers, whose lecherous lusts
   Perpetuate a race of howling degenerate monsters;
   And the children, whose childish innocence
   Is the unguided barbaric savagery
   Of monsters intent on their sadistic games

I hate Man.
He is ugly, and his warped mishapen body
Conceals a shriveled soul still uglier.
His greatest triumphs are a shabby shyster’s tricks
And his virtues those of a psychopathic criminal.
His life is an endless stench of mendacity,
Of hypocrisy clothed in hypocrisy.
He is the putrescent scum,
   The rotting, stinking offal
   Of an evolutionary track gone wrong.

His name is Man.
It is the name of the rottenest, filthiest creature of all.
I hate him.
I hate the present that he does not die,
   The past, that he did not die,
   And the future if he not be dead.
I hate his guts, his intestines, and his liver.
I hate his heart, that it does not stop,
   His mouth which spews forth filth,
   And his brain that directs and plans his repulsive behaviour.
I hate his very existence
   Which is an unavenged insult to the universe.
I hate him in particular and in general –
   At every place and every time.
I hate everything that bears his stinking fetid breath.
I hate him with every fiber, every nerve,
   Every atom, every electron of my being.
I hate him.

This is another poem retrieved from that long misplaced folder. It’s rather florid; Shakespeare did it better in Macbeth.

Why do you haunt me? I buried you long ago.
The wronged are dead – there is no one left to know.
The ones I wronged are in the past, with steel in their hearts
And those who bore me witness are dismembered into parts.
What do you want, you phantoms of the night –
You tortured shapes that shudder in my sight?
Have I not destroyed you and put you in the grave?
What long forgotten secrets do you wish to seek to save?
Do not return – go back from whence you came;
Your lives are gone and I wish you’d do the same.
Cursed haunts, can’t you let me sleep in peace?
How can I ever rest if your visits never cease?
I am strong – Haven’t I won my way at last?
I have slain all my foes – must I also slay the past?
You are dead – you are dead – I killed you long ago.
There is no one left to spite me; I’ve vanquished every foe.
Why do you rise to haunt me and put my life afoul;
Why invade my ill lost sleep with your moaning, screeching howl?
Must these visions go on forever, won’t they ever stop?
Must the chimeras of the valley rise to the mountain top?
You’re damned, you haunts, I’ll put you to an end.
Your insubstantial garments with silver I shall rend.
Though you be haunts I’ll tear you limb from limb
And find the secret formulae to make your lights do dim.
For I must be the master and all shall be my slave
And those who won’t obey me shall early find the grave.
So let me be, you wretches from the past;
Forbear to light my way by your eerie spectral cast.
I need you not, I want you not, I do not like your smell.
Go back from whence you came and join your souls in Hell.
Let me be, let me be, you visions of the night,
Let me rest in peace – I cannot bear your sight.
Really I am good, for my evil has all been done.
So let me enjoy in peace the victories I have won.
God Damn you, you are dead, you eerie nightly haunts.
Forbear to torture me with your spectral taunts.
Let me rest – I have done no wrong;
Go back, oh God go back to the graves where you belong.

And yet another poem from the folder. The image of the soldier marching on eternally is one that recurs in my verse. The image of the cursed immortal, be he wandering Jew or Vandervecken, is an ancient and powerful one.

The darkest soldier marches on
All his comrades lost and gone
Grimy serpents fogged in gray
Entwine themselves about his way
His shining sword is sheathed in rust
His iron might has turned to dust
His haunted eyes are filled with death
His eagle cry is a whimpering breath
He asks of life with hand unsure
And asks of death a quicker cure
His soul is burnt by dead desires
And all his dreams are dying fires
He bares his soul, he burns his heart
He tears his inner self apart
He is the soldier, darkest one
He is Hell’s forgotten son
He shall seek and shall not find
And seek again with broken mind
He is the soldier filled with dust
With broken mind and broken trust
His banners bright are ripped and torn
His shining armor’s scarred and worn
His solemn glories are gone to Hell
And all his hopes are gone as well
And though his every dream is gone
This darkest soldier marches on

This one is for the serial killer in all of us.

If I kill it isn’t wrong
It’s what I want to do
Men must die and I must kill
And it’s only right
The two should be the same.

So it’s blood, blood, blood
Till your gore runs in the mud
‘Cause I know, ’cause I know
What I gotta do

Snapping bones and cracking skulls
And dead men on the floor
I’ll never kill enough
Until I kill some more

Oh, it’s blood, blood, blood
Till your gore runs in the mud
‘Cause I know, ’cause I know
What I gotta do

Perhaps life itself is a voyage from which there is no returning.

Three of us walked along the wharf
Its gray boards creaking at every step
The boy was quick and gay
Eager to see the sailing ships
The old man was tired and weary
But his eyes lit up at the sailing ships
I, too, looked upon the sailing ships
But my eyes were sad eyes
For I must sail on a sailing ship

Three coins were shining on the bar
One to pay for the drink
That sparkled in the glass before me
One to give to the boy
To buy a whistle or a shiny knife
And one for a drink to go as I must go
To sail upon a sailing ship

Three ships sitting in the bay
With white sails furled against the sky
Their crews awash with eagerness
Seeking adventure in foreign seas
The center ship is my ship
On which I’ll sail away

Three trees, side by side
Casting shade upon the walk
Upon three lovers and their loves
Exchanging lover’s talk
Three men, three coins, three ships
Three hours until I sail
Three years, three long and empty years
To sail, and nowhere to return

I don’t know why I wrote this one.

Lincoln’s doctor’s dog
Was a mangy mutt
A flea bitten hound
That bit the President
They shot the dog
They shot the man
They should have shot
The doctor

Index Of First Lines

In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
My gods are dark gods that crawl and creep of night
You have told me
The world is dark and dreary
We sail — the fleet is on its way
The words that once did sound so grand
Green it grows and green it be
The old gray god is past his time
In my elder days I did dream
The iron edge of time
So I’m a coward – so what?
I thought I’d write a word or two
A moment
The children cry at night now
Night is a friend
I am tired and about to cry
What did they say, did you hear?
Men have writ with wondrous words
Out of the guts of weakness comes the mighty wail
I had a dream once, the substance of my life
I heard a child cry in the dark
Fire is a friend; it burns.
The world is nothing, nowhere, dead
For decades I did seek in search of certain truth
The gambler sat at cards all night
I am the prairie. I am the West.
Do not fret my dear
Our deep and noble passions are not sustained
This I know to be quite true
The paranoid has his delusions
Ten thousand marching troops
The bombs fell like gentle rain
Life, to me, is an empty thing which tears my soul apart
The Emperor of Space
Evening falls unguarded
Was at the museum the other day
My wandering feet do call me, for my home is on the road
The Gods sit in full court
I hate man.
Why do you haunt me? I buried you long ago.
The darkest soldier marches on
If I kill it isn’t wrong
Three of us walked along the wharf
Lincoln’s doctor’s dog