DIANA LEAVES HER BATH

    (after Francois Boucher)

 

I tramped through the woods,

The image of a painting

Dazzling my vision,

Like the noonday sun stared at

With presumptuous folly—

 

Seeking that lovely

Bare leg raised like my ardor,

Aching for contact,

Breathless for her breathing form:

Wilderness was my reward.

 

It is just as well:

If my dreams had come true,

What would have happened?

I would have crossed the fine line

Between the ideal and the real.

 

She would have killed me,

If I had come upon her

Unexpectedly—

Not because her guard was down,

Her warlike demeanor dropped

 

With her proud wardrobe,

But because I’d seen the look

In her dull eyes;

Her flesh so desirable

She seemed without desire,

 

With an innocence

Bordering on stupidity.

And before I’d guessed

There was nothing there but paint

Stroked upon a canvas void,

 

I’d have been struck dead

By the arrows of her wrath:

The indignation

Of a deity unveiled

Without due adulation.  

 

NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM

  

The peacock exploded on New Year's Day.

It was like Hiroshima, like Nagasaki:

Exhilarating, cold--like a perfect crime

planned without passion.

 

It was Pride going before the fallout,

ignorant of the consequences--

talons shuffling on asphalt through withered leaves.

 

I looked up and say you coming in the cloud,

your tiny pointed head peeking out,

the blue incandescence shrouding the rest of you.

 

We expected all the colors of the rainbow.

We expected diversity.

We expected to justify the ways of Man to God.

But it wasn't salvation we got--

Turns out we didn't know what we were praying for.

 

What we got was Oneness,

obliterating everything we dreamed of,

making us all unrecognizable--

mutated, twisted, grotesque beasts

toting Geiger counters into the Apocalypse.

 END OF SUMMER

  

Giggles of delight:

Two babies squeal

and splash at the beach,

while Mama and Aunt

hold them under the armpits;

waves coming up from behind,

soaking the ladies’ rear ends.

Look at those diapers

bloated with brine!

 

Four little hands

pat down the meek waves

that vanish at four naked feet.

Two smiles without teeth

flash instamatically

with the camera’s wink.

 

“Did you ever,” I asked

the Old Man of The Sea,

as he leaned on his trident

and stared at the waves,

“have so much fun playing

out there in the water,

you forgot who you were--

and became Everything?”

 

BAR ISLAND, BAR HARBOR

  

At certain times of day your wheels can drive

Along the sand bar stretching to extend

From town across the bay to the island,

Before your tracks get swallowed by the tide

Where whelks cling and myopic lobsters thrive.

There you can park upon the farther shore,

Beside a sign that warns lest you ignore

The moon-conducted waters when they rise.

Consider the experience of two

Green tourists who in their expensive jeep

Parked there and went exploring, when twelve feet

Of Frenchman’s Bay had gone to sea. They rued

The day they kayaked out to some far isle

And back again to lose their vehicle.

AN ACADEMIC MILESTONE

  

Congratulations, Sir, on the Degree

For which you leaped through circus hoops to gain!

At last you are a Doctor; and that name

Will be a mantra for you as you seed

The field that you have labored in for years

As servant to a master whom you fear,

And yet whose office you intend to seize.

Your strategy is cold and circumspect;

For human intercourse is just a game

In which you score while others smart with shame,

Defeated by your scheming Intellect.

Your Title would make good the hurt they feel,

If you were but a Doctor who could heal.

 

     THE WEEKDAY SONG

  

The hunchback hobbled homeward

At twilight one fine day,

And spied a band of fairies

A-dancing in his way

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

“Come dance with us, O hunchback!”

They shouted from their ring.

“Come sing the Song of Weekdays

Permitted us to sing

      On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.”

 

The hunchback joined their circle,

And hand in hand he danced,

The fairy queen his partner,

Exalting in a trance

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

The fays were so delighted

The hunchback danced so well,

They took the hump that stooped him

And blessed him with a spell

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

Though crooked he had joined in,

He parted from them straight;

And no one recognized him

When he came home so late

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

The night was young; the fairies

Commenced again their reel,

All in the merry moonlight,

In all their joy revealed

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

Along then came a tailor,

A bold and handsome man

Who stepped up to the dancers,

And pushed into their band

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

He gave the queen a sly wink,

And rudely wrapped his arm

About her fairy shoulders,

And chanted with the charm

     Of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

And so this foolish person

Cavorted with the fays,

Until he added Thursday,

Friday, and Saturday

       To Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

Then everything got ugly.

The fairies held him down

And clapped the hump upon him

The hunchback had disowned

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

Now you who hear this story

It may be, are forewarned:

The Humble are made perfect,

The Vain become deformed,

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

 

From an incident recorded in “The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries,” by W. Y. Evans-Wentz

 

SUNSET, BAR HARBOR

 

Now piping down the setting of the sun,

The man in kilts and leather jacket stands

By Frenchman’s Bay upon a floating dock,

Facing the birth of evening; his black hair

Tied back; his face averted from the crowd

That gathers on the quay. He concentrates

Upon the music flowing like sea tides

Through all the ears within his sphere of sound;

Through all the islands, all the granite tors

That overlook Bar Harbor and beyond.

The sun descends behind a hill, and casts

Its shivering light beams upon a shaft

Across the waters to the piper’s feet,

And bathes with glory all his orphic form.