NOTHING BUT THE ALL

  

Young men and women, answer not the call

When politicians beat the drums of War:

Lay down your lives for nothing but the All.

 

Seek not for foes, but stem the bitter gall

Fermenting in a blind heart’s’ seething core.

Young men and women, answer not the call.

 

The world cannot be kept out by a Wall,

Or broken into Theirs and Mine and Yours.

Lay down your lives for nothing but the All.

 

Think not that when you stand so brave and tall

Your sins are covered by your uniforms:

Young men and women, answer not the call.

 

Two guardians enforce the Moral Law:

Your Conscience and your Shame sustain its norms.

Lay down your lives for nothing but the All.

 

Far better to be shunned or killed than fall

To that great folly, though you be abhorred.

Young men and women, answer not the call.

Lay down your lives for nothing but the All.

 

THE SIESTA OF SOCRATES’ DOG

  

Don’t make me tell you the truth

It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie

 

Instead you poke and you prod

And think it’s so cute

 

When you whisper my name in my ear

My tail thumps on the floor

 

My whiskers twitch when you tickle me

You can’t leave well enough alone

 

One day I’ll leap up and I’ll bite you

And then we’ll both be sorry

 

All I want is to go on dreaming

Let me continue lying that way

 

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.