bwo · September 4, 2025 18:07
diff --git a/viereck.txt b/viereck.txt
 HEXAMETERS, PENTAMETERS

 I.

 Too tuned to your personal rhythm on stairways, I lose for your sake
 Everything else in the world into overtones, all out of reach.
 Because, when tired, your forehead is earnest as children at play
 Many a garden ago, your shoulders many shrugs older,
 Therefore I memorize wildly the face I see, outside and in,
 Each ray-like eyelash skirting some afterglow long out of reach.
 So does sky's afterglow drag out of reach on hilltops
 Frayed rays of party-skirts, girl's flounce of purple. No,
 Already gray.

 II.

 Shadow of cheekbones, clouded slant of cheeks
 I see but not the skeleton beneath
 That lovers hymn in banal bitterness.
 If I unveil that face-veiled future also,
 Then what I see is this: not skull but urn.
 A quick light flounce of ashes out of reach,
 Is this the dusty hem of the last trailing
 Of party-skirts, a moment's purple? No,
 Already gray.

 PROÖIMION

 Evil and Easter steer this star, rash babe.
 Foul fellow He who dolve so strait a glebe.
 Fey fellow He who died for such daft globe.
 Woe worth the mime who be thy astrolabe.

 Though woxe a wight so stout as oaken wood,
 Sware he by Mahound—or by Godis rood,
 Cowl-clad—or clipt more doxies than he wed,
 Him felled swart axman that more stoutly hewed.
    … Ho Carpenter! wilt mend our smitten wood?

 Newcomer, reck no rede but this, perfay:
 Thy masque below hight "Love and Wellaway"
 (Certës, withouten both were nary play).
 Then strut thy buskins; sigh but strut them gay.

 Boy, stand too proud for chapmen when they prate.
 (Or carl or younker, equally asqew.)
 'Tus mummers, mummers do delight Jesú.
 Only the gleeman glegly ogles fate.

 Foul fellow lispeth sweet but drinketh gore.
 Fey fellow He who drank vile ginegar;
 For love of thee, He gat Him thorny gear;
 He gat scant dayspring for the dawn He bare.

 Twain fellows have ahnd halve the soul of thee;
 Sic bane and boon hath each nativity.
 Furies and nurses trim each fldgling-tree.
 And I: as mime.
     And in thy pate all three.

 AGAIN, AGAIN

 Who here's afraid to gawk at lilacs?
 Who won't stand up and praise the moon?
 Who doubts that skies still ache for skylarks
 And waves are lace upon the dune?
 But flowering grave-dust, flowerlike snow-dust,
 But tinkling dew, but fun of hay,
 But soothing buzz and scent of sawdust
 Have all been seen, been said—we say.

 BANALITY, our saint, our silly:
 The sun's your adverb, named "Again";
 You wake us with it willy-nilly
 And westward wait to tuck us in.
 Trite flame, we try so hard to flout you,
 But even to shock you is cliché.
 O inescapable and dowdy.
 O tedium of dawn each day.

 Who's new enough, most now, most youngest
 Enough to eye you most again?
 Who'll love the rose that love wore longest,
 Yet say it fresher than quick rain?
 I'll see. I'll say. I'll find the word.
 All earth must lilt then, willy-nilly,
 Trapt by one golden banal chord
 Of August, wine, and waterlily.

 MARY, MARY
 (a four-volume Ph.D. thesis on Rousseau and original sin)

 Mary, long by Boss's kisses bored,
 Quit desk and stole His yacht and jumped aboard.
 Her lamb took she, for purer were his kisses.
 Compass and pistol took she in her purse.
 Free sailed she north to eat new freedom up.
 And her helped ocean and grew calm and snored.
 But when with bleating chum she cuddled up,
 Unleashed His typhoons Boss; therein no bliss is.
 Then knew she—by four signs—whose jig was up:—

 Her buoyed the life-preserver down, not up;
 True was the pistol's aim, but in reverse;
 The compass steered, but only toward abysses;
 The little lamb nipped Mary's thighs and roared.

 I ALONE AM MOVING

 You all are static; I alone am moving.
 Racing beyond each planted Pullman wheel,
    I pity you and long to reel
 You through my thousand outstretched ways of loving.
 Are you alive at all? Can non-trees feel?

 Run while I may, for at my pith gnaws night.
 The winds—these are great stacks of anchored air;
    I thresh them with my hard-pronged hair;
 I jump right through them, roaring my delight.
 Live while I may—run, run, no matter where.

 How marvelous, if you but knew, is speed!
 You all must wait; I am your overatker.
    Striding to green from yellow acre,
 I toss you spring. Each dawn, my tendrils knead
 Stars into pancake-suns like a tall baker.

 Trudging toward snowtime, I can mope for hours
 To think of birds, the birds I leave behind.
    Why did the God who keeps you blind,
 Instead give sight and sentience to my flowers?
 Black questions in my sap outwear my rind.

 Humans (I almost envy you your peace)
 Are free of this gnarled urge for Absolutes
    Which sweetens and saddens all my fruits,
 Dragging my twigs down when I'd fly towards bliss—
 While bugs and diamonds agonize my roots.

 THE SLACKER APOLOGIZES
 "An artist is a philistine depsite himself, a patriotic moralist with a bad conscience. When his art shouts 'beauty,' his conscience shouts 'duty!'. Solution unsatisfactory." — The Manndelbaum Chronicles

 We trees were chopping down the monsters in the
    Street to count their rings.
 WHO BLEST OUR WAR? The oak invoked: "Within Thee
 Crus, Mother, quakingly these red-sapped things
    Whose harrowings
 Wrong The Clean dirt. Kill, kill all alien kings."

 Crowned by black moss or by obscener yellow,
    The flowerless monsters stood
 On soil-blaspheming asphalt. How they'd bellow
 Each time we hacked them—just as if their crude
    Numb root-pairs could
 Feel feeling. O Goddess, the glory of being wood!

 Then games of peace. WHO WAS THE POET? I!
    I was the willow lyre.
 Even the oak was silent; melody
 Maddened whole meadows like a forest-fire
    To hear my  choir
 Of leaves beat, beat, and beat upon each wire

 Of winds I tamed and tuned so artfully
    It seemed an artless game.
 You! weed back ther!, don't think I didn't see
 You yawning. Bored? Well, try to do the same!
    What? Suddenly lame?
 Come, come, step up and sing—or wither in shame.

 Then crooned the crass young weed: "Last night my stamen
    Could hear her pistil sigh.
 Though far the garden that her petals flame in,
 We touched in dreams the hour that bee flew by.
    My pollen's shy
 Deep nuzzling tells her: weeds must love or die."

 Fools. How they cheered. But wait, I set them right:
    "Verse, verse, not poetry.
 Jingles for jungles: grosser groves delight
 In honey; but educated tastes decree
    Austerity.
 True art is bitter, but true art sets free.

 "True art, how can I serve thee half enough?
    Had I a thousand sprays,
 And every spray a thousand springs, they'd sough
 For beauty, beauty, beauty all their days—
    And still not praise
 Not half the whirlwind-wonder of they ways."

 At this the oak, our captain, roared me down:
    "Mere beauty wilts the will.
 Why are we here? To sing and play the clown?"
 The forest answered: "We are here to kill."
    … While monsters still
 Defile Thy loam, while trees know right from wrong,

 Forgive me, Mother, for the guilt of song.

 GRAY HAIR

 An old man without flowers
 Is lament without sorrow;
 Delighted dust
 Perpetrates noon.
 Sound of reaping
 Even in springtime
 Sings inside me
 Without sorry.
 Soft wind,
 I am not afraid to die.
	HEXAMETERS, PENTAMETERS

	I.

	Too tuned to your personal rhythm on stairways, I lose for your sake
	Everything else in the world into overtones, all out of reach.
	Because, when tired, your forehead is earnest as children at play
	Many a garden ago, your shoulders many shrugs older,
	Therefore I memorize wildly the face I see, outside and in,
	Each ray-like eyelash skirting some afterglow long out of reach.
	So does sky's afterglow drag out of reach on hilltops
	Frayed rays of party-skirts, girl's flounce of purple. No,
	Already gray.

	II.

	Shadow of cheekbones, clouded slant of cheeks
	I see but not the skeleton beneath
	That lovers hymn in banal bitterness.
	If I unveil that face-veiled future also,
	Then what I see is this: not skull but urn.
	A quick light flounce of ashes out of reach,
	Is this the dusty hem of the last trailing
	Of party-skirts, a moment's purple? No,
	Already gray.

	PROÖIMION

	Evil and Easter steer this star, rash babe.
	Foul fellow He who dolve so strait a glebe.
	Fey fellow He who died for such daft globe.
	Woe worth the mime who be thy astrolabe.

	Though woxe a wight so stout as oaken wood,
	Sware he by Mahound—or by Godis rood,
	Cowl-clad—or clipt more doxies than he wed,
	Him felled swart axman that more stoutly hewed.
	… Ho Carpenter! wilt mend our smitten wood?

	Newcomer, reck no rede but this, perfay:
	Thy masque below hight "Love and Wellaway"
	(Certës, withouten both were nary play).
	Then strut thy buskins; sigh but strut them gay.

	Boy, stand too proud for chapmen when they prate.
	(Or carl or younker, equally asqew.)
	'Tus mummers, mummers do delight Jesú.
	Only the gleeman glegly ogles fate.

	Foul fellow lispeth sweet but drinketh gore.
	Fey fellow He who drank vile ginegar;
	For love of thee, He gat Him thorny gear;
	He gat scant dayspring for the dawn He bare.

	Twain fellows have ahnd halve the soul of thee;
	Sic bane and boon hath each nativity.
	Furies and nurses trim each fldgling-tree.
	And I: as mime.
	And in thy pate all three.

	AGAIN, AGAIN

	Who here's afraid to gawk at lilacs?
	Who won't stand up and praise the moon?
	Who doubts that skies still ache for skylarks
	And waves are lace upon the dune?
	But flowering grave-dust, flowerlike snow-dust,
	But tinkling dew, but fun of hay,
	But soothing buzz and scent of sawdust
	Have all been seen, been said—we say.

	BANALITY, our saint, our silly:
	The sun's your adverb, named "Again";
	You wake us with it willy-nilly
	And westward wait to tuck us in.
	Trite flame, we try so hard to flout you,
	But even to shock you is cliché.
	O inescapable and dowdy.
	O tedium of dawn each day.

	Who's new enough, most now, most youngest
	Enough to eye you most again?
	Who'll love the rose that love wore longest,
	Yet say it fresher than quick rain?
	I'll see. I'll say. I'll find the word.
	All earth must lilt then, willy-nilly,
	Trapt by one golden banal chord
	Of August, wine, and waterlily.

	MARY, MARY
	(a four-volume Ph.D. thesis on Rousseau and original sin)

	Mary, long by Boss's kisses bored,
	Quit desk and stole His yacht and jumped aboard.
	Her lamb took she, for purer were his kisses.
	Compass and pistol took she in her purse.
	Free sailed she north to eat new freedom up.
	And her helped ocean and grew calm and snored.
	But when with bleating chum she cuddled up,
	Unleashed His typhoons Boss; therein no bliss is.
	Then knew she—by four signs—whose jig was up:—

	Her buoyed the life-preserver down, not up;
	True was the pistol's aim, but in reverse;
	The compass steered, but only toward abysses;
	The little lamb nipped Mary's thighs and roared.

	I ALONE AM MOVING

	You all are static; I alone am moving.
	Racing beyond each planted Pullman wheel,
	I pity you and long to reel
	You through my thousand outstretched ways of loving.
	Are you alive at all? Can non-trees feel?

	Run while I may, for at my pith gnaws night.
	The winds—these are great stacks of anchored air;
	I thresh them with my hard-pronged hair;
	I jump right through them, roaring my delight.
	Live while I may—run, run, no matter where.

	How marvelous, if you but knew, is speed!
	You all must wait; I am your overatker.
	Striding to green from yellow acre,
	I toss you spring. Each dawn, my tendrils knead
	Stars into pancake-suns like a tall baker.

	Trudging toward snowtime, I can mope for hours
	To think of birds, the birds I leave behind.
	Why did the God who keeps you blind,
	Instead give sight and sentience to my flowers?
	Black questions in my sap outwear my rind.

	Humans (I almost envy you your peace)
	Are free of this gnarled urge for Absolutes
	Which sweetens and saddens all my fruits,
	Dragging my twigs down when I'd fly towards bliss—
	While bugs and diamonds agonize my roots.

	THE SLACKER APOLOGIZES
	"An artist is a philistine depsite himself, a patriotic moralist with a bad conscience. When his art shouts 'beauty,' his conscience shouts 'duty!'. Solution unsatisfactory." — The Manndelbaum Chronicles

	We trees were chopping down the monsters in the
	Street to count their rings.
	WHO BLEST OUR WAR? The oak invoked: "Within Thee
	Crus, Mother, quakingly these red-sapped things
	Whose harrowings
	Wrong The Clean dirt. Kill, kill all alien kings."

	Crowned by black moss or by obscener yellow,
	The flowerless monsters stood
	On soil-blaspheming asphalt. How they'd bellow
	Each time we hacked them—just as if their crude
	Numb root-pairs could
	Feel feeling. O Goddess, the glory of being wood!

	Then games of peace. WHO WAS THE POET? I!
	I was the willow lyre.
	Even the oak was silent; melody
	Maddened whole meadows like a forest-fire
	To hear my choir
	Of leaves beat, beat, and beat upon each wire

	Of winds I tamed and tuned so artfully
	It seemed an artless game.
	You! weed back ther!, don't think I didn't see
	You yawning. Bored? Well, try to do the same!
	What? Suddenly lame?
	Come, come, step up and sing—or wither in shame.

	Then crooned the crass young weed: "Last night my stamen
	Could hear her pistil sigh.
	Though far the garden that her petals flame in,
	We touched in dreams the hour that bee flew by.
	My pollen's shy
	Deep nuzzling tells her: weeds must love or die."

	Fools. How they cheered. But wait, I set them right:
	"Verse, verse, not poetry.
	Jingles for jungles: grosser groves delight
	In honey; but educated tastes decree
	Austerity.
	True art is bitter, but true art sets free.

	"True art, how can I serve thee half enough?
	Had I a thousand sprays,
	And every spray a thousand springs, they'd sough
	For beauty, beauty, beauty all their days—
	And still not praise
	Not half the whirlwind-wonder of they ways."

	At this the oak, our captain, roared me down:
	"Mere beauty wilts the will.
	Why are we here? To sing and play the clown?"
	The forest answered: "We are here to kill."
	… While monsters still
	Defile Thy loam, while trees know right from wrong,

	Forgive me, Mother, for the guilt of song.

	GRAY HAIR

	An old man without flowers
	Is lament without sorrow;
	Delighted dust
	Perpetrates noon.
	Sound of reaping
	Even in springtime
	Sings inside me
	Without sorry.
	Soft wind,
	I am not afraid to die.
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