Brian's Eyes

If you could see the world through Brian's eyes
Each morning there would be a new sunrise
It rises for the foolish
It shines for the wise
Those who find a place for God
In all that they recognize
Every step a dance
No being so delighted in movement
Can't you imagine being a boy?
This is the genius of joy


What's the good of sleeping
When there's so much to do?
Wide awake at first light
Every day to start anew
A world to begin again
In merry eyes of blue

He understands the 
    worth                     
Of talismans and charm
To influence events
And forestall harm
And maybe only the bottom
    of the ninth
As reason for alarm
Every moment another chance
To see something that's never
    been seen
An actor in the new creation
Quicksilver and amphetamine
Can't you imagine being a boy?
This is the genius of joy


What's the good of sleeping
When there's so much to do?
Wide awake at first light
Every day to start anew
A world to create again
In merry eyes of blue

All you have to do is watch
    long enough
One day you're sure to see the wind
Keep your eyes wide open
It's bound to come around again
And it might invite you where it's going
You can tell it where you've been
Feed a bobcat some goldfish
Tame it with a glance
Know every moment
As another last chance
Can't you imagine being a boy?
This is the genius of joy


What's the good of sleeping
When there's so much to do?
Wide awake at first light
Every day to start anew
A world to create again
In merry eyes of blue

So come tripping down the stairs
Combing back your golden hair
Remarking how the nighttime flies
Yes, it's morning already again
Will you be married?
Will you be rich?
Whatever will be, will be
Yet you begin until you end
Go always toward where happiness lies
Seek in the familiar reason for surprise
Know that no heavenly body
   in celestial skies
Matches the glory of first light
   in Brian's eyes
Can't you imagine being a boy?
This is the genius of joy


What's the good of sleeping
When there's so much to do?
Wide awake at first light
Every day to start anew
A world to create again
In merry eyes of blue

Ted Williams (The Solitude of Perfection)

The runners you left on base
Are still waiting, the infielders shifted
Boudreau forever cogitating
The fans, fated to watch, impotent
    and rapidly shuttling
Between love and hatred
Not for artists the vainglory of flags
Your vision is keener, fixed on the
    rotation of a sphere spinning
    in space and time
Too brief or grand for measure
Let others call them what they see,
    ball four or strike three
It does not make them so
And none of them understands why
Sometimes one must spit at expectations
So that it may remain as free, enchained though it be by its own quest
Which demands of it greater stillness
The freed mind cannot
But restlessly wander from such quotidian tasks
As the pursuit of fly balls
The spurious necessity of which is proclaimed most loudly
By those whose inability to do as you
Creates a need therefore seldom worth the required attention
Diligence has its place and no doubt substantial rewards therein
History can be redeemed only in a present that is weightless, an eternal instant
Shattered to perfection with one act, that swing
Of perception, and only then
And then is gone again to begin again all over
Tomorrow there will be another game, and tomorrow
The runners you left on base are stll waiting
Resentful of their need and your pride, understanding neither
While you seek to make yourself free of them
In selfish performance, providing what they most want
Chasing them around again home, that best-wanted and least-known place
You wish to outdo nature, others only to serve it

Faith

A rainbow over the graveyard

Or is that hope?

Deathsong

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

You surrounded my poor father

And you hounded him down

O death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

You captured my baby brother

And you laid him in the ground

O death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

You haunted my own mother

Left her home a desolate place

O death, O death

I will remember thee

    

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

You tempted the little chidren

When you found no one around

O death, O death

I will remember thee 

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

I stared right in your eyes

Spoke to you by your true name

O death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

You took our common garden

And you laid it all to waste

O death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

You laid hands on my beautiful sister

Made her make a crying sound

O death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

You ambushed my lovers

When we were glorybound

O death, O death

I will remember thee


Death, O death
I will remember thee
Death, O death
I will remember thee
You overtook my dear friends
Waylaid them right out there on the road
O death, O death
I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

I will remember thee

We raised many mansions

You burned everything you found 

O death, O death

I will remember thee

Death, O death

Let me be

Death, O death

Please let me be

We ask only for a little while

You have eternity

O death, O death

Please let me be 

All the King's Horses, All the Hanged Men

Way down here the high sheriff
Keeps a list of names
And next to every one
Is the reason for their shame
Some were unwed mothers
Some were partners in crime
Some forged transport papers to paradise
Others just stayed high all the time
Some people got more than they need
Some people ain't got enough
Some call it good fortune, some call it greed
Some call the sheriff when things get rough


Goddamn the hangman
Goddamn the crown
Goddamn the lord and his lady
In their castle when they lay their heads down
Goddamn the judge
Goddamn the king
Goddamn this land
Of thee I sing

The little boy's bike bounced for  a ways  down the highway
After it fell from the back of the truck
Lightning was marching its way across the mountains
Kindling fire in the trees every place that it struck
The smoke joined with the clouds and rose straight to heaven
Like the souls of innocents at the slaughter
He walked in the truth
Like sunlight across the water
By now he would have died six more times already
Been resurrected and forgiven
Hid in plain sight as they rolled away the stone
Praised Jesus and many things that are forbidden

Diplomats testify that history
Is the memory of states
Those poets never lie who
Foretell ruin in a dog starved at his master's gate
There's no crime in being poor the multitude preaches
Outside the wire the women grieve
The uncreated light is the light of the eyes,
        the prophet teaches
A new social gospel for beggars and thieves
He led the children's crusade and consorted with lepers
Forgave his debtors ahead of the jubilee
We watched in hiding as the soldiers cut his body down
Watched in silence amidst the conspiring trees

Goddamn the hangman
Goddamn the crown
Goddamn the lord and his lady
In their castle when they lay their heads down
Goddamn the judge
Goddamn the king
Goddamn this land
Of thee I sing

We don't owe you anything, the court opines
On a foreign runway rifles are offloaded in wooden crates
The computers lock on target, the missiles 
    scream and whine
The world is made free to determine its fate
Thirty pieces of silver is a paltry sum
For those who live inside the gates
Who still make their fortunes in slaves and rum
Precious metals, derivatives, and interest rates
The empire stretches from coast to coast
And halfway around the world
Secured by capital and the Holy Ghost
And a pirate's flag unfurled
Now the people all have worried faces
Troubled heart and smallpox dreams
The rulers worry about lipstick traces
Blood pressure coughs and bomb-proof limousines

Goddamn the hangman
Goddamn the crown
Goddamn the lord and his lady
In their castle when they lay their heads down
Goddamn the judge
Goddamn the king
Goddamn this land
Of thee I sing

He came back from the jungle with a Purple Heart
China White in his duffel bag and voices in his head
Everything he needed to make a new start
Except that he was already dead
He killed an old lady one night as she prayed
In her hooch down in the Central Valley
Tagged her body with tfillin for the medics to find
Called in a dust-off and dragged her out to the alley
Charlie was invisible in the night and the fog
The grey wolf is something you can see
Kill the body and the head must die
Set the spirits free


Maybe it is best you don't know what I'm thinking
Cause if you did then you'd be me

Goddamn the hangman
Goddamn the crown
Goddamn the lord and his lady
In their castle when they lay their heads down
Goddamn the judge
Goddamn the king
Goddamn this land
Of thee I sing


I saw a half-dozen hundred sufferers 
   in the circle
They were invisible to the righteous
Women and children following 
   the men away
To the farm, down the river, upstate,
   out of sight

Just right then they looked pretty well beaten down
But the peasants give them bread, wine, and shelter 
    along the way
Until one among you burns to proclaim this tale
As a lie in my ears is every word you may pray
When the jails are full the father weeps
For children and mothers left all alone
The alchemists' dream realized at millenium's end
Gold and high office conjured from corpuscles and bones
You cleared away the forests, strip-mined your own land
In search of the philosopher's stone
How can you be certain you have hours enough 
   to bury your dead
Or days sufficient in which to atone?


Goddamn the hangman
Goddamn the crown
Goddamn the lord and his lady
In their castle when they lay their heads down
Goddamn the judge
Goddamn the king
Goddamn this land
Of thee I sing