The Hate Song of J. Alfred Puddingstone

Let us come now, you and I

While the sunlight sears the infinite sky

Like a drunkard drowned in bullneck brine;

Let us trod on brambled paths

Through halls of hushed paragraphs

And muddy clutches of quicksand thoughts

Paths that weave like freakish snakes

One-forked, disallowing deep amends

And lead to the inevitable answer

no longer dissecting punic thorns

abandoning words that spring stillborn.

In the deep forest men go and come

crackling voices like double-snare drums.

The beneficent breeze practicing its breath on the doors

The zephyr that creaks the cracks of floors

Angled its eyes into the light

Held sway with children's colorful kites

Let breathe the tidings tripping up stairs

Slipped by the battings, a strange advance

And noting the kindly August air

Circled thrice about the yard, wiped its eyes

And looked askance.

There will be space for winsome winds that

glide like ghost through zigzag streets

licking with lungs the walls and doors

there will be space, there will be space

For grooming your soul for the souls you meet

There will be space for travels and stays

And space for both your trembling hands

To plunk the answers on flowered trays.

Room for me and room for you

But no room left for imprecisions

Or for further wide and deep incisions

After the tease of cheese and brew.

In the forest men go and come

crackling voices like double-snare drums.

There will be no space

To reconsider, I do dare, do not dare

to pierce a plum,

Just space to amble out the stairs

With snowwhite roots of ageing hair

(They will say, how her hair is losing hue!)

My thready robe growing thin

My morning gown sleek and blue

(They will say, but how her eyes are losing hue!)

Do I dare disturb the world?

In one footfall there is there space to say

hree words which, heard, are patent slurred.

I have felt it all, it all by now

The pregnant summers;  aborting snow

Have judged my deeds with measuring cups

I know the feeling of final bows

After dancing in the candlelit rooms

So what remains to assume?

And I have known the deadened ears

Portaculas closing for the night

And when I am silenced, upon a shelf

Am muted by the darkened drawer

Why strut and stumble from blight to blight?

So what tremains to assume?

And I have known the embraces by now

Hands that are large and tender and haired

(but in the daylight, rough with wear!)

Is it angel's kisses from hungry lips

That distract my eyes, my breast, my hips?

Hands that rest upon a lap or droop sweet fruit

like a bountiful bough?

And should I then assume?

And how to make a start?

I can say, I have slunk through alleyways

And  litter that is sighs and brays

Of midaged women with dwindling hair.

I should have been an octopus

Lithe legs bouncing off brackish seas.

And the seasons, the seasons, rail so loud

Angry flashes and freezings and froths

Lucubrate, constant, subsumed with coughs

That wrack the mattress with storm clouds

Should I, after coffee and scones

Again offer those rejected tones?

I have laughed and been scoffed

and scoffed and damned

And my head upon the platter,

have cannibal-dined, I've no crystal ball

And no real banter

Am no seer, and worship no master

I have seen the seed of my genius wither

And the shadow of endings snuff my flame

Roll out the list of guilt and blame

And heard the doors abundantly slam.

Have heard the mermen siren me

Make no mistake now, no mistake

We drown our dreamings to awake.

--------------

copyright Julianza Shavin 2008