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On the fleet streams, the Sun, that late arose, In amber radiance plays; the tall young grass No foot hath bruised; clear morning, as I pass, Breathes the pure gale, that on the blossom blows; And, as with gold yon green hill’s summit glows, The lake inlays the vale with molten glass: Now is the year’s soft youth, yet one, alas! Cheers not as it was wont; impending woes Weigh on my heart; the joys, that once were mine, Spring leads not back; and those that yet remain Fade while she blooms. Each hour more lovely shine Her crystal beams, and feed her floral train, But oh with pale, and warring fires, decline Those eyes, whose light my filial hopes sustain.

Behold that tree, in Autumn’s dim decay, Stripped by the frequent, chill, and eddying wind; Where yet some yellow, lonely leaves we find Lingering and trembling on the naked spray, Twenty, perchance, for millions whirled away! Emblem, also! too just, of humankind! Vain man expects longevity, designed For few indeed; and their protracted day What is it worth that Wisdom does not scorn? The blasts of sickness, care, and grief appal, That laid the friends in dust, whose natal morn Rose near their own; and solemn is the call; Yet, like those weak deserted leaves forlorn, Shivering they cling to life, and fear to fall!

All the kids came rumbling down the wood tenement Shaky stairs, sneakers slapping against the worn Tin tread edges, downhall came Pepo, Chino, Cojo, Curly bursting from the door like shells exploding Singing "I'm a Rican Doodle Dandy" and "What shall We be today, Doctors or Junkies, Soldiers or Winos?" Pepo put a milk crate on a Spanish Harlem johnny pump And drops opened like paratroopers carrying war news. Then Urban Renewal attacked the pump, cleared the slums Blamed Puerto Rico and dispersed the Spies, blasting Them into the Army or Anywhere Avenue in the Bronx. And nobody, but nobody, came back from that summer. Just as Korea was death in service to the warring Nation The Bronx was death in service to the negligent Nation

Why & what is sweetness all alone? Either that or it becomes, alas, fleeting, Which actually helps, because of rhythm. & there’s a pale intensity to truth, no matter How pale it is on the levels we receive on. I mean, the minute you invent a time interval The more it seems to “jelly out” the excitation Of accidents;zum Beispiel, “Saginaw, Michigan.” After a while, we almost expect him or her To inveigle us into a cafe without bay-breasted warblers. It’s almost like we have a streak of orange-smell Which nobody’ll pay for because they can’t talk to it, Although that’s probably all wrong, or at least falsified By its very mention, like gravity. Do you agree?

Monterosa, your body is dead on Avenue A. Angelo, They found you eyes open staring at the beer Soaked floorboards. Did you want that? Did You mind them filling your back with buckshot? Angelo, I am angry with them all, and you Monterosa Killed and killers, killing and dealing dope. No good You were, no good they are. Still, I wish their fate To be bodies stacking under the same blue smoke. Monterosa, there is blood on your song, blood on the juke Box. The cowbell, the conga, and your corpse form the trio That is the rhinestone pin of my failure, your failure, Our failure, who loved, but did not rescue Angelo. Angel, hold him, while I bury him in these clean words, And pray to see the resurrection of the rose mountain.

I was reading Jeffrey Goldberg’s new piece In The Atlantic— it was the one about President Obama’s decision not To be persuaded by a commonplace That our credibility hinges on the use Of swift and massive lethal force despite Pressure even from his own Cabinet Appalled that Assad shelled Ghouta with sarin gas — When I thought of your poem on the way Of denial, “Via Negativa,” whose lines Celebrated their (your rhyme) reticence. Why am I even talking this way to you? I watched you being buried, yet in the end I wonder if I had ever been your friend.

having studied swarthmore charts and mirrors, fashion magazines, foucault, bloom, bad light, whereof—hereof—had not become clearer; what vision to present as first self-sight. self quit; put on boots and a see-through dress, some thought it was ironic "self-object- ification", said they were not impressed. some guessed that "honesty" was self's subject, were put off nonetheless, self-asked: to sleep with me? who would? self flat, self one inch deep, self-glimpsed not much in that giant mirror: innocence -credulity, self doth protest! hey! presumptuous interlocutor! pissed off, thwarted, played, and soon, undressed!

Grief dies like joy; the tears upon my cheek Will disappear like dew. Dear God! I know Thy kindly Providence hath made it so, And thank thee for the law. I am too weak To make a friend of Sorrow, or to wear, With that dark angel ever by my side (Though to thy heaven there be no better guide), A front of manly calm. Yet, for I hear How woe hath cleansed, how grief can deify, So weak a thing it seems that grief should die, And love and friendship with it, I could pray, That if it might not gloom upon my brow, Nor weigh upon my arm as it doth now, No grief of mine should ever pass away.

I scarcely grieve, O Nature! at the lot That pent my life within a city’s bounds, And shut me from thy sweetest sights and sounds. Perhaps I had not learned, if some lone cot Had nursed a dreamy childhood, what the mart Taught me amid its turmoil; so my youth Had missed full many a stern but wholesome truth. Here, too, O Nature! in this haunt of Art, Thy power is on me, and I own thy thrall. There is no unimpressive spot on earth! The beauty of the stars is over all, And Day and Darkness visit every hearth. Clouds do not scorn us: yonder factory’s smoke Looked like a golden mist when morning broke.

I thank you, kind and best beloved friend, With the same thanks one murmurs to a sister, When, for some gentle favor, he hath kissed her, Less for the gifts than for the love you send, Less for the flowers, than what the flowers convey; If I, indeed, divine their meaning truly, And not unto myself ascribe, unduly, Things which you neither meant nor wished to say, Oh! tell me, is the hope then all misplaced? And am I flattered by my own affection? But in your beauteous gift, methought I traced Something above a short-lived predilection, And which, for that I know no dearer name, I designate as love, without love’s flame.