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Angiolieri's "S ' i' fosse foco" If I were fire, I'd burn the world away; If I were wind, I'd blow it down; If I were water, I'd let it drown; If I were God, I'd deep-six it today. If I were Pope, what would make me gay? To ransack every Christian town. If I were emperor, what would make my day? To see heads roll on the ground! If I were death, I'd run down my father; If I were life, I'd flee from him. As for dear mama, she gets the same. If I were Cecco, and that is my name, I'd take the pretty young girls to screw and leave the ugly old hags to you.

Of thee, kind boy, I ask no red and white, To make up my delight; No odd becoming graces, Black eyes, or little know-not-whats in faces; Make me but mad enough, give me good store Of love for her I count; I ask no more, ’Tis love in love that makes the sport. There’s no such thing as that we beauty call, It is mere cozenage all; For though some, long ago, Liked certain colors mingled so and so, That doth not tie me now from choosing new; If I a fancy take To black and blue, That fancy doth it beauty make. ’Tis not the meat, but ’tis the appetite Makes eating a delight; And if I like one dish More than another, that a pheasant is; What in our watches, that in us is found: So to the height and nick We up be wound, No matter by what hand or trick.

* O fury- bedecked! O glitter-torn! Let the wild wind erect bonbonbonanzas; junipers affect frostyfreeze turbans; iciclestuff adorn all cuckolded creation in a madcap crown of horn! It’s a new day; no scapegrace of a sect tidying up the ashtrays playing Daughter-in-Law Elect; bells! bibelots! popsicle cigars! shatter the glassware! a son born now now while ox and ass and infant lie together as poor creatures will and tears of her exertion still cling in the spent girl’s eye and a great firework in the sky drifts to the western hill.

name address date I cannot remember an eye for an eye then and there my this    is your    se cond    ch ance    to h i s t o r y r e p e a t s i t s s e l f and a tooth for a tooth is a tooth:

The Augsburg poet once said he had tacked an image of the Man of Doubt to the wall of his room. A Chinese print. The image asked: how ought one to act? I have a photo on my wall. Twenty years ago seven Chinese workers looked into my lens. They look wary or ironic or tense. They know I do not write for them. I know they didn’t live for me. Yet sometimes I feel I’m being asked for more candid words, more credible deeds, by their doubtfulness. In turn I ask their help in making visible the contradictions and identities among us. If there’s a point, it’s this.

Is there a solitary wretch who hies To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow, And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes Its distance from the waves that chide below; Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf, With hoarse, half-uttered lamentation, lies Murmuring responses to the dashing surf? In moody sadness, on the giddy brink, I see him more with envy than with fear; He has no nice felicities that shrink From giant horrors; wildly wandering here, He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know The depth or the duration of his woe.

When they did greet me Father, sudden Awe Weigh'd down my spirit! I retired and knelt Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt No heavenly visitation upwards draw My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart. Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought The unquiet silence of confused Thought And shapeless feelings: my o'erwhelmed Heart Trembled: & vacant tears stream'd down my face. And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend, Lover of souls! and groan for future grace, That, ere my Babe youth's perilous maze have trod, Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend And he be born again, a child of God!

Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights. Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon! Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures, Settled at Balham by the end of June. Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures, And in Antofagastas. Still he went Cityward daily; still she did abide At home. And both were really quite content With work and social pleasures. Then they died. They left three children (besides George, who drank): The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell, William, the head-clerk in the County Bank, And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.

Alone it stands in Poesy’s fair land, A temple by the muses set apart; A perfect structure of consummate art, By artists builded and by genius planned. Beyond the reach of the apprentice hand, Beyond the ken of the unturtored heart, Like a fine carving in a common mart, Only the favored few will understand. A chef-d’oeuvre toiled over with great care, Yet which the unseeing careless crowd goes by, A plainly set, but well-cut solitaire, An ancient bit of pottery, too rare To please or hold aught save the special eye, These only with the sonnet can compare.

Puerto Rico was created when the pumpkin on top of The turtle burst and its teeming waters poured out With all mankind and beastkind riding on the waves Until the water drained leaving a tropical paradise. Puerto Rico was stumbled on by lost vampires bearing Crucifix in one hand, arquebus in the other, sucking The veins of land and men, tossing the pulp into the Compost heap which they used as the foundation for Their fortifications and other vainglorious temples. Puerto Rico was arrested just as it broke out of the Spanish jail and, renamed a trusty, it was put in an American cell. When the prisoner hollered, "Yankee, Go Home," Puerto Rico was referred to the United Nations. Puerto Rico, to get to paradise now, you have to ride blood.