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taking in what it hears surprised at the way of path the laid down before the adventured after smiling grip on what you want would never let me down I know you we say after never having met how listening to the other side makes you wish for quiet miles of ocean beneath this rock go on let your hair down such subtle indignity a sunset against a moon looking for a way out but I won’t say anything won’t call you on your everything you where you are and me right here saying yeah with a shut mouth

My father lived in a dirty-dish mausoleum, watching a portable black-and-white television, reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which he preferred to Modern Fiction. One by one, his schnauzers died of liver disease, except the one that guarded his corpse found holding a tumbler of Bushmills. "Dead is dead," he would say, an antipreacher. I took a plaid shirt from the bedroom closet and some motor oil—my inheritance. Once I saw him weep in a courtroom— neglected, needing nursing—this man who never showed me much affection but gave me a knack for solitude, which has been mostly useful.

For a place I hate, I invoke you often. Stockholm’s: I am eight years old and the telephone poles are down, the power plant at the edge of town spitting electricity. Before the pickup trucks, the strip malls, dirt beaten by Cherokee feet.Osiyo, tsilugi. Rope swung from mule to tent to man, tornadoes came, the wind rearranged the face of the land like a chessboard. This was before the gold rush, the greed of engines, before white men pressing against brown women, nailing crosses by the river, before the slow songs of cotton plantations, the hymns toward God, the murdered dangling like earrings. Under a redwood, two men signed away the land and in history class I don’t understand why a boy whispers sand monkey. The Mexican girls let me sit with them as long as I braid their hair, my fingers dipping into that wet black silk. I try to imitate them at home —mírame, mama— but my mother yells at me, says they didn’t come here so I could speak some beggar language. Heaven is a long weekend. Heaven is a tornado 
siren canceling school. Heaven is pressed in a pleather booth at the Olive Garden, sipping Pepsi between my gapped teeth, listening to my father mispronounce his meal.

Ur ol’ Hyar lib in ur house on de hill, He hunner yurs ol’ an’ nebber wuz ill; He yurs dee so long an’ he eyes so beeg, An’ he laigs so spry dat he dawnce ur jeeg; He lib so long dat he know ebbry tings ’Bout de beas’ses dat walks an’ de bu’ds dat sings— Dis Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill. He doctah fur all de beas’ses an’ bu’ds— He put on he specs an’ he use beeg wu’ds, He feel dee pu’s’ den he look mighty wise, He pull out he watch an’ he shet bofe eyes; He grab up he hat an’ grab up he cane, Den—“blam!” go de do’—he gone lak de train, Dis Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill. Mistah Ba’r fall sick—dee sont fur Doc’ Hyar, “O, Doctah, come queeck, an’ see Mr. B’ar; He mighty nigh daid des sho’ ez you b’on!” “Too much ur young peeg, too much ur green co’n,” Ez he put on he hat, said Ol’ Doc’ Hyar; “I’ll tek ’long meh lawnce, an’ lawnce Mistah B’ar,” Said Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill. Mistah B’ar he groaned, Mistah B’ar he growled, W’ile de ol’ Mis’ B’ar an’ de chillen howled; Doctah Hyar tuk out he sha’p li’l lawnce, An’ pyu’ced Mistah B’ar twel he med him prawnce Den grab up he hat an’ grab up he cane “Blam!” go de do’ an’ he gone lak de train, Dis Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty find house on ur mighty high hill. But de vay naix day Mistah B’ar he daid; Wen dee tell Doc’ Hyar, he des scratch he haid: “Ef pashons git well ur pashons git wu’s, Money got ter come een de Ol’ Hyar’s pu’s; Not wut folkses does, but fur wut dee know Does de folkses get paid”—an’ Hyar larfed low, Dis sma’t Ol’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een mighty fine house on de mighty high hill!

Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay, Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away, Gone from the earth to a better land I know, I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.” I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low: I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe.” Why do I weep when my heart should feel no pain Why do I sigh that my friends come not again, Grieving for forms Now departed long a go? I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.” I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low: I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe.” Where are the hearts once so happy and so free? The children so dear that I held upon my knee, Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go. I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.” I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low: I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe.”

Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country-seat. Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw; And from its station in the hall An ancient timepiece says to all, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!" Half-way up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands From its case of massive oak, Like a monk, who, under his cloak, Crosses himself, and sighs, alas! With sorrowful voice to all who pass, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!" By day its voice is low and light; But in the silent dead of night, Distinct as a passing footstep's fall, It echoes along the vacant hall, Along the ceiling, along the floor, And seems to say, at each chamber-door, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!" Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Through days of death and days of birth, Through every swift vicissitude Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, And as if, like God, it all things saw, It calmly repeats those words of awe, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!" In that mansion used to be Free-hearted Hospitality; His great fires up the chimney roared; The stranger feasted at his board; But, like the skeleton at the feast, That warning timepiece never ceased, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!" There groups of merry children played, There youths and maidens dreaming strayed; O precious hours! O golden prime, And affluence of love and time! Even as a miser counts his gold, Those hours the ancient timepiece told, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!" From that chamber, clothed in white, The bride came forth on her wedding night; There, in that silent room below, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; And in the hush that followed the prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!" All are scattered now and fled, Some are married, some are dead; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, "Ah! when shall they all meet again?" As in the days long since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!" Never here, forever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, And death, and time shall disappear, — Forever there, but never here! The horologe of Eternity Sayeth this incessantly, — "Forever — never! Never — forever!"

My lost sister used to try the trick with the tablecloth, waiting until the wine had been poured, the gravy boat filled, before snapping the linen her way smug as a matador, staring down silver and crystal that would dare move, paying no mind to the ancestor gloom gliding across the wallpaper like clouds of a disapproving front—no hutch or bureau spared, no lost sister sure the trick would work this time, all those she loved in another room, nibbling saltines, or in the kitchen, plating the last of the roast beef. How amazed they would be to be called to the mahogany room for supper, to find something missing, something beautiful, finally, they could never explain, the wine twittering in its half-globes, candles aflutter, each thing in its place, or so it seemed then, even though their lives had changed for good.

They’re waiting to be murdered, Or evicted. Soon They expect to have nothing to eat. In the meantime, they sit. A violent pain is coming, they think. It will start in the heart And climb into the mouth. They’ll be carried off in stretchers, howling. Tonight they watch the window Without exchanging a word. It has rained, and now it looks Like it’s going to snow a little. I see him get up to lower the shades. If their window stays dark, I know his hand has reached hers Just as she was about to turn on the lights.

( US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed those European countries which opposed the US attack on Iraq as only 'Old Europe' ) Old Europe stared at her breakfast, buttered her croissant, sipped coffee which tasted like a gun and blinked her grey eyes to restore the sun. Old Europe grasped at the old A.J.P. Taylor line, 'but in politics the impossible always happens' more and more, hoped for example, that the fact that the 'plant' for weapons in Northern Iraq was shown on the BBC an empty ex-Media Centre, and miles away a plain village, hoping not to be bombed, because by mistake young Colin, who apparently mistook often, used its name at the UN as that of the 'plant', would be accepted as a fact and then protected, thought Old Europe as her France loved to protect facts, as her Germany to act, or her Belgium to be. But, she reflected, in doubt and in debt, the future is not an ally over the sea which just needs to be convinced but a masked soldier, dead to Agincourt, Darmstadt, Verdun, wanting oil and meat and not understanding how a continental breakfast keeps the blood in your head, your brain not your gut. Old Europe set her spine straight in the doorway sun. Her hand crumbled bread as if it were old bone.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. I loved a love once, fairest among women; Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her — All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly; Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces. Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood. Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces. Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces — How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.