I, Too

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow,

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix forever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In another's being mingle- Why not I with thine? See, the mountains kiss high heaven,

We Refugees

I come from a musical place Where they shoot me for my song And my brother has been tortured By my brother in my land. I come from a beautiful place Where they hate my shade of skin They don't like the way I pray And they ban free poetry.

The Early Morning

The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other: The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother. The moon on my left and the dawn on my right. My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.

Brother And Sister

"SISTER, sister, go to bed! Go and rest your weary head." Thus the prudent brother said. "Do you want a battered hide, Or scratches to your face applied?" Thus his sister calm replied. "Sister, do not raise my wrath. I'd make you into mutton broth

A Poet's Voice Xv

Part One The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct the stranger through the dark. I do all these things because I live in them; and if destiny should tie my hands and prevent me from so doing, then death would be my only desire. For I am a poet, and if I cannot give, I shall refuse to receive.

Dear Reader

Baudelaire considers you his brother, and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs as if to make sure you have not closed the book, and now I am summoning you up again, attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing in the doorway of these words.

Coromandel Fishers

Rise, brothers, rise; the wakening skies pray to the morning light, The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night. Come, let us gather our nets from the shore and set our catamarans free, To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the kings of the sea! No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track of the sea gull's call, The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all. What though we toss at the fall of the sun where the hand of the sea-god drives?

'Ave Ceasar'

Long ago the Gladiators, When the call to combat came, Marching past the massed spectators, Hailed the Emp'ror with acclaim! Voices ringing with the fury Of the strife so soon to be, Cried, 'O Caesar, morituri salutamus te! ' Nowadays the massed spectators

Hero

'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the Mother said, And folded up the letter that she'd read. 'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed. Quietly the Brother Officer went out. He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.

We Are Seven

--------A Simple Child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death? I met a little cottage Girl: She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head.

There Is Another Sky

There is another sky, Ever serene and fair, And there is another sunshine, Though it be darkness there; Never mind faded forests, Austin, Never mind silent fields— Here is a little forest, Whose leaf is ever green; Here is a brighter garden, Where not a frost has been;

Torture

When they torture your mother plant a tree When they torture your father plant a tree When they torture your brother and your sister plant a tree When they assassinate your leaders and lovers

A Life

Your hidden jellylike fleshes irritate My little warm brother Embracing your inner organisms Authenticating the friendliness Adorable of pinky madness Stumbled upon the insertion Lava flowing with enriched Armageddon of nutritious juices Like driving down The alley of Mount Everest

What Work Is

We stand in the rain in a long line waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is—if you're old enough to read this you know what work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain falling like mist into your hair, blurring your vision until you think you see your own brother

Ave Atque Vale

Through many countries and over many seas I have come, Brother, to these melancholy rites, to show this final honour to the dead, and speak (to what purpose?) to your silent ashes, since now fate takes you, even you, from me. Oh, Brother, ripped away from me so cruelly, now at least take these last offerings, blessed by the tradition of our parents, gifts to the dead. Accept, by custom, what a brother’s tears drown, and, for eternity, Brother, ‘Hail and Farewell’.

Couplets On Wit

I But our Great Turks in wit must reign alone And ill can bear a Brother on the Throne. II Wit is like faith by such warm Fools profest Who to be saved by one, must damn the rest.

Why I Am A Liberal

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do, All that I am now, all I hope to be,-- Whence comes it save from fortune setting free Body and soul the purpose to pursue, God traced for both? If fetters, not a few, Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, These shall I bid men--each in his degree Also God-guided--bear, and gayly, too? But little do or can the best of us:

Christmas In India

Dim dawn behind the tamerisks -- the sky is saffron-yellow -- As the women in the village grind the corn, And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born. Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway! Oh the clammy fog that hovers And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry -- What part have India's exiles in their mirth? Full day begind the tamarisks -- the sky is blue and staring --

August 8th

Listen here. I've never played it safe in spite of what the critics say. Ask my imaginary brother, that waif, that childhood best friend who comes to play dress-up and stick-up and jacks and Pick-Up-Sticks, bike downtown, stick out tongues at the Catholics. Or form a Piss Club where we all go in the bushes and peek at each other's sex. Pop-gunning the street lights like crows.