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ROBIN HAMILTON

Three Poems for John Berryman: That Worthy Man

(for Brian Jarvis)

1: Remembering Him Today

Datum, the insignificant: at a cold time,
Thinking on Henry's bones, how he rhymed
His Lise, left the hot sonnets on ice for
Fifteen years till

the blood cooled, husband gone,
Harpsichord silent, Henry well gone into his
Long walk to the river, to the the Mississippi.

White bearded sage, old risk-taker, clown
In blackface, reeling drunk off a stool
At your readings, squirreling away at rhymes
While you squired your daughter, endured
Sudden lust on an aeroplane, coughed words
And watched your friends die, still wondering
Why you were still here, until it became
Too much.

I salute you, mi companero,
Man of the high bulls. I'd fight in your ring
If my spirit had a partner for that game.



2: Yet Another Dream Song


Hey, man, don't put yourself down so. Sure
You is overage, underweight, and got that
Slight problem with the juice. So what?
You can still pull the girls. You flash out
Like some crazy neon in the dark. What you want,
To live forever?

No, Mister Bones, but I want
To live for now. Somewhere there's an allowed world
With like trees and food I want to eat
And people listening careful to my every word.
Let's hear it for that old, nostalgic paradise!
I build it up and put it down in verse.
But there you stand, with your damn
Sword, by the gate.

That's how it goes; you can't
Have everything. You chose the words, you live
By your choices. Be grateful you got that.



3: Henry's Whimper


Life is a griefy dream, friends.
I go round today like a tooth-sick bear:
Save me an individual shoulder to dump on --
I need someone to hear my weeps, mostly one who's
Female, intelligent, and soft-hearted. Surely you is out there
Somewhere? Call Henry collect in his heartbox.



A Song For Francis

  (for John Wilcox)

My heart was set on sweet and tall --
 Her tongue was sharp, her fancy free;
While couched oblique her eyes would call,
 Her cautious limbs rejected me.

I pled my case with stern devotion,
 With lyric's sword cut logic's knot;
But she withdrew with coy emotion,
 Her cold a counter to my hot.

 You promised me the joys of hell,
 And gave me heaven for my prize --
 For a blest soul, all would be well
 But living flesh demands reprise.

 I served you with my youth and blood,
 All anxious fears I put aside:
 For my reward, and is this good?
 I have my passions still denied.

The tooth is set in gentle flesh,
 The mind remote in clouds above:
With such a thin, abstract redress
 What is there for me to love?

 So now farewell, unkissed, unkind,
 Some fairer yet shall shape my view:
 Her limbs shall tangle me and bind
 With those delights denied me you.




Evolution's Arrow Points the Way

Evolution has written in their genes, "Destruct!" The nice
(First one ever) ten-year-old boy my daughter
Doesn't fancy, called Simon -- polite, intelligent,
Demure -- one who saves your faith in the male sex --
But it's just `best friends'. Her heart still yearns
For all those pre-pubescent spotty yobs, uncouth
Illiterates, who'll no doubt grow up lager louts.
Andrew leans negligently beside the dance floor, looks

Interesting. "'You look like Arnold Schartzenegger;
You've got lips like Arnold Schartzenegger.' Wasn't
That nice of her to say?" Well? "Well?" I don't
Know whom to pity most, himself or that poor girl.

One has to admit (but doesn't have to like it)
That sexually unthreatening males are on
Evolution's down chute -- into the garbage pit:
The human race is one that we'll not win.



For Brian or John?

Rilke's angels are my pioneers, in whom
only the words burn. All I hate most
in that chaste world of ambiguous
signals, scripted speech with no
presence, world without amen.

Each of these words is written, un-
availingly, against death. Pure
despite. I'm already a haunt to resonate
in futures, bartering possible presents
against a time in which my mastery
will be remembered. All the echoes
of high griefs, that sprout from in-
sufficient kernels, all the glorious hopes
written out in whisky dreams.

The bottle's
empty, that glass left unfinished on
the table -- intimate images with which we flirt
in public, irresolveable. I can't be
bothered to write a context for this verse,
leave you to write it in --

dear distant reader,
author of these half-indexed tropes, place
Yourself -- herself himself -- where you
like, within these doubly redoubled lies.


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A CHIDE'S ALPHABET

Issue 1, May 2001