Author's Poems

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With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his tone
weaver is kept from his loom
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid's hand
and stoppeth the spinner's cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin' not by usura
nor was 'La Calunnia' painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime
Not by usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
CONTRA NATURAM
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.

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Part of the morning stars
The moon and the mail
The ravenous X, the raving ache,
-the moon Sittle La
Pottle, teh, teh, teh,
The poets in owlish old rooms
who write bent over the words
know that words were invented
because nothing was nothing
In use of words, use words,
the X and the blank
And the Emperor's white page
And the last of the Bulls
Before spring operates
Are all lotsa nothin
which we got anyway
So we'll deal in the night
in the market of words.

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Jazz killed itself
But dont let poetry kill itself
Dont be afraid
of the cold night air
Dont listen to institutions
When you return manuscripts to
brownstone
dont bow and scuffle
for Edith Wharton pioneers
or ursula major nebraska prose
just hang in your own backyard
and laugh play pretty
cake trombone
and if somebody gives you beads
juju, jew, or otherwise,
sleep with em around your neck
Your dreams'll maybe better
There's no rain
there's no me
I'm telling ya man
sure as shit.

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Don't wait to finish university,
to fall in love,
to find a job,
to get married,
to have children,
to see them settle down,
to lose those ten pounds,
for friday evening to arrive or sunday morning,
spring,
autumn or winter.
There isn't a better moment than this to be happy.
Happiness is a path, not a destination.
Work as if you didn't need money,
love as if no one ever hurt you and dance, as if no one saw you.
Remember that the skin wrinkles up,
the hair turns white and the days become years.
But the important things don't change: your strength and conviction have no age.
Your spirit is the duster that wipes away any cobweb.
Behind every goal is a new start.
Behind every result is a new challenge. While you're alive, feel alive.
Go on, even when everyone expects you to give up.

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Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory--
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

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And like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky East,
A white and shapeless mass.

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Dawn's faint breath
breathes with your mouth
at the ends of empty streets.
Gray light your eyes,
sweet drops of dawn
on dark hills.
Your steps and breath
like the wind of dawn
smother houses.
The city shudders,
Stones exhale--
you are life, an awakening.
Star lost
in the light of dawn,
trill of the breeze,
warmth, breath--
the night is done.
You are light and morning.

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An onion is something else.
It doesn't have any innerds.
Until its onioness.
Oniony outside,
oniony to the heart,
it could look within itself
without feeling any fear.
In us the unknown and forests
of flesh just covered,
infernal innerds,
violent anatomy,
but within the onion - onion,
not contorted bowels.
She is time and time again naked,
till the end and so on.
The onion is coherent,
the onion is realized.
In one there's the other,
in the biggest the smallest,
meaning the third and the fourth.
A centripetal flight.
A composed echo in a choir.
The onion, okay:
the most beautiful belly in the world.
To itself of auras
it wraps around itself.
In us - fat, nerves, veins,
muchus ad secretions.
And to us is negated
the idiocy of perfection.

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When you give me your little hand
That conveys so much you never say,
Have I ever asked in any way
If you love me, if you can?
I don't desire love from thee,
Only that I know you're near
And that once in a while dear
You softly and silently give your hand to me.

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To fall asleep,
my love, and wake up a hundred years later... "
" No,
my century doesn't scare me.

I'm not a deserter.
My miserable,
shameful century,
my daring,
grand,
heroic century.

I never regretted I was born too soon.
I'm a child of the twentieth century
and proud of it.
It's enough for me
to join the ranks in the twentieth century
on our side
and fight for a new world... "

" No, earlier--in spite of everything
And my dying, dawning century,
when those who laugh last will laugh best
(my awful night that come to light with rising cries),
will be all sunshine,
like your eyes... "