USA

lospoesy@earthlink.net

the gang’s all here 

                                                Malachi 4:6 

what chance if this disordered art
dissemble all its mellow part
in such a rhyme-scheme as you see
graphed out in A and B and C
the wonder is (and heaven knows)
when the ancient gas lamp glows
“his eye is on the sparrow” thus
‘mid auto bike and city bus
for you and yours misunderstand
(the reasoning thus goes) this land
of ours this misbegotten whore
you might have met on weekend shore
leave sailor all this ruckus to us
we have means and ways from Lewis
unto Clark is this not Science
bound unto the common pliance
of the Times for instance (name
of what we hereabouts call game)?
relax it isn’t what you think
we all keep staying in the pink
somehow or other while you crawl
in your own despite wall-to-wall
as we remember it who knew
also days of pee and poo
and what it means to lumber why
we too have ponderously by
and by berailed our parents’ must
and turned away to our own rust  

fragment 

a national art is the very hardest thing to achieve if
it doesn't dwell in the hearts of many people here and
there it's here not there or if it's there it's here and there
the same as here not there it's here or hereafter it's here 

it's the magnanimous thing that dwells in the hearts of many people
we are Legion says the devil full of swine and goes the heart is
weltering in the vertices of art it can't imagine if you know
if whether or not the pallid accuses the conqueror or maid
the fantastic images that break through or mainly manufacture
the obstreperous villainly disestablishmentarianism here
where you can't say hay without thinking of horses and
old racetracks apparent in a glade mountains high oh
here is the bust of the poet in a wood with calm verses
our greatness gives a damn from time to time enough
in clouds of clamor refining up the steepest climes
a parlor and a tea Earl Grey for preference what
the same or likeness enow to wonder if the same twilled worsted
goes to manufacture any things worth cutting the same if
branded tattooed painted curlicued qualified or whatever
dispassionate or placed in the field for a whim or purpose
the same evidence not easily found but not manufactured
at some cost all cost cost-free the whirligig from here
the way all around to here and there in courses through
the idea of all ideas the way you go through chains of thought
and find a link loose here or there or simply put a whole
in active placements all around and such activity itself
an adequate placement self-referential or irreflective and
the grandeur of the whole manufactured with a cunning
so as to displace all placements in the abstract like a
punchline withering the frame in Corot shivers for the nonce
and gaining what you might call a sense of humor larger
than it seems at first like Lear a Solomon accursed
by dint of multitudes of idol-worshiping housewives
for two is many is enough the idol has its blank stare
Galen says emitting nothing in the way of light
who says the light has power and gives sight so seeing
gives displacement in the blinding things we see and lose
but they are there or if in terra incognita here not there
so we go there and manufacture them and call them things
to admire and regard if so only to see them and admire
whatever wonders there may be here somewhat overlooked
because as far as you can go is oft surprisingly very far
and we catch up catch on deal with one by one the catches
so we get it finally for the nonce and go on with the game
that soars and scuds and shimmers over the land with
green fields and bases and paths you know the game I
throw you hit we run you throw I hit we run it's the game 

songs for a new city 

I

the award-winning ceremonies
light up the candelabrum
but what to any purpose?

oh to a purpose they do


II

I put it either of two ways
for you
you eat my bag of Frito-Lays
or poo

this from my staff of writers keynote
bought for the price of one new C-note

III

they drift away
and come back laughing
in a new suit of clothes
sans collar

maybe it’s rolled down into their shirt
to coin an image


IV

you wrap into some new image
quelques pensées
for what it’s worth

not here you hear
and from the rear
me too in vacancy

V

happiness was like a little star
tipped on its side
all day long and into
the night


VI

for them it is a holiday
the feast of new business

the wrecking crew


VII

red
VII red
this is no joke


VIII

Jacob Epstein
the sculptor
for your bust
no Gaston Lachaise
undoubtedly


IX

they tore down the mortuary
for the sake of an apartment building
which made the old church cuter
but then they tore it down too
the old church for an apartment
building 


X

soft as any thigh
the underdown
of any Kolinsky brushes


XI

your face is like a warm peach
with the sun on its folds
hot


XII

merchant
your melons are for sale
as at some wayside bazaar
in the Casbah or somewhere


XIII

like
Robespierre’s têtes
the city has a mind of its own


XIV

small and tortured
the Monterey pine
is beautiful as bonsai


XV

where do they camp the Yahoos
as in some sacred pilgrimage

I have been with Houyhnhnms



XVI

I have eaten my (2) chocolate cake
and (2) orange juice
and on an airplane flight
I have had the jet lag

the world going one way
and me another


XVII

poised over the match flame
she lights her brazier
in the stereotypical night
full of whatnot and stars

the ballad of MacPherson 

it hears say must it hear ye may
upon a day of May

whichsoeverness wanted lieve it may grieve
that whithersoever a lay

for to dancing might it somewaysoever come
unto the realm of a fay

some bumbled tuckward sonneteer solilo
-quizing as he may

preponderating drivels at the back bay of a font
many have it will say

lest doubtful sure we may obiter dicta ask
axe or cause to play

another vanishing point whence to receive
the figure of an antic hay   

© All Copyright, Christopher Mulrooney.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.