My dearest friend - Super Arrow AWP

My dearest friend

I recd your favor of the 2d by Mr Dexter and this morning from Mr Gerry an Account of your health on the 4th, which have relieved me from some Anxiety as I had recd no Letter from you Since you were in N. York.
I have seen many Cities and fine Places since you left me and particularly Mount Virnon. Mrs Washington and her whole Family very kindly enquired after your health and all your Children and Louisa; and send many friendly Greetings.
I like the Seat of Government very well and shall Sleep, or lie awake next Winter in the Presidents house. I have Slept very well in my journey and been pretty well. An Abundance of Company and many tokens of respect have attended my Journey, and my Visit here is well recd. Mr Marshall and Mr Dexter lodge with me at Tunnicliffs City Hotel, very near the Capital. The Establishment of the public offices in this place seem to have given it the air of the seat of Government and all Things seem to go on well.
I am particularly pleased with Alexandria. Mr Lee lives very elegantly neatly and agreably there among his sisters and friends and among his fine Lotts of Clover and Timothy. I scarcely know a more eligible situation. Oh! that I could have a home! But this felicity has never been permitted me. Rolling rolling rolling, till I am very near rolling into the bosom of mother Earth. I am as ever your affectionate Husband

Fossil

With such agility in your movements,
Such buoyancy in your strength,
You leaped in the foam
And swam in the sea.

Unfortunately a volcano's eruption
Or perhaps an earthquake
Cost you your freedom
And buried you in the silt.

After millions of years
Members of a geological team
Found you in a layer of rock
And you still look alive.

But you are now silent,
Without even sight.
Your scales and fins are whole
But you cannot move.

So absolutely motionless,
You have no reaction to the world.
You cannot see the water or the sky,
You cannot hear the sound of the waves.

Gazing at this fossil,
Even a fool can learn a lot:
Without movement
There is no life.

To live is to struggle
And advance in the struggle;
Even if death is inevitable.
We should use our energy to the fullest.

Ai Qing, father Ai Weiwei

The Destroyer

I am the wind...
A wisp of the battering wind...

I trail my fingers along the Alps
And an avalanche falls in my wake...
I feel in my quivering length
When it buries the hamlet beneath...

I hurriedly sweep aside
The cities that clutter our path...
As we whirl about the circle of the globe...
As we tear at the pillars of the world...
Open to the wind,
The Destroyer!
The wind that is battering at your gates.

Lola Ridge

Revolution

What husks of last year's winter close you in,
To-morrow's world -- what dead, what wrinkled skin
Of ancient parchments, laws, beliefs! what dried,
Worn, tattered layers keep the life inside,
Where slender as a sword, and tender green
It trembles, pushes, patient and unseen:
Vibrating atom, fronded silken thread,
Some day to shake, to sunder back the dead
Two halves of hemispheres -- to pierce the crust
Of ages' rubbish, crowns and cults and dust!

See, iron arms, that clutter all the wide
Plateau of liberty -- see, fortified
Dull spikey towns -- you cannot hold your own
Against one seed a fecund earth has grown!
Alarmed you stand, alert to meet your foe,
Ready to battle blow for thundering blow;
Nor do you see this sprout of common wheat,
The blade, between your firm implanted feet.

Genevieve Taggard

Twentieth Century Slave-Gang

We who have seen the city's sentinel --
Some iron-colored tower, monument
To slow encroaching force -- our thews are bent
Against her girders! With her noise, her knell
From this our iron tongue we toll, to tell
Torture and toil. Her children are content;
They sleep behind spears, belligerent --
Until they start in terror....
Toll the bell:

Prepare, prepare to see your towers fall;
Foundations groan, no longer to withstand
The burdens of your abundant banquet hall.

So perished Babylon. Behold the hand
That turns your river underneath the wall
And makes your wealth an avalanche of sand!

Genevieve Taggard For Eager Lovers

Dans le Printemps de Mes Années

Dans le printemps de mes années
Je meurs victime de l'amour

Ah, gardez-vous de mes guérir

http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma42.html

Mount Hamilton

mhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmh

green

green is the color of my love's eyes
spring rustling rhododendrons

fuse of sacrificial protection
copper verdigris weathervane
greenback emolument

xylem sap pumping veins
eden recreated with every respiration

Death toll nears 300 as South looks ahead

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Thénardiers

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Foucault Pendulum

fffffffffffffffffffff

Lilies twitterpoem

lilies forced
new year
early wakeup
chilly feet
unseasonal light
immigrant Japan, Bermuda
night shift
calendar tyranny
salvation on demand

Rubber Duckies

rdrdrdrdrdrdrdrd

Purdy outhouse

ppppppppppppppppp

pentagon 9-11

111111111111111111111

Le Pulci

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Suspiro

after John Slater

the monk prays
prunes in the zen garden
bakes bread

the lover caresses
blows on the fire
flows with the pulse

as the deer in the running brook
breathing with intention
moving, contemplating

the unsighing life is not worth living

Red Moon on Sharpsburg

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

John Henry

John Henry was a steel driving man

New Jersey 3rd corps, Army of Potomac, camp servant
10 years for "stealing" from Wiseman's grocery
City Point Virginia
prisoner #497 on the chain gang
drove steel in the Lewis tunnel
beat that steam drill down
but the steam drill got revenge
kicking up silica dust
killed a hundred convict laborers
bodies shipped back to White House, Richmond
for the $100 deposit, buried in the sand

the ribbon of steel,
that binds a nation,
rides on the toil of men,
remembered only in a song.

Molybdenum after Kim Roberts

mo mo mo mo mo mo

Metro meditation

mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm

a doll's house, for Bridget Sue Lambert

I had fun last nite
the surreal doll's house
the bedspread from a sock
football on the tv

purse contents strewn on the bed
preliminaries to an encounter
the small people in the mirror

oh, what a paradise is seems

temples

the elegant men
stroll by treasury temple
share drinks at Rhodes Tavern

the spring orange light
ionic columns glow (ering)
gone are the days of the Cash Room
here are the years of golden slacks

The Ship Breakers

ttttttttttttttttttttt

Medusa

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Glenkiln Cross

gggggggggggggggggggggg

The lovers leave by separate planes

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Goldvein

ggggggggggggggggg

The Hillman Criterion

hhhhhhhhhhh

Balkanization

bbbbbbbbb

Gauguin is evil

ggggggggggg

Moaning at the pump

ppppppppppppppppppp

The lawyers negotiate the prenup

for Maureen Thorson

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

i will die

for James Griffith

In the snow
In the crosswalk
Jefferson Davis Highway, and Backlick Road
At Accotink village, by the Eleanor Kennedy shelter

The flailing rush hour
Thousands cursing, six lane parking lot
Spinning uphill, sliding downhill
Gunning through intersection

The metal cracks
Crumpled fender, windshield starburst
Hair and bone rent
Life oozing in the gravel

The light changes
Another sacrifice to the god, Hermes

Where are the angels singing

~~~~~

Langston Hughes project

Langston Hughes project