On Patterned Ground

The rocks are richly ranged in round
Through looping layers lifting leaps
Of swirls that swell in swings and sweeps.

Are flying fairies' feathers found,
Their cries increasing? Credit creeps
Through looping layers lifting leaps
Of swirls that swell in swings and sweeps.

The grizzled graze on growing ground
And sheer the shining sharp as sheep's
Wool down the dank and darkling deep
The rocks are richly ranged in round
Through looping layers lifting leaps
Of swirls that swell in swings and sweeps.

On History

The restless river runs deep red
While on the bank the people glance
With love, make children, song, and dance.

They come, enjoy the festive spread---
The river tries to make a trance---
While on the bank the people glance
With love, make children, song, and dance.

While killing, stealing, crimes are read
As history---our only stance
Great criminals or weary chance
The restless river runs deep red.
While on the bank the people glance
With love, make children, song, and dance.

Rivalrous Planning

Blood is blinding, bleating blackened
Rivers. Read around. The rivals
Lust for long and limber ladies
Mocking manly murmurs mild. But
Horses heft their humans -- Hades'
Fires flash and form the fairies
Winging where they wish we were --
Dragons drink then, drastic, drag on
People pushing poisoned passions --
Yet you yearn for yesteryears that
No one nowhere knows, are nothing.

On the Value of a Poem

This poem isn't worth a dime. It's not!--
No one will pay me--magazines will send
Their thanks--and when I see my poem hot
Off of the presses, that's where it will end.

But do not worry, some will say--the day
A person pays for poetry with cash
Your poems will lose all their value. Stay
Impoverished or all your work is ash.

Oh, what an odd trick of bookkeeping! Add,
And there's subtraction--trade to value less--
And profit bears no profit--just the sad
Are happy and the nude are all who dress.

Perhaps, instead, with value value trade
And only then your verses will not fade.