The Forgotten Man

(An adaptation from William Graham Sumner)

The simple, honest laborer who earns

His living by productive work. We pass

Him by because he’s independent, self-

Supporting, asks no favors, won’t appeal

To the emotions, never would excite

The sentiments. He only wants to make

A contract and fulfill it, with respect

On both sides, favor shown on neither side.

He has to make his growing living from

The country’s capital that, as it grows

The better living he can make. Each part

Of capital that’s wasted on the vicious,

The idle, and the shiftless is the gold

That’s taken from the capital that should

Have been available as just reward

For him, the independent and productive

Laborer. We ignore, do not remember

Him just because he makes no clamor; is

He not the man who ought to be remembered?

Love After Death

It's odd that you are loved when you are dead--
The body rots, is cold and decomposing
While you are loving me. The dirt's enclosing
All but the memory of me--unwed
Without divorce--the soul inside my head
Lives on in yours, in paper fragments prosing
And poeming my soul, refined, exposing
My self that in this world I would embed.

The unity of me is freed in death
And I am left in fragments, memories
In others' heads that may not match, in rhyme
And rhythm, supple sounds that caught my breath
In marks that freeze my soul and, freezing, frees
Me to eternal life and endless time.

Shifting to the Guilty

The man they sacrificed transformed the wood
That grew around the town to structures great
And beautiful, transforming each man's fate.

And yet, the plague still spread its deathly hood
Despite the efforts of the growing state
That grew around the town to structures great
And beautiful, transforming each man's fate.

But when they learned that evil can't be good,
They sacrificed their king without debate,
Lamenting that their folly would create
The man they sacrificed, transformed the wood
That grew around the town to structures great
And beautiful, transforming each man's fate.

Poetic Existence

This poem is a figment of my mind--
It doesn't exist--dogs can't eat it, birds
Can't perch on it--these mere mark-sounds unwind
In music notes and rhythms and in words.

And when I die, and if and when these marks
Will disappear, will they have made a place
In all this cosmos any more than larks
Who sing upon the line with sonic grace?

Or will these patterns, more complex than you
And me because the poem requires we
To be, and all mere facts less than the true
This poem is, and more complex, more free,

Be much more real than anything that came
Before and light the cosmos with its flame?

Mornings With You

The Earth is turning, moving me to morning
Where the light is lifting, pinks and blue adorning
The atmosphere, horizon. It is poor
Compared to you, the beauty I adore
Where light is lifting, moving me to morning.
The Earth is turning, pinks and blues adorning.