Graffiti

Love sows the wind and reaps the whirlwind.

-—Byron, Childe Harold 4.123

In Westwood here, an Aurignacian train

thunders through, a love-sick rhino herd

painted by numb fingers, stiff with stain,

though not a flintstone's struck a word.

"Said the Lion to the Lioness— 'When you are amber dust,— "

Who sows the wind,

The whirlwind's troubled brain?

" . . . bless with a benison

Alfred Lord Tennyson"

graffitiing the old What-name

on Shakespeare's daunting fame.*

At Poseidon's temple, Sounion in Greece:

Hark! A sign? Could be some peace!

*At Stratford-upon-Avon in 1841, "Tennyson—'seized with a sort of enthusiasm'—scribbled his name on the wall in Shakespeare's house, 'though a little ashamed of it' afterwards" (Richard Holmes, The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief [New York: Pantheon Books, 2026], 172).

Tip 'o the topknot to the memory of Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), whose poems "Heart and Mind" and "Sir Beelzebub" are quoted here. I recall her as an old lady exotically got up at a Sviatoslav Richter concert—or was it Rostropovich?—in the Royal Festival Hall, London, ca. 1962/3.

Saturday, August 22, 2026

Fugitive Pieces

My verses flee in all directions,

Not knowing if they're any good.

They think they are, not mere confections,

But who's to say, if think they should?

We know our world is built on lies,

But how explain to hoi polloi,

Content to love what satisfies,

Though run by robots that annoy?

The trouble with the Ancient Greek,

And our old English too's that we

Have disremembered how to speak

Since Social Media set us free

From fears about autocracy

And sent us paddling up shit creek.

Note: The English term "hoi polloi" (/ˌhɔɪ pəˈlɔɪ/) derives from Ancient Greek οἱ πολλοί, "the many." Adding "the" is redundant; hoi = "the."

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Crowing

Crow, you curious critter!

—Schubert, Winter Journey

A verse must tell what can't be said.

Good poets know that this is true.

You fear your luck is running out—

But so is all the luck in view!

The quick must answer for the dead,

Demanding where the future's sped.

Here in my yard the ravens caw.

It would be nice to tell you more!

A raven’s bigger than a crow;

Proclaimed a bird of least concern,

One says, I think, “Just wait your turn.”

But truth to tell, I don’t quite know—

I’m hard of hearing. Perhaps the song

's: “Boy, you better hope you’re wrong!”

AI notes: "Krähe, wunderliches Tier" (Crow, wonderful  creature) is a famous line from the 1827 song cycle Winterreise (Winter Journey, D. 911) by Franz Schubert, based on poems by Wilhelm Müller.

Wednesday, August 12, 2026