Mary Lou Nielsen ----- poem sequence

Poems from a Previous Me – 1968

(Thoughts on the War in Vietnam)     Mary Lou Nielsen

I.

Dylan Thomas Breathes Again

Summertime swishes on a bank of dew,

Leaves shiver and quake,

waterfowls live long in a sea of time,

while fishes swim in love.

Tenderness breathes soft with

lips moist and feathery,

the burning tongue, the shivering love,

the desert foam of ages

and the lamp-quick laughter of a demon

beckon to all.

Only windy time now stalks the gardens

of the limitless night sky,

blue and stilled by the emptiness of cold.

The butt end of a burning star lights the sky,

and the gilt-edged fox guards her young

on the silhouette of doom.

II.

Revelation

Would I, could I, remember truth's eyes

in a vociferous calm resting clear,

Then would I meekly throw to God a piece of

rouletting Jesus asking, Saviour, Saviour,

Wherefore art thou but only dead in a

cheap onslought of vigor,

Chanting rhymes in ogling solitude,

Beating with lung worms cancerous spells

onto unknown gates.

Forgive us for forgetting time's trueness as we do

Forgetting the reality of pain's slanting turgid river,

Flooding onto unknown banks – dying, dying

As soon as moments show clearly the

calcification of our slime.

III.

Conviction

I will know because only then will I go

To London Town – and break the battering bridge and send it away,

E'er I remember how it once uplifted many kingly days

and burned to the ground thrice o'er.

And I will build a sea of dreams

To swim in madly, whereas the world turns just as mad

And I will build to you the monument of day

And the miracle of night

And show you songs not sung

And you shall tell me of your heaven that you made so mad

What a hasty job that breaks just as hastily

In the fidgeting calm of silence you will see me as I truly am,

And you of the virtuous thorn shall bring me down.

IV

March Blowing in May

Blow winds, you scare me with your whispering car rush,

Your lights which you uncover when the trees bend low –

Low, ye winds, lower yourself to me.

My breath is of thy heart –

Blow, winds, in tornadoes and festoons,

Harlequin swirls of whispering gods nod to passers-by.

We must remember now

In the dawn of early summer,

After the new spring has passed,

Birds no longer twitter and chirp

But are lulled to sleep

In deep, dense jungles of gloating earth.