Songs of Farewell
I. Exordium
Cold ship from the living,
No prow has touched these waters.
II. Invocation
Walking with you in my mind
with you in my mind
I have found reluctant spaces
where to put me down.
Not searching for a love that beats in neon
nor to find
An exit sign on hoardings;
but
There remain
these dissentient voices.
III. Pastoral
Aged hills
the air curls over
Sprawls the valley
at end of day
In the separate streets we came from
where the grassy verges are
mass the banks of standing air
and faces everywhere
And if you’ll watch with me tonight
the twinkling of the city light
tomorrow we’ll be gone, and then
I hardly think we’ll meet again.
IV. Epigram
If there’s a hell,
That may be just as well.
I’ll be there,
And you (I hope) elsewhere.
V. Song
There is no rose.
VI. Serenade: Roses and Thorns
When both will stray and neither see,
It hardly counts as infidelity;
And, dear, however bad the case is,
We can subsist on counterfeited faces.
Then shall we not be lovers, you and I?
Shall not we two be lovers till we die?
VII. Elegy
We were made up
of only moments
then let them pass
then let them pass
VIII. Envoy
I could not live for long in these chaste phrases,
Nor did I hope for such a progeny;
But little lives a little time embraces,
And so, my little book, I set you free.