To Persia

You are lying where her head lay,
As, on other mornings, mine.
You could nearly be mistaken:
Hair rather than sheeny, shaken
For a moment: has she been aged
Did she live her life laid down
And snore her sweet pigment away,
Leave your, peculiar, mottled line?
No, you and Boydy, long unstaged
Inherit softly, where the crown
Has left a waiting in the limes
And pomegranates. She would say –
I got to know them – I’d reply
Stay careful with that blanket’s sigh

Ramses

Some time ago I met a man
Who lived by choice without his hair
And told me why it was not strange
In his palace, loitering.

But I could see this was no time
To give delusion attention,
For things were – just as simple – strange;
So why would such a man,

A king of beauty, gleam around
The spoiling power of the blue
And wear a thing like a soft mat
For lager, on his glint?

“Some time ago I was a man
Who chose to take off all my hair
A woman took it cupped and strung
And hung it up for price.”

It was dull, it was more solid –
Daily shaven, under, twice…

Dryden Agonistes part II

“Who are we having then?” asked James’s daughter,
Asperity hawking all round her tone,
No mellowed from forgetting.

“Marlborough.”
“Not for that!”

…Darnby was looking very tired, so
Halifax – with the olden weather eye
For what was going on – stepped into place,

“You are inclining to the poetic,
Your Majesty?”

“I’m speaking the King’s –
My own, come to that, by Parliament –
The Queen’s own English.”

“And the King’s”, snapped William, stopping feigning,
“And Mr. Dryden’s, too” – that shut them up –
“Some say.”

“His contribution is scarcely in doubt,”
Halifax trimmed.

“Ve must develop it. I haf some taste.”

He liked to make them quite as quiet as
The paladin who founded Orangedom.

“You too, my darlink? You are staring zo? Vell
You must know I read and read a lot
And I haf tastes and I vont that man who
Allifax said before.”

“Rochester, sire, has been sometime dead…”

“Don’t patronise a Prinz King utero! I know all zat.
You zed ‘im: Shadwell.”

“No!”

Too much startlement’s hell for good address.

“I like him.” “But I never said him.” “Well.”

Halifax picks over his tact’s Fontenoy,
Spoils the bodies of prevarications,
Thinks of Prince William, his dykes, cochlea, cannon,
He knows now what went wrong,
“No, no, sire, ‘had well’…’
“Vell Shadwell I like.”

William of Orange, who has read Vegetius,
Machiavelli, and not Mac Flecknoe,
He thinks to summation: “Shadwell is humorous.”

Dryden Agonistes part I

He touched Mary's hand,
The wise Marquess of Halifax, thinking about
The theory of trimming, practice, how to tack -
The versified tackle an old friend can weave,
'There are some things of course that you won't want to change,'
Oh you, proud angered John and your fallow-field garland,
Will I yet laught gladly to th'epical Dutch?
'Your Majesties.' But she seemed slightly less clear.

'Things, Marquess?' 'Lady, I think about England
In my idle hours, so I like it calm.
Well, don't you, madam? Sure,
I'm no Rochester...'
'Nice Laurence Hyde?'
sniped Anne from her side.
'Oh, would that you were - '
'The other Rochester,
madam.'
'The ghastly mad boy, "Comus"
in his breast - '
'With a pretty dead Earling - '
'He only called once,
And I think that he had, well, some kind of
disease.'
'It is not of Rochester that I would
fain speak.' ('Then why did you say so?')
'The Laureacy.'

'Oh I see; well it's no, I'm afraid. That man tires me.'
'Dry Dryden, darling,' Anne said, and they laughed.
But Orange did not, for the sake of a scowling -
'I haf hat to dismiss my own Kaffalick food guarts.
I vant no papist poett, zo gett himm outt now.'

ISIS LOST, after Milton, written a year ago

'I married Isis on the fifth day of May' - Dylan


Of wed-bound husband's barren ridden hue,

Of mine, indeed, treat I. Thus fell it out:

As Greekish fables hail Pomona's pace,

Or Phoebus gentle season rolling forth,

In MAYUS tide - conjoined in such hour,

Whenasmuch Cynthia's cart had so careered

That of her bearings o'er breeze's swathe,

And royall Sojourns in marinick churnes,

Had tantafugued her radiant Master's tread

His tenfold Raye to swirle in fivefold full,

Grew I to Memphian maid, or Orphicke queene,

To Osiris and Horus demurest...

From 'Finalist Madrigals'

You walked into the library
Like you were walking into a cell
Laptop strategically dipped below a tome
Manufactured I think by Dell
You put your phone on silent
As you heard yourself breath hoarse
And all the boys dreamed that you’d be on facebook
You’d be on facebook (chat)

You're so lame
You probably haven’t noticed this song is a ripoff
You're so lame
I bet you’ve got JSTOR crisply bookmarked
Don't you? Don't you?

etc

Paene insularum

I suppose there was a marsh once,

There, where I heard of Sirmio –

But winter asked for warmer work,

So I might have skipped on, to the Lesbia pages.


Do you remember the island of Ely,

The sort of place where they always make stands?

If our island was ever an island, like that one,

It’s gone underground.

Did you even go down to the river much, back then?


I think that you know about sensitive skin,

And that midges breath differently when in soft water,

Still bite as we blush, though.


I feel strongest in places I’ve almost forgotten,

You like sediment.