Art If You Would Be Heard Pain is much too personal for verse.

Dont curse The reader with your anger-anguished words: Rhyme flowers, sun and birds. 1966 * All Hollows Eve Epilogue You say this little book of verse Is stranger that the rest youve seen? Remembernothings ever worse Than being born on Halloween. A poets birthday shouldnt be A holiday to raise the dead, And yet my anniversary Is when the greedy ghouls are fed. 01-13-67 * Bibliography Some futile first editions are Last editions, too, Collectors combing close and far For those very few. 06-15-78 * Artisans The carpenter cuts and sands And hammers. Notice how his hands Explore the mortised wood And sense when the fit is good. The poets a craftsman, too: He whittles fondly all day through With words he shapes and files And polishes--like wooden tiles.

09-20-79 * Aphrodite A kiss corrodes on the statues lips, Frozen for centuries, A tear made of marble softly slips Downward. But no one sees. The tourists walk past, indifferent. Bric-a-brac, they ignore. Erotic emotion in stones all spent, Cold as the art gallerys floor. 07-04-81 * Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) Boney, hawk-beaked boy, Beardsley was a toy Of fickle Times disdain: Consumptive, blood-flecked pain. Furiously he drew, Knowing all was through Too soon. His paling face Foreshadowed Times brief race. Harlequins and whores, Dwarves and marble floors Are Beardsleys legacy. Sublime perversity. 1984 *